The Resilience of Democracy - by Joseph Livni (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book explores democratic resilience through complex systems theory, offering interdisciplinary insights into how unintended consequences and hidden interconnections shape democratic stability.

Book Synopsis

How fragile are current democracies? Joseph Livni interrogates the concept of democratic resilience through the lens of the equilibrium and stability of complex systems.
Drawing on political science, law, sociology, and psychology, this book offers diagnoses and potential solutions for preserving democracy. Scholars of democracy, particularly those focused on democratic resilience, will find value in this book not because it answers familiar questions but because it offers unanticipated insights. It demonstrates that neither the advocacy of individual actors nor the expansion of governmental authority guarantees democratic resilience, highlighting the unintended consequences of government actions and the hidden interconnections within societal systems that can disrupt stability. Ultimately, Livni argues that democracies, especially in the United States, remain resilient. This work provides scholars of law, sociology, and political science with a new framework for distinguishing between stabilizing and destabilizing actions, institutions, and structural reforms, opening a window to a deeper understanding of democratic resilience.

Review Quotes

Combining history, anthropology, epistemology, population biology, sociology, and political science with mathematics, engineering, and physics, Joseph Livni creates a provocative and interdisciplinary approach to the most important question of our times: "What leads to the dissolution of democratic societies?"
Steve Gimbel, Gettysburg College

For anyone interested in democracy, this book's perspective on the topic is unique and compelling. While many experts on constitutional democracy have focused on how democracies die, Livni's emphasis is on how democracies survive and thrive. In doing so, he uses examples drawn from the natural world and technology to study resilience as it applies to socio-political systems. He makes compelling arguments that nature, technology, and socio-political systems all follow the same basic laws. The result is a series of multidiscipline investigations into equilibrium and stability generally, and democratic societies in particular. Livni simplifies complex scientific concepts and offers a fresh perspective on an important, current topic. For anyone interested in "how democracies die" and "how democracies survive," this is a must-read!
Peter Mazzacano, Algoma University

About the Author

Joseph Livni is a former aerospace engineer who spent 34 years developing mathematical models to ensure the safety and stability of aircraft systems.