Books like Democracy's discontent by Michael J. Sandel

In The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama argues that liberal democracy will become the final form of human governance and examines the societal consequences of this inevitable transition.

An analysis of how democratic systems in the United States disproportionately favor elite groups—through history, demographics, and statistics—highlighting the decline of public engagement and the impact on contemporary politics.

In Political Liberalism John Rawls continues and revises the idea of justice as fairness he presented in A Theory of Justice, but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. His earlier work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable, relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs, and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines - religious, philosophical, and moral - coexist within the framework of democratic institutions. Indeed, free institutions themselves encourage this plurality of doctrines as the normal outgrowth of freedom over time. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls therefore asks, how can a stable and just society of free and equal citizens live in concord when deeply divided by these reasonable, but incompatible, doctrines? His answer is based on a redefinition of a "well-ordered society." It is no longer a society united in its basic moral beliefs but in its political conception of justice, and this justice is the focus of an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Justice as fairness is now presented as an example of such a political conception; that it can be the focus of an overlapping consensus means that it can be endorsed by the main religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines that endure over time in a well-ordered society. Such a consensus, Rawls believes, represents the most likely basis of society unity available in a constitutional democratic regime. Were it achieved, it would extend and complete the movement of thought that began three centuries ago with the gradual if reluctant acceptance of the principle of toleration. This process would end with the full acceptance and understanding of modern liberties.

"Democracy Matters is Cornel West's critique of the troubling deterioration of democracy in America in this threatening post-9/11 age - and a call for the revitalization of the deep democratic tradition in our country, which has waged war on the forces of imperialist corruption throughout our history. Americans must take back our democracy, and in this call to arms, Cornel West shows the way." "West, in this sequel to his classic Race Matters, returns to the analysis of what he calls the arrested development of democracy with a masterful diagnosis. He points to the rise of three antidemocratic dogmas that are rendering the energy of American democracy impotent: a callous free-market fundamentalism, an aggressive militarism, and an insidious authoritarianism."--BOOK JACKET.

A work of capital importance for the renewal of studies on the challenges of contemporary democracies, this book by Juan J. Linz addresses the phenomenon of the crisis of democracies and the rise of authoritarian regimes in the framework of interwar Europe, with special interest in the historical cases of Weimar Germany and the Second Spanish Republic.

Christopher Lasch argues that modern American democracy is endangered by professional and managerial elites who isolate themselves, ignore the middle class, and erode democratic ideals.

Mary L. Dudziak’s analysis of how Cold War policies influenced civil rights in the United States.