Description

Book Synopsis
* Third edition of this hugely successful textbook which has proven immensely popular among students and specialists worldwide. * Provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to central accounts of democracy from classical Greece to the present and a critical discussion of what democracy should mean today.

Trade Review
"The great global struggles today are not over democracy versus other forms of government but over the meanings and practices of democracy themselves. There is no better critical and engaged survey of the complex histories and contemporary struggles over this deeply contested concept than David Held's third and improved edition of Models of Democracy, precisely because it is written in awareness of its own contestability."
James Tully, University of Victoria

"Models is the kind of established classic which both demands and merits revision every decade or so."
David Beetham, University of Leeds

"Everyone who has used Models will welcome this new edition. Newcomers will find a wide-ranging and reliable analysis of past and present debates about democracy and gain an understanding of what is at issue in current global arguments."
Carole Pateman, Cardiff University and University of California at Los Angeles



Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Preface

Introduction

Part One: Classic Models

Chapter 1 - Classical Democracy: Athens

Political ideas and aims

Institutional features

The exclusivity of an ancient democracy

The critics

In sum: Model I

Chapter 2 - Republicanism: Liberty, Self-Government and the Active Citizen

The eclipse and re-emergence of homo politicus

The reforging of republicanism

Republicanism, elective government and popular sovereignty

From civic life to civic glory

In sum: Model IIa

The republic and the general will

In sum: model IIb

The public and the private

Chapter 3 - The Development of Liberal Democracy: For and Against the State

Power and Sovereignty

Citizenship and the Constitutional State

Separation of Powers

The problem of factions

Accountability and Markets

In sum: model IIIa

Liberty and the development of democracy

The dangers of despotic power and an overgrown state

Representative government

The subordination of women

Competing conceptions of the ‘ends of government’

In sum: Model IIIb

Chapter 4 - Direct Democracy and the End of Politics

Class and class conflict

History as evolution and the development of captialism

Two theories of the state

The end of politics

Competing conceptions of Marxism

Part Two: Variants from the Twentieth Century

Chapter 5 - Competitive ELitism and the Technocratic Vision

Classes, power and conflict

Bureaucracy, parliaments and nation-states

Competitive elitist democracy

Liberal democracy at the crossroads

The last vestige of democracy?

Democracy, capitalism and socialism

‘Classical’ v. modern democracy

A technocratic vision

In sum: model V

Chapter 6 - Pluralism, Corporate Capitalism and the State

Group politics, government and power

Politics, consensus and the distribution of power

Democracy, corporate capitalism and the state

In sum: Model VI

Accumulation, legitimation and the restricted sphere of the political

The changing form of representative institutions

Chapter 7 - From Post-War Stability to Political Crisis: The Polarization of Political Ideas

A legitimate democratic order or a repressive regime?

Overloaded state or legitimation crisis?

Crisis theories: an assessment

Law, liberty and democracy

In sum: model VII

Participation, liberty and democracy

In sum: model VII

Chapter 8 - Democracy after Soviet Communism

The historical backdrop

The triumph of economic and political liberalism

The renewed necessity of Marxism and democracy from ‘below’?

Chapter 9 - Deliberative Democracy and the Defence of the Public Realm

Reason and Participation

The limits of democratic theory

The aims of deliberative democracy

What is sound about public reasoning? Impartialism and it’s critics

Institutions of deliberative democracy

Value pluralism and democracy

In sum: Model IX

Part Three: What Should Democracy Mean Today?

Chapter 10 - Democratic Autonomy

The appeal of democracy

The principle of autonomy

Enacting the principle

The heritage of classic and twentieth-century democratic theory

Democracy: A double-sided process

Democratic autonomy: compatibilities and incompatibilities

In sum: Model Xa

Chapter 11 - Democracy, the Nation-State and the Global System

Democratic legitimacy and borders

Regional and global flows: old and new

Sovereignty, autonomy and disjunctures

Rethinking democracy for a more global age: the cosmopolitan model

In sum: model Xb

Acknowledgements

References and Select Bibliography

Index

Models of Democracy

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    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Fri 19 Jun 2026.

    A Paperback / softback by David Held

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      Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd
      Publication Date: 20/06/2006
      ISBN13: 9780745631479, 978-0745631479
      ISBN10: 0745631479

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      * Third edition of this hugely successful textbook which has proven immensely popular among students and specialists worldwide. * Provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to central accounts of democracy from classical Greece to the present and a critical discussion of what democracy should mean today.

