What is democracy?
By: Alain Touraine ; translated by David Macey.
Publisher: WestviewPress
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Boulder, CO
Language: eng
Number of pages: 224
Subjects: Democracy
Description: In this sequel to A Critique of Modernity, Alain Touraine questions the social and cultural content of democracy today. At a time when state power is being increasingly eroded by the economic might of transnational capital, what possible value can we ascribe to a democratic idea that is defined merely as a set of guarantees against the totalitarian state?

If democracy is to survive in the post-communist world, Touraine argues, it must accomplish two urgent goals: It must somehow protect the power of the nation-state at the same time as it limits that power (for only the state has sufficient means to counterbalance the global corporate wielders of money and information); and it must reconcile social diversity with social unity and individual liberty with integration.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-205) and index.