In the intellectual confusion prevailing since the demise of Marxism and “marxism”, the attempt is made to define democracy as a matter of pure procedure, explicitly avoiding and condemning any reference to substantive objectives. It can easily be shown, however, that the idea of a purely procedural “democracy” is incoherent and self-contradictory. No legal system whatsoever and no government can exist in the absence of substantive conditions which cannot be left to chance or to the workings of the (...) “market” but must be posited as objectives of political activity. The confusion results from a deficient understanding of what makes a society and an empty idea of “freedom”. The objective of politics is not happiness, an affair to be left to the individuals, but it certainly is liberty understood as participation in the governance of the polity; it is also the pursuit of the common good, defined as the sum of the prerequisites and facilitations of individual autonomy depending on collective action, and as the realization of commonly agreed collective goals. (shrink)

Democracy is both an obvious and dubious idea. Here's why democracy is an obvious idea: For most of history, most governments divided people into the few who rule and the many who obey. The few then used the state to advance their own private interests at the expense of the many. Rulers were less like noble protectors appointed by God and more like intestinal parasites. The obvious solution is to eliminate the distinction between those who rule and those (...) who obey. Make every citizen both a ruler and a subject of that rule. This ensures government promotes everyone's interests. Thus, democracy is the best form of government. It's too bad it took most of civilized history to realize this-and too bad that the world isn't more democratic than it is. Here's why democracy is a dubious idea. Government decisions are high stakes. It decides matters of war and peace, prosperity and poverty, freedom or oppression. Yet we let incompetent people steer the ship of state. Most voters are ignorant and process what little information they have in biased and irrational ways. They fall prey to propaganda and demagogues. They are conformists and don't even try to vote their interests. Democracy is the political equivalent of drunk driving. Thus, democracy is a defective form of government. Democracy is a method by which the masses shoot themselves in their feet. Philosophy students often start essays by writing, "Since the dawn of time, humanity has pondered..." In this case, these arguments and concerns are old, if not dawn-of-time old. We find laypeople, pundits, social scientists, and philosophers making these two arguments today. But in ancient Athens, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle said similar things. (shrink)

Agonistic Democracy explores how theoretical concepts from agonistic democracy can inform institutional design in order to mediate conflict in multicultural, pluralist societies. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Nietzsche, Schmitt, and Arendt, Marie Paxton outlines the importance of their themes of public contestation, contingency and necessary interdependency for contemporary agonistic thinkers. Paxton delineates three distinct approaches to agonistic democracy: David Owen's perfectionist agonism, Mouffe's adversarial agonism, and William Connolly and James Tully's inclusive agonism. Paxton demonstrates how each (...) is fundamental to enabling citizens to cultivate better virtues for themselves and society (Owen), motivating democratic engagement (Mouffe) and enhancing relations of respect and understanding between conflicting citizens (Connolly and Tully). Situated within the context of a deeply polarised post-Trump America and post-Brexit Britain, this book reveals the need to rethink our approach to conflict mediation through democratic institutions. Pulling together insights from experimental research with deliberative democratic innovations, Paxton explores how agonistic theory might be institutionalised further. Through discussing ways in which agonistic institutions might be developed to render democracy more virtuous, more engaging, and more inclusive, Agonistic Democracy provides a unique resource for students of contemporary political theory. (shrink)

Great Britain subjugated colonists using various power strategies, including dehumanization, misinformation, fear, and other divisive strategies. The Founders described these oppressive strategies as “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” Throughout the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers imbued the people with hope in a government for the people: one unlike that of the monarchy, which sought to protect itself at the expense of colonists. As a result, the Founders created a government more likely to lead (...) with fairness, demonstrate respect for human dignity, unite Americans as one people, empower citizens through hope, and lead the nation toward security. This socio-ethical framework was an abductive discovery nested within a grounded theory study where it had been concluded that the first principles of democracy were woven within the American founding documents. Using Charmaz’s constructivist grounded theory, the first principles of democracy—knowledge, fairness, human dignity, hope, unity, and security—were used to answer an emerging research question: Are there two democratic frameworks in the founding documents, and how do they differ? The first principles of democracy promote a culture of ethics, resilience, and freedom. Their empowering disposition makes them suitable as a normative framework for a democratic government for the people. (shrink)

