Criticisms of the undemocratic and illiberal nature of political processes within liberal democracies are of course common on the left. Two key features set Stanley's work apart from much of that literature. First, he regards democratic principles as genuinely valuable and does not dismiss them as 'mere reactionary claptrap', as many in the New Left did forty years ago. Second, and more significantly, his intellectual background is highly unusual. Stanley is an analytic philosopher whose training was primarily in epistemology and formal semantics, rather than in social theory or political philosophy. This is uncommon, since most analytic philosophers who are focused on epistemology and similar issues avoid political questions, a reticence of which Stanley does not approve. Indeed, the book is driven, as he says, by a profound sense of regret that analytic philosophy has surrendered many of its central questions to sociology and social theory.

Stanley's primary concern here is with the white-anting of democratic practices by the 'propaganda' of those opposed to equality. He defines democracy in terms of the concepts of liberty, autonomy, and a distinctive kind of equality that he calls 'political equality'. (Oddly he also speaks at one point of empathy as a key virtue of a democratic culture.) He regards these as significant. Unfortunately, the rich and powerful make use of the language of democracy and self-rule to mask a very undemocratic reality. According to Stanley, this is the essential meaning of 'propaganda' in the West: it describes circumstances in which an ideal is used to undermine its realisation in social life; it is used against itself. All propaganda, he notes in passing, 'exploits ideals'.

Stanley's description of propaganda is itself highly unorthodox. In traditional political theory, it is understood as the 'product of conscious intentions to deceive by interested parties'. However, in his introductory remarks Stanley claims that propaganda need not be false, nor must it be delivered insincerely, in order to be propaganda. His rejection of the so-called insincerity condition is particularly vexing since the majority of the examples he later employs to illustrate his claims (at least as he presents them) involve insincerity.

In analysing demagogic speech, Stanley makes use of conceptual tools from formal pragmatics. One such tool is the distinction between at-issue content and not-at-issue content (roughly 'presuppositions'). Stanley's claim is that propaganda typically works at the level of the not-at-issue – that is, what is assumed in the discussion. However, Stanley wants to provide more than simple descriptive analysis. As the title indicates, he is interested in the mechanics, as it were, of propaganda in the West. According to Stanley its root cause is what he calls 'flawed ideology'. Indeed, he spends so much time on this topic that perhaps a more accurate title for the book would be 'How Propaganda and Flawed Ideology Work'.

'Flawed ideology' is contrasted with 'knowledge', and here the contrast is worryingly like the old Marxist distinction between ideology and science (where Marxism provides the scientific objective analysis). Stanley explains the dangers of flawed ideology in cognitive terms. He argues that flawed ideologies 'characteristically lead one to sincerely hold a belief that is false and that, because of its falsity, disrupts the rational evaluation of a policy proposal'. Propaganda, according to Stanley, therefore runs counter to rational principles.

Stanley's analysis of ideology is remarkably (and implausibly) politically partisan. He describes opponents of equality within a democracy as exhibiting a number of cognitively flawed traits, such as being resistant to revisions when shown the failings of their views. They are guilty of flawed ideology, since he regards them as having beliefs that are barriers to rational thought and empathy. This analysis, he claims, is objective, being based on a non-subjective analysis of what it is to be a rational agent. He also claims that this cognitive analysis of the irrationality of those opposed to egalitarianism provides another argument for equality: it tends to lead to barriers to the acquisition of knowledge.

Stanley's line of reasoning in this discussion is circular – and viciously so – since his opponents' unreasonableness is defined in terms of their very unwillingness to acknowledge the equality of all people. My criticism is not in any sense intended as an argument against egalitarianism – quite the opposite. However, egalitarians need to acknowledge, as do all political theorists, the necessarily speculative normative foundations of their theories. The search for objective scientific facts that uncontroversially demonstrate the superiority of one political approach over another is quixotic.

Furthermore, Stanley's account of propaganda is unconvincing, largely because he wishes to demonstrate that propaganda is a sin committed by his political opponents and of which egalitarians are largely guiltless. Surely one can develop a more neutral account of the idea of propaganda that does not rely so heavily on the thought that some political positions contain necessarily false content and as a consequence any arguments in their defence are mere propaganda? Surely we should simply assess political arguments on their merits and not in terms of their political origins? The notion that some lines of political reasoning are necessarily cognitively deficient is one with which we should have no truck.

How should we regard this book, given the failings of Stanley's overall approach? There remains much of value. Stanley places the important question of propaganda, and how it arises in liberal democracy, back on the agenda. His analysis of the ways in which democratic principles are manipulated and undermined is highly insightful. Stanley reminds us of the fact that, even without a ministry of propaganda in place, debates within democratic societies are regularly manipulated by the powerful in ways which diminish our public culture and, as he says, use the ideal of democracy against itself. For this, at least, the work should be commended.