Getting academics to focus on a single topic can be a bit like herding cats. Present them with a theoretical problem and they tend to write about whatever they want, making only the merest nod in the direction of the problem specified. The result is that many edited volumes ostensibly devoted to a common theme wind up containing myriad papers that do little to speak to either the common theme or one another.

Justice and Democracy does remarkably well at avoiding this common ailment of edited volumes. The theme is quite clear: How do we make sense out of the ideals of justice and democracy such that both are normatively compelling and compatible with each other? This question is highly significant, and its answer is far from obvious. Democracy, after all, holds that a society's people should (more or less) get what they want. Justice holds that a society should (more or less) distribute goods (and bads) in accordance with certain principles. But what happens when people want to distribute goods in a manner contrary to those principles? How does one assign the proper place to each of these values? In their introductory essay (Chapter 1), the editors present this problem for its contributors to address, and those contributors generally do so in a manner that is constructive and engaging.

All of the contributions to this book deal with democracy and justice in some way. For some, the focus is a bit lopsided. For example, Julian le Grand's analysis of voluntary social exclusion (Chapter 10) and Russell Hardin's critique of contemporary nationalism as a divisive, rather than a unifying, force (Chapter 11) both focus on questions of justice to a degree that mostly leaves democracy out of the picture. The essays by Norman Schofield (Chapter 4), Albert Weale (Chapter 5), and Jon Elster (Chapter 7) offer arguments that also focus on one of the concepts, but in a manner that has clear implications for understanding the other. Schofield offers a model of political behavior in which citizens can act upon both interests and judgments. He also finds precedents for this model in the writings of Condorcet and Madison. While he says little directly about justice, his model should be of interest to anyone trying to puzzle out how democratic citizens might consistently pursue both private ends and public principles. Elster examines the mechanisms by which people might be moved to act impartially (i.e., on principles of justice) for self-interested reasons. The relevance to the design of democratic institutions should be obvious. Finally, Weale forcefully argues that contractarian arguments cannot work without begging important questions about what constitutes rational and/or reasonable action. He therefore concludes that political theory is not reducible to ethics but must find its own foundations. Contractarians concerned with democracy and/or justice should not neglect Weale's argument.

The remaining five chapters unambiguously explore the relationship between democracy and justice. David Miller (Chapter 8) approaches the question from its flank, by asking what justice demands with regard to the provision of public goods, and what restrictions this may impose on that which democracies may legitimately do. Philip Pettit (Chapter 9) asks what the common good is and how we might identify it. To the extent that the common good is identical with what justice demands—an idea that is arguable but, I believe, defensible—Pettit's argument converts democracy into a means for advancing justice. This is the position defended forthrightly by Richard Arneson (Chapter 3), who denies that democracy has any value except instrumentally, as a way to achieve other values (such as justice). Robert Goodin (Chapter 6) takes a similar position. He wishes to make democracies just by inducing people to make democratic decisions only on the basis of “justice-relevant reasons.”

Only Keith Dowding (Chapter 2) attempts a resolution that does not appear to reduce democracy to a means of realizing justice. While he denies that such a reduction is possible, he does assert that “the fundamental justifications for having democratic procedures lie essentially in the same realm as arguments for social justice” (p. 25). Does this leave democracy independent of justice, as Dowding believes? I am not sure. Dowding's conclusion is that “arguments for changing the institutions we have for promoting both democratic outcomes and just ones also proceed from the same basis, that is, the unjust consequences which follow from the institutions we have” (p. 39). But that sounds a lot to me like saying that democratic institutions are only valuable insofar as they promote justice. Dowding's chapter is entitled “Are Democratic and Just Institutions the Same?” Judging from his conclusion, the correct answer might well be “yes.”

I have suggested that Pettit, Arneson, Goodin, and Dowding all reach a similar conclusion regarding justice and democracy. Each of them reaches this conclusion, however, by a very different route. In a review of this length, I cannot detail the differences among these arguments. I can only emphasize that anyone interested in the question of whether democracy is of purely instrumental value will benefit from reading all four chapters.

“Brian Barry,” the editors of this volume write, “almost uniquely has figured centrally in debates on both democratic theory and social justice” (p. 4). It is to Barry that this volume has been dedicated. And the tribute is a fitting one. The only honor greater than having your colleagues dedicate a volume to you is having them stay on topic while writing for that volume.