Books About What Makes Democracy Work Between Elections

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt look at how elected leaders can weaken institutions after taking office. Their discussion of rivals accepting one another’s legitimacy and officials choosing when to exercise their powers gives a reader a way to distinguish written rules from the habits that sustain them. Start here for the informal side of democratic government.

Robert A. Dahl works from criteria such as meaningful participation and access to information to the institutions that can make them possible in a large country. The steps keep the meaning of democratic government separate from any one constitution. Choose it for a short grounding before reading books that take a particular design for granted.

Alexis de Tocqueville pays attention to American townships and voluntary associations in the nineteenth century. The detail helps a reader see what people can learn about acting together away from a national election. Choose it for an early outsider’s observations on local habits, including the limits of whom the democracy he saw included.

Robert D. Putnam, Robert Leonardi, and Raffaella Y. Nanetti compare regional governments created under a common framework in Italy. Their study asks why they performed differently and what older civic associations might have contributed. Read it to see what a shared set of rules can leave unexplained about the institutions people actually experience.

Francis Fukuyama gives state capacity, the rule of law, and accountability distinct places in his account of political development. Civil service reform is one way to see how governing can change while the people authorized to vote stay the same. Choose it to compare the institutions by what each lets a government do or limits it from doing.

Arend Lijphart compares democracies that concentrate power with ones that distribute it across more institutions or parties. Looking at legislatures, executives, and parties together lets you see why an election can produce different governing bargains. Choose it when you want to put a familiar system beside alternatives that also count as democratic.

John Dewey starts with the consequences that one person’s actions can have for other people. A public can take form when people affected by those consequences recognize that they need a way to act together. Choose this short book for a starting question about democratic life whose answer depends on how people communicate and organize.

Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein examine how Congress legislates and oversees the executive. Changes in committee work, deliberation, and the use of procedures help explain what legislators can do with the offices they win. Read it for a historical account of why the daily work of a legislature matters to its ability to represent people.

James S. Fishkin studies what happens when a public with access to common information has time to discuss a question before answering it. The comparison between initial views and views after deliberation gives a reader something concrete to look for in a participation exercise. Choose it for a tested way of asking how public judgment can develop.

David Van Reybrouck asks how choosing citizens by lot could give some people a chance to help make public decisions. The proposals and historical cases give a reader a way to compare selection by lot with elected representation. Choose it for a book that treats deliberation as work citizens might have time and responsibility to do.

Eitan Hersh distinguishes following political news from doing sustained work with other people. Local groups in the book illustrate what can be learned when people have to meet, listen, and take responsibility for something between campaigns. Read it for a contemporary account of political involvement outside the act of voting.

Charles Tilly treats democratization as a process through which states become more answerable to more people. His discussion of whether networks of trust become part of public politics gives a reader a way to notice a change before a constitution is rewritten. Choose it when you want to compare democratic gains with the possibility of reversal.

Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels question the idea that an election steadily registers people’s views on public policy. They look at how social identities and party attachments shape judgment. Read it for a skeptical account of what an electoral result can tell you and what other kinds of accountability may need to supply.

Chantal Mouffe asks what democratic institutions can do with disagreements that will not disappear. Her distinction between opponents who share a right to contest power and enemies to be excluded gives a reader a concrete way to think about political conflict. Choose it if you want a theory that treats ongoing disagreement as part of democratic life.

John Keane gives the institutions that watch and question power a place in his long history of democracy. In the period he calls monitory democracy, watchdogs and other ways of scrutinizing decisions give citizens points of contact beyond elected assemblies. Choose it to follow what happens to accountability as the means of watching government change.

Danielle Allen reads the Declaration of Independence as an argument made by people who had to describe themselves as acting together. Its language of equality lets her ask who is authorized to judge and speak in public. Read it for the way close attention to a founding text can raise questions about membership in a democracy.

Yascha Mounk distinguishes majority rule from the rights and limits usually associated with liberal democracy. Treating them separately gives a reader a way to consider what can go wrong if officials keep one while weakening the other. Choose it for an accessible entry into questions about how popular rule is constrained between elections.

Larry D. Kramer traces American arguments over who gets to interpret the Constitution. He brings public and political interpretation into a history usually told through judges and their decisions. Read it when you want to ask what constitutional responsibility can mean for someone who will never sit on a court.

Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson ask how public decisions can claim legitimacy when people disagree about moral questions. Their discussion of giving reasons that fellow citizens can consider offers a standard for public debate. Choose it for a book that starts from disagreement and asks what decision-makers still owe to the people affected.

Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba use surveys from five countries to compare attitudes toward public institutions and participation. The historical data lets you ask what political researchers can learn from how citizens say they relate to public affairs. Choose it to see how political culture became something a study could try to measure.

In Democracy: A Life, Paul Cartledge follows ancient Greek democracy through its institutions, including assemblies that put decisions directly before eligible citizens. Who qualified to take part matters as much as where the discussion happened. Read it to see how participation changes when a community makes different decisions about who is included.