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6 - Our Past, Weimar’s Present

Democracy’s Defense and the Inversion of an Historical Lesson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2024

By
Amel Ahmed
Edited by
Richard Ned Lebow  and
Ludvig Norman
Richard Ned Lebow
Affiliation:
King's College London
Ludvig Norman
Affiliation:
University of Stockholm
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Summary

Ahmed engages recent works that have sought to harness the lessons of Weimar to offer guidance to ailing democracies around the globe. Utilizing a Weberian evaluation of ideal types, it examines the model of democracy and democratic defense employed within these accounts. The chapter demonstrates that what they offer as a general or universal model of democracy defense, comes to reflect in its construction a very particular model that emerged in the postwar context of Cold War competition. This model, Ahmed argues, misconstrues the terrain of political conflict and misses opportunities to open up space for a revisioning of democracy that would serve as the basis of a more robust democratic defense.

Keywords

democracy’s defenseWeberian ideal typesCold Warhistorical lessons
Type
Chapter
Information
Weimar's Long Shadow , pp. 145 - 169
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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