願景為何沒實現？安索剖析民主五大兩難

我們要平等，卻不願放棄財富；要團結，卻不願配合他人；要安全，卻不願自由受限⋯廿一世紀的起步預吿著黃金時代的到來：經濟穩定增長、國際和平在望、科技發達——迄今，美好的期待卻破滅了。英國牛津大學比較民主學教授安索是研究現代民主國家困境的佼佼者。他生動闡明民主、平等、團結、安全和繁榮為何是集體目標也是陷阱，並提出解決對策。


Brilliant ... a must-read’ Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Why Nations Fail
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Why do the revolving doors of power always leave us disappointed? In Why Politics Fails, award-winning Oxford professor Ben Ansell shows that it’s not the politicians that are the problem, it’s that our collective goals result in five political ’traps’.

Democracy: we all want a say in how we’re governed, but it’s impossible to have any true ’will of the people’. Equality: we want to be treated equally, but equal rights and equal outcomes undermine each other. Solidarity: we want a safety net when times are tough, but often we care about solidarity only when we need it ourselves. Security: we want protecting from harm, but not if it undermines our freedoms. Prosperity: we want to be richer tomorrow, but what makes us richer in the short run makes us poorer over the long haul.

You’ve probably noticed a pattern here, which is that our self-interest undermines our ability to deliver on our collective goals. And these traps reinforce one another, so a polarized democracy can worsen inequality; a threadbare social safety net can worsen crime; runaway climate change will threaten global peace.

Drawing on examples from Ancient Greece through Brexit and using his own counterintuitive and pathbreaking research - on why democracy thrives under high inequality, and how increased political and social equality can lead to greater class inequality - Ansell vividly illustrates how we can escape the political traps of our imperfect world. He shows that politics won’t end, but that it doesn’t have to fail.
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’A meticulous study of how different societies find it so difficult to achieve widely shared goals’ Financial Times

’Incisive and gripping’ Daniel Ziblatt, co-author of How Democracies Die

’Salutary reading for the world we live in now’ James A. Robinson, co-author of Why Nations Fail