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Democratic Dialectics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

H. Mark Roelofs
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Extract

In the modern, extant world of practical history, the dominant “democratic” tradition splits sharply into three, often hostile strands. These strands are liberal democracy, social revolutionary democracy, and participatory democracy. Especially for analytical purposes, it is important to see these strands as distinct sharing only the vaguest general commitment to government by and for broad reaches of the population (the demos). However, the three strands, for all their differences—and hostilities—should be seen historically as standing in profound and significant dialectical relationship with each other. In this light, liberal and social revolutionary democracy are opposites in an antithetical tension that is increasingly extreme. Participatory democracy will then appear as a third term, a still emerging synthetical response arising out of attempts to resolve the tension between the two earlier democratic variants, and clearly showing marks of its inheritance from them.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , Winter 1998 , pp. 5 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1998

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References

1 Moreover, my focus is narrowly political. Economics—and especially the relationship of democracy to capitalism and socialism—is left to one side.

2 “Theology as critical reflection on praxis” (Gutierrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1973], p. 6Google Scholar).

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29 Participatory democracy's emphasis on open-ended conversation has prompted the witticism that “Democracy,” or, maybe, democratic socialism, “takes too many evenings.” But the remark, usually attributed to Oscar Wilde, is specious. It not only begs the question, if the group does not decide, who will? It denigrates the intrinsic value of social life.

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