Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by Zakaria - 2003) Hardcover

Fareed Zakaria puts forth a commanding and passionate argument in favor of constitutional liberty over democracy.

As he points out, countries that rushed into democracy without first establishing institutions to secure individual freedom saw democracy degenerate rather than evolve. The world is littered with examples including Iran, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Egypt, and perhaps soon Iraq.

Zakaria views constitutional liberty, which refers to the protection of individual rights via the rule of law as enshrined in a constitution, as the necessary foundation on which to build a democracy with appropriate limits on the accumulation of power by state, church, or society.

The author presents a masterful overview of the history of liberty and democracy in the West to demonstrate that long lasting democracies emerged because constitutional liberty facilitated democracy rather than the other way around.

He illustrates how human liberty grew out of struggles between church and state, kings and lords, Catholicism and Protestantism, culminating in the Enlightenment and, finally, capitalism.

Interestingly, Zakaria's best practice recommendation for democratization is similar to the prevailing wisdom in other areas of complex development (e.g. software) - proceed incrementally, not with a big bang.

His most important prerequisite for democracy is a high per capita national income based on earned wealth (as opposed to wealth based on natural resources such as oil).

Based on the above, the author makes several bold predictions such as "Singapore will be a fully functioning liberal democracy within a generation" and "democracy will take place in China over the next few decades."

However, I must refute Zakaria's characterization of the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002 as "unprecedented" and "India's first state-assisted pogrom."

The anti-Sikh pogrom during the early days of November 1984 in Delhi and other cities is widely acknowledged to have been orchestrated by the ruling Congress Party, of which Zakaria's father, Rafiq, was then deputy leader in parliament.

This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It is a pleasure to read and contains a wealth of information and rare insight on every page.

For years I've complained about how democracy is so often confused with liberty. People seem to use the terms interchangeably, but they are very different. Liberty is the greatest state of social ordering, while democracy is just a way of picking government administrators. Finally, someone wrote a book clarifying the distinction.
In The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria also goes a step further. He makes the case that you can't have a successful democracy without a liberal order first. In fact, democracy with no liberal basis is a recipe for disaster. What's more, unbounded democracy can kill a liberal order. Zakaria expounds his thesis very well and in wonderful prose, but I have two critiques.
First is that after showing beyond a doubt how countries with no liberal history and natural resources that can prop up governments without the need for taxation (and thus popular assent), Zakaria proceeds to make the case that with a couple of years of "nation building" Iraq should be ready for democracy. It's as if he didn't read his own book. Second is that Zakaria conflates his legitimate, well-reasoned warning against unchecked democracy with an argument against free-wheeling capitalism and consumerism. The distinction he misses is that decisions made at the ballot box affect a whole society, while decisions made at the cash register affect only the individual.
But still this book is a great, engaging read. Democracy is a wonderful system, but as Zakaria clearly shows, unfettered it is a threat "at home and abroad".

This book by foreign policy wonk Fareed Zakaria presents some eye-opening but lucid observations about how too much democracy can lead to unintended consequences - especially in the hands of uneducated populations inexperienced in the tactics and mechanisms of a functional liberal democracy. He uses exellent examples. One is that of California, where direct democracy through referendums can be contradictory and leave elected officials with little room to govern effectively. The other is India, where the huge population's increasing representation at the voting booth has led to nationalistic parties appealing to the worst instincts of the underclass.

As other reviewers have mentioned, Zakaria points out the irony of the most respected US institutions being the most undemocratic ones, such as the Federal Reserve and the Military. He's right in pointing out that voters sense the pandering by politicians and don't like it.

However, the book has serious flaws, the main one being that it reeks of elitism. Like many other similar works, Zakaria harkens back to a sort of "Golden Age" of social responsibility among the elites that never really existed. His example of how the movie "Titanic" portrays an evil upperclass willing to throw the poor overboard to save themselves, contrary to historical records indicating many wealthy men willing to "go down with the ship" to save their women. He claims no one would believe the truth today, but I beg to differ. At times Zakaria sounds like the proverbial angry old man on the park bench ranting about the current state of affairs compared to "the good old days" (which never were so good).

Ultimately, he offers few solid, practical suggestions for fixing modern democracy. Broad, general pronouncements to support various unrepresentative institutions that server the greater good sounds inspiring, but he offers no roadmap to get there.

As this book demonstrates for the umpteenth time, identifying the problem is MUCH easier than identifying the solution.

Zakaria's analysis of the distintion between "democracy" and "liberty" is well done. It's not new since the point was expressly made at least a couple of centuries ago. Nonetheless, he is quite good at showing by actual example how rule of the majority can have dire effects. The meaning of the word "democracy" has become quite ambiguous in common usage virtually everywhere around the world. Ambiguity in speaking often corresponds with ambiguity in thinking. If the book does no more than clarify the distinction between ends (individual liberty) and means (democratic process)it will be a boon.

The second observation is that liberal democracy, that is, democracy that serves and protects indivdual liberty, seems to require a gestation period of moderate authoritarian (as opposed to totalitarian) rule during which appropriate legal, economic and social institutions are developed. I'm predisposed to agree, if only because I had personally come to this conclusion quite a while before reading the book.

Having acomplished the above, Zakaria turns to what should be done. Here the book becomes weaker. In international policy, Zakaria seems to advise more tolerance for mild dictators. Lee Kuan Yew is the ideal, Pinochet, Franco a few others are acceptable [...]. Being a former colony of the British Empire (North America, India, Kenya, the Antipodes . . .) is certainly helpful. The problem is that on one hand the sun has set on the British Empire, the UN is useless,and the US tax payer unwilling while on the other hand there is only one Lee Kuan Yew and the others typically carry the un palatable air of Fascism upon them. In sum there is no really palatable/practical foriegn policy approach presented.

Regarding domestic affairs Zakaria's observation is that many "democratizing" schemes that were designed to make Congress more responsive to voters instead made them more responsive to lobbyists and "special interests". Examples are campain finance reform, open committee hearings, direct election of Senators. The argument is persuasive. At the very least these should give one pause before entertaining any suggestions about "fixing" the electoral college. Unfortuneatly, Zakaria's proposed solution is to delegate more authoity to non-elected bodies of experts, the Federal Reserve Board being the ideal. This sounds good but would be more convincing if the Federal Reserve's record was not so attributable to just one person. Greenspan won't live forever. Instead of a plan to un-do mistakes, Zakaria's prescription seems to embrace the idea of a technocrat elite. This strikes me as a dubious notion.

I read this book with great intensity and interest, and, to my pleasant surprise, its line of reasoning was deep and its arguments logic and convincing. One has to be open minded and follow the author's logic to truly understand the meaning of the book, specially if you are an American or European (I am a Latin American from Panama).

I truly and completely agree with the author's thesis and conclussions: 1)Democracy is not the same as liberty (libertarians have long recognized this); 2) Democracy and Liberty only recently merged; 3) In countries with a weak tradition of liberty (that is, property rights and protection against the religious, state and social oppressions) are not good candidates for democracy.

Democracy is by definition, "the rule of the people". In countries with a lack of checks and balances, democracy runs the risk of becoming the "rule of the many against the minority", or the "tyranny of the mayority". The author explains how tyrants like Hitler came to power through the popular vote. How some dictatorships were far more tolerant and respectful of individual rights than democratic rule subsequently were. And how tyrants use the democratic process to reach power and then destroy the checks and balances to consolidate power. These events leads the author, correctly in my view, to conclude that while democracy is on the rise all over the world, liberty and freedom is in retreat. He calls this the rise of "illiberal democracy", a truly frightening prospect.

It's an outstanding book, I have read it twice, and recommend it to people with a passion for geopolitics and a reasonable understanding of current affairs. Its the best book I have read this year.

Dr. Zakaria's _The Future of Freedom_ is both brilliant and disturbing. There is much that I agree with in his analysis of democracy - that a strong and vibrant middle class is necessary in order for a genuine democracy to exist and flourish and that a free-market economy is instrumental in supporting democratic institutions (and vice-versa). However, I was disturbed by the larger argument Zakaria makes - that democratic institutions need un-democratic safeguards to protect it from the fickle will of the people.

Using examples of failed democracies around the world and across time (Nazi Germany immeadiately comes to mind), Zakaria claims that the elite: the well-educated and wealthy should rule, the better to prevent the more purlient elements of society (and the elected officials chosen by them) from undermining democracy. The disintegration of democracies in east Europe and Latin America are held up as examples of what happens without the "enlighted rule" of the elite.

This argument is not new (as Zakaria admits) - in the United States, it dates back to the founding of the nation as Adams and Jefferson fought over competing visions of who should rule. Zakaria provides new material and brilliant analysis to support his position. While I do not agree with his conclusions, it is still a worthwhile read, especially in light of our nation-building abroad and the democratic debate at home. Recommended.

Fareed Zakaria dismantles the view that democracy, in and of itself, is a cure-all for mankind's social ills. In fact, he reserves some high praise for countries like Chile and Singapore, which liberalized their economies first and their political systems later.
Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman worked closely with Chile in liberalizing their economy in the seventies and eighties and Friedman claimed the experience changed his mind about the priority of political freedom in relation to economic liberty, saying he came away realizing that economic freedom was the foundation of all other liberties.
Zakaria is not hesitant to suggest that democracy isn't applicable to every culture, an idea that is highly controversial within the borders of the United States, but that's part of what makes this book so compelling, especially for those interested in the possible dynamics involved in our current attempt to "democratize" Iraq.
Even more controversial is Fareed Zakaria's critique of the current "descent of democracy" in America. In Zakaria's view, American democracy has morphed into "a simple-minded populism" that too often values style over substance.
A lot of readers approach such public policy analyses with trepidation, but Fareed Zakaria is incredibly readable! He makes what so many people regard as "policy wonk stuff," accessible to laymen and professionals alike.
The "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad" is not just a riveting read, it's a book that couldn't be more timely.

This is an excellent account of the origins of democracy, and an informative treatise on the state of worldwide democracy, both liberal and illiberal, at the moment. Zakaria deftly talks about the history of the Western style democracy tracing its roots from the Ancient Romans, through Western Europe, and the separation of church and state. Most interesting was Zakaria's account of the rise of the bourgeoisie in Great Britain in the nineteenth century, and the political and economic power that was given to them. He contrasts this Continental Europe and shows how aristocracy and centralization hampered a similar movement towards economic and political freedom. Zakaria talks about communism, fascism, theocracies, and totalitarian societies that exist, and have existed worldwide, and he does this with authority and enthusiasm.
Zakaria also highlights the central problem of the Middle East. Many of the countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Gulf states have been so busy accumulating so much wealth through oil, that they have failed to effectively tax their people, and have therefore created illiberal, non-functioning institutions, and, therefore, governments that do not effectively represent the people. Because they haven't had to actually work and earn their wealth these counties, with their corrupt, authoritarian governments, do not feel obliged to offer their citizens anything in return. Zakaria echo's Thomas Friedman's concerns, that they are like spoiled children, who have been given momentous oil wealth, and lots of leisure time!
The author is also particularly harsh on president Musharraf's Pakistan and Russia under Vladimir Putin. He likens Putin to a "super president" which surprised me because I thought that Putin was doing quite a good job at "liberalizing" Russia, and setting it on the track to economic wealth. I can understand why he would feel the way he does about Musharraf, as the man did take control of the country in an undemocratic way through the military. Of course, maybe it was for the best when one considers the current and past volatility of the country. Much of Zakaria's work has been covered in depth by other geo-political pundits such as Noreena Hertz's The Silent Takeover, Daniel Yergin's The Commanding Heights, and of course, Tom Friedman's Longitudes and Attitudes. But the difference with Zakaria is that he also includes an in-depth analysis of the state of liberal democracy in the United States. In this age of terrorism, international free trade agreements, globalism and politicians' preferences for special interest groups, Americans are in danger of losing their democracy, as they know it. Zakaria fears that "liberal" democracy is being hijacked by "popularism" and the respected democratic institutions of the past that have helped build the country and secure the rule the law have been gradually dismantled and discredited.
Zakaria's style does at times tend to meander, and he doesn't necessarily keep to the point, but his arguments about the current state of the world, including the problems with Iraq, Latin America, and the Dictators of the Third World are indeed illuminating and enlightening. This isn't the best book on geo-politics - you need to read Noreena Hertz's The Silent Takeover for that - but it is still an interesting and provocative read.
Michael.

