Totalitarian democracy is a term made famous by Israeli historian J. L. Talmon to refer to a system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of the government. The phrase had previously been used by Bertrand de Jouvenel and E.H. Carr, and subsequently by F. William Engdahl and Sheldon S. Wolin.
Read more about Totalitarian Democracy: Criticism of Rousseau's Ideas, Differences in Democratic Philosophy, F. William Engdahl and Sheldon S. Wolin
Famous quotes containing the words totalitarian and/or democracy:
“There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets ours norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“In a democracy dissent is an act if faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but its effects.”
—J. William Fulbright (1905–19)