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[[File:Democracy in What State?.jpg|thumb]]
==Book Description==
“Is it meaningful to call oneself a democrat? And if so, how do you [[interpret]] the [[word]]?”
In responding to this question, eight iconoclastic thinkers prove the rich potential of [[democracy]], along with its critical weaknesses, and reconceive the [[practice]] to accommodate new [[political]] and [[cultural]] realities. Giorgio [[Agamben]] traces the tense [[history]] of constitutions and their coexistence with various governments. [[Alain]] [[Badiou]] contrasts current democratic practice with democratic [[communism]]. Daniel Bensaid ponders the institutionalization of democracy, while [[Wendy Brown]] discusses the democratization of [[society]] under [[neoliberalism]]. [[Jean-Luc Nancy]] measures the [[difference]] between democracy as a [[form]] of rule and as a [[human]] end, and Jacques Rancière highlights its egalitarian [[nature]]. Kristin Ross [[identifies]] hierarchical relationships within democratic practice, and [[Slavoj Žižek]] complicates the [[distinction]] between those who [[desire]] to own the [[state]] and those who [[wish]] to do without it.
Concentrating on the classical roots of democracy and its changing [[meaning]] over [[time]] and within different contexts, these essays uniquely [[defend]] what is [[left]] of the [[left-wing]] [[tradition]] after the fall of Soviet communism. They confront disincentives to [[active]] democratic [[participation]] that have caused voter turnout to decline in western countries, and they address electoral indifference by invoking and reviving the tradition of [[citizen]] involvement. Passionately written and theoretically rich, this collection speaks to all facets of modern political and democratic debate.
