Democracy to Come: Politics as Relational Praxis by Fred Dallmayr

Dallmayr's latest book follows a series of multidisciplinary works on political theory, globalism, political theology, religious studies, history, anthropology, metaphysics, ethics, and spirituality, including, since 2013: Being in the World: Dialogue and Cosmopolis; Mindfulness and Letting Be: On Engaged Thinking and Acting; Taming Leviathan: Toward a Global Ethical Alliance; Humanizing Humanity: For a Global Ethics; Freedom and Solidarity: Toward New Beginnings; Against Apocalypse: Recovering Humanity's Wholeness; On the Boundary: A Life Remembered; Critical Phenomenology, Cross-Cultural Theory, Cosmopolitanism. If his previous books are anything like this one, they not only, as a whole, examine politics from a staggering variety of disciplines and perspectives, but perform this incredible feat of erudition and integration. Alasdair MacIntyre has taught us that today's philosopher must have a mastery of not only his own tradition of rationality but also several others—and from the inside, on their own terms, like learning another language. What one learns from reading Dallmayr, who certainly lives up to MacIntyre's tough criterion, is that this global and multilensed approach is simply what is required now for an adequate treatment of political theory and praxis in the contemporary world.

In the first chapter, Dallmayr writes in a dialectic mode, examining modern "classical" thinkers influential in both the paradigmatic rise of democracy and its theoretical discourse, such as Montesquieu, Leibniz, and Tocqueville, and contrasting them with more recent thinkers, Samuel Huntington, Claude Lefort, and Daniele Archibugi. What he argues is that the quantitative, empirical, and institutional definition and explanation of democracy, the "scientific" account of its emergence as the dominant Western paradigm preferred by Huntington and today's academic political scientists, is essentially wrong, and that the "classical theory of democracy" needs to be recuperated, though "in a novel form." Here he states the main thesis of the book: "This means that the community of people (mislabeled 'sovereignty') has to be acknowledged as the ultimate 'source' of power and legitimacy (potential), although this source can never be fully or concretely instantiated. At the same time, the orientation toward well-being—that is, the 'good life' or 'common good'—has to be accepted again as the ethical yardstick of democratic politics. What modernity adds to this classical notion is simply the role of individual agency on the level of both rulers and ruled, and the fact that the 'good life' cannot simply be presupposed or imposed, but must be searched for in dialogical interactions. Yet, in order not to decay into selfishness, individual agency has to be integrated into an ethical and relational context."

The second chapter is an examination of several conceptions of democracy that Dallmayr finds wanting, including minimalist, agonist, deliberative, and "apophatic" (Derrida). In this chapter, and throughout the rest of the book's examination of other democratic theorists, theories, and praxis throughout modern history and around the world, Dallmayr's evaluative scheme and criterion is centered in "potentiality and relationality," and idea borrowed from the Bulgarian-French scholar Tzvetan Todorov: "Democracy means the balanced correlation of three main factors: the people (founding community, potentiality), individual political actors and policymakers, and shared political goals (telos or purpose). … [E]ach of these factors can give rise to antidemocratic derailments: the 'people' to reactionary 'populism'; individual actors to neoliberalism or 'hyper-liberalism'; the collective purpose to 'messianism' or the policy of 'imposing democracy by bombs.'"

The rest of the chapters constitute a historically informed, geographically diverse, and multidisciplinary analysis of several political theorists, themes, and situations, foremost of which being Todorov and Dussel's analysis and critique of the Eurocentric domination and colonialism of the Americas. Grounded in their critique of the "underside of modernity," Dallmayr goes on to examine the Arab Spring's failed attempt at democratization, the debates on the role of Confucianism in contemporary Asian constitutions and culture, the affinities of Ghandi's conception of democracy and strategy of resistance to oppression with the author's, and the ontological and theological implications of the "paradigm shift from Eurocentric modernity to global transmodernity." "Simply put, the center in democracy is everywhere and nowhere because it manifests itself only in the relationship of elements which has to be constantly renegotiated and rebalanced. … To this extent, one can say that democracy is a dynamic happening or continuous relational creation (creation continua)."

The book culminates in a fascinating study of the advaitic (nondual) thought of the Hindu-Catholic philosopher and theologian, Raimon Panikkar. Dallmayr suggests that, following Panikkar, if Being itself is fundamentally relational yet nondual, "neither one nor two," and more of a "rhythm and dance" than a static, completed reality, one in which human beings are invited creatively to participate, then democracy itself is best seen as a creation continuna.