There is an ongoing concern in democratic theory with the state of modern democracy. As normative theories provide resources and guidance to strengthen democratic systems and practitioners are proposing new practices and institutions to alleviate the representative, participatory, and deliberative deficits, whether they can improve the quality of democratic life remains an open question. Moreover, how these practices and institutions can shape and reshape our understanding of democracy and its various principles entails a reflection on how these processes are interacting and could be interacting with one another. For instance, Reference SawardMichael Saward (2021) put forward a “democratic design framework” that highlights the open, systemic, and contextual relationship between practices and political principles and the possibilities and challenges for democratic thinking inherent to their interactions. In Democracy without Shortcuts, Cristina Lafont proposes a rich, thought-provoking, and important contribution to this discussion. Rejecting “shortcuts” that bypass processes of opinion- and will-formation, she defends a systemic account of democracy grounded in the ideal of self-government that is both participatory and deliberative. Her argument is not aimed at defending democracy against alternative forms of political organizations but rather at assessing the democratic promises of political reforms that “shortcut” participation: the “only road to better political outcome,” she argues, “is the long, participatory road” (4).

In the first part of the book, Lafont defines the ideal of self-government by relying on democratic control rather than political equality (chap. 1). Her interpretation stresses the importance of identifying with and reflectively endorsing political decisions. In doing so, she embraces a “diffuse” understanding of participation in processes of political opinion- and will-formation and a systemic frame to approach the connections between them and political decisions. Citizens should not blindly defer to others when there are “effective and ongoing opportunities” for them to shape the political process in ways that align the decisions with their views (23). The emphasis on fostering a sense of ownership of and identification with political decisions is key for Lafont's argument.

The question of how to capture that very ideal and avoid blind deference guides the rest of the book and provides the critical lenses by which the democratic potential of normative theories and political reforms are examined. Lafont first explores the argument that the participatory ideal can only be effectively defended through nondeliberative conceptions of democracy (chap. 2). She argues that “deep pluralist” conceptions of democracy fall short as their interpretation of legitimacy, based on procedural fairness and equal treatment of all views, provides few effective opportunities for minorities to shape the political outcome. Since these conceptions understand political disagreements as intractable, majoritarian processes emerge as the mechanism to settle collective decisions. Minorities are expected to blindly defer to the majority, alienating them as the gap between substantive justice and procedural fairness widens.

Building on this critique of processes that alienate citizens from self-government, Lafont moves to an analysis of the deliberative framework in the second part of the book as it provides “empowering resources to disempowered actors” (65). First, she turns her attention to epistemic (chap. 3) and lottocratic (chap. 4) conceptions of democracy. She distinguishes between elite and democratic epistocracy but argues that both bypass the citizenry in their search for the “best political answer” by elevating a different “set of knowers” (100). Regarding the lottocratic conception of deliberative democracy, she argues that empowered minipublics are problematic from a participatory perspective. Lafont argues that the main problem is that when a randomly selected body of citizens is empowered, there is an expectation that its outcomes have “prescriptive force” for citizens. (119) The shortcut of the “micro-deliberative strategy” amounts to “propagating more democratic illusions” (136) as it relies on the transformed views of the few rather than the views of the broader public, which, ultimately, undermines the democratic ideal by fostering the disconnect between the two.

However, Lafont's critique of minipublics is a friendly one, as she suggests using them as a resource for macro-deliberation instead of empowering them to make decisions. As such, she defends the goal of making political systems more responsive to considered opinions by relying on the “contestatory,” “vigilant,” and “anticipatory” use of minipublics (chap. 5). This proposition is embedded in the broader goal of improving public deliberation central to her “participatory conception of deliberative democracy” (chap. 6). Since “democracies are stuck with the people they've got” (167), the aim of public deliberation cannot be purely epistemic. It must allow processes of mutual justification for citizens to identify with and endorse policies. This principle is made possible by the presence of institutions and practices that provide effective and ongoing opportunities for citizens to “challenge the acceptability of coercive policies to which they are subject” (187).

In the last part of the book (chaps. 7 and 8), Lafont elevates legal contestation as a key component of a more vibrant democracy “without shortcuts.” This institutional device contributes to the democratic project by empowering citizens “to call upon the rest of the citizenry” to publicly debate the “proper scope, content, and limits of their fundamentals rights and freedoms” (238). As an inclusive process that structures public deliberation, the judicial review provides opportunities to find substantive agreement over time. Grounded in the principle of mutual justification, she presents this institution as a “conversation initiator” that allow citizens “to be listened to” but also “to open or reopen a conversation” in ways that “explicit and reasoned justifications for and against it become available for public deliberation” (230). Although Lafont recognizes the flaws of judicial institutions, her original normative argument positions judicial review as an empowering and citizen-led mechanism.

The argument persuasively emphasizes the democratic ideal of self-government and the need to overcome the pervasive sense of powerlessness illustrated by the growing misalignment between political decisions and the views of the citizenry. However, I want to raise two brief points regarding the notion of blind deference and the scope of the argument.

First, assessing democracy through the critical lens of blind deference is an interesting yet ambiguous suggestion. Given the complexity of democratic societies, Lafont recognizes that citizens can often defer to others, especially their representatives, but warns against doing so blindly (23). However, while people can defer to decisions made by others for a host of different reasons (e.g., partisanship, resentment, fear), some of these justifications can hinder the quality of public deliberation and democratic life more than others (see Mansbridge 2020; Reference WarrenWarren 2020). As such, the capacity of the citizenry to judge the decisions both on their substantive and procedural merits is crucial. Regarding minipublics, accepting decisions made by a randomly selected group of citizens requires a context-based judgment about the features of this process, such as its independence and representative merits. Since political elites often initiate them, minipublics—particularly larger and more political iterations such as citizens’ assemblies—must justify both their recommendations and their process to the public and decision-makers. Accepting the outcome entails passing a judgement that is not necessarily present when citizens defer, for instance, to a figure of their preferred political party.

Second, the scope of the argument is narrowed by a statist framework illustrated by the emphasis on processes of opinion- and will-formation and the citizens’ right to legal contestation and the institution of judicial review (see Reference ChambersChambers 2020). However, under a more diffused and decentralized understanding of democracy, the logic at play with the judicial review could also be applied to a plurality of mechanisms, including but not only deliberative spaces. Amid growing calls for new forms of participation and representation, we could imagine these spaces as more diffuse citizen-led “conversation initiators” that shape public deliberation and political practices. For instance, we could imagine an institutional framework that offers a diverse set of “effective and ongoing opportunities” for citizens, which could then encourage the multiplication of sites of participation in which citizens can initiate and engage in deliberative processes outside of state-centric approaches. This diffuse structure could strengthen the sense of ownership and authorship in democratic politics, foster a sense of possibility, and give form to new and evolving forms of representation.

Overall, Lafont's timely argument recovers an empowering ideal of participatory deliberative democracy and powerfully conveys its political urgency. The normative defense of and commitment to the democratic ideal proposed in Democracy without Shortcuts is a refreshing and necessary theoretical contribution. In developing this deep ideal of democracy, Lafont reminds us that its touchstone remains collective self-government. It is a rich addition that raises ongoing questions, concerns, and challenges for both theoretical approaches of democracy and the design and implementation of political reforms (see Reference Curato, Julien and AndréCurato et al. 2020).