Democracy and Leadership : On Pragmatism and Virtue

Democracy and Leadership: On Pragmatism and Virtue presents a theory of leadership drawing on insights from Plato’s Republic, while abandoning his authoritarianism in favor of John Dewey’s democratic thought. The book continues the democratic turn for the study of leadership beyond the incorporation of democratic values into old-fashioned views about leading. The completed democratic turn leaves behind the traditional focus on a class of special people. Instead, leadership is understood as a process of judicious yet courageous guidance, infused with democratic values and open to all people. The book proceeds in three parts, beginning with definitions and an understanding of the nature of leadership in general and of democratic leadership in particular. Then, Part II examines four challenges for a democratic theory of leadership. Finally, in Part III, the theory of democratic leadership is put to the test of addressing problems of poverty, educational frustration, and racial divides, particularly aggravated in Mississippi. In Democracy and Leadership, Eric Thomas Weber draws from Plato’s virtues of the ideal city, updated with democratic values and insights from John Dewey, to present both a general and a democratic theory of leadership. Central to the project is the democratic turn away from thinking of leadership as persons to thinking of it as a process open to all.