The Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracy

The geographic and temporal distance may be vast between ancient Athens and the civil rights era in the United States, but, according to this dense study by Johns Hopkins political scientist Hanchard, the former society’s concept of autochthony—the limitation of political rights to native-born males—produced a “gendered ethnonational regime” comparable to numerous modern societies, including that of mid-20th-century America. Hanchard explores the existence of nondemocratic institutions within at least nominally democratic societies and the attempts of those excluded from full citizenship—whether on grounds of race, gender, age, or place of birth—to gain political rights. He also traces how the discipline of comparative politics developed and how the field’s leading scholars incorporated into their research such events as global wars, decolonization, and liberation movements; Hanchard calls upon his fellow scholars to bring the historical legacies of imperialism and racism into their understanding of Western political philosophies. While the work is lucidly written—and Hanchard does a creditable job in highlighting seminal but little-known scholars, such as Edward Augustus Freeman, who in the late 19th century pioneered comparative analysis in the study of political history—this work is too dry in tone to reach a broad nonacademic audience. [em](June) [/em]