Since the financial meltdown of 2008, political protests have spread around the world like chain lightning, from the "Occupy" movements of the United States, Great Britain, and Spain to more destabilizing forms of unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, Russia, Thailand, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Ukraine. In Democracy Disrupted: The Politics of Global Protest, commentator and political scientist Ivan Krastev proposes a provocative interpretation of these popular uprisings-one with ominous implications for the future of democratic politics.
Challenging theories that trace the protests to the rise of a global middle class, Krastev proposes that the insurrections express a pervasive distrust of democratic institutions. Protesters on the streets of Moscow, Sofia, Istanbul, and Sao Paulo are openly suspicious of both the market and the state. They reject established political parties, question the motives of the mainstream media, refuse to recognize the legitimacy of any specific leadership, and reject all formal organizations. They have made clear what they don't want-the status quo-but they have no positive vision of an alternative future.
Welcome to the worldwide libertarian revolution, in which democracy is endlessly disrupted to no end beyond the disruption itself.

In Democracy Disrupted, journalist and political scientist Ivan Krastev proposes a provocative interpretation of the "Occupy" movements that have surfaced in the United States, Great Britain, and Spain, as well as the more destabilizing forms of unrest in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

About the Author
Ivan Krastev is Chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria, and author of In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don't Trust Our Leaders?

Reviews
"The worldwide protests of 2011-2013 may have happened 'everywhere,' but did they go anywhere? Ivan Krastev argues persuasively that this was ultimately a revolution that wasn't." * Timothy Garton Ash, University of Oxford *
"A must read." * Moises Naim, Carnegie Endowment and author of The End of Power *



Book Information
ISBN 9780812223309
Author Ivan Krastev
Format Paperback
Page Count 88
Imprint University of Pennsylvania Press
Publisher University of Pennsylvania Press