Incredibly great book,

Zakaria takes the reader through thorough and un-emotional analysis of the Liberalism, Constitutional Liberalism and Democracy around the world and most particularly in the USA. He commands that over last decades we experience erosion of responsibility so closely associated with democracy and liberalism during many previous centuries.

At some point he argues that we may have a bit too much democracy and I am afraid that since the end of the Cold War, our celebration of democracy has been too superficial. We put emphasis on its plebiscite aspect with the exclusion of all others.

So now, when, for example, someone criticizes Donald Trump who utters words that no president candidate has ever said, he often hears in reply: "Well, Trump got 14 million votes and defeated the other 12 candidates." This is what the problem of excess democracy is - when it transforms into a system justifying even illiberal and unconstitutional activities. This is a problem of our time, regardless of whether it takes place in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, the United States, and many other countries.

You will immensely enjoy reading it ☺

I read this book before starting college at Florida State University and it has influenced my thinking on many issues, especially the problem of the tyranny of the majority in democratic societies and the havoc that can be wreaked by relying too heavily on direct democracy. If I read the book again today, I would probably find many of its ideas less compelling than I did at eighteen, but I cannot deny that this book has shaped my thinking in important ways.

Zakaria makes a very compelling argument for US democracy becoming too democratic. Intriguing analysis of Russia and the Middle East. Great read!

After reading that in the view of the author we live in the postnationalist time, abandoned this book without regret. True, it is fairly old, but this gaffe says everything I have to know about Zakaria's foresight and imagination. A glorified Thomas Friedman in my view (whom he approvingly quotes), and not by much.

Do you like to have your assumptions challenged?
Because this book will challenge them. I don't accept all his conclusions, but he lays them out clearly and supports them with data and examples.
This is not a book that tells you what you think you know, but tells you what you didn't know that you didn't know. I love that, but it's going to take me a while to digest.

It was a little boring sometimes (especially all that bank talk) but I can appreciate the science of it all.

Written before 2010. Interesting how it seems to have been prescient - things he warned of have come to pass.

Interesting, definitely prescient in some ways. But the section on the Middle East is bleakly 2005 neocon … yikes. What reading Fukuyama and not Hegel does to a mf. Overall very interesting read historiographically

This is one of the most astute accounts of today's political situation I have found, despite having been originally published in 2003-- back in the days of Bush. While other books like How Democracies Die were able to put Trump into context, these were post-mortem analyses. Zakaria predicts Trump:

n  [Today being part of the establishment isn't the default route to high office.] The success of George W. Bush was not due to his being the candidate of the establishment but due to his being the candidate of his family; he had the two things you need in a partyless system-- name recognition and a fund-raising machine. Anyone who has both, whether they have experience in politics or not, is now at a huge advantage. Thus in this new, more "democratic" system, we have seen many more political dynasties, celebrity officials, and billionaire politicians than before. And this is only the beginning. As the political party declines further, being rich and/or famous will become the routine path to high office.n

This book has more red ink in it that the Bible I got when I was eight. I tried to be judicious in my highlighting, but there is so much that rings true. The basic premise of the book is that democracy and liberalism are not the same thing: democracy is about elections, how leaders are selected. While constitutional liberalism, as Zakaria defines it, is not about the procedures for selecting government, but rather government's goals. It refers to the tradition that seeks to protect an individual's autonomy and dignity against coercion, whatever the source-- state, church or society. This includes a web of elements including the rule of law, private property rights, the separation of powers, freedom of speech and the press, and the right of assembly. You can have liberal autocracy. There have been relatively free societies governed by kings and dictators. The Book of Mormon models this in the form of King Benjamin, but opts for a system of judges as ye will not always have righteous kings. But you can also have an illiberal democracy in which elected leaders take away rights and rule arbitrarily. Just in the past few years, American democracy has been labeled a "flawed democracy" by The Economist.

In essence: the ends do not justify the means. In many ways, Zakaria's argument is a conservative critique of today's politics. It doesn't align with many of the goals of today's Democratic party. Zakaria would argue that the attempts to pack the Supreme Court or abolish the electoral college, while having a feel of being more "democratic" undermine the principles of constitutional liberalism. Then again, Republicans haven't exactly been exemplars of upholding constitutional liberalism themselves, giving Trump free reign to rule as an autocrat and doing little to check his power or standing up to mob rule. I chuckled when I realized Zakaria's argument is essentially Mike Lee's one-liner: "We are not a democracy." I hardly ever agree with Mike Lee. But it's kind of true. The reason our democratic republic has lasted so long are the non-democratic elements in it, both those built into the constitution and those not.

