Non-consensual Democracy: Dialogue and Critical Community

This book uses the concept of dialogue in Bakhtin and others to productively move democratic theory forward. Contemporary democracy is in crisis. People believe less and less in a system of democratic institutions that can cope with today’s social problems. Leszek Koczanowicz sheds new light on this problem, using the ideas of M. M. Bakhtin and others to show that dialogue in democracy can transcend both antagonistic and consensual perspectives. After an overview of the history of the dialogue, antagonism opposition as it is embedded in modern political theory, and the concept of dialogue in contemporary political theory, the author moves on to demonstrate that Bakhtin’s theory of dialogue can introduce a new quality into political theory, allowing us to overcome the liberalism/communitarianism debate. To conclude, he introduces a concept of ‘critical community’ to show that collective identities can be constructed in critical dialogue with the tradition and values of community.