A Theory of Militant Democracy: The Ethics of Combatting Political Extremism
ISBN: 9780300189858
Platform/Publisher: Oxford Academic / Yale University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Comparative Politics Political Theory;

How should pro-democratic forces safeguard representative government from anti-democratic forces? By granting rights of participation to groups that do not share democratic values, democracies may endanger the very rights they have granted; but denying these rights may also undermine democratic values. Alexander Kirshner offers a set of principles for determining when one may reasonably refuse rights of participation, and he defends this theory through real-world examples, ranging from the far-right British Nationalist Party to Turkey's Islamist Welfare Party to America's Democratic Party during Reconstruction.

Alexander Kirshner is an assistant professor of political science at Duke University and a senior fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics. He lives in Durham, NC.

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