Benjamin A. Schupmann, "Democracy Despite Itself: Liberal Constitutionalism and Militant Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Seeking a second term as US president in November, Donald Trump joins a roster of politicians\xa0whose declared aim is to use legal means to bend democracy to their will and in their interests. The system withstood his first term. In Venezuela, Ecuador, Turkey, and Hungary, the systems didn\u2019t, and they are undergoing stress tests in Israel, Slovakia, and Georgia.\nIn Venezuela, Turkey and Hungary, elections still happen and parliaments, courts, and media are intact but checks and balances have been steadily eroded as one party bids for sustained majority rule. Since the turn of the millennium, 80% of cases of democratic retreat have taken this form rather than through violence.\nWorst of all, \u201cilliberal democracy\u201d is popular. Between 2016 and 2020, Trump added 11 million votes. In 2022, after 12 consecutive years in power, Hungary\u2019s ruling party extended its support. Recent polls show that a third of Americans would prefer a strong unelected leader to a weak elected one while a fifth of French under-35s are indifferent to the prospect of an end to democracy.\nIn\xa0Democracy Despite Itself: Liberal Constitutionalism and Militant Democracy\xa0(OUP Press, 2024) Benjamin Schupmann addresses this democratic internal rot and how to defend against it. "Democratic cannibalism is a perennial problem,\u201d he writes. \u201cIt is a question of when, not if, popular anti-democratic movements will erupt from within and try to use legal revolutionary methods to devour democracy. Democratic constitution should be designed to provide democrats with the means to defend it and themselves".\nBenjamin Schupmann is an Assistant Professor at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. He got his PhD at Columbia University and then taught at Duke Kunshan University and the National University of Singapore.\xa0Democracy Despite Itself\xa0is his second book. His first \u2013\xa0Carl Schmitt's State and Constitutional Theory\xa0\u2013 was published in 2017.\n*The author's book recommendations are\xa0Sovereignty Across Generations: Constituent Power and Political Liberalism\xa0by\xa0Alessandro Ferrara (OUP Oxford,\xa02023) and\xa0Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity\xa0by\xa0Hartmut Rosa (Columbia University Press, 2013).\xa0\nTim Gwynn Jones\xa0is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who also writes the\xa0twenty4two\xa0newsletter on Substack.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law