What does a truly democratic experience of political action look like today? In this provocative new work, Adriana Cavarero weighs in on contemporary debates about the relationship between democracy, happiness, and dissent. Drawing upon Arendt's understanding of politics as a participatory experience, but also discussing texts by Émile Zola, Elias Canetti, Boris Pasternak, and Roland Barthes, along with engaging Judith Butler, Cavarero proposes a new view of democracy, based not on violence, but rather on the spontaneous experience of (...) a plurality of bodies coming together in public. Expanding upon the themes explored in previous works, Cavarero offers a timely intervention into current thinking about the nature of democracy, suggesting that its emergence thrives on the nonviolent creativity of a widespread, participatory, and relational power that is shared horizontally rather than vertically. From digital democracy to selfies to contemporary protest movements, Cavarero argues that we need to rethink our focus on individual happiness and turn toward rediscovering the joyful emotions of birth through plural interaction. Yes, let us be happy, she urges, but let us do so publicly, politically, together. (shrink)

Informal political representation can be a political lifeline, particularly for oppressed and marginalized groups. Such representation can give these groups some say, however mediate, partial, and imperfect, in how things go for them. Coeval with the political goods such representation offers these groups are its particular dangers to them. Mindful of these dangers, skeptics challenge the practice for being, inter alia, unaccountable, unauthorized, inegalitarian, and oppressive. These challenges provide strong pro tanto reasons to think the practice morally impermissible. This paper (...) considers the question: On what conditions is the informal political representation of oppressed and marginalized groups permissible? By responding to skeptics’ challenges, I develop a systematic account of moral constraints that, if adopted, would make such representation permissible. The account that emerges shows that informal political representatives (IPRs) must aim to fulfill two sets of sometimes conflicting duties to the represented: democracy within duties, which concern how the representative treats and relates to the represented, and justice without duties, which concern how the representative’s actions advance the aims of the representation. (shrink)

The book analyzes the sources of widespread dissatisfaction with democracies around the world and identifies directions for feasible reforms"--Provided by publisher.

Dewey's book on Democracy and Education established his credentials in the field of education and once counted as his most important book. It has been re-published in many editions and continuously in print ever since the original publication in 1916.

This book explores the relationship between democracy and republicanism, and its consequences; and articulates new theoretical insights into connections between liberty, law and democratic politics.

Hobbits and hooligans -- Ignorant, irrational, misinformed nationalists -- Political participation corrupts -- Politics doesn't empower you or me -- Politics is not a poem -- The right to competent government -- Is democracy competent? -- The rule of the knowers -- Civic enemies.

Is shame dead? With personal information made so widely available, an eroding public/private distinction, and a therapeutic turn in public discourse, many seem to think so. People across the political spectrum have criticized these developments and sought to resurrect shame in order to protect privacy and invigorate democratic politics. Democracy and the Death of Shame reads the fear that 'shame is dead' as an expression of anxiety about the social disturbance endemic to democratic politics. Far from an essential supplement (...) to democracy, the recurring call to 'bring back shame' and other civilizing mores is a disciplinary reaction to the work of democratic citizens who extend the meaning of political equality into social realms. Rereadings from the ancient Cynics to the mid-twentieth century challenge the view that shame is dead and show how shame, as a politically charged idea, is disavowed, invoked, and negotiated in moments of democratic struggle. (shrink)

Abstract Democracy as a political system entailing multi-party competition for power is only one form of democracy. Given that democracy is government by consent, the question is whether a less adversarial system than the party system, which is bound up with majoritarian decision-making, cannot be devised. This paper contends that a system based on consensus as a decision procedure would be a democracy of just such a description. It is important to note that the kind of (...) consensus envisaged here is not agreement regarding questions of truth and morality; it is concerned only with the question of what is to be done. And it is an important fact that reasonable human beings can come to an agreement about what is to be done by virtue of compromise without agreeing on issues of truth or morality. A consensual system will naturally be a non-party arrangement. However, as I explain, such a polity need not be one without parties. (shrink)

Based on a deliberative democracy, this book uses a hermeneutic-critical methodology to study bibliographical sources and practical issues in order to analyse the possibilities, limits and consequences of the digital transformation of democracy. Drawing on a two-way democracy, the aim of this book is intended as an aid for thinking through viable alternatives to the current state of democracy with regard to its ethical foundations and the moral knowledge implicit in or assumed by the way we (...) perceive and understand democracy. It is intended to stimulate reflection and discussion on the basis that, by addressing what we understand as democracy, we can inevitably influence the reality known as democracy. Democracy’s evident regression in today’s world makes this all too apparent: it has become a hostage to all kinds of autocracies and technopopulisms, which are supported to a greater or lesser extent by the current algorithmic revolution. (shrink)

"It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless. Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements. (...) To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. This book is a study of various types and groups who are being impelled by the newer conception of Democracy to an acceptance of social obligations involving in each instance a new line of conduct."--. (shrink)

Hobbits and hooligans -- Ignorant, irrational, misinformed nationalists -- Political participation corrupts -- Politics doesn't empower you or me -- Politics is not a poem -- The right to competent government -- Is democracy competent? -- The rule of the knowers -- Civic enemies.

