
Scholars And Lay Persons Alike Routinely Express Concern About The Capacity Of Democratic Publics To Respond Rationally To Emotionally Charged Issues Such As Crime, Particularly When Race And Class Biases Are Invoked. This Is Especially True In The United States, Which Has The Highest Imprisonment Rate In The Developed World, The Result, Many Argue, Of Too Many Opportunities For Elected Officials To Be Highly Responsive To Public Opinion. Limiting The Power Of Democratic Publics, In This View, Is An Essential Component Of Modern Governance Precisely Because Of The Risk That Broad Democratic Participation Can Encourage Impulsive, Irrational And Even Murderous Demands. These Claims About Panic-prone Mass Publics--about The Dangers Of 'mob Rule'--are Widespread And Are The Central Focus Of Lisa L. Miller's The Myth Of Mob Rule. Are Democratic Majorities Easily Drawn To Crime As A Political Issue, Even When Risk Of Violence Is Low? Do They Support 'rational Alternatives' To Wholly Repressive Practices, Or Are They Essentially The Bellua Multorum Capitum, The Many-headed Beast, Winnowing Problems Of Crime And Violence Down To Inexorably Harsh Retributive Justice? Drawing On A Comparative Case Study Of Three Countries--the U.s., The U.k. And The Netherlands--the Myth Of Mob Rule Explores When And With What Consequences Crime Becomes A Politically Salient Issue. Using Extensive Data From Multiple Sources, The Analyses Reverses Many Of The Accepted Causal Claims In The Literature And Finds That: Serious Violence Is An Important Underlying Condition For Sustained Public And Political Attention To Crime; The United States Has High Levels Of Both Crime And Punishment In Part Because It Has Failed, In Racially Stratified Ways, To Produce Fundamental Collective Goods That Insulate Modern Democratic Citizens From Risk Of Violence, A Consequence Of A Democratic Deficit, Not A Democratic Surplus; And Finally, Countries With Multi-party Parliamentary Systems Are More Responsive To M
This book investigates whether democratic publics are inherently prone to irrational, punitive responses to crime or if the high rates of imprisonment in the United States stem from structural failures rather than public opinion. Lisa L. Miller, a professor of political science, utilizes a comparative framework to challenge the prevailing assumption that mass participation in democracy inevitably leads to harsh, retributive justice. She argues that the American criminal justice system's severity is a byproduct of a democratic deficit and a failure to provide collective goods that protect citizens from violence, rather than an excess of democratic responsiveness.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars frequently cite this work for its rigorous challenge to the 'mob rule' narrative in political science. Experts highlight the text as a significant contribution to the study of comparative criminal justice and democratic theory.
Page Count:
272
Publication Date:
2016-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190228717
ISBN-13:
9780190228712
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