Evolutionary Basic Democracy A Critical Overture

The concept of democracy is fraught with ambiguity. There are none who know what democracy means, where it came from or indeed where it is going despite it being the system of governance that is most widely heralded for its modernity and promotion of equality. For example, the theory and principles that underpin democracy are unimaginably complicated while its institutions across time and space are contradictory. The stark reality is that democracy is imprisoned by parochialism, subjectivity and myopia with humanity being governed by a system that is does not fully understand. If democracy is everywhere and everyone wants it, then how do we not know what it means? If we do not know what democracy means, then why is it forcefully driving our politics and societies? This extremely ambitious and illuminating book offers a way out by answering these important questions and by exploring democracy in its purest form and as such has been nominated for the 2013 Stein Rokkan Prize. 

Evolutionary Basic Democracy has been nominated for the 2013 Stein Rokkan prize. This extrememly presitgious award is presented by the International Social Science Council, The University of Bergen and the European Consortium for Political Research. For more details please click the link below.
 
http://www.worldsocialscience.org/?page_id=78
 
 

Jean-Paul Gagnon is a Research Fellow in the School of Political Science and International Studies and the School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland Australia. Specialising in the study of democracy, he edits the Journal of Democratic Theory. He was the winner of Australia's prestigious International Postgraduate Research Scholarship.

Preface
Introduction
A New Analytic Tool
1. The Subalterns and Unknowns of Democracy
2. Arguments for Evolutionary Democracy
3. Arguments against Evolutionary Democracy
4. Schrödinger's Democracy
Notes