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Democracy as a Social Practice: Jeffrey Stout, Miroslav Volf, and the Democratic Virtues
- Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal
- Penn State University Press
- Volume 99, Number 2, 2016
- pp. 193-222
- Article
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The examples of grassroots activism that form the basis of Jeffrey Stout’s Blessed Are the Organized (2010) are presented by Stout as an application of the democratic politics that are described in his earlier, very influential book, Democracy and Tradition (2004). This article argues, however, that the anger and group solidarity that characterize the practices of accountability that appear in Blessed Are the Organized work to undermine some of the most precious insights of Democracy and Tradition. This article offers Miroslav Volf’s generous practice of “double vision” as a way to better temper the dangers of democratic accountability, without sacrificing effectiveness.