At a historical moment when democracy experiences a legitimation crisis, demands for 'community' and for a 'democracy of the common' have become central themes in political theory and philosophy on both sides of the Atlantic. Such appeals entail a critique, even a rejection, of liberal constitutional democracy as alienating and inauthentic, as not representing the interests of citizens. This book fundamentally questions the democratic potential of appeals to 'community' and 'the common.' The language of 'community' can be observed especially among conservative and neofascist public intellectuals of the New Right, but it also features surprisingly prominently among post-Marxist philosophers and political theorists of the New Left. Tracing 'community' and 'the common' in contemporary political thought and philosophy, this book argues that they represent a dangerous political romanticism and authoritarian drift incompatible with the normative demands and the emancipatory dimension of liberal constitutional democracy.

‘In his thorough and comprehensive Streitschrift, Christian Emden attacks the regressive implications of political romanticism in various traditions of political thought. A pointed and timely defense of egalitarian democratic pluralism against the longing for communal authenticity in politics.'

Rainer Forst - Goethe University Frankfurt