This chapter highlights the global wave of populism and the intense fears about democracy’s fate to which it has given rise. I explain why indeed, populism inherently threatens liberal democracy. Then I summarize my main argument, namely that this danger is often averted; consequently, populism’s effective threat is much less severe than often feared. Instead, the analysis of a comprehensive set of populist experiences in Latin America and Europe shows that under many circumstances, democracy proves resilient to populism’s threat; populist leaders manage to suffocate democracy only under special, restrictive conditions. The chapter then defines the central terms, namely democracy, democracy’s destruction, and populism; for the latter, heavily contested concept, I employ my political-strategic definition, whose conceptual validity and analytical value I thoroughly explain. Finally, I justify the study’s focus on Latin America, Europe, and the USA and preview the subsequent chapters with brief summaries of the main arguments and findings.

This chapter documents the restrictive conditions under which rightwing, traditionalist populism managed to destroy democracy in Europe. Only Victor Orban of Hungary (2010-present) and Recep Erdogan of Turkey (2003-present) have accomplished this feat because they benefited from the institutional openness of parliamentary systems and faced an acute, severe crisis in the economy. This massive problem discredited the established parties, so the two populist leaders won clear parliamentary majorities, succeeded in dismantling the remaining checks and balances, and established authoritarianism. In the absence of a crisis and a reliable parliamentary majority, by contrast, Polish populists have tried to push aside institutional constraints through para-legal maneuvers, but have provoked substantial domestic and international pushback, which has defended democracy. Moreover, several populists in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia, who did not encounter conjunctural, resolvable economic crises, did not manage to still their power hunger and asphyxiate democracy. Facing similar conditions, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy (1994, 2001–2006, 2008–2011) left democracy intact as well.

My theory argues that populist chief executives manage to concentrate power and asphyxiate democracy only under special, restrictive conditions, namely when a distinctive institutional weakness and a special conjunctural opportunity for achieving overwhelming mass support coincide. I distinguish 3 types of institutional weakness: a) susceptibility to para-legal change in Latin American presidentialism; b) exceptionally high instability in that region; and c) the attenuated checks and balances of European parliamentarism. Conjunctural opportunities arise from huge revenue windfalls, with which populist leaders can “buy” massive support via ample benefit distribution; or from acute, severe, yet resolvable crises: If populist leaders can bring “miraculous” relief, they receive an outpouring of support. As my scoring of 40 cases shows, these institutional weaknesses and conjunctural opportunities combine in ways that correspond to 3 wellknown types of populism. Accordingly, the theory elucidates the unusual conditions under which a few neoliberal populists in Latin America, leftwing, “Bolivarian” populists in Latin America, and rightwing, traditional populists in Europe have destroyed democracy.

The Liberal Democrats, at the time of writing, have only fourteen MPs. Yet the significance of Liberalism in the history of the Constitutional History of the United Kingdom does not lie in the immediate present: this is a story that stretches deep into the past; covering not merely the giants of the historic Liberal Party in the nineteenth century, but the Whig inheritance from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century constitutional disputes. Hence, while this chapter will conclude with reference to the modern Liberal Party – an alliance, from 1981, between historic Liberalism and the Social Democratic Party; fusing formally in 1988 – it will primarily consider the longer history of Liberalism and the British Constitution.

Chapter 5 examines debates around the drafting of India’s independent constitution between 1946 and 1950. It focuses on a group of socialist thinkers who criticized the nationalist commitment to parliamentary government.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

The constitutional lawyer and public intellectual Albert Venn Dicey remains a touchstone for scholars in constitutional/public law, who return to his classic definitions of the rule of law and of parliamentary sovereignty. Likewise, British and Irish historians have kept him in view, assessing his role in the conflict over Home Rule that dominated the politics of the period. Nevertheless, Dicey has been overlooked as a political theorist. This oversight impairs our understanding of the development of liberal and democratic thought, and deprives us of valuable insights at a time when the compatibility of democracy and liberalism has again been put in question both within academia and in broader public discourse. Specifically, it has been too little noted that Dicey was the earliest Anglophone thinker to put advocacy of the referendum at the heart of a sophisticated theory of democracy. He diagnosed modern Western parliamentary regimes as suffering from a crisis of representation, which he wished to remedy by implementing a specific form of constitutional referendum. This chapter is one of Dicey’s major explorations of the referendum and the trajectory of democracy.

Chapter 6 explores the possibility of composing higher-order macro-institutions, starting with micro-norms/rules and institutes and their mutual compatibility and balancing. A necessary precondition for power-sharing is monopolisation of destructive resources and ‘legitimate’ violence over a territorial space: the ‘territorial institution’. In territories in which destructive means have been successfully monopolised and there are no challenges to the ruling function, ‘fundamental norms’ or ‘constitutions’ may develop that delineate the institutional regime. The territory, the constitution and the institutional regime are macro-institutions located at the highest level in the vertical layering of institutions and are complex combinations of single norms/rules and institutes. But, as macro-phenomena, they are characterised by emerging properties that cannot exclusively be reduced to lower-level properties. Different regimes rest on the prominence of some institutes over others. In some cases, the predominant institutes damage the others excessively. In other cases, the institutes balance each other. The chapter suggests that institutional analysis generalisations should concern political institutes, their balancing and combination, and the likely effects. Actors’ preferences and constellations of actors should be kept separate from institutional analysis. Adding them results in generalisations concerning the interaction between political institutions and political structures; that is, in the analysis of ‘political regimes’.

Chapter 5 reads Carl Schmitt’s Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy as an account of a rhetorical crisis. Schmitt characterizes twentieth-century parliamentary speech as an empty ritual and proposes a turn toward effective rituals of speech that might supplant it. Schmitt’s assimilation of rhetoric and ritual is an important insight. But his rhetorical theory takes a troubling, authoritarian turn in its understanding of the conditions under which ritual becomes meaningful. For Schmitt, “eloquence is only possible against the background of an imposing authority,” and ritual must actively shape the political world. But with a richer understanding of ritual, we can retain what is of value in Schmitt’s account without following him to his authoritarian conclusions. Just such a richer understanding of ritual is available in the work of Adam Seligman et al. For them, ritual is action in the “subjunctive” mood, “the creation of an order as if it were truly the case.” Ritual is not an effort to shape the world, but a response to the world’s perceived brokenness. In this light, what the rhetorical tradition has to offer us is not a way of resolving the tension between speech and action, but a way of living in that tension.