The Revival of Democracy in America and the Better Angels of Your Nature

Renaud Lassus

Description

A worthy heir to Alexis de Tocqueville’s landmark nineteenth-century analysis of the democratic experiment in the United States, Renaud Lassus’s The Revival of Democracy in America is both a brisk, lucid assessment of the nation’s current political and social climate and a resounding call for optimism at a moment when the prevailing winds seem to be blowing the other way. The book’s first part is devoted to a nuanced and expansive diagnosis of the various crises, from immigration and economic inequality to media fragmentation and the outsize role of money in politics, that have created tensions and fault lines in American society. Lassus argues persuasively that these problems, some of which have been taking root for more than a generation, are complex and intertwined, but not insurmountable. Indeed, the book’s second section presents evidence of an ongoing renewal of thought and action in support and defense of America’s core democratic values, sea changes in political orientations and public attitudes toward such issues as climate change, corporate governance, genetic modification, and artificial intelligence. These shifts are giving rise to new coalitions and consensuses among both Washington insiders and actors not traditionally active in civic discourse, with encouraging implications for not just the United States but European democracies as well. Populism, Lassus concludes, no longer has a monopoly on political innovation. The Revival of Democracy in America is an ambitious and illuminating synthesis of multiple intersecting narratives, a case against the temptations of despair, and a document of a fraught but consequential moment in history, likely to be as valuable to future readers as Tocqueville’s book is today. Renaud Lassus is Minister Counselor for Economic Affairs in the Economic and Treasury Affairs department of the Embassy of France in the United States. He has spent nearly a decade in Washington, D. C. cultivating relationships with economic and political actors and developing a nuanced perspective on American society. The Revival of Democracy in America is his first book. 

Sujets

• Political Science
• American Government

Informations

• Publié par: Odile Jacob
• Date de parution: 04 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782738154675
• Langue: English

Extrait

Originally published in French as Le renouveau de la démocratie en Amérique by Renaud Lassus © Editions Odile Jacob, 2020.
The present English-language edition is published by Editions Odile Jacob.
© Odile Jacob, January 2021.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever without written permission of the publisher. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
www.odilejacob.com www.odilejacobpublishing.com
ISBN : 978-2-7381-5467-5
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To Michel,
To Carine.
Letter to an American friend

The United States is currently facing deep internal divisions, polarizations, and tensions. The erosion of Americans’ trust in one another, and in their institutions, has undermined American democracy.
Perhaps it is up to an outsider, a European friend, to tell you this: your democracy’s weaknesses only conceal its assets and its strengths.
Indeed, they call on factors of resilience that are often unique to the United States, such as the vitality of the civic ties at the heart of civil society, the virtuous connection between science and the democratic tradition, an ancient—and, to a European, novel—way of thinking about nature conservation, and your will to look toward the future and new technological frontiers.
That which divides you often makes you forget that you remain more united than you think, on many issues: childcare, a higher minimum wage and retirement funds, health insurance, the regulation of money in politics, and, more and more, climate change.
Above all, the scale and gravity of what is now at stake are giving rise, in your country, to a profound movement of renewed reflection and action to reinforce your democracy. The United States’ intellectual production on this question, and the depth and originality of this thought, are without equal today. The initiatives within civil society and the market impress the outside observer with their vitality and their speed, often driven by actors who were not previously part of the public discourse (academics, Silicon Valley pioneers, lawyers, foundations, constitutionalists, investors, organizations).
This evolution, of which you do not always seem fully aware, is a major asset to your democracy. The field it covers is immense: corporate governance and long-term investment, the prevention of a monopolistic concentration of the economy, a return to the original spirit of American capitalism, the regulation of digital ecosystems and their effect on users and on the democratic contract, the overhaul of constitutional rights to prevent the risks of digital intrusion by public authorities into private life and personal intimacy, the return of social thought to face the risks of economic cycles and mitigate inequalities, the ethics of artificial intelligence and the will to put the human back at the center of technological evolutions, and climate, to name only a few. This work lays the foundation for new bipartisan coalitions that reach beyond your divisions.
Competition with the counter-model represented by authoritarian regimes is a new spur, on both sides of the aisle, to your reflections and mobilizations toward the reconstruction of a federal state capable of strategic programming, rooted in the need for a more unified society. It is also reassuring you, more than you seem to realize, by confirming the strength of your own assets: the belief that scientific progress is fundamentally linked to liberty, or your tradition of open access to citizenship compared to regimes with an ethnic conception of national belonging. To be sure, the problems you face have existed for a very long time. Some, such as inequalities and regional fragmentations, have been developing for over a generation. Overcoming them will take time and much effort. It is possible that the situation will get worse before the path to recovery comes into view, and sometimes you are overwhelmed by the scope of the task ahead, the dangers along the way.
But it is crucial that you seize the opportunity for recovery afforded you by the current crisis, and that you not lose confidence. The revival now underway shows that American democracy has not reached the end of its road, that its flame still burns, that it continues to reinvent itself to meet its challenges. You must be aware of this so that you do not stray too far from what defines you: your fundamental optimism, your will to take in hand the affairs of your communities, the strength of your engagements at the heart of civil society—which is where the major mobilizations, eventually enshrined at the federal level, have always begun.
For us Europeans, these evolutions that bear witness to a renewed force of civic and democratic engagement in your country are of capital importance. They can help us respond to our own doubts and to the weaknesses within our own democracies. They can also create new possibilities. If weaknesses and doubts about democracy are common to us both, couldn’t the solutions be as well? This book, then, argues for a shared conversation between America and Europe on the democratic question, the better to seek new forms of mutual understanding and support the American actors reflecting and acting on these issues.
Preface

