Radical Democracy

Abstract

In the liberal theories examined so far in the book, we have seen the problems that emerge from abstract individualism, discourses of rights and the overly prescriptive drawing of boundaries between the public and non-public or private spheres. However, in recent theories of civil society and social capital we have witnessed more attention being paid to context and issues of social structure, whilst feminism (and identity politics more generally) has raised questions about the need for contemporary polities to recognise social and cultural difference. If any kind of synthesis can be formulated from these critiques of liberalism, it is that we need to understand the tensions between liberalism and democracy and the way in which those tensions undermine the universal models that tend to emanate from liberal theory. Democracy, then, is a much more complicated and chaotic phenomenon than it appears in most theoretical ideal-type constructions.¹ Whereas orthodox models of liberal democracy attempt to simplify and negate this diversity and complexity in the political sphere, a radical approach to democracy must recognise and build upon the complicated relations of diverse societies.