Designing for Democracy is political theory at its absolute best. It is an extremely sophisticated, problem-driven account of the perils and possibilities of digital technologies, but it is much more than that. It is also a capacious and original theory of democracy that emphasizes the importance of communal membership, attachment, and the willingness to work collaboratively and creatively to improve the structures that bind us together. Forestal brilliantly
illuminates the way that virtual space, much like physical space, can be structured to foster sustainable communities or to discipline and divide us.
Jennifer Forestal is Helen Houlahan Rigali Assistant Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago.