Efnisyfirlit

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Origins: democracy in the ancient Greek world
• Introduction
• The historical emergence of Athenian democracy
• Class struggle in the Ancient Greek polis
• Cleisthenes’ reforms: establishing demokratia
• Peasant citizens, class struggle and democracy
• The suppression of democracy from 322–1 BC
• Conclusion
• Guide to further reading
• 2 Democracy suppressed: the Roman republic and empire
• Introduction
• The historical origins and development of the Roman republic from 509 to 27 BC
• Roman territorial expansion
• The economic and social structure of Roman society
• The political institutions of the Roman republic and the ‘conflict of orders’
• The ‘mixed constitution’ of the Roman republic: democracy or oligarchy?
• From the principate to the fall of the Roman empire, 27 BC to 476 AD
• Conclusion
• Guide to further reading
• 3 The early Middle Ages and the transition from feudalism to capitalism
• Introduction
• The early Middle Ages and the emergence of feudalism in Europe
• Historical retrogression during the early Middle Ages
• The origins of feudalism in Western Europe
• The central features of feudalism
• The growth of feudalism
• The crisis of feudalism and the emergence of absolutism in France and capitalism in England
• The crisis of feudalism
• French absolutism
• Explaining the emergence of capitalism in England
• Conclusion
• Guide to further reading
• 4 The English Revolution and parliamentary democracy
• Introduction
• The English Revolution and civil war, 1640–59
• English society in the mid-seventeenth century: population, class, gender and religion
• The historical origins of the English Parliament
• Background and context, 1603–40
• Parliamentary rebellion, civil war and the Levellers, 1640–49
• The republic and protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, 1650–59
• From the restoration of 1660 to the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89
• Conclusion
• Guide to further reading
• 5 The American Revolution and constitutional redefinition of democracy
• Introduction
• The American Revolution 1775–87
• Background and context
• Narrative of events
• The constitutional redefinition of democracy, 1787–91
• The Philadelphia Convention of 1787
• Ratification of the Constitution: federalists versus anti-federalists
• The historical novelty of representative democracy
• Completing the revolution: civil war 1861–65
• Conclusion
• Guide to further reading
• 6 The revolutionary revival of democracy in France
• Introduction
• Background and context
• Classes, clergy, monarchy
• Enlightenment philosophy
• Long and short-term causes of the revolution
• Narrative of events
• The revolt of the nobility
• The bourgeois revolution of 1789
• The revolutionary Jacobin government and the popular movement, 1792–95
• The Jacobin Constitution of 1793
• 1795: The fall of the Jacobins and the Thermidorian reaction
• Conclusion
• Guide to further reading
• 7 The revolutions of 1848–49
• Introduction
• Background and causes
• A wave of revolution sweeps Europe
• The June insurrection
• The Conservative counter-revolution
• Springtime of the peoples
• Conclusion: The historical legacy of the 1848 revolutions
• Guide to further reading
• 8 Capitalist expansion, globalisation and democratisation
• Introduction
• Capitalist expansion on a global scale
• The key characteristics of representative democracy
• The development of representative democracy in the advanced capitalist societies and the growing geographical spread of representative democracy
• The impact of globalisation on representative democracy
• Conclusion
• Guide to further reading
• 9 The Marxist critique of capitalism and representative democracy
• Introduction
• The Marxist critique of capitalism
• Exploitation and inequality
• Environment
• Competition, imperialism and war
• Crisis
• Oppression
• Alienation
• The democratic swindle
• The social and economic context of representative democracy
• The institutional mechanisms of representative democracy
• Conclusion: exploitation, alienation and democracy
• Guide to further reading
• 10 Precursors of socialist participatory democracy: the Paris Commune 1871 and Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917
• Introduction
• The Paris Commune 1871
• Classical Marxist interpretations of the Commune
• The Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917: workers’ power
• Historical context
• The 1905 Revolution
• War, crisis and revolution
• The February Revolution and dual power
• The Bolsheviks and the October Revolution
• Was the Russian Revolution a ‘Bolshevik coup’?
• The new workers’ state: constructing socialism?
• The Stalinist degeneration of the Russian Revolution
• Conclusion: socialism and democracy beyond capitalism
• Guide to further reading
• Bibliography
• Index