Defending Democracy

To defeat demagogues like Donald Trump, citizens must vote to defend democracy, otherwise it will not be there to defend them. Taking off from Max Weber’s ‘Vocation Lectures,’ David Ricci’s Defending Democracy therefore explores the idea of ‘citizenship as a vocation,’ which is a commitment to defending democracy by supporting leaders who will govern according to the Declaration of Independence’s self-evident truths rather than animosity and polarizations. He examines the condition of democracy in states where it is endangered and where modern technology – television, internet, smart phones, social media, etc. – provides so much information and disinformation that we sometimes lack the common sense to reject candidates who have no business in politics. Arguing for the practice of good citizenship, Ricci observes that as citizens we have become the rulers of modern societies, in which case we have to fulfill our democratic responsibilities if society is to prosper.

Author Biography

David M. Ricci was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, and the Brookings Institution in Washington. He was the Chair of the Hebrew University Department of American Studies and the Department of Political Science. He is the author of eight scholarly books including The Tragedy of Political Science (1984), The Transformation of American Politics (1993), Good Citizenship in America (2004), Politics without Stories (2016), and Post-Truth American Politics (2023).