Political polarization is one of the most discussed challenges facing contemporary democracies and is often associated with a broader epistemic crisis. While inspiring a large literature in political science, polarization’s epistemic problems also have significance for normative democratic theory, and this study develops a new approach aimed at understanding them. In contrast to prominent accounts from political psychology—group polarization theory and cultural cognition theory—which argue that polarization leads individuals to form unreliable political beliefs, this study focuses on system-level diversity. It (...) argues that polarization’s epistemic harms are best located in its tendency to reduce the diversity of perspectives utilized in a democratic system and in how this weakens the system’s ability to identify and address problems of public concern. Understanding such harms is also argued to require a greater consideration of the political dynamics of polarization and issues of elite discourse, alongside political psychology. (shrink)

This book provides a general theory of democratic inclusion for the present world. It presents an original contribution to our understanding of the democratic ideal by explaining how democratic inclusion can apply to individuals in a variety of contexts: the workplace, social clubs, religious institutions, the family and, of course, the state. The book explores the problem of democratic inclusion, what it means to be subject to de facto authority, how this conception translates into legal systems and the relationship between (...) territorial claims by the state, and law's claim to legitimate authority. The volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of politics, especially political theory and democracy. (shrink)

Western democracy is now at a critical juncture. Some worry that power has been wrested from the people and placed in the hands of a small political elite. Others argue that the democratic system gives too much power to a populace that is largely ill-informed and easily swayed by demagogues. This classic study of democratic principles is thus now more relevant than ever. A renowned historian of antiquity and political philosophy, Sir M.I. Finley offers a comparative analysis of Greek (...) and modern conceptions of democracy. As he puts the ancient Greeks in dialogue with their contemporary counterparts, Finley tackles some of the most pressing issues of our day, including public apathy, partisanship, consensus politics, distrust of professional politicians, and the limits of free speech. Including three lectures that Finley delivered at Rutgers University, plus two additional essays that further illuminate his thinking, _Democracy Ancient and Modern _explores the dramatic differences between the close-knit civil society of the ancient Greeks and our own atomized mass societies. By mapping out democracy’s past and its present manifestations, this book helps us plot a course for democracy’s future. (shrink)

The relationship between ecology and democracy has a complex history and an uncertain future. Ecological crises threaten all forms of life on earth, and democracy too is endangered, as popular discontent, elite malfeasance, and unresponsive institutions herald crisis if not collapse. It is clear that our present political concepts and institutions are inadequate for meeting the challenges of living in right relation with the more-than-human world and, moreover, that these inadequacies are themselves symptoms of a failing political-cultural story (...) and a lack of concrete practices of ecological renewal, a story that does not recognize that there is no "people" without the earth and that power is not held by humans alone but in common with the natural world--intensifying weather events effected by climate change are only the most obvious example. Earthborn Democracy upends conventional accounts, which view democracy as a modern invention, by probing deep histories of egalitarian political organization beyond the ancient Athenian efforts so feared by the American founders in the premodern Americas, Mesopotamia, and many other egalitarian cultures. Unlike the constitutional democracies in nation-states, which are in service to economic directives, the political practices and stories excavated in the book illustrate the interdependence necessary to inspire and orient the work of ecological and democratic renewal. Responses to climate catastrophe call for an understanding of how unconscious desire can be a resource for collective democratic action. Developing an embodied account of the unconscious in which a desire for pleasure is central, the authors examine the knowledge and living traditions of Indigenous communities; the incorporation of "pleasure activism" into contemporary social movements and antiracist struggles; and practices of cooperation-cross-species affinity and relational grassroots political organizing around the world. The resonances across these examples trace the possibility for renewal of individual and collective selves through the work of ecological attunement and restoration. Building from re-envisioned democratic histories and this radical rereading of the collective unconscious, they show how contemporary political experiments and practices might cultivate and channel desires for autochthonous-earthborn-democracy, as the Athenian mythos names it. (shrink)

An interview with Alain de Benoist -- Confronting globalization -- Nazism and communism : evil twins -- What is sovereignty? -- The first federalist : Johannes Althusius -- On politics -- On the French right-new and old : an interview with Alain de Benoist -- On identity -- On the French referendum -- Our American friend Paul Piccone was a free spirit and a loud talker -- The current crisis of democracy -- Dismantling the left-right divide -- What is (...) populism? (shrink)

The authors offer ways to encourage and educate Americans to participate in the public deliberations that make democracy work and lay out the principles of..

