Globalization and Democracy

Reviews / Votes

Globalization and Democracy examines the ways that neoliberal economics threatens democracy and whether there are alternative economic policies that can enhance democracy. For Rosow and George, democracy cannot simply be about voting and interest group politics but must include a strong, consistent, popular presence that not only demands social justice but also actively participates in the forging of public policies to achieve this goal. In this provocative book, Rosow and George take up studies of several countries where neoliberalism is ascendant, such as Russia, and countries where the authors find a popularly based democratic alternative in command, such as Venezuela. . . .[T]his lively, well-researched book challenges many popular assumptions about the benefits of globalization, particularly its effects on democracy. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, research, and professional collections. * Choice Reviews * In their rigorous and historically grounded account, Rosow and George demonstrate what it means to do political theory. From classical Athens to the Occupy movements, their text ranges across time and space to remind us that democracy is not liberalism and that politics is not easy. An outstanding introduction to one of the most important concepts in modern political life. -- Anthony F. Lang Jr., University of St. Andrews This challenging and stimulating work forcefully critiques the assumptions of post-Cold War democratic political theory and neoliberal economic ideology. Stephen J. Rosow and Jim George present imaginative new ways of rethinking democracy and its relationship to globalization through historical and current examples. By highlighting how promoting democracy and neoliberal economic policies follows limited and limiting agendas, they articulate a more subtle and socially relevant picture of what potential democratic possibilities might mean in the globalized twenty-first century. -- Daniel Warner, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva