Somewhat dated, but his core argument on the importance of the 'liberal' in 'liberal democracy', and the potential tension between the two, is still interesting.

فرید زکریا از آنجایی که تحصیل کرده علوم سیاسی است و همینطور ژرونالیست به همین خاطر توانسته پیوند خوبی بین کار تحقیقی و آکادمیک و ژورنالیستی برقرار سازد.
کتاب دارای 6فصل است که همینطور که از عنوان فرعی آن پیداست به بررسی تقدم لیبرالیسمِ قانون سالار بر دموکراسی میپردازد.
زکریا معتقد است اگر زیرساخت‌های دموکراسی (شامل جامعه مدنی، مطبوعات آزاد، قوه قضاییه مستقل و اقتصاد بازار) فراهم نشود این دموکراسی درنهایت به اقتدارگرایی خواهد انجامید و برای این ادعای خود مثال‌هایی را هم از حکومت‌های دموکراسی غیرلیبرال میاورد.
فصل 4 کتاب به بررسی خاورمیانه و کشورهای اسلامی میپردازد و همین نکته را تاکید میکند. پیش بینی او درست از آب درآمد و دربهار عربی سال 2011 شاهد این نکته بودیم که از دل دموکراسیِ بدون بسترسازی شده حکومت‌های اقتدارگرا دوباره برسرکار آمدند و روز از نو روزی از نو. از ایران نیز نام میبرد و چشم انداز خوبی را برایش متصور میشود.
فصل‌های بعدی به طور خاص برروی جامعه آمریکا متمرکز است و میشود گفت به نقد جامعه تجاری و مصرفی آمریکا میپرداز که این را خلاف ارزش‌های آمریکا میداند. همینطور اینکه روند فعلی دموکراسی را در بلندمدت به ضرر دموکراسی میداند و نسبت به پیامدهای آن هشدار میدهد. او این روند را نتیجه زیاد از حد دموکراتیزه شدن و زیاد از حد اکتفا کردن به آرای مردم میداند. به عبارتی میتوان گفت دوفصل پایانی کتاب سندی است بر اثبات برتری دموکراسی جفرسونی بر دموکراسی جکسونی.
در آخر خواندن این کتاب در عصر ظهور ترامپ‌ها و هم فکرانش در اروپا به شدت توصیه میشود.

While dated (the edition I read was published in 2007) Zakaria’s book is an excellent introduction to the virtues and pitfalls to democracy. Much has changed on the world scene since he wrote it, but it is still a provocative work whose insights will be badly needed in a post pandemic world.

Zakaria says this isn’t an historical work, but I list it on that bookshelf because it has some valuable historical overviews. Additionally, the book at this writing is thirteen years old, and much of what was then current is now securely lodged in history. It seems the Iraq war was fifty years ago given our current struggles with potential economic collapse and worldwide disease.

The book was written 20 years ago and it deserves an update. At the time the book was published there were no social media that later changed our perception of freedom and democracy. However, it is still a solid 4 stars for me as many phenomena are still valid or even amplified today with the existence of Twitter, Facebook or even Goodreads.

Excellent Book

This was written in 2007 and a lot of those concerns have become reality in 2020. The decay and lack of legitimacy in institutions. Fareed has as usual written an excellent easy to read piece of political science.

_The Future of Freedom_ by Fareed Zakaria is a wonderfully well-written look at the crucial differences between liberty and democracy.

Democracy is without a doubt the dominant form of government today; in 1900, there wasn't any nation on Earth that we would call today a democracy, one in which every adult citizen can vote, now there are 119, comprising 62% of the world's countries. However, many of these are not liberal democracies. A liberal democracy not only has free and fair elections but also the rule of law, separation of powers, and a protection of basic rights such as free speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and freedom of religion - restrictions on what government can do. This bundle of freedoms, often called constitutional liberalism, does not intrinsically have anything to do with democracy and hasn't always gone with it; Hitler was elected after all. Today exist what Zakaria termed illiberal democracies; democratically elected regimes that routinely ignore constitutional limits on their powers and deprive their citizens of basic rights. Why are so many newly democratic governments sham democracies and why is it so hard to develop legitimate, effective, stable democracies? There are concerns in the developing world of radical Islamist theocracies coming to power. In other instances where ethnic tensions exist racist and sometimes genocidal governments come into power, technically reflecting the will of the majority but unrestrained from carrying out horrible policies.

Even the United States has seen an erosion in the popularity and effectiveness of government; despite our society being more democratic than ever, with a Congress more transparent than it has ever been, presidential candidates now picked purely by primary results, and even many economic, religious, and cultural institutions extremely responsive to public moods and trends (Zakaria provided a fascinating look at the democratization of such diverse things as the stock market, banks, American Protestantism, museums, and even the Book-of-the-Month club). California, once hailed for its very democratic ballot box initiatives, wherein the public could bypass government and essentially write its own laws, is now saddled with crumbling infrastructure and nearly bankrupt institutions. Why is this?

The answer to the question is that these new governments and our own in the United States lack or have weakened vital nondemocratic guiding forces. In the West limitations on government long preceded any real move towards democracy; constitutional liberalism came first and indeed it was vital that it did so. For centuries in the West countries were becoming what he termed liberal autocracies; the Catholic church, Europe's landed aristocracy, the struggles between Catholics and Protestants, and the rise of capitalism imposed limits on the authorities of kings, not producing a democracy but furthering a developing trend of placing limits on and making demands of government, whether it be a monarch in medieval times or the majority in later centuries.

