A Theory of Militant Democracy: The Ethics of Combatting Political Extremism

Alexander S. Kirshner

2014

Yale University Press

How should pro-democratic forces safeguard representative government from anti-democratic forces? By granting rights of participation to groups that do not share democratic values, democracies may endanger the very rights they have granted; but denying these rights may also undermine democratic values.

Kirshner, assistant professor of political science, offers a set of principles for determining when one may reasonably refuse rights of participation, and he defends this theory through real-world examples, ranging from the far-right British Nationalist Party to Turkey’s Islamist Welfare Party to America’s Democratic Party during Reconstruction.

For more about the book see Duke Today.