The premise of this book is simple: democracy is not a panacea, and too much of it may be a bane. While this may seem apparent to even the most lay of readers, it is not a truth that the world has taken to heart. Fareed Zakaria's latest book, 'The Future of Freedom' admonishes that ignoring this vital truth has hurt many nations in the past, and has even began to destroy Western democracies today.
According to Zakaria, democracy survives and thrives only in the presence of individual rights, economic posterity, and government with balanced branches of power. These are characteristics of what Zakaria dubs "constitutional liberalism."
In other words, democracy is not the starting point for a new nation. History shows us that it never was. For example, Chile, Taiwan and South Korea were all governed by undemocratic regimes in their formative years. During these reigns, a predictable court system, property rights and the rule of law emerged. The constitutional liberalism experienced by these nations necessarily gave way to democratic reforms, not the other way around.
On the other hand, those nations that attempted democracy before the presence of constitutional liberalism failed. Why? Because the absence of constitutional liberalism meant the absence both a predicatable legal system and a restricted government. The consequence was that the ensuing democracies often led to violent, turbulent politics that eventually collapsed. It was not the absence of democracy that ruined these nations, argues Zakaria. The cause was too much democracy, uninhibited by structural checks and balances, property rights and economic liberty.
The United States, too faces a unique democratic crisis today. The cause is not "crony capitalism," as many have suggested, but rather "crony democracy." The electoral system, with its recent invention of popular primaries, have seriously jeopardized the stability of the political party, since the party has little or no say in who the candidate will be. The widespread use of direct democratic referrendums in Calfornia is undermining the legislature and the courts.
What is perhaps most frightening is our devolution to a political system that has become based on polling. The restriction of political money in the name of democracy has created a plethora of PACs, each pulling a congressman towards their special interest. Since congress can no longer act behind closed doors, congressmen always vote and act with an eye over their shoulder. The result: a poll-crazed system, where politicians are a mere vehicle of public opinion. This is extremely different from the more limited democracy of days hence, when politicians could do the right thing without the looming fear of public reprisal.
The electorate used to be external to the system, which served as an essential check against mob rule. A politician was elected because the populace trusted him to make a decision. But today, with the dissemination of information and the further democritization of politics, an election result is not such an indicator of trust; rather, the polls push and pull a politician about, leading to both inaction and volatility at the same time. The subversion of a representative government to the whims of the masses is a far cry from the constitutionally liberal regime that our founders intended. Yet this is the exact path that we have been following for the last 100 years.
There is a weak criticism to Zakaria that follows the line of thinking: "Democracy is not to blame; rather, the electorate that abuses democracy is to blame." This is a shallow argument. It implies that democracy can maintain order if and only if there is a rational populace that always votes for the common good. But if there is a weak link in the history of a country, -- e.g. following a particularly traumatic event like a war or depression -- it stands to good reason that a population may panic or be tricked by a charlatan. An unbridled, unrestricted democracy will eventually turn into chaos. The view that a population will never vote for the evil guy or a suicidal plan is utterly utopian.
Zakaria ably demonstrates that no population will always be smart enough to avoid electing a bad man or instuting a bad policy. History is replete with such examples. Populists play on the fears of the ignorant and eventually they win. It just takes one election gone awry to bring a Hitler or even Allende to power, with deleterious consequences. If so-called proponents of democracy are concerned with its perpetuation, then why do they care little about instituting structures of constitutional self-regulation that prevent it from decaying?
This book is not against democracy, as some thoughtless reviewers suggest. Rather, this is a book against "crony democracy," a majoritarian democracy divorced from constitutional liberalism. Fareed Zakaria is one of the most thoughtful, incisive, and elegantly spoken commentators today. This book deserves careful scrutiny by politicians and the electorate alike.

Zakaria is a brilliant mind. I was first introduced to him by some of his writings in Newsweek. His one page articles are often insightful and offer readers new perspectives. I didn't like everything about this book but yet I cannot resist giving it a perfect 5 stars. Zakaria offers readers a new model of looking at societies. His book reminded me of Jarred Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel". Both these books tackle the topic of why certain countries and regions are more prosperous. For example, why are governments in Europe and USA so much more effective than those in the Middle East? Unlike Diamond's book, Zakaria acknowledges many factors including luck. His analysis incorporates many disciplines such as history, religion, philosophy and of course geography. Diamond's emphasis was mainly on geography. Zakaria does not pretend that he knows all the answers and most importantly offers readers issues to consider and think about. Zakaria acknowledges that increased democracy is a work in progress and may not necessarily be all bad.

Domestically, he delves into the new trends in "democratization and marketization". He cleverly expands this theme beyond politics to other topics such as law, medicine, and journalism. As a physician, I witness democratization in medicine constantly. We spend over 15% of our GDP on healthcare and yet our outcomes as judged by the country's morbidity and mortality is worse than Chile and Greece where they spend less than 7%. Democratization in medicine plays a big role in these poor numbers. The public "votes" in a sense how healthcare dollars get spent. Patients (ie: consumers) often dictate what studies and procedures should be performed.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in looking at the world in a new way.

Starting with an examination of the difference between democracy and liberty the book provides an excellent thoughtful definitions and history distinguishing between different kind of democracy. He cites challenges to democracy as terrorism, globalization, and an aging society. The book good short coverage of historical developments from ancient Greece to the present time as well as democracy involving social and cultural institutions and processes.

Zacharia examines the degree of freedom in different democratic forms including republican form and constitutional monarchy and elected dictators. He cites many cases of elected autocrats as with Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus who said "There will be no dictatorship. I am of the people and for the people." Z includes informative short histories of democracy in England, China, Japan, India with emphasis on California. His examination of the initiative process and the effect of Prop. 13 on the democratic process are the best I've read. His depiction of Italian politics is already out of date as is the situation in Egypt.

Not the common populist take on democracy, the book cites the important issue of protection of minorities. Besides politics the book covers democracy in sociology, finance, clubs, parties.
democratization of culture and lobbyists and government agencies. It's not all roses. Z gets well away from the simplistic definition of democracy as rule of the majority without sacrificing popular elections as a fundamental element as he examines the role of popular elections. He doesn't confuse egalitarianism with democracy. He appears ambivalent about the spread of democracy, describing faults and failures of spreading democracy but says that the USA should keep trying

The Islamic threat to democracy is minimized when he says that we can forget the ranting of Islamic fundamentalists. In a degree of whitewashing he says Islam is less hostile to democratic principles than many have argued also Theocracy in Iran has been discredited. There are insightful observations such as Israel providing an excuse to deflect attention from the failings of Arab states.

Z summarizes the current situation in the USA by saying that we are in an era of regulation of capital and deregulation of democracy. He quotes John Dewey "The cure for democracy is more democracy" following the current populist mantra: If it doesn't work let's do more. He is an advocate of Central Bank handling of money, blind to the current Fed under helicopter Ben being a stooge of the administration. Americans assume that government is the proper vehicle for public action is another insightful observation. He says that in America the new elite is the college educated. For all his insights and readability, Z can't resist the use of some psycho babel as with "majestic clockwork" machinery metaphor for workings of democracy.

With excellent informative takes on past and present developments Zacharia is wildly over optimistic about the future. I don't know whether he plans to run for office but Zacharia has discovered a vital precept of our current democracy: a realist can't be elected to anything.

There are arguments that have engrossed the United States since our founding. They started in Europe before that. The most explicit airing was during the fight for the confirmation of our Constitution. The case for our constitution was most forcefully and successfully presented in "The Federalist Papers." The Constitution was ratified, but the argument has not ended. It is continued in Fareed Zakarias' book.
Simply put the questions are: "What kind of government best protects individual and collective freedom?" and "In a democratic government, how are minorities protected from an oppressive majority?" There is a new question that is added here: "In a democratic government, how is the majority protected from a highly organized and well financed minority?"
As this book points out, it is a particularly important time for us to be clear about our definition of phrases like "good government," "democracy," and "freedom." We are in a new position, responsible for defining and guaranteeing those ideas for countries (or should we say a groups of people) we have occupied (Afghanistan, Iraq), in a region with no real experience in either democracy or constitutional law.

Over two hundred years ago, the question was resolved by removing much of the government in the United States from direct involvement of the people (a President selected by electors, Senators selected by State Legislators, Judges appointed for life). Since then, much has changed. Most of the changes have been by adding more democracy.
The questions raised here are two fold. First, have the changes been good for us. Are we closer to "good government"? Second, and more importantly as we develop policies and expectations for the Middle East, what does it take to establish freedom and democracy in that region?
These are important questions to ask. This book presents an argument, and suggests an approach. Agree or disagree, the argument must be raised repeatedly. It is important to get the answer right, again.

Like any important book, Fareed Zakaria's "Future of Freedom" goes back to the fundamentals. His thesis is straightforward: democracy needs to come hand in hand with constitutional liberalism -- a codified respect for individual liberties. This book raises an alert: let's not fall in love with democracy so much that we forget that the tyranny of the majority and the minority are equally disastrous and unwanted.
At the same time, however, this book makes me a bit pessimistic. The origins of constitutional liberalism in Europe and America can be traced to competition between power centers (read: limited authority). Constitutional liberalism and democracy come together through evolution, not by design. At no point does Zakaria show how design can produce this necessary symbiosis between liberalism and democracy (his idea of delegation is the only exception, but it's too short to be impressive). That's why I think the book is a good reminder, but I would like to have read more of Zakaria's thoughts on "The Way Out."

The problem here is the basic premise. There's simply no such thing as too much liberty. It's an inherent, yearning need of all humans. The natural state of man is no government at all, and any and all government/regulation is an evil, albeit a sometimes necessary one. Zakaria seems to be one of the few people who don't understand this, and that's sad. There is something chilling when someone prominent (Zakaria notably is said to have the ear of President Obama)argues in favor of putting more walls between the common man and the centers of power. We've learned how wrong-headed that approach is from the great socialist revolutions of the early 20th century, which resulted in about 108 million combined people being slaughtered. Strictly from an ethical perspective, the farther power is from the average Joe, the more oppressed that person is. Zakaria's arguments read like a wink-and-nod justification for oppression, similar to the way Nazi Germany proclaimed their people "free" even as they were cramming people into trains, or today with Chavez pretending that Venezuela is free even as he arrests anyone who dissents. Brutal dictatorships always disguise themselves in the shallowest trappings of democracy, and they get away with it using the kind of miasmic double-speak that Zakaria has used to fill his book. Truly disturbing.

