Recent developments, including anti-democratic moves by governments in Hungary, India, and Turkey and the rise of populist leaders, demonstrate the threat posed to democratic values by legal revolution and other acts committed within the confines of the system. Militant democracy, a form of constitutional entrenchment, can protect these values from the harmful influence of illiberal regimes. However, critics and proponents alike wonder whether these tactics risk undermining democracy in the process of trying to save it. Democracy despite Itself advances a liberal normative theory of militant democracy by combining American philosopher John Rawls' political liberalism with German jurist Carl Schmitt's state theory. It argues for the adoption of three constitutional mechanisms of militant democracy-explicit unamendability, political rights restrictions, and the guardianship of a constitutional court-to prevent the subversion and erosion of democracy by the abuse of legal measures. Rawls' thought provides the substantive democratic content of this theory, establishing basic liberal rights as a precondition for legitimate government. Schmitt's thought provides the militant political form, justifying the state's use of proactive militant measures to preserve the political identity of its constitution. This blending of works by two thinkers rarely regarded as complementary is a novel approach that offers a compelling vision for how liberal democracy can be protected from anti-democratic actors.

About the Author
Benjamin A. Schupmann is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Social Sciences (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, where he has worked since August 2020. Prior to that, he was an Assistant Professor at Duke Kunshan University in Kunshan, China. He obtained his PhD in Political Science (Political Theory) from Columbia University in the City of New York in 2015. He is the author of Carl Schmitt's State and Constitutional Theory: A Critical Analysis, published by Oxford University Press in 2017.

Reviews
How can democracies defend themselves against actors who use perfectly legal means such as elections to destroy democracy? This question has become urgent, and this important book gives a bold and unashamedly liberal answer to it. Anyone concerned with democratic self-defence should consider its claims. * Jan-Werner Muller, Roger Williams Straus Professor of Social Sciences, Princeton University *
[T]imely and important ... The menacing enemies of democracy are not the barbarians at the gate but those within who share none of the democratic values ... but seek to exploit the openness of electoral mobilization ... In the tradition of militant democracy, Schupmann seeks to merge modern concerns over antidemocratic subversion from within with the broad strokes of political liberalism. As ambitious as it is current. * Samuel Issacharoff, Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law *
Schupmann ingeniously grafts Schmittian insights onto Rawls's political liberalism in a brilliant argument on how democracy can best protect itself from inside subversion without betraying its spirit. * Alessandro Ferrara, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Rome Tor Vergata *
Democracy is in peril across the globe. But there is widespread trepidation about how to respond ... Benjamin Schupmann's new book offers a bracing response ... Democracy despite Itself argues that liberal values justify the active, even militant defence of constitutional democracy. Expertly engaging a range of thinkers and thorny real-world political dilemmas, Schupmann's book is a must-read for anyone interested in the fate of constitutional democracy. * Alexander Kirshner, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Duke University *



Book Information
ISBN 9780192873026
Author Benjamin A. Schupmann
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 538g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 162mm * 18mm