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Continuing Dialogue the Sociobiology of Democracy Revisited: A Reply and a Reiteration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Peter A. Corning
Peter A. Corning*
Affiliation:
Institute for the Study of Complex Systems, USA
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Extract

The response by Somit and Peterson to my earlier commentary in this journal (Corning, 2000), which sharply criticized their little-noticed 1997 book (by their own admission), must seem like old news that should be relegated to the obituary pages. On the contrary, it concerns one of the central political issues of our time—what sustains modern democracy, and what are its future prospects. Somit and Peterson in their modest book offered both a diagnosis and a prescription. I concluded in my essay that the result was disappointing—more for what was omitted than for any commissions. My critique involved a rather subtle argument, and, judging by the authors' response (Somit and Peterson, 2001), it seems to have been lost on them as well.

Type
Continuing Dialogue
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , September 2001 , pp. 231 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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