Anyone who is a frequent reader of Newsweek or Foreign Affairs will have already recognized the name of Fareed Zakaria, and has already worked their mind through his somewhat different views. That too was my first reaction when I read the New York Times Book Review of this book; and for the most part, I wasn't suprised.
Zakaria is an intelligent political analyst with a gift at subtely seducing you into believing (or accepting) his sometimes extreme opinions. In his latest book he topples probably his most extreme view- that democracy is not the 'golden shrine' of governmental order.
The American Dream since the end of the 20th century has now transformed itself into globalization, and the belief that democracy is the fundamental pillar to a successful society. Zakaria challenges this idea through a series of theories, each of which include one or two examples. He has a bland way of expressing these ideas, but the very fact that he is proposing them is gutsy, and for that the book is enjoyable to read (whether in the end you believe him or not.)
If you are one who blindly quotes de Tocqueville and company without considering the potential risks inherent in democracy, this should be the first book on your reading pile. Not only will it challenge you, but, ironically enough, may (like it did to me), only make my views on democracy more credible (I now have seen the most sensible arguements against democracy, and I feel prepared to rebuke whatever comes my way). I put this book down as millions of thoughts raced through my head. Zakaria has written a wonderful nonfiction book that will make you think, and finally, have a much more well informed opinion (whatever it may be) when you are finished.

Fareed Zakaria rightly forces his readers to think harder than they usually do about the interdependence existing between freedom and democracy. In the West, constitutional liberalism, with its checks and balances, gave birth to modern democracy. However, too much democracy can paradoxically lead to less freedom. Think for instance about humiliated Germany after WWI under the Weimar Republic and its subsequent mistreatment of different minorities for specious reasons under the Nazis. Similarly, more choices can result into less accountability. Think for instance about those who fail to plan financially for old age independent of a social security system increasingly at risk of insolvency due to shifting demographics. In the U.S. and overseas, right without responsibility is usually as immoral and unjust as responsibility without right. Unelected bodies such as the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Federal Reserve, or the World Trade Organization are a necessary evil. Expertise of their respective members is judged more important than their democratic legitimacy to hopefully pursue the better good of either a human community or a society of sovereign states. These unelected officials are not held accountable to the tyranny of instant gratification that too many elected officials perceive, rightly or wrongly, among a majority of their constituents. Because unelected bodies are a necessary evil to account for human weaknesses, they should remain the exception rather than the rule. Pleading for an increase in unelected bodies, though well-intentioned, could paradoxically lead to a weakening support of the best-in-class in their respective categories.

I enjoyed this book, and I strongly suggest buying it. It is very well-written and organized. Zakaria essentially seems to suggest that highly-trained, intellectual elites are best suited to ruling some cultures in lieu of democracy. I personally believe that governments derive their authority by the will of their people, and that only through a democratic (he terms it as populist) structure can a government truly represent the will of the culture it governs. Zakaria would contend that a culture might prefer/choose NOT to have a democracy, but the hypocrisy arises in the fact that only through such a popular democratic decision could a democracy be tossed aside-as he points out NAZI Germany's election of the NAZI party and the subsequent demise of that nation's democracy. I would point out that the hypothesis of select few governing is exactly what happened there, and it is proof that democracy must be preserved despite its many shortcomings. Zakaria is very correct in pointing out that democracies do not always work, but that is more likely a reflection of the beaurocracy and litigation created to preserve the power and authority of the elite as well as a passive permissiveness of the electorate. That passive permissiveness is exactly what happened in the US in it's 2000 election when only 50% of the electorate chose to participate, and only 25% of those eligible to vote actually voted in the next President. Zakaria is completely correct in that a democracy's success is directly correlated to the participation of the people it governs. However, the arguments that appointed organizations are better suited to rule is greatly flawed and dangerous. I have yet to find any real organizations of elitist appointees-not democratically chosen-that has worked out well. In fact, every single dictatorship and beaurocratic-blocked ruling institution that I've examined has either become horrifically evil or stagnant, immobile, inflexible, and incapable of action (see also United Nations history of forceful intervention in post-WWII genocides).

"The Future of Freedom" reminds this observer of old college textbooks: FF contains some very interesting passages, some I could not possibly understand and others that may be skipped entirely. One wonders that as well known columnist, the author may be more skilled at the short, focused pieces he writes for "Newsweek" than the longer fare of this book. FA devotes some interesting pages to the political systems of other nations, including ancient ones. Much space is devoted to present day, post-Communist Russia. The high points are some poignant observations on the USA: Zakaria writes that lobbyists have so taken over Washington that many Senators and Congressmen are almost "for sale". This situation is acerbated by the decline of strong party leaders. In another day, these guys would have been called "Bosses". The increasing importance of Presidential primaries is yet an additional reason for these phenomena. Fewer and fewer delegates are selected-and controlled- by the political pros. Another is the post Watergate reforms, which greatly lessened the power of the former Committee chairmen in Congress. In the "old days", they could single-handedly determine which proposals came up for approval and could proceed to the floor for an actual vote. This reviewer likes the author's contention that a strong central Governments such as Singapore and Chile is preferable to a nation with an "elected thug" such as Venezuela. Those halcyon textbooks would have labeled them "benevolent despots". FA demands close attention, perhaps too much. It is NOT for the casual reader. Furthermore, this is a work of political science and assuredly not one of history. That is a big difference! Readers are forewarned! Serious, carnivorous poly-sci types have a green light to proceed

Constitutionalize before you democratize. This is the essential theme of this book, which is destined to become a classic similar to Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America". It is a call for constitutional democracy over Majoritarian democracy. When democracy is adopted before constitutional protections of inalienable individual rights are internalized the result is Hitler in Germany and Hamas in Palestine (both democratically elected). If the thesis of this book had been internalized by American policy makers some of the current mess in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East might have been avoided. The lessons of this book must also be internalized by Israel if Israel's constitutional democracy is to be strengthened in the future (a point I make in my own book "The Optimistic Jew"). This is also a necessity in the globalized age wherein the rapid rate of change requires the ever-growing empowerment of the individual.

This is a fantastic book. If you like international affairs, you will love it. I cannot recommend this highly enough, especially for anyone interested in geopolitical affairs and foreign policy. The book is written with the touch of a fine journalist. It is at once a breeze to read and highly informative.
Zakaria fills the book with interesting research that makes the reader feel as if he or she were participating in an advanced course on globalization, except this class is all fun. There is none of the boring homework or dreary academic reading often associated with political science courses. With a Ph.D. from Harvard, Zakaria is a scholar, but he does not write like your typical academic. His style is easy going and clear, which makes his exceptionally interesting content easier to digest.
The content varies from theories about democratic development to the history of the Catholic Church and its role in the formation of individual liberties. You will learn about why oil-rich nations like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia face difficult paths on the road to democracy. You will also learn about how popular referendums in California may have created more problems than they have solved in that state.
Is it possible to give too much power to the people? Can an autocratic leader be good for a nation? Why do political liberties differ so much from Sinapore to Egypt to the UK?Zakaria explores these and other questions in this fascinating book. Read it and you will be wiser because of it.

This is a great example of a highly acclaimed book that actually deserves its reputation. Author Fareed Zakaria's refreshing perspective explains the political and economic world in a new way. He tackles political theory with bright witty style, so you barely notice that you are traveling through intellectually dense presentations on the distinctions between democracy and liberalism, how to rechannel Islamic fundamentalism, the problem with lobbying, the decline of American political parties and the end of authoritarianism. Zakaria clarifies many of the problems relating to the downside of democracy by providing an innovative perspective on the world's most serious problems. In this creative, well-researched and thought-provoking volume, he addresses economics, politics and social institutions around the globe. We highly recommend this exceptional book, which is packed with informative, provocative material. Corporate leaders and managers who are interested in the future of liberal democracy and the challenges facing modern society should read every page.

This is a great book. It's filled with historical information on why some societies thrive and others do not. Zakaria's theories are backed up by facts that are hard to dispute. It's a warning about societies charging blindly into democracy before they are ready. He splits the word 'democracy' itself into two basic categories, illiberal democracy and liberal constitutional democracy. Each category has its extremes--too much or too little of either can send a nation into termoil.
He discusses the path of Germany in the early twentieth century and its elected Nazi party; Russia, despite its elected government, remains a corrupt, illiberal society--something Vladimir Putin seeks to change even though he's essentially a "czar"--a liberal autocrat; the Middle East and the collapse of many of its nations in the wake of Islamic fundamentalism; the recent "democratic dysfunction" of Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. He discusses California (very timely in light of the upcoming Gray Davis recall election) and how its experiments in direct democracy, legislation by referendum, have thrown the state into dire economic times. Conservatives in the state have taken advantage of the situation by trying to recall its Democrat governor (my own thought, not Zakaria's). Zakaria calls California's "extreme form of open, non-heirarchical, non-party based, initiative-friendly" political system "the closest thing to anarchy as any civilized society as aseen."
He illustrates how sometimes illiberal democracy can be a stepping stone to a constitutional, liberal, free society. Zakaria is a great source of knowledge on many subjects--economics, history, politics. This is an engaging read. I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about the world they live in.

THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM By Fareed Zakaria
Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad
I have been looking forward to writing a review for this book. I am actually proud to write this review on one of the best book I have found on the possible future of humans and the World and the people trying to govern it? All from the lack of knowledge--they just don't know or care? I believe that they have let their exaggerated ego override their common sense. Dr. Zakaria has written the story of a large nation, which has over time gotten the worst type of democracy. A democracy by the people and all decisions are primary made by the illiberal masses and special interests, which means money, with cheerleaders leading them.
I will use a description of a pure democracy to mean that everything and everyone is voted on. We have carried it a step further and appointed several people in the administration who are not democratic and depend upon the elite meaning people with money to tell them what to do. This is not the type of people that our constitution meant.
This was not the intent of the people who wrote the constitution. We would elect intelligent people and let them make the day-to-day decisions, which would keep the nation on an even keel. The USA was governed this way for nearly 4 centuries with the type of democracy. We had an excellent democracy that worked and what is more we were thought well of, and a country with a political system to emulate most of this time.
Dr. Zakaria has a very good brain and is using it to advantage by writing this a wonderfully detailed book on what is happening to the United States in the 21 century. He had even written quite a bit on the other countries and the United Nations, which was in my opinion, is very perceptive. He attempts to come up with a solution at the end of the book, and it might work if he could get it tried.
There are a lot of humans who are good at classifying history after it has passed or at lease telling us why something happened after the event or events have long passed. It is like the revolution in France in 1789, which left the country with a pure democracy, and no leaders. But there will be very few or no one around to speculate on the history of this event if we don't stop what is happening.
If I were to try to put his book in as few a words as possible and to clarify, he says is, what's happing to the World, as we know it, I would say, "debt and corruption"! The people are being taught to make money and forget moral values, or their not being taught anything about the moral ethics that meant so much to our parents and our ancestors.
Dr. Zakaria has written a very good book on what has happened to the USA and is happening to the rest of our small World.
Although, he has not blamed anyone for what is happening he really shows that the World required a small push in the direction that he writes about to get in the trouble it's in although he does not say this. He blames our times in the USA on our condition. Mr. Zakaria's book does not say this, but in other words, the humans who were leading us were not thinking or maybe they were thinking too much about money? Maybe we should take his book as a warning to the rest of the World and to the United Nations.
This is not the way democracy is supposed to work? It is surely not the type of government that every country should have. The thinking humans have got to become more active in democracy countries. They should at least spend as much time thinking at the humans who put money and power ahead of everything. This shows what happens when the thinking people who have ethics get lazy. We need a UN described below.
If we could find the right humans, they could put us on the right path. But they would have to be completely selfless and dedicated to their job as well as being very intelligent and charismatic. We could use Dr. Zakaria ideas as a good start. Where are these humans? They could be made of several humans with one in charge and the aid of Artificial Intelligent in a very large and fast computer with several interfaces to the Network. The Nations in the World would be tasked to send in generated reports periodically so that they could be guided in the direction the World needed.
Dr. Zakaria wrote a book, which should be used by schools, and universities to assure that we have a good democracy, as it was intended and guided by the correct people who should be tested on their ability and their validly. By validly I mean honestly. Over the years the USA and the rest of the world has to balance the budget of a good life and money.

