Western Europe's Democratic Age - by Martin Conway (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This book provides a novel account of the decades following the Second World War in the western half of Europe through the prism of its democratisation. Previous experiences of democracy in Europe had not tended to end well; but Western Europe after 1945 witnessed the establishment of a stable, durable, and remarkably uniform model of rather conservative parliamentary democracy. This was the product of much more than the defeat of fascism and the rejection of Communism. It rested on the construction of new forms of state authority, new policies of social and economic development, and the emergence of political forces - primarily Socialism and Christian democracy - which found a common interest in the new model of democracy. It also gained the support of the people. The broad cross-class alliance which developed in much of Western Europe behind democracy after 1945 was a gradual process, but one which rested on its combination of respect for established material interests and the emergence of new and more individualist notions of citizenship. Based on a wide range of primary and secondary material from throughout Western Europe, this is not a chronological account of the post-war era, or still less a country-by-country survey; instead, it analyses Western Europe's conversion to democracy through five analytical chapters which consider its construction, its intellectual ideas, its social culture, its Socialist and Christian democratic variants, and finally the arguments about democracy which developed during the 1960s. The book concludes with an epilogue which discusses the evolution of democracy in Europe since the 1960s"--

Book Synopsis

A major new history of how democracy became the dominant political force in Europe in the second half of the twentieth century

What happened in the years following World War II to create a democratic revolution in the western half of Europe? In Western Europe's Democratic Age, Martin Conway provides an innovative new account of how a stable, durable, and remarkably uniform model of parliamentary democracy emerged in Western Europe--and how this democratic ascendancy held fast until the latter decades of the twentieth century.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, Conway describes how Western Europe's postwar democratic order was built by elite, intellectual, and popular forces. Much more than the consequence of the defeat of fascism and the rejection of Communism, this democratic order rested on universal male and female suffrage, but also on new forms of state authority and new political forces--primarily Christian and social democratic--that espoused democratic values. Above all, it gained the support of the people, for whom democracy provided a new model of citizenship that reflected the aspirations of a more prosperous society.

This democratic order did not, however, endure. Its hierarchies of class, gender, and race, which initially gave it its strength, as well as the strains of decolonization and social change, led to an explosion of demands for greater democratic freedoms in the 1960s, and to the much more contested democratic politics of Europe in the late twentieth century.

Western Europe's Democratic Age is a compelling history that sheds new light not only on the past of European democracy but also on the unresolved question of its future.

Review Quotes

"[Western Europe's Democratic Age] had a real influence on me."---E. J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post

"An important and insightful study. . . . highly readable [and] well-written."---Julia Eichenberg, H/Soz/Kult

"An investigation of how this remarkably successful but 'consciously unheroic' transition was achieved in western continental Europe. A scholarly work of history that displays a deep knowledge of different political cultures, [Western Europe's Democratic Age] offers valuable context for today's crisis of liberal democracy."---Ben Hall, Financial Times

About the Author

Martin Conway is Professor of Contemporary European History at the University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor in History at Balliol College. He is the author of a number of books, including, most recently, The Sorrows of Belgium: Liberation and Political Reconstruction, 1944-1947.