When the People Rule

In recent decades, popular sovereignty has come under increasing pressure. The rise of populism, often illiberal or authoritarian, has undermined minority rights, individual autonomy, and rule of law. The expansion of international institutions and greater reliance on market and non-governmental organizations have gradually insulated large areas of policymaking from public control. In turn, these developments cast doubt on the viability and desirability of liberal democracy itself. When the People Rule argues that comprehending and responding to the political crises of our time requires a radical refocusing on popular sovereignty. Each chapter offers a fresh perspective and opens new avenues of inquiry into popular sovereignty, advancing debate over the very heart of this principle – what it means for the people to rule. Thorough and timely, this volume is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Ewa Atanassow is Professor of Politics at Bard College Berlin. She is the author of Tocqueville’s Dilemmas, and Ours: Sovereignty, Nationalism, Globalization (Princeton University Press). She is the co-editor of Liberal Moments: Reading Liberal Texts (Bloomsbury Academic) and of Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy (Cambridge University Press).

Thomas Bartscherer is the Peter Sourian Senior Lecturer in the Humanities at Bard College. He is co-editor of the critical edition of Hannah Arendt’s The Life of the Mind (Wallstein Verlag), Switching Codes: Thinking through Digital Technology in the Humanities and Arts (University of Chicago Press), and Erotikon: Essay on Eros, Ancient and Modern (University of Chicago Press).

David A. Bateman is Associate Professor in Government and the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University. He is the author of Disenfranchising Democracy (Cambridge University Press), awarded the J. David Greenstone Prize, and a co-author with Ira Katznelson and John Lapinski of Southern Nation (Princeton University Press), awarded the V. O. Key Prize and the D. B. Hardeman Prize.