I have studied this book for quite a while and if I had more time and room to write there is a lot more I would like to say. This is the one book I find worth 5 stars for the information that it provides.
Roger L. Lee

As Washington's rhetoric regarding America's position on Iraq and the Middle East has revealed, democracy promotion will be a staple in U.S. foreign policy for years to come. But while democracy continues to be hailed as a panacea to everything from terrorism to abject poverty, it is important to note that, prosperity has not always attended the rise democracy.

One reason why democracy has had mixed results, according to author Fareed Zakaria is because many countries practice "illiberal democracy." This imporant distinction offers insight into why so many African countries, vast swathes of eastern Europe, and a host of Latin American countries have languished despite boasting "elected" officials.

The problem is that, while good governance is of especial significance, elections cannot salve the wounds wrought by inadequate institutions nor will it replace the essential role that a credible constitution plays.

Take America for instance: our strength is not necessarily derived from our elected officials in Congress who, through a combination of redistricting and forging connections with an alarming number of lobbyists have reduced elections to mere formalities. (In fact, according to Zakaria, the Federal Reserve and the Supreme Court are two of America's most fabled and highly respected institutions yet neither is democratic in the traditional sense). Clearly, democracy without the necessary companion institutions rings hollow.

Although I question some of his assumptions --including the notion that economic development must nessecarily preceed democracy and that somewhat liberal authoritarian governance is more preferable to illiberal democracy--I still recommend this book as Mr. Zakaria is one of the most accomplished and well respected foreign policy analysts of his generation.

"The Future of Freedom" is a difficult book to review, in part because the author hedges his bets. The book contains many fragments of wisdom, but it also conveys one Big Idea: the world suffers from excess democracy. In the words of the author, the book "is a call for self-control, for a restoration of balance between democracy and liberty. It is not an argument against democracy. But it is a claim that there can be such a thing as too much democracy-too much of an emphatically good thing" (p. 26). In the twentieth century, America fought to make the world safe for democracy. "As we enter the twenty-first century, our [America's] task is to make democracy safe for the world" (p. 256).
The author begins by explaining that democracy and liberty are not synonyms: it is possible to have one without the other. Democracy is universal suffrage and majority rule. Liberty is freedom of speech and assembly, the right to own property and other human rights. A majority of an electorate can deny rights to minorities, producing an 'illiberal democracy.' And it is possible to have liberty without democracy in a 'liberal autocracy'. In Western Europe it is a fact that liberty (freedom of speech, rule of law, and other human rights) predated democracy. For centuries, universal suffrage was not even a distant goal in liberal Europe, and it was common to deny voting rights to slaves, women, minority ethnic groups, illiterates, the indigent and those without property. A more recent example is Hong Kong, whose residents enjoyed liberty (rule of law) without voting rights, for the British Crown Colony was ruled by a Governor appointed in London.
Liberty trumps democracy, so liberal autocracy is preferred to illiberal democracy. But, how does one move from illiberal democracy to liberal government? Zakaria provides little guidance, other than recommending that government officials be appointed rather than elected to office. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, writing in the 6 October 2003 issue of The New Republic, questions the wisdom of moving away from electoral democracy:
"There is ... a genuine loss of political freedom and restrictions of civil rights in even the best-performing authoritarian regimes, such as Singapore or pre-democratic South Korea; and, furthermore, there is no guarantee that the suppression of democracy would make, say, India more like Singapore than like Sudan or Afghanistan, or more like South Korea than like North Korea."
Zakaria seems to concur when he writes (p. 251) "In general dictators have not done better ... than democrats-far from it. Most dictators have ravaged their countries for personal gain. Scholars have asked whether democracy helps or hurts the economic growth of poor countries and, despite many surveys, have come to no conclusive answer." Immediately, however, Zakaria adds "But over the past fifty years almost every success story in the developing world has taken place under a liberal authoritarian regime. Whether in Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Chile, Indonesia, or even China, governments that were able to make shrewd choices for the long term were rewarded with strong economic growth and rising levels of literacy, life expectancy and education." He specifically admonishes India, which "for all its democratic glories ... has slipped further and further behind on almost every measure of human development".
Zakaria assumes there is a trade-off between liberty and democracy: more liberty can be obtained by sacrificing democracy. In reality, liberty and democracy most often go together. Democratic governments tend to be more liberal, with more respect for human rights, than authoritarian regimes. This is not an accident, for democracy without freedom of speech and freedom of assembly is not an 'illiberal democracy', it is a sham democracy where elections are meaningless.
Zakaria ends his book acknowledging "democracy, with all its flaws, represents the 'last best hope' for people around the world" (p. 256). This statement is not controversial. Controversial are his claims that there is excess democracy in the world and that the best hope for developing countries is a 'liberal autocracy' to prepare them for democracy.
Fareed Zakaria was born in India, educated at Yale and Harvard universities, and writes well, with exceptionally clear, lively prose. This book is an expanded version of his seminal Foreign Affairs essay "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy" (November/December 1997).

Whenever I see Delacroix' Liberty Leading The People on the jacket of a book, I freeze--must read, more than repressed orality, genuine revolutionary fervor. But then again, I read somewhere most of the hotheads in the picture went to become stock brokers. Hmm, Marx's bourgeois revolutionaries. We should hope at least Dr. Fareek is right up there on the barricades. However, noticing Gress' From Plato to Nato in his bibliography, I suspect a 'fix' on democracy courtesy of the neo-conservative thinktanks. Don't be fooled by such nonsense. Did they fool Dr. Fareed, or is he one of them?
Democracy arose, was revived, because such as Rousseau focussed on equality. That's that. Sometimes it takes, sometimes the form misfires.
If the author is referring to the need to find ways to implement democracy, that is one thing. But in the American case he seems to blame the public for the triumph of the special interests who have gutted real democracy. Blaming the victim.
Gress' book seems the source of this book's sophistical conservatizing distinction of democracy and liberty, from the attempt in Gress' book to cashier the Greeks and find the birth of freedom in the Romans, Germanics, and the Christian tradition. All this in the critique of the 'Grand Narrative' purloined from the postmoderns. One feels little gratitude for postmodernists finally, as we find the Pakistani dictator Musharaaf endorsed in the nagging against 'too much democracy'. A bit convenient. Noone quite has the nerve to advocate oligarchy by declaring freedom a modernist metarnarrative delusion, the Grand Narrative. But this book seems to come close. I hope that is not unfair.
In any case, this work is challenging to think through the issues, and makes a number of useful points on the flaws of 'democratic institutions', but is threatened by incoherence, in the middle of a series of otherwise useful discussions. It is interesting at least for demonstrating that our terms of political philosophy can indeed go into free fall, and start wandering from their moorings in the hustling fixes of 'interested' parties. We cannot make complacent use of these terms, and need to study their history carefully indeed. There is no magic, as the far left obviously discovered most disastrously, in invoking a term, and the realizations of democracy require creative history. That said, a spade is a spade.
The historical emergence of democracy requires a general concept of universal history, and this modern thought has lost, as it huddles near the very few classic realizatons of the form, confounded by its inability to replicate that evolution. Then we can perhaps distinguish the differences of Rome and Greece that confuse the analysis. But to praise Romanism for its liberty in a dismissal of the Greeks,a la Gress, seems to me unhelpful, though nice work by the neo-conservatives with their conceptual minefields designed to confuse the next generation.
Perhaps that is Dr. Fareed's real point, and excuses the fearful manipulations of concepts that foretell only a reluctance toward its own theme. Either one trusts the people or one does not, and without democracy it is sheer distortion to speak of liberty.
But this issue of 'liberty' in the book is reasonable enough up to a point, if we consider the foundational republicanism required for democracy to emerge. The parallel emergence of republicanism and democracy (contrast, Jefferson, Madison, Tom Paine, then the Jacksonian era)is indeed the potential sore point for those who come later and attempt to follow the natural evolution of history with the unthinking imitations. But in the final analysis, democracy means what it says, and to put off doing things right until some magic moment arrives after the blessed tutelage of reactionaries makes no sense, and reminds one of the ironically similar confusion in Marx's term 'dictatorship of the proletariat': democracy, but not just yet.
There is a lot more to this book than this.
One thinks of a work such as Miller's Rousseau, Dreamer of Democracy, recording the moment when the term 'democracy' was up in the air, before its crystallizaton in electoral form.
Consider the irony of the conservative attacks on Rousseau for latent totalitarianism. The wheel turns, comes full circle.

`The Future of Freedom' is a provocative book, arguing convincingly that our task is to protect the world from democracy.
America did become great because its system of democracy is more about protecting the minorities than empowering the majority. But this has evolved over 200 years with many amendments to the Constitution and liberal judiciary. African Americans for example, as slaves had no rights, got their freedom and only after the enactment of civil rights they could feel protected. Once they are free and protected, should the minorities have any special obligations? Arab Americans for example are now concerned about being targeted for investigations. Shouldn't they take active measures to weed out the bad elements themselves?
What happens if the protection afforded to the minorities in a democracy allows them to enrage the majority by their activities? If a Muslim comes to the Bible Belt in the South and declares openly that Christians will burn in hell for calling Jesus the Son of God, would it not help make Christians less liberal?
India is also a case in point. Hindu-Muslim conflict is worsening according to the book because of the Hindu fundamentalist government (BJP). Percentage of people voting in India has gone up from 45% to 70% and this too much of democracy has resulted BJP winning the elections. What goaded these people to come to vote in record numbers? Is it perhaps the security that was afforded to the minorities by the Nehru regime, without any responsibilities? Would it not be irresponsible for the Muslims to denigrate openly what Hindus consider holy? Fareed Zakaria calls Rama, who many Hindus believe God incarnate, a mythical figure. As a member of minority community growing up in India during the Nehru regime, he has gotten used to insulting Hindus, knowing fully that he is protected by the government. Zakaria would not dare to call Adam, Abraham or Moses as mythical characters.
I agree that security of the minorities is extremely important in a democracy. They should have responsibilities also. I wish Zakaria, a great thinker that he is comes up with what the minorities should do to sustain a liberal democracy.

The book is very well motivated and written, with a history of democracy and the current state. It made a very interesting read.
The author draws non-trivial conclusions on when the country has to enter a state of being fully democratic with examples of Singapore, India and USA. Other interesting facts which people tend to forget also makes an interesting read - Germany democratically elected Hitler / Citizens of USA followed a pseudo democracy where only the cream were allowed to vote and women were not allowed to vote till recently. A lot more intriguing and well-researched facts present in the book.
The author draws excellent conclusions on the per-capita income of nations and the success/failure rate of democracy. This theory holds water for most countries, except for a countable few like India. The author also explains the reason for the anamoly. If the reader is interested in knowing the effect of "too much of democracy" which is discussed in the book, he/she can see what happened in California in 2003 recall elections. (This book, and the critiques on the California's direct/by-people policy making were written before the talk of recall elections).
Last, but not the least, the author is in capacity to comment on the future of democracy by becoming the youngest "Editor-in-chief of International Affairs" for Newsweek.

Fareed Zakaria's The Future Of Freedom is a timely exposition on many subjects of current concern in this era of regime change. As scary as it sounds at first, Zakaria makes a solid case for NOT shoving a recently freed country immediately towards one person, one vote. He stresses the need for a country that wants to be a good liberal democracy to start with constitutional liberalism (protecting individual liberties, establishing the rule of law, and setting up a good system of checks and balances) before having free and fair elections, lest that country end up as an illiberal democracy with a freely elected despot as a leader. Zakaria uses historical examples from all over the planet and back 200 years and more. I thoroughly enjoyed The Future Of Freedom and recommend it highly, especially to people that think that nation building only means getting folks to the first election.

