Democracy and the Limits of Community. Christian J. Emden . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026.

advances a contentious thesis at the outset of this book: a powerful current in recent political theory, across the spectrum from the religious right to the post-Marxist left, has sought to remedy the shortcomings of liberal democracy, or to move beyond it, by shifting emphasis from autonomy and freedom to community and the common.Liberalism is often cast as the source of the alienation and inequality that fuel populism and democratic backsliding, while community is invoked as part of the remedy.Yet, for Emden, this nostalgia for community is misplaced.It looks back to a lost world that never existed in the first place and undervalues the conditions that sustain political equality.In the face of this 'political romanticism', he argues that 'liberal constitutional democracy must be defended' (3).Emden sets out to do so by foregrounding what he, along with Rainer Forst and Cristina Lafont, conceives to be modern democracy's core strength: the mediation of difference among diverse populations by enabling citizens to justify binding norms to one another.He turns the familiar criticisms of liberal government around.Feelings of powerlessness before bureaucratic administrative regimes and capitalist economies are to some degree unavoidable.But the demand to make politics accommodate moral authenticity places an impossible burden on law and institutions.Democratic politics requires compromises and decisions that do not conform to any one person's idea of justice.But this form of political order enables a greater degree of dignity and freedom than the various neo-communitarian alternatives are likely to provide.The book advances these arguments through an engaging blend of history and theory.Chapter 1 links the revival of community in political thought to the legitimation crisis of the 1960s and 1970s, brought about by the rise of neoliberal capitalism.Chapter 2 traces a lineage from earlier conservative communitarian ideas to recent work on the far right by Patrick Deneen, Adrian Vermeule, and Alain de Benoist.Chapter 3 surveys attempts by Jean-Luc Nancy, Roberto Esposito, and Giorgio Agamben to formulate pluralist forms of community as alternatives to capitalist alienation.Chapter 4 turns to Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's notion of the 'common', while Chapter 5 argues that the elevation of constituent power over established constitutional institutions is tantamount to what Carl Schmitt called 'sovereign dictatorship'.Emden notes at the outset that he is not seeking to relitigate the communitarian debates of the 1980s and 1990s.Nor does he seek to minimize the importance of community within civil society, which thrives on associations, movements, friendships, and solidarities.His concern is with community as a model for political order, or as the basis for democracy's normative foundation.