1st Edition
American Democracy and Disconsent Liberalism and Illiberalism in Ferguson, Charlottesville, Black Lives Matter, and the Capitol Insurrection
This volume is a thorough re-examination of civil unrest and discontent in the United States, particularly the intersection of democracy and violence. The work argues that unrest and violence are embedded rituals of social and political "disconsent" and are constitutive features of citizen-based democracy.
As such, they are part of how democratic life works: unrest is the eruptive, visible grammar of citizens in a democratic society. Democracy and citizen unrest and violence in the United States are set within a deeper history. The author traces the roots of American democracy – and the rituals of disconsent – to their sources in ancient Mediterranean political society, demonstrating that early democratic theory and practice understood unrest and revolt as morally grounded. Featuring case studies of recent episodes of political and social "disconsent" in the United States, the volume contextualizes the Black Lives Matter protests, unrest around police and institutional violence, and the Capitol insurrection on January 6.
Through this, the book provides an important social theoretical lens through which to understand American discontent around racial injustice, political suppression, and citizen disillusionment.
Prologue
1. Violence as a Sumptuary Privilege
2. Democratization and Civil Unrest in America (and Elsewhere)
3. The Moral Foundation of Social and Political Disconsent
4. Crowds, Strangers, and City Life
5. The Other “Ferguson Effect”
6. Charlottesville
7. Black Lives Matter Protests (and Violence)
8. January 6
9.The Future of Civil Unrest and Violence in America (and Elsewhere)
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Daniel J. Monti is a professor of sociology at Saint Louis University. A former Woodrow Wilson Fellow, he is the author of over 50 scholarly articles and the author or editor of eight books on subjects ranging from educational reform and inner-city redevelopment to youth gangs, and American urban history.
"Daniel Monti’s American Democracy and Disconsent: Liberalism and Illiberalism in Ferguson, Charlottesville, Black Lives Matter, and the Capitol Insurrection is a fresh, deeply original interpretation of violence in America. It stands on a strongly argued foundation of social learning about the exigencies of living together in a multiethnic, multireligious society."
– Donald L. Horowitz, author of The Deadly Ethnic Riot
"This lively and engaging book about civil unrest and 'disconsent' in America today is timely. When most of us across the world are pessimistic about the stability of American democracy, Daniel Monti manages to discuss the competing forces of liberalism and illiberalism – in Ferguson, Charlottesville, Black Lives Matter, and even the January 6 Capitol insurrection – and yet remain relatively optimistic. Let us hope he is right!"
– Professor Stephen Mennell, University College Dublin