Zakaria hit this one out of the ballpark. All the 5-star reviews are right. This book makes you think about the historical role of democracy in nations around the globe and how each democratic government must be unique in order to fit with the society it governs. This thesis is then extended to consider what role, if any, the USA should play in the development of democracy around the world. Zakaria suports his arguments with a multitude of historical data, and he states his ideas so convincingly and thoughtfully that you will first wonder why you hadn't considered the ideas before, and second why this man isn't running our country in one form or another. He should be leading the State Department (no offense to the current Secretary of State).

Dr. Zakaria's argument that democracy does not necessarily equate to freedom or liberty comes as a revelation. Democracy is merely a means to an end not an end intself. That end is constitutional liberalism. Equally important is Dr. Zakaria's argument that institutions dealing with highly technical issues such as tax policy should be shielded against the democratic process. He cites the independence of the Federal Reserve and the Supreme Court from the electorate as the main reason behind their effectiveness. This book will certainly shape the future debate about democracy.
Although Dr. Zakaria presents a powerful thesis he sometimes slips and makes absurd statements. For example in his chapter about Islam he says:
"Quranic condemnations of usury and gambling, the dietary restrictions, the requirement for fasting - are all similar to precepts in the bible. But Christians live in societies that modernized politically, economically, and socially, and , along the way adapted their faith... The Bible still condemns masturbation, usury, and the wearing of woven cloth; Christian societies just no longer see it as an authority on these matters."
Does Dr. Zakaria mean that Muslims should abandon the restrictions that their religion puts on the drinking of wine and the consumption of pork if they are to achieve a liberal political system? Should they abandon the mandatory fasting during the month of Ramadan? Should they abandon the regulations imposed on immoral sexual behaviour? This is simply absurd and has nothing to do with the determination of the type of political system that a country adopts. (For the record, unlike Christianity, Islam does not ban the wearing of woven cloth).
Dr. Zakaria's background as a journalist may be to blame for some of these simplistic remarks. Like Thomas Friedman before him in the "Lexus and the Olive Tree", there is a sense of fluffiness and amateurism. It just does not have that extra something that distinguishes a masterpiece from a merely good book.
Ignoring such slips, the book fails to provide a framework in which the democratic system could be adjusted to address its inherent flaws. For this reason I do not consider this book ground breaking but rather a precursor for a much more powerful and revolutionary book. Expect such a book to pop up within the next ten years and expect it to have an impact akin to that of "The Wealth of Nations" or "The Communist Manifesto".

Zakaria has a clear and well-supported point to make. He points out that we have sometimes fallen so deeply in love with democracy, which he defines as linking political power to election results, that we have lost sight of the importance of what he calls constitutional liberty. By constitutional liberty, Zakaria means those features that narrow the range of majority rule, such the Bill of Rights, the rule of law generally, governmental structures such as checks and balances or federalism, and non-governmental power centers covered by the term "civil society." Consequently, we have often cheered the holding of elections in countries that lack constitutional liberty, such as Bosnia, Russia or Indonesia, while chastising countries putting constitutional liberty into place without elections, such as South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s. In the long run, Zakaria argues, countries with constitutional liberty are likely to develop into full-blown democracies akin to the United States a la South Korea or Taiwan, whereas countries that hold elections without constitutional liberty are likely to descend into what he calls "popular autocracies," which resemble dictatorships but where the dictator submits to election on occasion.
The biggest problem comes halfway through the book, when he runs out of things to say about his basic thesis and turns his attention to domestic politics. He tries to attribute many current problems in America to our mistaken elevation of democracy over the restraints of constitutional liberty. But he cannot do so by maintaining his definition of democracy as the holding of elections, for elections have not changed that much over the years except for a few features like popular referenda that Zakaria harps upon. To adjust, Zakaria changes his definition of democratization in this portion of the book to cover nearly all of the ways in which power, not only political but also economic and cultural, is being decentralized. Along the way, he assails such widespread phenomena as the decline of the WASP elite, mass participation in capital markets, campaign finance reform legislation, and the decline of elite literature in favor of popular television.
As should be evident from this list, however, he has moved far beyond his initial thesis. He assumes and asserts that these other phenomena grow out of our worship at the altar of popular will, but it seems wildly unlikely that all these changes in realms far removed from politics stem from a preference in political philosophy. Moreover, Zakaria largely ignores what seems a much more plausible link. All these changes appear at first glance to stem from the fact that technology and the growth of markets have given individuals access to ever increasing information and an ever wider array of choices. People are simply not as dependent as they used to be upon the opinions of elites, whether in terms of what entertainment to enjoy, what investment to make or what politician to vote for. Consequently, no single person or group can have the sort of sway that Maxwell Perkins had over American literature in the 1920s, or that stockbrokers had in the 1950s, or that political party bosses had before the rise of television.
Not all of these changes have been unadulterated improvements. Good ideas about how to ameliorate the harms arising from these changes would be heartily welcomed. But Zakaria's argument that we can somehow avoid those harms by remembering to place political limits on the will of the majority does not get the job done. Only by properly diagnosing the causes of the problem could he come up with a plausible cure.

There were two critiques that i read. I think the reason they misinterpret this book is that he is addressing both liberal...and illiberal democracy. Not just the "generic" DEMOCRACY which can be either liberal, illberal or a combination.
One argument is that Zakaria started out with a premise and tries to find evidence to support it. I think this is a bad critique against the book, because obviously Zakaria has come to a conclusion after studying the subject of "democracy". So when he puts down his arguments for his conclusion, it will necessarily support his analyzed understanding of the problems with democracy. This does not lessen the premise of the book rather it works for it. They don't argue with his statement that democracy is not inherently good, because his evidence supports his claim. The other argument the first critic makes is - "Another weak point being made is that "in numerous new democratic processes, the elections serve not as a guarantee of liberty, but a legitimization of tyranny". I believe he is at best over simplifying and at worst completely wrong". The critic goes on to say that either the democracy is in name only or it worked as it should. Zakaria never said that it wasn't democratic, what he said is that in many cases democracies end up legitimizing tyranny. So how is this point an argument against the statement made by Zakaria. It isn't oversimplyfying anything, it just states what has been observed by political scientists and others collecting data for well over 100+ years.
The main critique by the second critic goes along the line that Zakaria is wrong is suggesting that democracy needs strong controls like a good constitution. He claims that the solution is good people rather than good laws. It's absurd to hope in "good people" as a control on democracies going awry rather than having the conventional checks and balances along the line of what the United States has. While it may seem "obvious" as he put it, doesn't make it so because there are too many examples where good people alone weren't enough to secure a democracy where there is also liberty. Once again Zakaria main point is that democracy alone will not lead to liberty. He maintains that a strong constitution and check and balances are what's necessary for democracy to succeed.

Zakaria's central argument is that democracy and liberty have become inappropriately conflated. This is a powerful concept and Zakaria does a good job of showing the reader examples from the founding of the United States and the French Revolution through to the present day how distinct and indepdantly variable the two in fact are. I applaud Zakaria for making this argument; as he points out it isn't a new one but to our modern ears it certainly sounds radical.

Unfortunately Zakaria has little to offer beyond this insight. The book rambles on through example after example, bolstering the initial claim but failing to add depth to the hypothesis. Finally moving on, Zakaria looks back at American history. He contrasts the good old days of ruling elites (professional as well as political), secure in their power and making decisions for the common good, with the present day of government by referendum and opinion polls. Free speech and excessive democratization, have, according to Zakaria, led to the inevitable result of special interests wielding excessive power. Robert Putnam's claim of a 40% decline in our social capital since the 1960s is unapologetically cited. Zakaria prescribes putting power in the hands of organizations that are open but not directly under the control of the electorate.

In my mind, Zakaria falls short. The central argument about democracy and liberty is convincing and the conclusion provacative. But the book fails to make the connection between the two. It reads like a series of anecdotes rather than a logical progression. Key questions, such as why special interests inevitably take hold in a highly democratic system or how to avoid the down-sides of the power structures America used to have are dismissed with little more than cursory hand-waving.

This is very likely the shortest and most complex interpretation of the benefits and drawbacks of modern democracy. Zakaria argues convincingly that democracy is unlikely to survive without a brilliant constitution. Democracy is examined as a complex relationship between government infrastructure, private enterprise, the rule of law, and the citizenry. The point is that there are critical requirements for durable democracy other than simply holding elections; Zakaria makes excellent examples of failed (or failing) states whose people democratically elect demagogues and fanatics pretty regularly. The weakness of such states, Zakaria believes, is caused by a failure to embrace constitutional liberalism.

For the last eighty pages or so, Zakaria lays out the trouble with democracy in the U.S., making clear that real progress in policy requires a different time-frame than your average election cycle. He makes excellent points about the decline of political parties; the democratic overdose in California; the marketization of the media (and pretty much everything else), and he presents a very strong case for the protection of decidedly undemocratic institutions (the Supreme Court, among others).

In the paperback edition he's got an afterword with a few policy recommendations on how best not to screw up Iraq, all of which are impressively thoughtful.

The book is excellent reading for anyone willing to consider that freedom and democracy are not really the same thing.

"The Future of Freedom" is worth reading if only because it calls into question one of our most unexamined assumptions: that democracy is inherently good and that more democracy, necessarily, is better.
Zakaria highlights many examples, the most compelling of which may be post-soviet Russia. Vladimir Putin is a democratically elected president who censors the press, withholds the salaries of judges he dislikes, hires and fires regional governors, and represses the business class, making them wealthy but politically powerless. The effect has been to concentrate power in the executive and prevent the rise of an independent judiciary, a free press or an independent business class that could challenge his czar-like power. It is a system without respect for the rule of law, minority rights, and without the checks and balances that are necessary for a liberal (in the classical sense, apart from American political parties) society.
Compare this with China, where an unelected one party state has joined the WTO, promised to protect property rights, promoted a more independent judiciary and created an expanding entrepreneurial middle class (at least on the pacific coast). The theory holds that this middle class will help promote economic and legal reforms over time, so that they can protect their property and enforce contracts. These reforms will gradually be introduced and elections (presumably) will follow generations after liberal institutions are built and established.
Zakaria argues that elections without liberal institutions (a free press, an independent judiciary, the protection of property rights, an independent business class etc.) can lead to ethnic and religious politics, tyranny and less freedom. Milosevich and Hitler both capitalized on ethnic and religious hatred spawned by war torn nations that were deeply illiberal, and both won elections because of it.
This has obvious implications for the future of Iraq after American troops leave. It also is a warning to those who now call for "Iraqification" and elections by the next summer.
Perhaps because of our post 1960's, anti-elitist culture, "undemocratic" has become four letter word. Factory workers, secretaries, doctors and bank vice presidents will all label themselves as "middle class". While this populism has many benefits, we fail to see that a popular, democratic choice can be uninformed and awful.
In a sense, the book is about semantics. It is a needed call to change our ultimate goal, both here and overseas, from "democracy" to "constitutional liberalism", of which elections are only one part. I don't think the change is as daunting as Zakaria believes. When we talk about "democracy" in conversations with friends, or when politicians and pundits speak of it, I think we all mean liberalism. We recognize the difference between Russia and China but lack a vocabulary to express it, for fear of sounding "undemocratic" or neo-colonial in our support for liberal autocrats.
A new vocabulary is now required because we have confused elections with freedom. Zakaria's brief book is a well argued, and badly needed, counterpoint.

