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NEU Senior Regional Support Officer
Crises of Democracy by Adam Przeworski
Dangers of the global democratic deficit investigated

WESTERN democracy came about as a political device preventing the broader population — for the most part illiterate and poor at the time — from having any say in shaping policy and the economy in particular, asserts Adam Przeworski in this book.

He quotes the fourth US president James Madison, Simon Bolivar and Henry Kissinger as believing that “the people” cannot be trusted because they can “err.” That is what upset Kissinger when Chileans “irresponsibly” elected Salvador Allende — or the Grenadians Maurice Bishop, for that matter.

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