This article extends property-owning democracy to the digital realm and introduces “data-owning democracy,” a new political economic regime characterized by the wide distribution of data as capital among citizens. Drawing on republican theory and acknowledging data's unique role in the digital economy, it proposes a two-tier model that combines different modes of data ownership and corresponding rights. The first layer of “data-owning democracy” is characterized by a digital public infrastructure that enables citizens to collectively generate data and (...) have a say in how their citizen data are used. In the second layer, individuals automatically receive machine-readable copies of their data whenever they are generated—a slightly more advanced form of the European Union's existing right to data portability (Art. 20). With its focus on empowerment, data-owning democracy is designed to be complementary to existing data protection regulations. It also illustrates how political theory more broadly, and republican theory specifically, can be instructive for specifying the normative components of a new political economy dealing with questions of empowerment and digital rights. (shrink)

In Overdoing Democracy, Robert B. Talisse turns the popular adage "the cure for democracy's ills is more democracy" on its head. Indeed, he argues, the widely recognized, crisis-level polarization within contemporary democracy stems from the tendency among citizens to overdo democracy. When we make everything--even where we shop, the teams we cheer for, and the coffee we drink--about our politics, we weaken our bonds to one another, and work against the fundamental goals of democracy. (...) Talisse advocates civic friendship built around shared endeavors that we must undertake with fellow citizens who do not necessarily share our political affinities as the best way we can obtain a healthier, more sustainable democracy. (shrink)

This book provides a critique of current international law-making and draws on a set of principles from Persian philosophers to present an alternative to influence the development of international law-making procedure. The work conceptualizes a substantive notion of democracy in order to regulate international law-making mechanisms under a set of principles developed between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries in Persia. What the author here names 'democratic egalitarian multilateralism' is founded on: the idea of 'egalitarian law' by Suhrawardi, the account (...) of 'substantial motion' by Mulla Sadra, and the ideal of 'intercultural dialectical democracy' developed by Rūmī. Following a discussion of the conceptual flaws of the chartered and customary sources of international law, it is argued that 'democratic egalitarian multilateralism' could be a source for a set of principles to regulate the procedures through which international treaties are made as well as a criterion for customary international law-ascertainment. (shrink)

On progress, education and future -- On ideologies and governments -- On religion, liberty, and freedom of speech -- On women and equality -- On America and democracy.

Political Theory as a Vocation -- Transgression, Equality, and Voice -- Norm and Form : The Constitutionalizing of Democracy -- Fugitive Democracy -- Hobbes and the Epic Tradition of Political Theory -- Hobbes and the Culture of Despotism -- On Reading Marx Politically -- Max Weber : Legitimation, Method, and the Politics of Theory -- Reason in Exile : Critical Theory and Technological Society -- Hannah Arendt: Democracy and the Political -- Hannah Arendt and the Ordinance of (...) Time -- The Liberal/Democratic Divide : On Rawls's Political Liberalism -- On the Theory and Practice of Power -- Democracy in the Discourse of Postmodernism -- Postmodern Politics and the Absence of Myth -- The Destructive Sixties and Postmodern Conservatism -- From Progress to Modernization : The Conservative Turn -- Editorial -- What Revolutionary Action Means Today -- The People's Two Bodies -- The New Public Philosophy -- Democracy, Difference, and Re-Cognition -- Constitutional Order, Revolutionary Violence and Modern Power -- Agitated Times. (shrink)

Democracy used to be seen as a relatively mechanical matter of merely adding up everyone's votes in free and fair elections. That mechanistic model has many virtues, among them allowing democracy to 'track the truth', where purely factual issues are all that is at stake. Political disputes invariably mix facts with values, however, and then it is essential to listen to what people are saying rather than merely note how they are voting. The great challenge is how to (...) implement that deliberative ideal among millions of people at once. In this strikingly original book, Goodin offers a solution: 'democratic deliberation within'. Building on models of ordinary conversational dynamics, he suggests that people simply imagine themselves in the position of various other people they have heard or read about and ask, 'What would they say about this proposal?' Informing the democratic imaginary then becomes the key to making deliberations more reflective - more empathetic, more considered, more expansive across time and distance. (shrink)