One train may hide another coming in the opposite direction.
The Trump train offers us a daily spectacle of sound and fury, of cynicism and brutality, that never ceases to amaze us. In it we see a divided country, a paralyzed political system, the specter of authoritarianism, and the prospect of a transatlantic rift. We wonder, too, at this version of a democratic disease that could well spread to our shores.
But another American train has left the station, this one carrying developments and even major upheavals to which we would be wise to pay attention.
Such is the thesis developed by this book, that of a revival in progress.
A revival of the will to understand the roots of the current problems.
A revival that is mobilizing various actors to find solutions based on novel foundations.
A bipartisan revival, still nascent and not yet fully embraced, that is nonetheless emerging in more and more domains—from antitrust law to the minimum wage, by way of the fight against the opioid crisis, digital regulation, and soon climate issues—in a spirit both of recognition that all parties bear a responsibility for the present imbalances, and of obligation to look past the divisions to forge new compromises.
A revival, in sum, deep within the country, beyond the Beltway circling Washington, D.C.—because the United States has never been reducible to what happens at the federal level.
This book, then, offers a new perspective, a departure from the pessimistic visions most often advanced in Europe about the evolution of America. It shows realities that are nuanced, evolving, and diverse. A creative ferment full of surprises and innovations whose implications remain to be seen, but which most likely marks the end of the conservative revolution of the 1980s and which the shock of the COVID-19 crisis will amplify.
Returning to the United States in 2016 after an initial stay between 2001 and 2005, its author has seen, ten years hence, tensions developing among Americans and old balances being called back into question after being too long taken for granted.
But he has also placed himself “on the front lines” in order to understand the power of the movements addressing the crisis. Above all, the analyses in this book are informed by an intimate experience of American reality, by ample contact and conversation with the actors driving current trends, and by a desire to grasp the most innovative intellectual production—but also to look at what is happening in both parties and convey the variety of developments that define America today.
So, on multiple topics, this book situates itself at the frontier , to borrow an American term, of the most up-to-date and forward-looking ideas and proposals. It contextualizes American evolutions that are often little known in Europe—internet regulation, challenges to major monopolies, the ethics of artificial intelligence, the return of the social question, the fight against global warming—that will surprise and inspire the reader.
Of course, any book is also what it is not. This is not a book about Donald Trump or about his presidential campaigns. The reader may be surprised not to see the current American president mentioned by name even once. I applaud this approach: after all, Donald Trump is merely the revelation, the symptom, of profound changes in America. We must first work to understand those changes in order to appreciate the efforts now underway to emerge from the present tumult.
For us citizens of European democracies—particularly in France, whose democracy is a cousin of America’s—these changes, bearing witness to a revival of thought and engagement in pursuit of new ways forward, are of particular interest. In the face of our own doubts, they may restore our trust and confidence in the strength and the future of the democratic project, while helping us forge our own path in a “shared conversation”—to borrow a phrase from the author—with democracy in America.
Pascal Lamy President of the Paris Peace Forum
Introduction

The United States is currently experiencing one of the greatest crises in its modern history. Powerful tensions mark the workings of its institutions, its politics, and its societal debates. Unprecedented polarizations have left Americans deeply divided. These tensions are the consequence of fragilities that have developed in several domains for more than a generation. The United States is buffeted by simultaneous and violent shocks (social, technolo