"Post-Democracy" is a work of polemics that moves beyond the familiar complaints about the deficits of our democracy and explores the deeper social and economic forces that explain contemporary intolerance.

Colin Crouch argues that the decline of the social classes that made active and critical mass politics possible combined with the rise of global capitalism and resulted in a self-referential political class, which is more concerned with developing ties to wealthy business interests than with implementing political programs that address the concerns of ordinary people.

He shows that at the dawn of the twenty-first century, our politics is regressing, in some respects, to the world we knew long before the early twentieth century, when politics was a power game between oligarchic groups. Crouch, however, argues that the experience of the twentieth century remains on the surface and reminds us of the possibilities that exist for revitalizing politics.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]