In Democracy without Politics, Steven Bilakovics draws on Tocqueville in order to make the disturbing argument that democratic societies are inherently hostile toward democratic politics. According to Bilakovics, the oft-noted hatred that Americans have for politics is not the result of contemporary phenomena such as negative attack ads or gridlock in a polarized Congress. Instead, Americans tend to disdain politics because of “an antipolitical prejudice inscribed in the democratic way of imagining, understanding, and evaluating the world” (10). Bilakovics's argument is complex, but its lynchpin is his idea that in a democratic society, the dominant conception of freedom becomes that of “openness.” Because they have overthrown the fixed hierarchies, norms, and conventions that existed in the age of aristocracy, democratic peoples come to believe in “the freedom of open-ended, revolutionary possibility” (11). Swept up by the lofty dream that democracy can bring “imminent transcendence” (12) and “possibility without limits” (11), Americans cannot help but see the practice of ordinary politics as “mundane” or as “meaningless power playing” (12, 13). Americans thus oscillate between an idealistic celebration of “democratic openness” and a deeply cynical assessment of conventional democratic politics.

In chapter 1, Bilakovics discusses the contemporary relevance of Tocqueville's claim that “democratic man fears sinking below the level of humanity even as he dreams of rising above the level of humanity” (30). For Bilakovics, Americans are torn between exaggerated dreams of “human elevation” and fears of “degradation” (39). However, neither the dream nor the nightmare is compatible with the practice of politics among equal citizens; for as Aristotle observed, politics is neither for beasts nor gods (33). As Bilakovics puts it, “democratic man imagines himself as either creator or creature, master or puppet” (50), but not as “a citizen who is capable of and who is in need of persuading and being persuaded in turn” (16).

In chapter 2, Bilakovics draws not only on Tocqueville but also on the work of C. Fred Alford to argue that in America, freedom-as-openness breaks down into two opposing subcategories—namely, freedom conceived as “mastery” over others, and freedom conceived as “escape” from others (75). Unfortunately, these competing notions of freedom squeeze out any notion of political freedom—that is, the freedom that arises from “acting in the world with equal others” (20). Bilakovics also argues that people in democratic societies tend to understand associational life either in terms of “intimacy” or in terms of “competition” (99). Capable only of viewing associational life in terms of family metaphors or market metaphors, the people of democratic societies lose sight of what Bilakovics calls “the political element of human association—the element of arguing together with free and equal others to address common problems and formulate common purposes” (99).

Chapter 3 focuses on the political thought of Claude Lefort. Bilakovics finds useful Lefort's famous claim that in the modern, democratic world there are no longer any “markers of certainty” (143). However, Bilakovics wants to amend this by suggesting that democracy does not actually eliminate completely the idea of nature as a source of absolutes, for “openness” itself comes to be seen as natural in democratic societies. It may appear that the age of democracy explodes all orthodoxies, but the desirability of questioning all conventions itself ends up constituting a new orthodoxy that is rarely questioned. This normative demand that all conventions be perennially questioned, though, is inimical to the maintenance of a healthy political sphere.

In chapter 4, Bilakovics offers a powerful critique of Sheldon Wolin's ideas on “fugitive democracy.” Bilakovics finds highly problematic Wolin's suggestion that “the political” can today only manifest itself in revolutionary moments which are spontaneous and fleeting. Because he celebrates a politics of the extraordinary that always ends up being ephemeral, Wolin's ideas can actually contribute to the political passivity and cynicism that are rampant in democratic societies. For Bilakovics, Wolin's faith in “the fugitive democratic moment of revolutionary opening” does nothing to cultivate what is so sorely lacking in a democratic society—namely, “the ordinary practice of democracy” (218).

Bilakovics has written an insightful book that is consistently thought-provoking in its treatment not only of canonical texts, but also of contemporary American politics and culture. However, when it comes to the question of what might be done to revitalize political life, Bilakovics is virtually silent. This silence may be the result of Bilakovics's fundamentally pessimistic argument regarding the fate of democratic politics in a democratic society. Bilakovics writes that “today's political alienation is … much more intractable than if apathy or corruption were solely at its root. An apathetic people can always be ‘awakened,’ and a corrupt system can always be reformed. … But what is to be done when democratic politics is experienced as nonsense—as quite literally a theater of the absurd? … How can we reform our politics when such uncritical cynicism undermines reflection, argument, and action” (3–4)? Bilakovics here poses the key question of what is to be done, but he does little in the book to sketch out possible answers. He does suggest that if the health of democratic politics is to be restored, then Americans must start “thinking outside the boundaries of the norm of openness” (19). This would appear to be a very tall order, though, given Bilakovics's own argument throughout the book that the notion of “democratic openness” is a kind of hegemonic idea in democratic societies. Are there currently any counterdiscourses, so to speak, to the dominant discourse of “openness,” or might such counterdiscourses somehow be developed? Bilakovics leaves these possibilities largely unaddressed.

This book deserves much praise for its creative and often brilliant appropriation of Tocqeuville's ideas. But in my view, Tocqueville himself was not quite as pessimistic as is Bilakovics regarding the fate of political freedom in democratic times. Tocqueville believed that while the progress of equality was inevitable, it was up to citizens and statesmen to determine whether or not there will be equality with servitude or equality with freedom. For Tocqueville, democratic societies are indeed prone to individualism, but participation in what he called “free institutions” can bring people out of their isolation, so that political freedom can be maintained. Tocqueville thus hopes that democratic politics can be an antidote to the ills of democratic society. But the logic of Bilakovics's argument suggests that this antidote may not be available, given his central claim that “the ongoing democratization of society … goes hand in hand with the depoliticization of society” (15). In addition to placing his hopes in “free institutions,” Tocqueville also believed that religion, civic associations, and the doctrine of self-interest properly understood can all help preserve political freedom in democratic times. In contrast, while Bilakovics diagnoses the ills of contemporary American society with considerable ingenuity, he offers little in the way of possible cures. In an endnote, Bilakovics writes that he has tried “to do justice to the capaciousness of [Tocqueville's] method” (257), which means being attentive to the dualities, paradoxes, ambiguities, and complexities that are found in Tocqueville's writings. For the most part, Bilakovics succeeds in this challenging task when he interprets Tocqueville. However, in one important respect, Bilakovics ultimately fails to honor the capaciousness of Tocqueville's vision; for while Bilakovics builds brilliantly on Tocqueville's fears about the fate of liberty in the modern world, he does little to build on Tocqueville's hopes.