Against Elections
The Case for Democracy
- Published: 7 July 2016
- ISBN: 9781473546998
- Imprint: Vintage Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 208
Riveting
Irish Examiner
Very persuasive … There are few new big ideas in politics and few answers to the serious challenge faced by democratic politics ... invigorating and advance[s] a promising practical idea … fresh, challenging and uncomplicated
Daniel Finkelstein, The Times
This fine iconoclastic work could not be more timely ... demonstrate[s] that far from safeguarding our right to self-determination, elections are actually impeding our democracy
Karen Armstrong
Mounts a convincing case that we have wrongly conflated democracy with elections
Observer
Van Reybrouck wants to revive a system in which government is not just for the people, but really by the people … a persuasive description of a system designed to be soundly based in popular assent … A President Trump might focus attention on his views
Financial Times
Choosing our rulers by popular vote has failed to deliver true democratic government: that seems to be the verdict of history unfolding before our eyes ... [this] may well be an idea whose time has come
J. M. Coetzee
A sovereign remedy for the raging crypto-oligarchy of our turbulent times
Professor Paul Cartledge, author of Democracy: A Life