Nondemocratic guides and buffers are lacking in many nations, from resource rich "trust fund" states like Saudi Arabia that remain underdeveloped politically (no need to tax citizens, but then no need to provide much in the way of liberty or good governance either) to states like Russia where popular autocrats such as Putin use elections as "legitimized power grabs" and have centralized political power and greatly weakened checks like independent courts, legislatures, and the press.

Our own system of government has many vital nondemocratic institutions; the powerful Supreme Court is unelected, the Bill of Rights is a powerful constraint on the wishes of the majority, and the unelected Federal Reserve leaders wield enormous power. In the recent past many more informal social and political institutions existed as vital guides and buffers to public policy - from doctors to lawyers to churches to the all important political party. Though not perfect, they were often comprised of dedicated, public-spirited individuals, insulated to some degree from the constant ebb and flow of day-to-day public opinion, and with the time, inclination, and experience to handle complex technical issues, issues that the American people delegated to their elected officials (or who in turn delegated to unelected officials). They were elites, and while Americans on the one hand professed a great dislike for the elites, on the other hand it desperately needed them.

With the opening up of many institutions in the United States in the belief that more democracy was always the solution, these elites have been replaced by new elites and not for the better. Tax policies for instance may have been decided in smoke-filled committee rooms in Congress, and the lack of transparency was not always good, but now that committee meetings are completely transparent, things are worse, not better. Reformers thought that it would be a good thing for the American people to see how their representatives voted on every issue; in reality the average person doesn't have the time or interest to follow this, but special interests do. In the past votes may have been secret; now lobbyists can deluge individual representatives with faxes, phone calls, and emails to preserve this or that subsidy. The party elites in Congress and policy elites on committees have been replaced by lobbying and special interest elites, people far less well known and a lot less accountable to the American people.

California is now in the unique situation of having close to 85% of its budget tied up by legislation, largely the result of publicly voted on initiatives. If the average person won't trust themselves to write a will or do their taxes, why do they think they can write complex legislation? Laws in the past once had to face an arduous process of approval, with lots of give and take, compromise, and could be phased in; initiatives are stark, sudden, and without compromise.

Zakaria called for a restoration of balance between democracy and liberty, that there is such a thing as too much democracy, and elites must realize that they have civic responsibilities and act accordingly. Decision making in some vital areas must be distanced from day-to-day politics and leaders must sometimes ignore public opinion.

Good cross-cultural analysis of the role of democracies and constitutional liberalism as relating to individual liberties, circa 2003. Zaharia has a journalist’s bias for then-current issues, particularly regarding geopolitical considerations regarding the Middle East, and the then still relatively recent demise of the USSR. He discusses Putin the successor to Yeltsin’s super presidency.

Zaharia proposes that populism poses larger problems for presidential democracies than parliamentary (see pg. 103).

Introduction: the democratic age
Liberty and Democracy are not always the same.
Democracy - the shift of power downward. It has gone from a way of government to a way of life.
Illiberal democracy vs constitutional liberalism
Democracy is flourishing; liberty is not.

chapter 1: a brief history of human liberty
*Consequence of capitalism as a cause of democracy
Reject the argument that "culture as destiny"
Capitalism and the rule law first, then democracy.

chapter 2: the twisted path
examples of authoritative government (WWII germany)
the more well-to-do a nation, the greater its chances to sustain democracy
Money that is earned produces liberty (e.g. oil-producing does not count)
When a government taxes people it has to provide benefits in return, which brings liberty and representation ( a reciprocal bargain between taxation and representation)
the next wave (countries that may be democratic next)
A discussion on China

chapter 3: illiberal democracy
China is reforming its economics before its politics, whereas Russia did the reverse.
First abuse of the democratic system: elected autocrats
Second one : tyranny of the majority
Democracy is simply not viable in an environment of intense ethnic preferences.
DemocratizING states went to war significantly more often than either stable autocracies or liberal democracies.

chapter 4: the Islamic exception (not particularly understand)
The Arab world today is trapped between autocratic states and illiberal societies, neither of them fertile ground for liberal democracy.
The arab mind

chapter 4: too much of a good thing (not understand because of a lack of understanding of the US political structure)

chapter 5: the death of authority
Examples in daily lives
In the old days, there are elites with morality
Deregulation --> more competitive --> less moral

conclusion: the way out
delegating democracy
the organizations that are respected / highly-rated by people are the ones that do not allow the participation of public

Long After reading it I learned that author's take on Titanic was absolutely not accurate and I want other people to know about that. My rating reflects my corresponding distrust.

This is a must read. Although Zakaria seems a bit too enamored for my taste with ruling elites, he makes a stark distinction between the increase in democracy and an increase in freedom.

Buku favorit saya.

Dengan bahasa yang lugas, mampu mengulas suasana politik kontemporer khususnya di dunia ketiga.

Dibuka dengan term-term demokrasi yang dimaknai secara ketat oleh pemikiran barat (terutama Amerika), lalu diantarkan pikiran kita pada realitas demokrasi yang sedang berlangsung di hampir seluruh penjuru dunia.

Analisis dan pertanyaan yang mencengangkan, betapa perbedaan menjadi isyu yang tidak bisa dienyahkan begitu saja dari keseharian pendulum pemikiran politik kita.

Sangat saya anjurkan untuk dibaca oleh mereka yang tertarik maupun tidak tertarik dengan bahasa dan bahasan politik.

This book distilled down the elements of different types of governments and explained them in such a way as it challenged me to think about and consider government, how it works, how it is implemented, and how it can evolve overtime. It gave me much to contemplate in my ongoing quest to be a more informed and educated voter and participant in our country’s political processes. One cannot do that without educating oneself on how things have been and are, as well as all sides and perspectives of issues. It’s good to step outside my comfort zone and challenge my perceptions and current knowledge. Education is never finished but a lifelong pursuit.