      Trade Review
      "The great global struggles today are not over democracy versus other forms of government but over the meanings and practices of democracy themselves. There is no better critical and engaged survey of the complex histories and contemporary struggles over this deeply contested concept than David Held's third and improved edition of Models of Democracy, precisely because it is written in awareness of its own contestability."
      James Tully, University of Victoria

      "Models is the kind of established classic which both demands and merits revision every decade or so."
      David Beetham, University of Leeds

      "Everyone who has used Models will welcome this new edition. Newcomers will find a wide-ranging and reliable analysis of past and present debates about democracy and gain an understanding of what is at issue in current global arguments."
      Carole Pateman, Cardiff University and University of California at Los Angeles



      Table of Contents

      List of Figures and Tables

      Preface

      Introduction

      Part One: Classic Models

      Chapter 1 - Classical Democracy: Athens

      Political ideas and aims

      Institutional features

      The exclusivity of an ancient democracy

      The critics

      In sum: Model I

      Chapter 2 - Republicanism: Liberty, Self-Government and the Active Citizen

      The eclipse and re-emergence of homo politicus

      The reforging of republicanism

      Republicanism, elective government and popular sovereignty

      From civic life to civic glory

      In sum: Model IIa

      The republic and the general will

      In sum: model IIb

      The public and the private

      Chapter 3 - The Development of Liberal Democracy: For and Against the State

      Power and Sovereignty

      Citizenship and the Constitutional State

      Separation of Powers

      The problem of factions

      Accountability and Markets

      In sum: model IIIa

      Liberty and the development of democracy

      The dangers of despotic power and an overgrown state

      Representative government

      The subordination of women

      Competing conceptions of the ‘ends of government’

      In sum: Model IIIb

      Chapter 4 - Direct Democracy and the End of Politics

      Class and class conflict

      History as evolution and the development of captialism

      Two theories of the state

      The end of politics

      Competing conceptions of Marxism

      Part Two: Variants from the Twentieth Century

      Chapter 5 - Competitive ELitism and the Technocratic Vision

      Classes, power and conflict

      Bureaucracy, parliaments and nation-states

      Competitive elitist democracy

      Liberal democracy at the crossroads

      The last vestige of democracy?

      Democracy, capitalism and socialism

      ‘Classical’ v. modern democracy

      A technocratic vision

      In sum: model V

      Chapter 6 - Pluralism, Corporate Capitalism and the State

      Group politics, government and power

      Politics, consensus and the distribution of power

      Democracy, corporate capitalism and the state

      In sum: Model VI

      Accumulation, legitimation and the restricted sphere of the political

      The changing form of representative institutions

      Chapter 7 - From Post-War Stability to Political Crisis: The Polarization of Political Ideas

      A legitimate democratic order or a repressive regime?

      Overloaded state or legitimation crisis?

      Crisis theories: an assessment

      Law, liberty and democracy

      In sum: model VII

      Participation, liberty and democracy

      In sum: model VII

      Chapter 8 - Democracy after Soviet Communism

      The historical backdrop

      The triumph of economic and political liberalism

      The renewed necessity of Marxism and democracy from ‘below’?

      Chapter 9 - Deliberative Democracy and the Defence of the Public Realm

      Reason and Participation

      The limits of democratic theory

      The aims of deliberative democracy

      What is sound about public reasoning? Impartialism and it’s critics

      Institutions of deliberative democracy

      Value pluralism and democracy

      In sum: Model IX

      Part Three: What Should Democracy Mean Today?

      Chapter 10 - Democratic Autonomy

      The appeal of democracy

      The principle of autonomy

      Enacting the principle

      The heritage of classic and twentieth-century democratic theory

      Democracy: A double-sided process

      Democratic autonomy: compatibilities and incompatibilities

      In sum: Model Xa

      Chapter 11 - Democracy, the Nation-State and the Global System

      Democratic legitimacy and borders

      Regional and global flows: old and new

      Sovereignty, autonomy and disjunctures

      Rethinking democracy for a more global age: the cosmopolitan model

      In sum: model Xb

      Acknowledgements

      References and Select Bibliography

      Index

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