That democracy is the worst form of government except for all its alternatives is a frequently heard boast. Zakaria's book is an extended analysis of democracy's grounds for humility. His main distinction between the constitutional libertarian and the enfranchisement elements of democracy serves as the basis of his analysis. Free elections don't necessarily lead to individual liberties, much less to efficient and equitable solutions to social problems. Zakaria shines the light of his analysis on many current international and domestic issues from nation building in Iraq to the recall election in California, always with brilliant effect. The only reservations I have are minor. The scope of his endeavor is bound to betray areas where his expertise attenuates. The example that jumps out at me is financial, where he lumps the development of stock mutual funds with money market funds, implying that the former derived from the latter. Also, the book could have profited from better proofreading. More than one time a sentence that requires "it" reads "is." Nevertheless, its combination of incandescent intelligence and mature judgement is a rare contribution.

Zakaria has written a book that is short, easy to digest and full of interesting ideas. His writing style is light and easy to follow. However some of his research is also on the light side. His version of history is full of platitudes and conventional wisdom and short on solid thinking and research. His conclusions about the Middle Ages and Islamic cultures are interesting but dubious. He is at his best when analyzing the recent and the superficial: pop culture, evangelical religion and the news media.
Even though his premises are weak, and his arguments are suspect; his conclusions are interesting and may have some merit (although probably not for the reasons he suggests). If you get tired of his over-simplified "Newsweek" view of world events and politics skip ahead to the concluding chapter, "The Way Out" for some ideas that are worth thoughtful, serious consideration. Unfortunately, the thoughtful, serious consideration will have to come in some other book, probably by some other author.
The book makes for fun non-fiction summer reading. The wealth of ideas and the simplicity of expression would make "The Future of Freedom" an interesting selection for reading and book discussion groups.

This is an excellent book about the essential underpinnings of foreign policy. Most foreign policy decisions implicitly rely on an answer to the question: "What is good government?"
Zakaria argues that Americans are apt to focus on democracy as the ultimate judge of regimes and determine foreign policy on that basis. Using examples from his wide knowledge of current affairs and history, Zakaria illustrates the problem with that standard: democracy is a means to an end, not an end in itself. In a clear and effective argument, he spells this thesis out.
My only complaint is that he carries this thesis a bit far in chapters on populism in America, where, he argues, too much democracy has hurt our own government. It would also be interesting to know more of to what he attributes the unwise emphasis on democracy. Perhaps, democracy, unlike liberalism, sounds value-neutral (even if it isn't), making it a tempting substitute in the quagmire of foreign policy debates.

There are few adjectives that could do justice to the sheer briliiance of this book. It starts by charting a chronological history of the birth and development of democracy and then relates it to our time. It dispels a lot of Myths about democracy explaining very profound realities that we can relate to in everyday living. The narrative is simple and the ease with which he puts it all together - not losing detail and yet holding your attention at all times, makes reading this book an especially fullfilling experience.
Whereas the points beeing made in this book may have been made elsewhere, the sheer "completeness" of this work and the remarkable illustrations to support each argument is unprecendented. For instance the realation between the Per capita Income of a state to its chances of having a successful stint with democracy is fabulous - but then again so is every other argument. As a reader you feel you are taken on a enjoyable ride through a wide ranges of topics - and yet there seems to be an underlying "thread" which keeps it all in context the author never losses.
If you are interetsed in current affairs, just go ahead and read this book you will not be dissapointed. If not i suggest you read the following article href=[...]
its one of the authors best. If you like it - you will like this book.

The U.S. television comedy show "Saturday Night Live" once presented a skit about a television quiz show in which the winning answers to factual questions were determined by popular vote of the studio audience. The bewildered contestants eventually realized that the winning answers were seldom the correct answers. Today, news media report the results of public opinion polls, with questions like "Do you believe life on earth evolved naturally?", as if the results determined the facts of the matter.
The Twentieth Century saw the collapse of fascism and communism and the triumph of democracy and capitalism. The United States has reached a position of economic and political prominence unequalled in world history. Yet, much of the world resents American hegemony and a substantial portion of the world's population sees the U.S. as the single greatest obstacle to world peace. Political apathy permeates the United States despite genuine attempts to enfranchise all segments of the population. Many social critics see a broad "dumbing-down" of western society and culture. The political left and right argue about who is to blame.
The Greek philosopher Socrates stated that democracy was at once the best and worst of political systems. With the demise of the Greek city-states, two millennia lapsed before democracy returned as a viable political system. The success of democracy in the past two centuries is unparalleled. We have elevated the concept of democracy to the sanctity of eternal goodness. In the United States, we virtually worship freedom of speech, yet neither left, right, nor middle dare challenge the unblemished virtue of democracy. Perhaps we have overlooked something.
Dr. Fareed Zakaria is the editor of "Newsweek International" and the former managing editor of "Foreign Affairs." Zakaria is an Indian Muslim who grew up in Bombay (now Mumbai), but graduated from both Yale and Harvard. In "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad," Dr. Zakaria dares to suggest the antiquated, contrarian, and highly unpopular notion that democracy itself may be to blame.
Dr. Zakaria explores a panorama of the world's social and political problems in a search for root cause. Few readers will agree with all of Zakaria's conclusions, but his analysis raises profound question about the direction of our institutions. The fresh and journalistic prose engages readers who may normally eschew social commentary. (I can forgive the sentence without a verb and other minor abominations.)
What the good doctor fails to address in this book is the equitable distribution of power and wealth. Zakaria states that the democratic process will inevitably resolve this impasse, but that without order and prosperity, the process cannot work. An equal share of an empty pot feeds no one.

This book offers a fresh and clear perspective on what democracy and government means to us in the United States and how to go about exporting it to other countries. That said, the book's discussion of the role of elites, capitalism, the rule of law and property rights in early America contributed to America's economic success and stable government is dramatically and troublingly flawed and misleading. As an example of how early US was undemocratic, he mentions that Black Americans did not get the vote formally until 1870 and not effectively in the South until 100 years later. How about the fact that Africans in America were a lucrative form of property? How did that shape the economic success and course of governmental history in the US? To fail to mention this crucial factor is a major flaw in an otherwise careful analysis and based on the rest of the book I think Zakaria is capable of better. The same point can be made about his discussion of Africa's economic failure. He speculates that lack of coastal land suitable for ports and lack of navigable waterways meant that trade did not flourish in Africa. How about the immense relocation of millions of Africans through the SLAVE TRADE? That sounds like trade to me. Please read Anne C. Bailey's African Voices for a thoughtful and creative discussion of what the slave trade meant to Africa and Africans.

This book makes an important contribution to understanding that democracy is about balancing power not merely about everyone gets a vote, but our discussions of what needs to be in this world must at least accurately consider what has been.

Zakaria points to a very important issue that sometimes eludes romantic democracy promoters: dictators sometimes come to power in polls! Yet, does he define the phenomenon right? As a political scientist, I used to teach democracy. The basic 'minimalist' definition says, democracy, to put it briefly, is free elections plus concomittant political rights and civil liberty. What he calls 'illiberal democracy' has to be called authoritarianism. If the book is titled 'the rise of authoritarianism' then all the democracy-bashing goes in vain. Yes, elections without rights breed dictators, but this is NOT a democracy.
Then, the author brings some questionable examples to justify his case. For some reason, he considers former Kyrgyz president Askar Akaev, ousted in the recent tulip revolution, an example of freely elected authoritarian leader. Not true. He was NEVER freely elected. Akaev was, at some point of his career, an example of enlightened autocrat - that is why West liked him - but then, enlightenment faded.
Seemingly most irrefutable example - Boris Yeltsin. But once again, Yeltsin destroyed democratic institutions in 1993 putch - in the name of FREEDOM. He created presidential dictatorship, for example, to push through liberal market reforms - only to have a KGB guy coming afterwards and jailing the oligarchs - and silencing press - and destroying human rights groups - and finally twisting electons...

There is one thing I completely agree with Zakaria, though: it is when he emphasizes is the danger of election without freedom - I would say, election without democracy. But then he comes to a conservative, I would call Leo Straussian, and extremely naive, in my belief, solution - enlightened elites guiding ignorant masses. A wishful thinking. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Elites lose any motivation to govern wisely and moreover to promote freedom once they are not accountable by the masses. Moreover, even if it is true that masses can chose illiberal leaders, Zakaria forgets to mention that the first thing they destroy is actually democratic process and free elections. And when they do not? Then the people have a chance to restore their freedom - through elections, once again. That is what happened in Serbia and Ukraine. In the end, if it is not from the people, there will be no democracy - and no freedom.

Fareed Zakaria proves himself a brilliant thinker with his From Wealth to Power, The Future of Freedom, and The Post-American World. The Future of Freedom has the real foundation of his thinking: there is something wrong with Liberal Democracy and there is something right with Illiberal Democracy from the perspectives of social development and international politics.

What's truly amazing about Dr. Zakaria is that he serves a unique viewer niche that perhaps no one else is able or qualified to fill. When it comes to international relations, there aren't many who are able to be knowledgeable about the issues in more than one or two regions, but most of the continents of the world and ways in which they can be compared and contrasted. Unlike many of our ivory tower "experts" in television on developing nations or of say a religion like Islam, Fareed Zakaria can say that he grew up in in a society that consisted of both of these distinctions. If you like to gain perspectives on democracy through the eyes of Indians, Iranians, Japanese, Germans, Russians, and Canadians (only to name a few), then visit WWW.FOREIGNEXCHANGE.TV and download his weekly telecast. It downloads extremely quick, so no wait either. All Int'l Relations, Poly Sci, Enviro Mgmt & Public Health professionals are likely to find a common interest in his broadcasts.
[...]

While Democratic stalwart and 1928 Presidential candidate Al Smith preached that there is nothing wrong with democracy that more democracy can't cure, the iconoclastic columnist H.L. Mencken warned against the Progressive's "childlike faith" and "slobbering ethics" for "mobs, messiahs, and majorities." Such was the democratic tide that the aristocratic conservative Winston Churchill would defend democracy as the worst form of government, save every other. The "this is a republic, not a democracy" heresy retreated to the fringe inhabited by the John Birch Society, gold standard enthusiasts, and de-chlorinate the municipal water lobby.

Fareed Zakaria's book punctures the reigning wisdom, mainstreaming demo-skepticism, re-invigorating small "r" republicanism. From his perch atop analysis punditocracy, Mr. Zakaria - a Newsweek International editor, a Washington Post columnist, a Sunday Morning with George Stephanapoulos roundtable regular, frequent contributor to intellectual journals like Foreign Affairs, and Harvard PhD, cannot simply be dismissed as a crank.

For starters, what we call democracy is actually just one aspect of civil society. The other components include the rule of law, property rights, an independent judiciary, and active NGOs. Democracy as known today, i.e. universal adult suffrage, didn't exist anywhere on earth 100 years ago. Yet today, democracy is so popular that even dictatorships orchestrate sham elections, snatching the veneer of democracy.

If power is the ultimate aphrodisiac as Henry Kissinger quipped, democracy is such a dangerous suitor that the author analogizes it to Ulysses' susceptibility to the songs of the sirens. Unlike Ulysses, who had himself tied to the mast and ordered his crew to place wax in their ears to avoid the irresistible temptation, modern societies hear the tune to majority rule.

And a mixed record has democracy recorded. It stands accused of enabling ethnic cleansings, looting national treasuries, corrupting civil institutions, and initiating dictatorships. Majority rule actually translates into splintering the common ground into, using Madison's phrase, "Factions." Solipsistic special interests seek redistribution, privilege, and appropriation ("rent-seeking" it's called) courtesy of the taxpayer, therein mapping the ideological terrain.

