The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present by David Runciman

Abstract

The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to Present, by David Runciman. Princeton & Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2013. xxiii, 393 pp. $29.95 US (cloth). David Runciman's The Confidence Trap is a racing narrative of travails of and confounding logic of its resilience. The premise for this illuminating reflection comes from key points in Alexis de Tocqueville's reading of America's democracy. These include democracy and its rivals, democracy and fate, and democracy and Tocqueville's reading contrasts with views of philosophers and writers such as Plato, Thomas Paine, and Charles Dickens. Plato holds a generic view of and underscores its ignorance, folly, and vanity in ways deny class content of society. Paine, himself a radical champion of democracy, underscores democracy's attribute of transparency as opposed to monarchy and other autocratic systems. Dickens dismisses America's as hypocritical. Runciman drives home these points and paints a distinctive account of Tocqueville's insightful appreciation of in ways mark him as best guide to in crisis. Tocqueville is not enamoured of Paine's interpretation of as transparent. He argues democracy never truly reveals itself. There will always be a gap between perception and reality in a society founded on democratic principles (10). Tocqueville also notes is prone to for two reasons. First is evidence world's destiny is democracy, insofar as republican value no one was born to rule over another holds sway (11). Second, knowledge of as ultimate destination engenders a faith in its eventual triumph despite its situational instability. Tocqueville espouses distinction made by John Stuart Mill regarding oriental fatalism and modified The former is the belief higher power has mapped out in advance everything will ever happen to us while latter is the belief we are products of our circumstances and there is nothing we can do to change that (15). The latter is true of America's fatalism. Tocqueville recognizes well crisis means a dangerous moment and portends dangers for democracy. In main, democracy muddles through war and revolutionary change, its confusions ineradicable and its progress inexorable. It never fully grows up. And it leads to where we are now (33). Armed with Tocqueville's cant, well laid out in introductory section of this work, Runciman readily navigates trajectory of in last century and first decade of present. He focuses his analytical lens on major crises, spanning his scrutiny from WWI and ascent of Adolf Hitler to leadership of 1933 Germany, to Nikkei burst, India's crisis of 1990s, and recent financial meltdown. …