Zakaria ties the downward trend in American democracy to a similar moment in time cited in How Democracies Die: the suicide of the Republican and Democratic parties in the 70s. This is something that doesn't seem to be common knowledge, but the candidates of both political parties weren't originally selected democratically. They were selected by party leaders behind closed doors. This was made more "democratic" when primaries were implemented, essentially removing the one thing political parties actually did: vet party candidates.

Zakaria's solution to our political dilemma is to delegate more authority. That's how our republic works. Authority is still ultimately drawn from the people, but decisions should be made by wise delegates with as little pressure from the passions of democracy as possible. One branch of government already operates this way: the Supreme Court. Many elements of our bureaucracy such as the Federal Reserve have decisions isolated from political pressures, as decisions are made by experts. This argument overlapped with Tom Nichol's arguments in The Death of Expertise, but would also perhaps make Friedrich Hayek cringe who was suspicious of supposed experts. The argument that more decisions should be made by experts doesn't sound appealing to either the left or the right at the moment: Republicans think experts are all phonies in cahoots with pornographers and won't even trust an epidemiologist to wear a mask. Democrats do try to come off as the party that trusts in "science," but science itself has come under attack by political agendas and pressures.

I can't recommend this book enough!

The philosophy minor son at Oregon asked me to read and comment. Full disclosure, the youngest is/was profoundly dyslexic, hence all the back up on the reading. Every American should read this book, especially with the impending election. Personally, I'd like to reread while reading The Federalist Papers and their rebuttal by George Mason et al in parallel. And maybe Adam Smith On Political Economy with an emphasis on the 'political.'

quite pertinent today, 15+ years after it was published. the delineation between liberalism and democracy (they don't always go hand-in-hand!) is vital, and Zakaria does a good job of convincing the reader that liberalism is the more crucial of the two. my only complaint is that he provides few answers for a way forward, but I can't truly fault him for that since it seems nigh-impossible to reverse the trend towards greater democratization in almost every area of (particularly Western) life.

tIn writing The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, Fareed Zakaria hopes to show the reader that true freedom requires more than elections in which all citizens of a country participate; it also requires what Mr. Zakaria calls constitutional liberalism. Constitutional liberalism is marked by existence of a “bundle of freedoms”, which includes rule of the law, a separation of powers, and the protection of basic liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property. Constitutional liberalism protects individual autonomy and guards against coercion, while democracy alone is a means of selecting government. Mr. Zakaria points to America as the greatest example to lead to recovery of the “constitutional tradition”. However, he feels that even in America constitutional liberalism is on a downslide.
tIn the first half of his book, Zakaria spends a good deal of time describing the elements that predict successful democratization of a country. He contends that “democracy is flourishing, liberty is not” because democracy has “paved the way” for dictatorships in many countries. One of the major reasons for this trend according to Zakaria is that it is possible to have too much of a good thing: democracy. In other words, to have policy informed too greatly by the popular majority will result in decreased liberalism.

tZakaria is very Machiavellian in his thinking in the sense that he believes that it is unwise for a leader (or government) to seek or accept too much advice from too many sources. He contends that the authority of a number of social institutions, including religion and the elite has been weakened. The elite are weakened by the fact that business now prevents them from providing service to the public. This has led to public distrust of the elite as merely self-interested. Religion has declined as a source of authority in that it is seen less as a guiding authority and now as more of an individual experience. Media is weakened in its authority by the need to provide for the taste of the masses to turn a profit, rather than being dedicated to higher ideals. For Zakaria, populism and profit have dealt a death blow to authority in America. These are what he refers to as the “consequences of capitalism”. He believes that the fact that Congress is more open to lobbyists and special interests has made it nearly impossible to reduce federal spending and also prevents the funding of new government programs.

tTo my surprise, I actually find myself agreeing with him when he says, “in the name of democracy, we have created a new layer of enormously powerful elites”. I believe that the “average” citizen should be able to have their opinions heard and considered and I certainly don’t feel that policy should be sold to the highest bidder. However, this is exactly what Zakaria describes. It is all about marketing and spin these days. Look at how well corporations do at selling Americans products they don’t need. I am not naïve enough to believe that they won’t try to sell me ideas that I don’t need as well.

Zakaria proposes delegation, and while avoiding use of the word, what sounds to me like privatization as the solution to the decline in constitutional liberalism. He calls on the elite of this nation to return to a historical sense of responsibility and civic obligation to strengthen and preserve freedom. In the Afterword, titled The 51st State he applies his theories to the ongoing situation in Iraq and concludes that America has before it a long and difficult task in assisting the people in maintaining a democratic and liberal country.

tThis book is a difficult read for the student taking their first college-level course in government. The material is dense and would be more readily understood by an individual already schooled in national and international politics. An entire course could be centered on this text itself.