History shows that democratic self-governance depends on civic friendship, whereby everyone accepts that their political opponents are worthy of respect, even if they seem deeply misguided or misinformed. Unfortunately for America today, all it takes to break this compact is for one "side" to walk away.
BERKELEY – Allow me to offer high praise for The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives, the new book by the independent scholar Brook Manville and Josiah Ober of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. While the entire book is well-written and insightful, its historical overview is a veritable treasure trove for anyone who wants to understand the events leading up to our experiment in self-government, the challenges encountered along the way (human nature being what it is), and the patterns that are most likely to be repeated in the future.
BERKELEY – Allow me to offer high praise for The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives, the new book by the independent scholar Brook Manville and Josiah Ober of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. While the entire book is well-written and insightful, its historical overview is a veritable treasure trove for anyone who wants to understand the events leading up to our experiment in self-government, the challenges encountered along the way (human nature being what it is), and the patterns that are most likely to be repeated in the future.