There is hope, however. Nations develop the requisite institutional infrastructure required to birth democracy starting at $3000 per capita, successfully transitioning at $6000 per capita income. Citing Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Chile, and Mexico as examples, Zakaria Endorses authoritarian capitalism as the proven model.

Early Twentieth Century philosopher Max Weber's contention that self-government uniquely arose from northern European Protestantism faces revision. After WW2, Catholic Europe molded working democracies. Following the Cold War, Orthodox Europe along with Confucian Asian "Tigers" and fellow travelers from Catholic Latin America evolved into democracies. Even India's Hindu-dominated multiculturalism, mired in poverty and corruption, sustains democracy.

Islam is the exception. That there is not a Muslim democracy in the Middle East does not necessarily translate into incompatibility. Zakaria, himself a Muslim from India, notes that the world's largest Muslim nation - Indonesia, is democratic, Pakistan sporadically democratic, and India's Muslim minority participatory. Hypothesizing that unearned wealth is as detrimental to nations as to children, he blames the "trust fund" mentality for the economic and political squandering of the Muslim Middle East's oil fortunes.

If too much of the planet affords too little democracy, California is exhibit number one of too much democracy. Expenditure by referendum now places 85% of the state budget beyond the legislative logrolling. Ignored is the judicial tyranny that over-turned popularly chosen, fiscally-responsible initiatives to end racial preferences, deny government services to illegal aliens, permit medical marijuana and end bilingualism. Zakaria prefers handcuffing the masses to restricting legislative hijinks.

As Woodrow Wilson sought "to make the world safe for democracy," the author seeks to make democracy safe for the world. His is a Faustian necessity. The state's monopoly on violence is too dangerous to be made into a commodity, something not be handled directly. Solution: "delegating" the technocratic aspects of government - finance, regulation, and currency to public-private entities. A dubious claim is offered that the reason the Supreme Court and Federal Reserve Board are currently popular traces to their insularity from political currents. The Impeach Earl Warren movement of the 50's and 60's and the blame the FED for Great Depression historians would beg to differ. Internationally the EU and the WTO are mentioned as functioning non-democratic, quasi-governmental entities. The EU as a free trade zone authority - yes, as a Constitution-bearing super-state - no, or so says the present. WTO gatherings are magnets for anti-globalization mobs.

Ultimately democracy, employing economic terminology, is the political discovery process, the feedback mechanism informing the legal and governmental market. With one vote each, it acts as the great equalizer. To blunt the voice of the people enshrines bureaucratic statism, partially disenfranchising an ineffectual citizenry.

A better solution is the example of a lost civilization - the self-governance of pre-60's America. The American Bar Association regulated lawyers; the American Medical Association regulated doctors. Churches provided for the needy. Authority that mattered was available locally. The 60's cultural upheavals assassinated the WASP establishment's legitimacy, to which their response is characterized as the "suicide of the elites." However egalitarian sounding, the inescapable consequence is the continuing moral meltdown. Emasculated privilege liberates potential civic leaders from the expectation of exercising communal responsibility. Now, quite frankly, they don't have to give a damn, and many don't. As excessive individualism degenerates the private sphere, more responsibility falls to government, a repeating cycle of advancing intrusion. If we're bowling alone, as the author contends, alternative explanations are two-income families, windshield time, and competing entertainment.

The book's most interesting and over-looked contents concern the democratization of other areas of life. To Zakaria, democratization and commercialization (marketization) are handmaidens, irretrievably tied to globalization. In economics, the rise of the middle class investor class, with which worker pensions, provide the bulk of investment exemplifies the trend. Finance, too, democratized via junk bonds for under-funded entrepreneurs and credit cards for consumers. This Great Awakening worships the personal relationship with the Almighty, dethroning hierarchy and doctrine. Even among fundamentalist evangelicals, fire and brimstone is out, tolerance of the sinner and being tolerable is in. Pop culture long ago swamped the highbrow culture that ruled Western culture for centuries. (Anyone catch the Super Bowl halftime?) Communications, personal and technical, democratize with market penetration.

Democracy as enemy of liberty is as old as democracy itself. The chapter tracing the history of the vote through ancient Greece paints a picture that only coincidently endorses Original Sin. The 50% plus one solution for every social condition is unworkable, unwieldy, and unwise. A vibrant civil society, governmental separation of powers, and self-governance provide the framework for liberty. The future of freedom will resemble its past more than the author appreciates. Immutable human nature predicts it so.

It is more important than ever to think globally and this book provides a simple and clear explanation how a liberal government is developed and in what circumstances is it even plausible. Liberty first democracy second. Zakaria should be on an advisor for the foreign relations panel in the Bush administration. There is a reason why he has been called the foreign affairs wunderkind. His book is direct simple and to the point. On every page he was able to prove his point and with out wasting my time. Each word was an important contribution, can't wait for the next book!!

I strongly recommend this book to anybody interested in public policy, particularly as it has pertains to the functioning of democracy both here and abroad. Others have done a good job of summarizing the main points of the book, I just want to encourage people to read this book. I consider it the most important I've read in many years. This is a well-written book by someone who knows how to describe complex issues simply and directly. It's not a long book, but it's filled with food for thought.

This is a timely review of the virtues of liberty. It applies the lessons of Madison's Federalists Papers and Tocqueville to current events. The basic thesis of this book is that liberal democracies depend upon institutions and those institutions require time and effort to build...and are not built de novo simply through free elections. The chapters on the Arab world could not be more timely as we attempt to rebuild Iraq. Although noone will agree with all of Zakaria's conclusions, it is very well-written, timely, and important book.

Fareed Zakaria has long impressed me with his pointed essays in Newsweek magazine. In this book, he expounds on the role of institutions in government, primarily democratic governments and what makes them fail and succeed. Zakaria's magic is in his ability to shed illumination on things that sound common sense only in retrospect. He points out that many of today's modern successful democratic governments were actually started by strong men in a dictatorship that had the vision to modernize their country starting with economics and following it up with subsequent civil reform. All in all, a very excellent read.

Zakaria skillfully outlines a theory present in both the founding of the American Republic and one that appears in some relatively recent academia--i.e. that direct democracy is in the end a dangerous proposition and that the U.S. Constitution stands more as a barrier against the consolidation of power than as a gateway to direct rule by the people.
In making his conclusions about the development of liberty versus democracy, however, Zakaria begins with a brief historcal analysis. He runs into some problems, for example by missing key historical details, making assumptions not necessarily backed by historical scholarship, or by taking things out of their contexts.
In the first instance, for example, Zakaria describes the rise of the French absolute monarchy under Louis XIV as being centered on Versailles. This analysis is supported by firsthand documentary evidence, most famously the memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon. But Zakaria identifies the political purpose of the lavish palace on the outskirts of the French capital as an attempt by Louis "[to bring] France's aristocrats to Paris permanently, luring them with the most glittering court in Europe."(43) He misses the point that Louis was attempting to lure the nobility OUT of Paris, where, he believed, an attempt to overthrow him in his youth (known colloquially as Fronde), had been hatched. Hence the royal hunting lodge at Versailles was expanded, in order to bring the seat of the monarchy away from the dangers and intrigues of the capital.
As an example of his making assumptions not backed by historical scholarship, consider his classification (p. 36) of Kaiser Wilhelm (He does not designate which Kaiser Wilhelm, so the reader is unsure whether he means the King of Prussia before and after Unification or his grandson who ruled the German Reich until 1918, but here I assume he means the latter, as the index refers this page to him.) as a ruler who attempted to conquer Europe, akin to Napoleon or Hitler. Other than Fritz Fischer's infamous Griff nach der Weltmacht (1961), which took its form only after the Second World War and the postulation of the Sonderweg (special path) thesis, only Allied War Propaganda circa 1916 supports this assertion. Germany's underlying aims in the Great War as an imperial power were hardly different from those of Britain, and probably more honorable than those of Russia. Germany, after all, was standing in defense of its ally Austria-Hungary, whose heir was assassinated by a group of Serb terrorists.
Thirdly, Zakaria in at least one instance takes his sources out of context. In explaining the weakness of Germany's bourgeoisie (and hence, its democratic development), Zakaria cites Blackbourn and Eley's Peculiarities of German History (1984) to demonstrate that the German aristocratic elite held a majority of the bureaucratic and diplomatic positions around the turn of the century. If one turns to the page he cites, however, (244) one finds that the information Zakaria provides is correct, but the context shows that DESPITE these facts, the bureaucracy, army, and diplomatic service in Germany had become overwhelmingly middle-class and bourgeois. In fact, the central thesis of Peculiarities is a refutation of the Sonderweg thesis, which held that Germany's development had been hindered by a tendency of liberals and the commercial middle class to unswervingly obey the aristocratic, bureaucratic and military elites. Zakaria on the other hand seems to support the Sonderweg thesis, thus Peculiarities of German History is not an appropraite book to use to back up this position.

This book examines the co-evolution of democracy (majority rule) and classical liberalism (freedom and individual rights) from the birth of the Eastern Roman Empire to the 21st century. The periods covered include Europe after Luther, Islamic Middle East, Latin America post WWII, China after the communist revolution and the Indian subcontinent (India and Pakistan) after independence, England after Henry VIIIth, and the USA.

By looking at both specific events and long-term trends in these periods, the author draws several conclusions. First, democracy by itself is not always conducive to a free and prosperous society. Second, democracy and capitalism together are not always conducive to a free and prosperous society. Third, representative democracy, separation of powers, and capitalism together are the optimal prerequisites to obtain a free and prosperous society.

Representative democracy is defined as a system where people elect representatives to do their governing, and the latter can select individuals to do specific tasks; i.e. the US Federal Reserve members are selected by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Opportunities for direct democracy such as referendums, recalls, initiatives are few. Separation of powers includes American style federalism both vertically (city, state, national, etc.. ) and horizontally (legislative vs executive vs judicial), and other historical separation of powers such as the separation of church and state. Capitalism is defined as a system whereby individuals own property and choose how to use it.

In the course of the book, the author argues that pure, direct democracy can and often does lead to disastrous results. Examples of these results include the centralization of power in Russia after the Soviet collapse, the Indian Congress party being overtaken by the more intolerant BJP party during the 1990s, and the loss of public trust and voter participation of US elections post Watergate. In these and other cases, the author argues that steps taken to make the system more democratic; i.e. replacing legislative powers with direct democracy or making the system more transparent, have often led to the opposite effects of what was intended. Specifically, the "system" did not work as efficiently, individual liberties were reduced, and more corruption came about. Sometimes the negative consequences were due to a decline in the standard of living that came about from the increase in direct democracy.

The author argues that a more conducive way to create a free and prosperous society, especially if one starts out with a dictatorship, is to first create a stable and property-based economic climate with a large class of independent businessmen, be they merchants, service professionals or manufacturers. To do this requires a comprehensive set of laws governing contracts, licensing, trade, financial markets, etc... and an independent judiciary to enforce these laws regardless of popular whims. Second, there needs to be a deep, institutional separation of powers that is strong enough to withstand the attack of any one person or party. Third, there needs to be political parties; i.e. a fluid division of the masses into various groups that periodically contest each other in elections for power. Last, there needs to be a minimal material standard of living for freedom and liberty to persist.

Overall, the author makes well-argued points that are quite convincing if one got his/her history from the daily news and high school textbooks. But this is not all of history, and the author seems to have forgotten many things.

