Trousson, Raymond / Vercruysse, Jeroom (dir.), Dictionnaire general de Voltaire. (Champion classiques, references et dictionnaires 18) 1272 p. 2020:10 (Champion, FR) <670-9>
ISBN 978-2-38096-016-7 paper ¥7,064.- (税込) EUR 38.00

民主主義的エリート主義－アメリカ政治学創設の神話
Piano, Natasha, Democratic Elitism: The Founding Myth of American Political Science. 256 pp. 2025:4 (Harvard U. Pr., US) <735-433>
ISBN 978-0-674-29537-7 hard ¥8,613.- (税込) US$ 39.95

A searing argument-and work of meticulous scholarship-about how American political scientists misinterpreted the elite theory of democracy and in so doing made our political system vulnerable to oligarchic takeover.Do competitive elections secure democracy, or might they undermine it by breeding popular disillusionment with liberal norms and procedures? The so-called Italian School of Elitism, comprising Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, and Robert Michels, voiced this very concern. They feared that defining democracy exclusively through representative practices creates unrealistic expectations of what elections can achieve, generating mass demoralization and disillusionment with popular government.The Italian School's concern has gone unheeded, even as their elite theory has been foundational for political science in the United States. Democratic Elitism argues that scholars have misinterpreted the Italians as conservative, anti-democratic figures who championed the equation of democracy with representative practices to restrain popular participation in politics. Natasha Piano contends not only that the Italian School's thought has been distorted but also that theorists have ignored its main objective: to contain demagogues and plutocrats who prey on the cynicism of the masses. We ought to view these thinkers not as elite theorists of democracy but as democratic theorists of elitism.The Italian School's original writings do not reject electoral politics; they emphasize the power and promise of democracy beyond the ballot. Elections undoubtedly are an essential component of functioning democracies, but in order to preserve their legitimacy we must understand their true capacities and limitations. It is past time to dispel the delusion that we need only elections to solve political crises, or else mass publics, dissatisfied with the status quo, will fall deeper into the arms of authoritarians who capture and pervert formal democratic institutions to serve their own ends.

過去と現在の保守主義－哲学的入門
Rogers, Tristan J., Conservatism, Past and Present: A Philosophical Introduction. 300 pp. 2025:1 (Routledge, UK) <735-434>
ISBN 978-1-03-213952-4 hard ¥38,461.- (税込) GB￡ 135.00
ISBN 978-1-03-213950-0 paper ¥10,253.- (税込) GB￡ 35.99

In Conservatism, Past and Present: A Philosophical Introduction, Tristan J. Rogers argues that philosophical conservatism is a coherent and compelling set of historically rooted ideas about conserving and promoting the human good. Part I, "Conservatism Past," presents a history of conservative ideas, exploring themes, such as the search for wisdom, the limits of philosophy, reform in preference to revolution, the relationship between authority and freedom, and liberty as a living tradition. Major figures include Aristotle, Saint Aquinas, Edmund Burke, G.W.F. Hegel, and Roger Scruton. Part II, "Conservatism Present," applies philosophical conservatism to contemporary conservative politics, focusing on issues such as nationalism, populism, the family, education, and responsibility. Rogers shows that conservatism has been defined differently at different times: as a loose set of connected ideas reacting against the French Revolution; as a kind of disposition or instinct in favor of the status quo; and more recently as any ideas opposed to the political left. But he also allows a set of questions to guide his argument for conservatism's merits: What is conservatism? Is it a coherent and attractive philosophy? What are conservatives for? And how is today's conservatism related to its past? In his answers, Rogers paints a compelling and coherent picture of an aligned and attractive set of ideas.

オルドリベラリズム、国家、社会－社会秩序の政治理論
Malatesta, Olimpia, Ordoliberalism, State and Society: A Political Theory of Social Order. (Law and Politics) 290 pp. 2024:12 (Routledge, UK) <735-175>
ISBN 978-1-03-243201-4 hard ¥38,461.- (税込) GB￡ 135.00

This book provides a new interpretation of ordoliberalism - the influential German version of neoliberalism - by exploring the political, legal, and social context of its emergence.Ordoliberal scholars regarded sociology, juridical science, and economics as concrete policy-making instruments designed to discipline the structural conflicts of modern society. For, in their view, society should not impinge on the economy. Ordoliberalism is here presented as a political theory of social order, developing out of the the crisis of the Weimar Republic, and which has proven to be one of the most influential neoliberal accounts of social organization after WWII. Assessing the influence that leading German intellectuals such as Sombart, Schmoller, Savigny and Schmitt have exerted on ordoliberalism, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the social, legal, and political theory of Walter Eucken, Franz Boehm, Alfred Mueller-Armack, Wilhelm Roepke and Alexander Ruestow. In so doing, the book offers an invaluable study of the ideological roots of the notion of an economic constitution, and a political-theoretical analysis of one of the first articulations of authoritarian liberalism at the European level.This book will appeal to scholars and students of legal, social, political and economic theory.