The Ideology of Democratism

by Emily B. Finley

Overview

A unique reinterpretation of democracy that shows how history's most vocal champions of democracy from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson to John Rawls have contributed to a pervasive, anti-democratic ideology, effectively redefining democracy to mean "rule by the elites."

The rise of global populism reveals a tension in Western thinking about democracy. Warnings about the "populist threat" to democracy and "authoritarian" populism are now commonplace. However, as Emily B. Finley argues in The Ideology of Democratism, dismissing "populism" as anti-democratic is highly problematic. In effect, such arguments essentially reject the actual popular will in favor of a purely theoretical and abstract "will of the people."

She contends that the West has conceptualized democracy-not just its populist doppelgänger-as an ideal that has all of the features of a thoroughgoing political ideology which she labels "democratism." As she shows, this understanding of democracy, which constitutes an entire view of life and politics, has been and remains a powerful influence in America and leading Western European nations and their colonial satellites. Through a careful analysis of several of history's most vocal champions of democracy, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, John Rawls, and American neoconservatives and liberal internationalists, Finley identifies an interpretation of democracy that effectively transforms the meaning of "rule by the people" into nearly its opposite. Making use of democratic language and claiming to speak for the people, many politicians, philosophers, academics, and others advocate a more "complete" and "genuine" form of democracy that in practice has little regard for the actual popular will.

A heterodox argument that challenges the prevailing consensus of what democracy is and what it is supposed be, The Ideology of Democratism offers a timely and comprehensive assessment of the features and thrust of this powerful new view of democracy that has enchanted the West.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197642290
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/02/2022
Pages:	232
Sales rank:	802,351
Product dimensions:	9.33(w) x 6.44(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

Emily B. Finley is a 2021-2022 John and Daria Barry Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University. She earned her PhD in Politics from The Catholic University of America and held a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford as well. Her research interests include the history of ideas, politics and the imagination, political ideology, and epistemology.

Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1: Rousseau Sets the Tone
Chapter 2: Toward a Definition of Democratism
Chapter 3: Thomas Jefferson and an Empire of Liberty
Chapter 4: Woodrow Wilson: To Make the World Safe for Democracy
Chapter 5: Jacques Maritain: Catholicism Under the Influence of Democratism
Chapter 6: Deliberative Democratism
Chapter 7: War Democratism
Conclusion
Works Cited
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

"The most lethal viruses perfectly mimic the natural environment of the organism they infect. The pathogens successfully camouflage themselves as its innate part to fool the immune system. Thus, the pathogens render the afflicted system largely defenseless. Then they replicate and overwhelm the host, ultimately killing it. Likewise, Finley has brilliantly depicted the anatomy of infection and death through the actions of an acutely lethal intruder threatening our freedom and the very essence of our existence as a traditional Western society. She identifies the affliction as 'democratism'. Insidiously mimicking the structures, ideas, and sentiments of democracy, 'democratism' is in fact their perversion, a virus that requires our swift immune reaction instantaneously lest it be too late for liberty's survival. With surgical precision, Finley incisively diagnoses the disease and offers a cure. Let's heed her sage advice." — Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, The Institute of World Politics

"Today hardly a day passes without encountering the claim that democratic majorities are a threat to democracy. In this timely study, Emily Finley explains the deeper philosophical sources of this belief, ably bringing to light the core tenets of 'democratism'—a peculiar belief in democracy that mistrusts and even disdains 'the people.'" — Patrick J. Deneen, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame

"Democratism has been so dominant in the Western world since the middle of the twentieth century that it has escaped close and comprehensive critical scrutiny, but now, finally, a groundbreaking study subjects democratism to incisive, systematic examination. Exhibiting philosophical depth and historical breadth unusual in today's academia, Emily Finley masterfully brings out the assumptions, origins, and ideological character of democratism. This book profoundly challenges the intellectual regime of the last many decades and is destined to become a modern classic." — Claes G. Ryn, author of America the Virtuous and The Failure of American Conservatism

"One curious feature of public discussion about democracy is that the democratic ideal is under threat owing to the presence of populist parties that come to power through winning a democratic election. How can a democratically elected government pose a threat to democracy? In this important book, Emily Finley reviews the development of the ideology that explains this puzzle. She calls it democratism, the idea that a regime only counts as democratic if it meets a lofty moral standard for what makes a regime democratic. Beginning with Rousseau, passing through Catholic social thought, and down into contemporary theories of deliberative democracy, Finley shows a continuous development of democratist ideology, providing a helpful illustration of an often unnoticed ideological phenomenon." — Kevin Vallier, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University

"The spectre of democratic despotism has haunted the West at least since the time of Socrates. How is it that the rule of the people so often turns against the people, and they eagerly accept the tutelage of their self-important democratic masters? Ours is the time when the question is particularly portent. And Emily Finley's book gives us the answers. Superbly researched, clearly argued and gracefully narrated, the book leads us from Rousseau as the founding father of democratism to Rawls, Habermas and the neoconservatives. Dr. Finley's dissection of the ideology of democratism is not only an academic work of high quality but also an intriguing if somewhat disturbing story of how the modern mind has been busy inventing new forms of political control." — Ryszard Legutko, Professor of Philosophy at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland

"Emily Finley argues in her book, The Ideology of Democratism, that there are (at least) two broad approaches to democracy. The first is as a decision-making process for groups, with all the pedestrian foibles and indeterminacies with which day-to-day democratic politics makes us all too aware. There is another tradition, however, in which democracy takes on a distinctly ideological, even religious bent...This quibble,... is not to diminish the important lesson in Finley's analysis that, like the utopian millenarianism of fascism and Marxism, or older theories like the Divine Right of kings, democracy, too, can be, and has sometimes been, turned into an ersatz religion." — James R. Rogers, Law & Liberty

"The Ideology of Democratism does much to untangle the mutual accusations of elitism and populism that both the Left and Right have constantly made in the past decade,...The Ideology of Democratism warns effectively against the former." — Luke Foster, Review of Politics

"Emily Finley...offers a penetrating analysis of the false reality imposed on our conduct and way of thinking about political, cultural, and moral life and provide important guideposts for those seeking to reweave the fabric of our tradition." — Modern Age

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