First and foremost, democracy has existed for a long time in many areas. In fact, democracy was probably the norm in most areas of human habitation prior to the rise of collective agriculture and slavery. As evidence, the native tribes of North America encountered by Western explorers were highly egalitarian and very democratic in the purest sense of the word; decisions were made by consensus and only after long periods of discussions among all involved. Any attempt to convert their material standards of living to modern-day standards would probably show that they lived below the threshold Mr. Zakaria has outlined for a democracy to be stable at. Yet how many of these tribes became dictatorships? Very few; they were either conquered, annihilated, or assimilated by one or another group of Western colonialists (Spanish, English - American, or French), which by the way formed societies that were more hierarchial and less free than any of these native tribes. Witness how runaway slaves in N. America would often run to live with Native Americans.

Second, Mr. Zakaria uses many examples of countries post-WWII that became democratic and then digressed into either anarchy or dictatorships. What the author fails to mention is that in most of these examples, outside influence was the primary cause for the loss of freedom, liberty, and democracy. Russia is a good case in point. This book argues that Russia's immediate jump into democracy post-USSR led to chaos and a backlash that helped Putin rise to power and become a virtual dictator. This viewpoint is refuted in many other works, such as World on Fire by Amy Chua, Globalization and its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz, and Inside Putin's Russia by Andrew Jack. These latter books show that Russia's collapse was not due its total embrace of democracy, but by its total embrace of privatization and laissez-faire capitalism that was urged upon it by Western conservative economists and think-tanks. What Russia needed after the fall of the USSR was urban planners, civil-rights lawyers, investigative journalists, accountants, and honest bankers with training in supply chain management. What Russia got were stockbrockers, con men, and rip-off artists from the West. These imported talents allied themselves with ex-government officials and proceeded to acquire Russia's wealth in minerals, licenses, trade routes, and businesses using methods that would never be allowed in the West. This is what led to the public backlash; out of control free-market economics. Unfortunately, the Russian public, like Mr. Zakaria, believed a decrease in political freedom was the correct response.

Another good example of the author ignoring history is his own country of India. The author states that India during the 1950s and 1960s was known for its efficient and honest civil service, but now is known for its incredible corruption. How did this occur? The book tries to show that this was due to changes in Indian laws that made the country more democratic. Nonsense. From the 1960s thru the present, India, under pressure from the IMF, World Bank, and Western powers, has proceeded to privatize many of its industries and utilities, opened up many of its markets to outsiders, and basically tried to convert a socialist-oriented economy to a Western-style capitalistic one. The result has been two-fold. First, the liberalization of the economy has presented more opportunities to make money. Second, the influx of foreign investments has added a lot of cash to a society not quite ready for it. This results in more temptation for corruption, and more cash to corrupt with; ergo more corruption. If Mr. Zakaria doubts this argument, he should examine the politics behind the Union Carbide scandal that poisoned an entire Indian city.

Last, Mr. Zakaria points to the US as proof of his arguments. Specifically, he argues that the increased transparency of government and the introduction of tools for direct democracy such as referendums, initiatives and recalls, has made politiking and leadership that much harder to accomplish. Now, politicians base their decisions on polls, and voters trust their leaders less. As evidence, the book cites survey data over the past 4 decades showing how public trust of government has declined. The facts are true, but I believe Mr. Zakaria offers the wrong explanation. From 1960 to now, the number of Congressional seats, state legislature seats, governor seats and other major political offices have remained almost constant. Yet the number of eligible voters has drastically increased (immigration, expanded suffrage, longer lifespans, and people having kids). This means each elected official has to court the votes of more people; which makes person - to - person meetings between official and voter less efficient time-wise and thereby increases the importance of polling. This also dilutes the overall input any one voter has in the entire process. What could possibly be the effect of this other than lower voter approval of their elected officials. And this is not the result of direct democracy. In fact, Mr. Zakaria has the argument backwards. The dilution of everyone's input into the system due to simple demographics has lead to the spread of direct democracy tools such as the recall and initiatives.

All in all, this is a book whose arguments are well-crafted, though they fail to account for a lot of history. I am glad to read it though, for it shows how whole theories (in this case on freedom and democracy) can be concocted on insufficient information.

A must read for any serious student of History and Political Science. A highly readable work.
Mr Zakaria develops well documented, lucid arguments to explain WHY democratic elections alone do not produce western style liberal democracy. He goes on to discribe and document the conditions which must be met if liberal democracy is to develop and survive in the long term.
His thesis is as important to nations (such as the U.S.) with long standing histories of constitutional liberalism as it is for nations striving to attain liberal democratic institutions.

Per usual Zakaria delivers an excellent insight into the shaping of liberty through the ages. He quickly removes the birth of liberty from Greece and gives it to the Romans who really began rule of law.

As a college student this book was perfect for discussing the importance of constitutional liberty and a brief history of Western Democracy.

I would have liked to see more discussion of US politics currently including a revised edition that tackles the Obama era. Great book.

Fareed Zakaria's book is an excellent read for anyone interested in world affairs. He successfully entertains while teaching the reader about where in the world democracy is thriving, and offers his own explanations as to why it has been less than successful in certain regions. Bringing together the economic factors often neglected in discussions of democracy and freedom, Zakaria shows that without establishing a framework where people can make an honest living first, a democratic society is likely to wind up democratically giving up freedom.

The author of this book is the editor of Newsweek International and a political analyst for ABC news. He has a thorough knowledge of history, which he couples with his basic premise -- that democracy, in itself, is not necessarily the best form of government. An excellent example of this is that Hitler was elected in a democratic election. The book, which is really a long essay, gives us an overview of history and brings us right up to today's political scene with its emphasis on populism. He wants us all to agree with his conclusion that democracy and good government are not necessarily the same thing.

I learned a lot from this book, especially about the way that various governments work, but I'll likely not retain much of it because every word was targeted only to advance his particular point of view. I agree up to a point. Our world seems to be run by popularity polls that change from day to day. And it seems obvious to me that when change in legislation is being debated, it is not in anyone's interest to have the public and media aware of every little detail. This is because it is mostly the paid lobbyists and special interest groups that follow these public debates, and their agendas are often in direct conflict with the public good.

Even though there were only 264 pages in this book, it was much too long. Everything he had to say could have been condensed into a few dozen pages. I suspect he's written articles about this topic and decided to expand them into a book. Frankly, I was bored most of the time and struggled to finish it. Therefore, I can only give it a mild recommendation.

Along with Tom Friedman, Zakaria is one of the country's top foreign affairs columnists. Unlike Friedman's "Longitudes and Attitudes," however, this book isn't just a rehash of old columns. It's a fascinating look at the past, present, and future of democracy, here in the States and all over the world. The book is essential reading, for example, for anybody interested in the Bush administration's attempt to "democratize" Iraq. Basically, Zakaria argues that although we take the concept of "liberal democracy" for granted, in fact the two components of it have not always gone together. "Constitutional liberalism" is responsible for a lot of the good things we like (rule of law, protection of human rights, etc.), but it hasn't always been associated with democracy. Democracy, meanwhile--rule by a popular majority--isn't always or necessarily connnected to liberalism. With these ideas in mind, the author covers an incredible amount of ground, both historically and geographically. And he writes amazingly well, so every page is not just filled with interesting information, but is also lively and fun. This is that rare kind of "big" book, in other words, that people not only talk about, but enjoy reading. If you liked Fukuyama, Huntington, Bernard Lewis, and stuff like that, you'll just love Zakaria...

Fareed Zakaria turned my world upside down with this book. He proves the common misconception that democracy is the best solution to any problem, which is interesting in that everyone champions democracy but rarely wonders why it has failed so often (see all of Africa, minus South Africa). Zakaria's insight into the world of Islam is the most interesting part of this book. Two things which Zakaria called in advance of them actually happening: That Iraq would be an excellent place to instill democracy into the Arab world and that California's pure form of democracy was headed for an explosion (such as a recall). Great read.
-Alec

I only became of Dr. Zakaria recently, when I read a piece he wrote called "The Arrogant Empire," a incisive piece on the hubristic and messianic foreign policy of the Bush Administration. After a little research I quickly discovered that Dr. Zakaria is some kind of foreign-policy wunderkind, who became an editor of the presitigious magazine Foreign Affairs at the age of twenty-eight. This book clearly demonstrates that his precipitious climb to the top of the intelletual heap of America is certainly well-deserved.
This book is a remarkable guide to the major challenges, both foreign and domestic, that face America in the twenty-first century. The thesis of this book is essentially that too much democratization and decentralization, two notions that are often hailed as universally good, can be disasterous. This argument is not new, as Dr. Zakaria readily admits. What is new is the contextualization of these problems to the modern world.
The author brilliantly analyzes both foreign and domestic policy through the prism of what he calls "Illiberal Democracy." The analysis is both lucid and cogent, and it is remarkable how much insight exists on every page. Dr. Zakaria is a polymath with prodigious analytical ability, and, as a result, both knowledge and sagacity ooze off the page.
The book ranges from topic to topic, yet still remains coherent. Dr. Zakaria ranges from topics such as Islamic Fundamentalism, to the decline of Congressional presitige on the national political stage, to the virtual disintigration of good governence in the state of California. Despite his reputation as a foreign policy maven, his analysis of domestic affairs is also brilliant:
"The deregulation of democracy has gone too far ... although [sic] none would dare speak ill of present-day democracy, most people instinctively sense a problem ... More intriguingly, in poll after poll, when Americans are asked what public institutions they most respect, three bodies are always at the top of their list: the Supreme Court, the armed forces, and the Federal Reserve. All three have one thing in common: they are insulated from public pressures and operate undemocratically."
One aspect of this book that might grate on American sensibilities is the unabashedly proelite stance this book takes. It serves as almost a rallying cry to the elite to save the institutions that save the commoners from themselves. Although that description may be overexaggerated, undoubtedly this book laments for the halcyon days of a socially-responsible elite in America. However, in the end a lot of this analysis seems correct.
Despite this slight misgiving, this is a brilliant book that provides an intellectual framework for many of problems facing Americans in the twenty-first century, ranging from the scourge of mass terrorism to the cultural malaise here at home.
*****

Mr. Zakaria skillfully walks us through the history of civilization, government, and personal liberty. However, unlike many of his peers, he offers objective, non-partisan solutions which seek to solve the cronic ailments associated with (US) democracy - and keeps us interested throughout the entire process/book. It is simply the best book on government and history I have ever read. I will never look at the government (or the world for that matter) the same.

Four years have passed since the publication of the book, and few of the propositions of the book are now tested in real life. This is one rare case when the author was right about the future. I wonder how much else will come true...

Excellent history of liberal democracy and provides a context for understanding the ongoing democratization of the world. I think it hits the nail on the head both at home and abroad as the title implies. Great warnings and recommendations. I put it in a class with Guns, Germs, and Steel as one of those books that helps put large issues and currents in an understandable context.

The Future of Freedom always works at the core issues. NO political correctness here. It treats topics from our Constitution to terror, to the economic issues of Africa. This is a book about global economic politics. If you believe thal all politics is local, and it is about getting trash picked up and the street cleaned, you will not enjoy this book. However, if you are interested, you can learn why a Marshall Plan for the Islamic world is a bad idea.

Cheers,

Good analysis. But just touched (it was democracy that produced Hitler) and dropped extremely serious issue of social, ethnic, religious, intellectual, knowledge, etc. diversity and its role in democracy functioning. This analysis and ways to make democracy more efficient and more "dictator resistent" must be continued without any political correctness.

The scope and depth of this work are remarkable. Whether dealing with economics, foreign policy, religion, politics, or any other aspect of contemporary culture, Dr. Zakaria manages to both illuminate the familiar and make the unfamiliar accessible. Everyone should own this book.