The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad [ペーパーバック]

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.

*****

Hence, Fareed Zakaria arrives on the doorstep of our minds, and like those before him, offers his book as a substitute for a crystal ball. Indeed, Dr. Zakaria has received favorable reviews by Huntington, which accurately note that this is a study that hasn't been articulated since Aristotle and Tocqueville. The major premise is this: unregulated democracy undermines liberty and the rule of law. There are a plethora of parallels to be drawn from this domestically (e.g. Benjamin Barber and Don Eberly), or internationally (e.g. Robert Kaplan, Robert Keegan, etc). "The Future of Freedom" will prove to be a profoundly troubling book for those who believe democracy flourishes anywhere it is planted or whatever culture it is grafted onto, and for those who believe democracy is synonymous with freedom. This is a very old argument, one that finds itself centered in political philosophy, and Zakaria's book is all the more important because of its timeliness, and because, even as it is an old argument, it is one that has never reconciled the individual with society, or freedom with duty.

This book will be important to the student especially - whether they read it or not, it will shape the discussions and debates they engage in. They would be better prepared by understanding it. Academics, though many verge on becoming synonymous with abstract and impractical philologasters, will likely also find it the counter-weight to their own, more liberal ideas. Policy makers should read it because I can only presume that it will inform closed-door discussions on whether illiberal democracy abroad is better than no democracy at all. Many books inform us as to where we have been, a few, quickly written texts tell us where we are in greater depth than do newspapers or magazines; however, Mr. Zakaria's text is one of the elite few that manages to show us where we might be going.