Beaulieu is right that the experience of movements takes center stage in my account of democracy, and that this emphasis is integrally linked to my doubts about distinguishing between ideal and non-ideal in democratic theory. But Beaulieu’s discussion could mislead readers in two ways when she suggests that I think “we find democracy” uniquely or invariably in movement practices, and “not in the changes that may result.”

I disavow early in my book the idea that “movement tactics alone are the real heart of democracy” (p. 4), a point I re-emphasize frequently, while arguing for an appreciation of many everyday, unexalted democratic practices, such as canvassing and organizing meetings (pp. 5, 8, 12, 139–49). (Such a pluralistic appreciation of ordinary political work is missing from deliberative and other leading theories.) My aim is not to demonstrate that movement practices constitute democracy’s core. It is instead to show that efforts to realize democratic ambitions play out against phenomena that are acutely familiar to movements—especially social forces and structures that threaten to overwhelm our collective capacity to manage society, ones that provide some groups the means to oppress others. I try to show that such phenomena are not external or contingently related to those who are menaced by them, but are continually reproduced by their routine activities. And I argue that we cannot comprehend democracy separately from these refractory social forms, so attempts to define democracy in terms of pure ideals always come up short.

Beaulieu is right, then, as well, to say that in my view, democracy cannot ever get “beyond” perennial struggle with these “alienated” powers and institutions. But this does not lead me to conclude that democratic action ought to be divorced analytically from its goals or from the changes it engenders. It means only that democratic goals should not be projections of an imaginary world beyond these familiar trials and dangers of politics.

Beaulieu rightly notes the centrality for my book of what I term “democratic action” (although in citing my definition, she calls it “oppositional action”). My conceptualization characterizes democratic action according to what it is “directed toward”—purposes such as “collectively managing crucial institutions,” “combatting domination,” and “reducing opportunities for oppression and exploitation.” This alone should put to rest the idea that I neglect “the changes that may result” from such action. Perhaps in quoting the definition, Beaulieu means to acknowledge this. But she goes on to suggest that this definition is uniquely vulnerable to the question: “who gets to decide whether oppositional activity is working toward these goals”? One problem with this sort of question is that one can ask it equally of any value or standard articulated in political theory. Beaulieu suggests a democratic standard that one could apply to analyzing “social and political changes” resulting from action might be less vulnerable to divergent interpretations. But which outcomes should we emphasize? I argue that the answer is: those having to do with achieving more egalitarian collective management of essential social institutions, and with minimizing domination, oppression and exploitation. But won’t those who benefit from existing domination deny that efforts to challenge their position are democratic, Beaulieu asks? Yes, but democratic agents cannot avoid such controversy by advocating, for example, small changes to a country’s electoral machinery. As Beaulieu notes in her book, “it is difficult to assess objectively whether particular reforms [of this kind] are actually democratic” (104). Many turn out to be “authoritarian” pseudo-reforms—like voter identification laws in the US that disenfranchise those most subject, historically, to oppression. Endemic controversy about domination and how to curb it is another reason for critical scholars to focus not just on abstract ideals, but on disproportionate power relations themselves—how they operate, how they are reproduced—along with a pluralistic vision of democratic action that embraces not just voting or refined forms of discourse, but all the work needed to unmask and counteract undemocratic relations.