The Ten Pillars of American Democracy (Hardcover)

Democracy rests on ten pillars. However, they have fallen in the United States because both major political parties have strayed from the concept of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. One party wants to recreate life in the past, while the other party appeals to the economic self-interest of specific groups. The coup on January 6, 2021, has prompted a fundamental analysis of what has gone wrong, but proposed corrections have failed to strengthen belief in democracy. The fundamental pillars are of two types—preconditions and the structure of government. The preconditions are a strong middle class, a Constitutional framework supporting equal justice, a vibrant civil society, an informed citizenry, and a strong belief in democracy. The necessary governmental institutions are an independent judiciary, a legislature with integrity, a competent bureaucracy, free and fair elections, and an executive operating with civility. According to the Mass Society Paradigm, democracy works best when the voices of the people are aggregated into coherent programs by political parties, which seek majority approval and then demand action by government to solve problems, with the information media performing an oversight over the political process and government actions. But in the United States, some individuals are so culturally desperate that they have supported politicians favoring extreme measures to end democracy by paying attention to alternative concepts of reality. If ever achieved, corrective measures will take decades.

A graduate of Stanford and Yale, Michael Haas taught at Northwestern, Purdue, the University of California, the University of Hawai’i, and the University of London. He has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for advancing Korea’s "sunshine" policy, civil rights in Hawai’i, and his support for a rules-based international order without war crimes impunity as well as supporting the Cambodian peace process.