Democracy Against Itself: The Future of the Democratic Impulse

In this combination of current affairs survey, political analysis and conservative jeremiad, French commentator Revel ( How Democracies Perish ) cautions those who believe in ``the inevitable triumph of liberal democracy.'' While some of his analysis is questionable--Has Sweden's social democratic model really collapsed? Is Franz Fanon ``junk''?--Revel's defense of his previous polemics is forceful. He argues thoughtfully that the rebellions against communism do not constitute revolutions but rather ``an attempt to return to square one, that is to say the position before communism.'' His diatribe against anti-democratic Third World plutocrats, if somewhat overbroad and dated, nonetheless does make clear his case for liberalism. Revel is less convincing when he addresses the problems of democratic countries, citing as the causes the usual triad of corruption, media-driven politics and the decline of citizenship. His reliance on the example of his home country leads him to damn the ``French egalitarian passion'; others might argue that the United States could use a dose of such egalitarianism. (Sept.)