ABSTRACT
The current American political economy has been aptly described as the winner-take-all economy or the 'new gilded age', two expressions that mirror the acute social inequities and the collusion of economic and political elites that characterized the late nineteenth century. This chapter argues that conventional interpretations of democratic renewal cannot be confined to the electoral sphere but must take into account disruptive forms of political participation. International measures of inequality rank the United States as the most unequal Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) country after Chile, Mexico and Turkey. Political scientists have claimed that US history is divided into partisan regimes that are electoral coalitions aggregating different constituencies for a durable period. An alternative approach to US history has further questioned the ability of the US electoral system to adapt to new challenges. The dynamics of social change needs not be reduced to dichotomies between radical and reformist, electoral processes and disruptive action.
