{"title":"John Keane","description":"\u003cp\u003eJohn Keane’s works explore the complexities of democracy, power, and political authority with intellectual rigour and clarity. His books delve into themes such as despotism, the challenges facing contemporary democracies, and the philosophical foundations of political systems, offering readers a nuanced understanding of governance and public life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCombining elements of \u003cem\u003ePolitics \u0026amp; Current Affairs\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003ePhilosophy \u0026amp; Psychology\u003c\/em\u003e, Keane’s writing invites thoughtful reflection on the turbulent dynamics shaping modern societies. His insightful analyses are indispensable for readers interested in the theory and practice of democracy in an ever-changing world.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-shortest-history-of-democracy-by-john-keane-9781760642563","title":"The Shortest History of Democracy","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn an age of fake news and half-truths, the radical potential of democracy is more important than ever, as this nimble, illuminating history by a celebrated political theorist reveals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom its beginnings in Syria-Mesopotamia—and not Athens—to its role in fomenting revolutionary fervour in France and America, democracy has subverted fixed ways of deciding who should enjoy power and privilege, and why. For democracy encourages people to do something radical—to come together as equals, to determine their own lives and futures.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this vigorous, illuminating history, acclaimed political thinker John Keane traces its byzantine history, from the age of assembly democracy in Athens, to European-inspired electoral democracy and the birth of representative government, to our age of monitory democracy. He gives new reasons why democracy is a precious global ideal. As the world has come to be shaped by democracy, it has grown more worldly—American-style liberal democracy is giving way to regional varieties with a local character in places such as Taiwan, India, Senegal, and South Africa.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn an age of crisis, we need the radical potential of democracy more than ever. Does it have a future, or will the demagogues and despots win? We are about to find out.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Shortest History of Democracy\u003c\/em\u003e takes the ideals, practices, triumphs, and failures of democracies and braids them together into something timely, lyrical, and fresh. For cynics and idealists alike, this couldn't have come at a better time.\" - Scott Ludlam\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eContents\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePart I:\u003c\/strong\u003e Assembly Democracy\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePart II:\u003c\/strong\u003e Electoral Democracy\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePart III:\u003c\/strong\u003e Monitory Democracy\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46850384691436,"sku":"9781760642563","price":35.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/23812573482814.jpg?v=1759086571"},{"product_id":"the-new-despotism-by-john-keane-9780674660069","title":"The New Despotism","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn \u003ci\u003eAustralian Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA disturbing in-depth exposé of the antidemocratic practices of despotic governments now sweeping the world.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eOne day they'll be like us.\u003c\/i\u003e That was once the West's complacent and self-regarding assumption about countries emerging from poverty, imperial rule, or communism. But many have hardened into something very different from liberal democracy: what the eminent political thinker John Keane describes as a new form of despotism. And one day, he warns, we may be more like them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDrawing on extensive travels, interviews, and a lifetime of thinking about democracy and its enemies, Keane shows how governments from Russia and China through Central Asia to the Middle East and Europe have mastered a formidable combination of political tools that threaten the established ideals and practices of power-sharing democracy. They mobilise the rhetoric of democracy and win public support for workable forms of government based on patronage, dark money, steady economic growth, sophisticated media controls, strangled judiciaries, dragnet surveillance, and selective violence against their opponents.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCasting doubt on such fashionable terms as dictatorship, autocracy, fascism, and authoritarianism, Keane makes a case for retrieving and refurbishing the old term \u003ci\u003edespotism\u003c\/i\u003e to make sense of how these regimes function and endure. He shows how they cooperate regionally and globally and draw strength from each other's resources while breeding global anxieties and threatening the values and institutions of democracy. Like Montesquieu in the eighteenth century, Keane stresses the willing complicity of comfortable citizens in all these trends. And, like Montesquieu, he worries that the practices of despotism are closer to home than we care to admit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47432990916844,"sku":"9780674660069","price":56.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780674660069.jpg?v=1774765886"},{"product_id":"demagogues-and-despots-by-john-keane-9781761170881","title":"Demagogues and Despots","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDemocracy and despotism live closer together than you'd expect. Acclaimed political thinker John Keane reveals why that should alarm us all.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe live in troubled times, marked by a sinister trend gaining the upper hand everywhere: the triumph of despotism not only in countries like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, but also in states run by popularly elected demagogues such as Orbn and Erdoan, Netanyahu and Trump.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Keane shows why this new despotism defies the laws of political gravity. Instead of relying on fear or raw force, it fosters a strange, pseudo-democratic type of government, led by rulers skilled in winning public loyalty through government handouts, election-rigging, legal trickery, weaponised lying and talk of enemies. And, alarmingly, these leaders hunt in packs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat's so good about democracy? Keane explains that it's much more than popular self-government based on free and fair elections. Democracy is a collective insistence that unaccountable power is always dangerous, and that it's the best way to stop demagogues and despots from ruining life on our planet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette New Zealand Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47521283834092,"sku":"9781761170881","price":31.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/b262247d45c0403526619a93940fbda4.jpg?v=1776127098"},{"product_id":"thinking-about-democracy-in-turbulent-times-by-john-keane-9781399545228","title":"Thinking About Democracy in Turbulent Times","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe era when theorists could urge democrats to whistle their way through the world with an air of \u003cem\u003ephilosophical superficiality and light-mindedness\u003c\/em\u003e (Richard Rorty) is over. In a period of mounting global anxiety and widespread political unrest about democracy's future, the moment has come for more thinking about thinking, and for considering the surprising connections between thinking and democracy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThinking About Democracy in Turbulent Times\u003c\/em\u003e provocatively encourages readers to pose afresh key questions—what does it mean to think about democracy, and what exactly is thinking? It offers real-world examples of how in these troubled times, adventurous thinking about democracy can contribute in practice to new ways of rejuvenating its spirit and substance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRunning through the pages of this assemblage of lectures is a passionate belief that in these troubled times, democracy—popular self-government and a whole way of life committed to the non-violent refusal of arbitrary power—remains an indispensable planetary ideal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47934396367084,"sku":"9781399545228","price":87.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781399545228-thinking-about-democracy-in-turbulent-times.jpg?v=1783915926"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/john-keane.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}