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"With the election of Donald J. Trump, many people on both the left and right feared that America's 240-year-old grand experiment in democracy was coming to an end, and that Sinclair Lewis' satirical novel, It can't happen here, written during the dark days of the 1930s, could finally be coming true. Is the democratic freedom that the United States symbolizes really secure? Can authoritarianism happen in America? [The editor] queried a number of the nation's leading thinkers. In this...collection of essays, these...thinkers and theorists explore the lessons of history, how democracies crumble, how propaganda works, and the role of the media, courts, elections, and 'fake news' in the modern political landscape--and what the future of the United States may hold."--

"Political institutions are or ought to be the main subject of political theory. The essays in this collection are works of political theory devoted specifically to the institutions and institutional principles of modern democracy. They illustrate the author's contention in the opening chapter that the theory of politics needs to reorient itself so that it is not just the study of social justice. Institutions need to be taken seriously, by normative political theorists as much as by empirical political scientists. The collection includes studies of constitutionalism, the separation of powers, bicameralism, loyal opposition, representation, legislative due process, democratic accountability, and judicial review. It also includes critical essays on the political philosophies of Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin"--Publisher's information