This book articulates a participatory conception of deliberative democracy that takes the democratic ideal of self-government seriously. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it. The book critically analyzes deep pluralist, epistocratic, and lottocratic conceptions of democracy. Their defenders propose various institutional ''shortcuts'' to help solve problems of democratic governance such as overcoming disagreements, citizens' political ignorance, or poor-quality deliberation. However, all these shortcut proposals require (...) citizens to blindly defer to actors over whose decisions they cannot exercise control. Implementing such proposals would therefore undermine democracy. Moreover, it seems naive to assume that a community can reach better outcomes 'faster' if it bypasses the beliefs and attitudes of its citizens. Unfortunately, there are no 'shortcuts' to make a community better than its members. The only road to better outcomes is the long, participatory road that is taken when citizens forge a collective will by changing one another's hearts and minds. However difficult the process of justifying political decisions to one another may be, skipping it cannot get us any closer to the democratic ideal. Starting from this conviction, the book defends a conception of democracy ''without shortcuts''. This conception sheds new light on long-standing debates about the proper scope of public reason, the role of religion in politics, and the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. It also proposes new ways to unleash the democratic potential of institutional innovations such as deliberative minipublics. (shrink)

Democracy - hope or illusion? Blooming, failing or declining? Our doubts and hesitation make part of unbending efforts to endorse and explain democracy. Who is right - the custodians of promise or the prophets of decline? The book concentrates on doubts. The author tries to explore «the other side of the moon», emphasizing the role of critical thinking, opposing a main-current optimism. Defending democracy we want to generate hope, but hoping may be a dangerous craft. Protecting our (...) hope we are prone to believe that democracy - even if it is not a full success story - is justified in its nature and out of question. How much do we have to forget to sanction this view? This is, in fact, the main question the book raises. It gives voice to those who never, in their writing on democracy, used a flattering tone. Starting with Greek giants - Plato and Aristotle - up to modern and most recent times, going through a broad field of revealing criticism, leaving us with an unsettling feeling that democracy is rather something to be explained than something to be celebrated. Living in democracy, lamenting its underperformances, we must not overlook a fundamental question - in what part do our disappointments reflect the «art of forgetting», allowing us to cast into oblivion all serious doubts originating in a critical discourse on modernity and democracy? (shrink)

Will democracy figure prominently in China's future? If so, what kind of democracy? In this insightful and thought-provoking book, David Hall and Roger Ames explore such questions and, in the course of answering them, look to the ideas of John Dewey and Confucius.

This book critically investigates the notion of democracy without demos by unravelling the link that modern history has established between the concepts of democracy and the sovereignty of the people. This task is imposed on us by globalization. The individualization of the subject of rights is the result of the destruction of regimes of special rights of ancient societies by the centralizing action of a territorial power. This individualization, because it implies equality, has created a new form of (...) political subjectivity that has been the driving force of the democratization of democracies during the 19th and 20th centuries. Democracy and subjective rights discusses how asserting itself as the only guarantor of rights, the modern state has also nationalized citizenship. However, the author argues, the legal and judicial monopoly of the nation-state is weakened today by the multiplication and heterogeneity of the powers on which the rights of individuals depend. This situation forces us to denationalize citizenship without sacrificing, however, the specific form of political subjectivity that the individualization of rights has made possible. (shrink)

This book investigates the relationship between liberal democracies and ontology, that is, philosophical claims about the constitution of agents and the social world. Many philosophers argue that ontology needs to be avoided in political and legal philosophy. In fact, political liberalism, a highly influential paradigm founded by the philosopher John Rawls, makes the avoidance of ontology a core ambition of its 'political, non-metaphysical' programme. In contrast to political liberalism, this book argues that attending to ontological disputes is essential to political (...) and legal philosophy. Illuminating, criticising and developing ontological arguments does not only enhance our understanding of justice, but also highlights key features of democratic citizenship. The argument is built up by bringing together three traditions of thought that have so far not been confronted with one another: political liberalism, the work of Michel Foucault, and the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud and Donald Winnicott. The book also investigates more concrete implications of ontological disputes by drawing on several case studies: a Dutch political-legal debate about greeting rituals; an American conflict about the legalisation of religious freedom; and the struggles for resilience of two American social movement groups. (shrink)

