Democracy to Come: Politics as Relational Praxis

ISBN-13: 9780190670979 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 192 str.

Fred Dallmayr

Opis

In this book Fred Dallmayr lays the groundwork for a new understanding of democracy. He argues that democracy is not a stable system anchored in a manifest authority (like monarchy), but is sustained by the recessed and purely potential rule of the "people." Hence, democracy has to constantly reinvent itself, resembling theologically a creatio continua. Like one of Calder's mobiles, democracy for him involves three basic elements that must be balanced constantly: the people, political leaders, and policy goals. Where this balance is disrupted, democracy derails into populism, Bonapartism, or messianism. Given this need for balance, democratic politics is basically a "relational praxis."
In our globalizing age, democracy cannot be confined domestically. Dallmayr rejects the idea that it can be autocratically imposed abroad through forced regime change, or that the dominant Western model can simply be transferred elsewhere. In this respect, he challenges the equation of democracy with the pursuit of individual or collective self-interest, insisting that other, more ethical conceptions are possible and that different societies should nurture democracy with their own cultural resources. Providing examples, he discusses efforts to build democracy in the Middle East, China, and India (respectively with Islamic, Confucian and Hindu resources). In the end, Dallmayr's hope is for a "democracy to come," that is, a cosmopolitan community governed not by hegemonic force but by the spirit of equality and mutual respect.

Recenzje

Among other things, Dallmayrs book seeks to reestablish the central importance of equality in democratic thought, offering a critique of liberalism linked to much democratic theory... His understanding that democracy is a process rather than a goal to be achieved is surely correct; and his use of this as a lens to understand cross-cultural democratic theory is a significant, very-much-needed, optimistic point of view.

O autorze

Fred Dallmayr is the Packey J. Dee Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at Notre Dame University. He is the author of thirty books and editor of eighteen books, including (most recently) Integral Pluralism (Kentucky, 2010), Return to Nature (Kentucky, 2011), Border Crossings (Lexington, 2013), and Being in the World (Kentucky, 2013).