Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe Quotes

“liberal democracy is a form of self-rule or rule by the people—it requires not merely that citizens get to choose their leaders and governments, but also that they accept liberal values and norms, including limitations on political power, minority and individual rights, the rule of law, the political equality of all citizens, rights to free speech, press, religion, and so forth.”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“Following the June Seventeenth uprising the secretary of the Writers’ League had leaflets distributed on Stalin Allee here one could read that the people had forfeited the confidence of the government and could regain it only through redoubled efforts. Wouldn’t it be simpler under these circumstances for the government to dissolve the people and elect another one?”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“All the parties of the economic process have realized that the most important economic task is to make the national cake grow bigger and bigger, because then everyone can satisfy his demanding stomach with a greater piece of that common cake. When instead, there is strong fighting between the classes in that society, we believe that the cake will often crumble or be destroyed in the fight, and because of this everyone loses.”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“At once a right and a duty, private property is the form of management that society has traditionally granted individuals so that they may increase the overall patrimony.”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“Britain’s aristocratic oligarchic order was eventually transformed into a democratic one, although if we take 1688 as the starting point, it took an extremely long time—at least 230 years—for this transformation to be completed.”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“there are ‘incidents’ in public life that somehow illuminate the inner nature of a certain order of things by the flash that emerges from a comparatively trivial event with unusual force and clarity.”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“It was not through speeches and majority decisions that the great questions of the day will be decided—that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849—but by iron and blood. —Otto von Bismarck”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“Reflecting the frequency of political upheaval in France, a long-standing joke had it that the National Library kept its copies of the constitution in the “periodicals” section.”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“Napoleon’s military position was a consequence of the emigration of much of the noble officer corps during the early stages of the revolution and the subsequent emergence of leaders based on talent rather than birth.”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“The mere existence of privations is not enough to cause an insurrection; if it was, the masses would always be in revolt.”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“in order to be considered truly or fully democratic, a government must be willing and able to guarantee the rule of law; and must protect minorities and individual liberties; and leaders and citizens must respect the democratic “rules of the game,” and treat all members of society as political equals.”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day

“In addition to worrying about elections leading to governments that subsequently undermine democracy, critics also worry about democratically elected governments using their power in “non-democratic” or illiberal ways.”
― Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day