New Threats to Freedom: Democracy’s “Doublesâ€
- 1 April 2006
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Project MUSE in Journal of Democracy
- Vol. 17 (2), 52-62
- https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2006.0030
Abstract
A potent threat to freedom is posed by the rise of democracy’s “doubles”—regimes that claim to be democratic and may look like democracies, but which rule like autocracies. Liberal democracy today is challenged on one side by Hugo Chávez’s revolutionary Venezuela and on the other by Vladimir Putin’s antirevolutionary Russia. The rise of Chávez’s “direct democracy” and Russia’s “directed democracy” poses a clear challenge to the political pluralism that is central to liberal democracy. The populist leader and the political technologist are the twin embodiments of the major threat to liberal democracy today.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- Transitions from PostcommunismJournal of Democracy, 2005
- The Populist ZeitgeistGovernment and Opposition, 2004