This paper examines the potential role of deliberative democracy in constitutional processes of higher law-making, either for the founding of constitutions or for constitutional change. It defines deliberative democracy as the combination of political equality and deliberation and situates this form of democracy in contrast to a range of alternatives. It then considers two contrasting processes—elite deliberation and plebiscitary mass democracy (embodied in referenda) as approaches to higher law-making that employ deliberation without political equality or political (...) equality without deliberation. It finally turns to some institutional designs that might achieve both fundamental values at the same time, or in the process of realizing a sequence of choices. (shrink)

Democracy is in crisis in the United States and in many countries around the world. Democracies are forged in the wake of oppression. At first there is trust among those with a common cause. But maintaining unity is a continual challenge. Many nations that started on a path to democracy in this century now are reverting to autocracy. Their elected leaders maintain support by pitting one part of the population against the other as they threaten those who challenge (...) them. They exert their authority by repeating mistruths and intimidating the press. Internal divisions in the United States now threaten that it will tread that path. In the US and other democracies equality and human dignity still have not fully been realized. In every generation we must renew our commitment to democratic principles and their meaning for our time. (shrink)

This collection of original essays by prominent authors contributes to current debates about democracy in powerful and provocative ways. The occasion for bringing together this notable collection of essays is the opportunity to examine the crisis in democracy and the promise of new alternative models.

Democracy -- Political participation -- Value of democracy -- Procedure and substance -- Justice -- State coercion and criminal punishment -- Sufficiency and equality -- Humanitarian intervention.

Democracy is the central political issue of our age, yet debates over its nature and goals rarely engage with feminist concerns. Now that women have the right to vote, they are thought to present no special problems of their own. But despite the seemingly gender-neutral categories of individual or citizen, democratic theory and practice continues to privilege the male. This book reconsiders dominant strands in democratic thinking - focusing on liberal democracy, participatory democracy, and twentieth century versions (...) of civic republicanism - and approaches these from a feminist perspective. Anne Phillips explores the under-representation of women in politics, the crucial relationship between public and private spheres, and the lessons of the contemporary women's movement as an experience in participatory democracy. (shrink)

Political philosopher Noelle McAfee proposes a powerful new political theory for our post-9/11 world, in which an old pathology-the repetition compulsion-has manifested itself in a seemingly endless war on terror. McAfee argues that the quintessentially human desire to participate in a world with others is the key to understanding the public sphere and to creating a more democratic society, a world that all members can have a hand in shaping. But when some are effectively denied this participation, whether through trauma (...) or terror, instead of democratic politics, there arises a political unconscious, an effect of desires unarticulated, failures to sublimate, voices kept silent, and repression reenacted. Not only is this condition undemocratic and unjust, it may lead to further trauma. Unless its troubles are worked through, a political community risks continual repetition and even self-destruction. McAfee deftly weaves together her experience as an observer of democratic life with an array of intellectual schemas, from poststructural psychoanalysis to Rawlsian and Habermasian democratic theories, as well as semiotics, civic republicanism, and American pragmatism. She begins with an analysis of the traumatic effects of silencing members of a political community. Then she explores the potential of deliberative dialogue and other "talking cures" and public testimonies, such as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to help societies work through, rather than continually act out, their conflicts. _Democracy and the Political Unconscious_ is rich in theoretical insights, but it is also grounded in the practical problems of those who are trying to process the traumas of oppression, terror, and brutality and create more decent and democratic societies. Drawing on a breathtaking range of theoretical frameworks and empirical observations, _Democracy and the Political Unconscious_ charts a course for democratic transformation in a world sorely lacking in democratic practice. (shrink)

In this book, John Dryzek criticizes the dominance of instrumental rationality and objectivism in political institutions and public policy and in the practice of political science. He argues that the reliance on these kinds of politics and to technocracies of expert cultures that are not only repressive, but surprisingly ill-equipped for dealing with complex social problems. Drawing on critical theory, he outlines an alternative program for the organization of political institutions advocating a form of communicatively rational democracy, which he (...) terms discursive democracy, that stresses the importance of active citizenship and public discourse. He draws out the limitations of instrumental rationality and investigates how policy analysis and political science may be reformed to help constitute and comprehend democracy. Discursive Democracy examines how the political process can be made more vital and meaningful. At the same time it shows how such an invigorated process will serve as a more effective agent for social problem solving. (shrink)