Description: Drawing on the genealogical tradition developed by Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, Democracy and Domination argues that from the time of Ancient Greece to the present, the collective and centralizing aspects of power have been expanding in the Western world. Modern dem...
Review Quotes:
"Koch and Zeddy's Democracy and Domination uses a Foucauldian analysis of power to revive the Nietzschean critique of democracy. Understanding the historical rise of democracy in the West as ever more efficient techniques of domination, the authors argue that democracy is a specific form of social control constituted through knowledge production and the collectivization of power. The incisive historical and material analysis is sure to spark controversy and discussion among political theorists and students of democracy." --William L. Niemi, Western State College of Colorado
"Democracy and Domination is an ambitious historical study of the integration and disintegration of Western institutions of sovereign power from the ancient Greek /polis/ to twenty-first century globalization. Placing particular emphasis on the integrating and legitimizing capacities of 'soft' forms of domination-literacy, technologies of knowledge dissemination, agencies of socialization, education, and democracy-Koch and Zeddy conclude that Western democracy is a Janus-faced form of legitimizing power." --Wayne Gabardi, Idaho State University