Democratic Statecraft Political Realism and Popular Poer [Hardcover]

Maloy explores whether and how statecraft and democratic ways of thinking can be reconciled and combined.While half the world yearns for democracy, the other half grieves over democratic deficits. J. S. Maloy suggests that democracy's troubles arise from excessive idealism and examines key episodes from the history of political realism in the Western tradition, using old materials to assemble a new democratic paradigm.While half the world yearns for democracy, the other half grieves over democratic deficits. J. S. Maloy suggests that democracy's troubles arise from excessive idealism and examines key episodes from the history of political realism in the Western tradition, using old materials to assemble a new democratic paradigm.The theory of statecraft explores practical politics through the strategies and maneuvers of privileged agents, whereas the theory of democracy dwells among abstract and lofty ideals. Can these two ways of thinking somehow be reconciled and combined? Or is statecraft destined to remain the preserve of powerful elites, leaving democracy to ineffectual idealists? J. S. Maloy demonstrates that the Western tradition of statecraft, usually considered the tool of tyrants and oligarchs, has in fact been integral to the development of democratic thought. Five case studies of political debate, ranging from ancient Greece to the late nineteenth-century United States, illustrate how democratic ideas can be relevant to the real world of politics instead of reinforcing the idealistic delusions of conventional wisdom and academic theory alike. The tradition highlighted by these cases still offers resources for reconstructing our idea of popular government in a realistic spirit  skeptical, pragmatic, and relentlessly focused on power.1. Introduction: realism and democracy; 2. Reason of state and two dimensions of realism; 3. From the Sophists to Aristotle: institutions lie; 4. From Aristotle to Machiavelli: democracy bites; 5. From Machiavelli to ls(