This is a short book on democracy and social democracy. It has a core question: Do democracy and social democracy have answers to the challenges of our times? It is divided into four chapters: on democracy as a political regime, electoral programs of social democratic parties, public policies of social democratic parties, and the European Union. It presents a lot of data on 21 wealthy, mainly European countries during 1945–2010, and many regressions. However, this is not a conventional hypothesis-testing study. The occasional use of causal language notwithstanding, the data are largely used, very adroitly, to uncover some key facts about democracy and social democracy, which are acutely interpreted. Moreover, departing from convention, José María Maravall intersperses some normative considerations and recommendations in his analysis, in particular regarding the appropriateness of demands for “more democracy” (p. 45).

Demands on Democracy is stimulating, and the two middle chapters on social democracy are particularly captivating. Specialists on Western European politics may not find any big new idea in this book. But most readers will learn from its broad-ranging discussion about how democracy works and what challenges it faces, and from its compact, grounded discussion about how social democracy has changed since the Thatcherite revolution. This is a careful exercise in stock taking, conjoined with sober reflection, by a scholar who has observed Spanish politics from up close since the return of democracy and has been thinking about the book’s topics for four decades. It deserves to be read by all students of politics who follow the European experience with interest and hope, and recently with concern.

The message of the book is both encouraging and troubling. With regard to democracy, we learn that mechanisms to control politicians do work, proportional electoral systems provide for inclusion, parties offer voters a choice, and the governments of countries in the European Union retain autonomy to make economic decisions. However, politicians are also autonomous from voters, because voters lack information and cannot clearly attribute responsibility for policy choices. At times, the courts and the media have excessive power. The delegation of power to supranational institutions further hinders representation.

With regard to social democracy, we learn that its electoral program differs from the Right’s program and that its public policies are more redistributive than the Right’s policies. Ideology still matters and citizens have a real choice when they cast their ballots. Hence, claims about a convergence on neoliberalism are overdone. However, social democracy’s turn to orthodox economic policies since the late 1970s has been consequential. Despite social democracy’s role in reducing income inequality when it was in power, the average income inequality of Western European countries has increased monotonically from 1980 to 2010.

Moving beyond this diagnosis, Maravall weighs in, if briefly, on the discussion about what can and should be done in the face of democracy’s challenges. He dismisses calls for direct democracy as utopic, and insists that representative democracy is the only viable kind of democracy in the modern world. He firmly warns about the danger of proposals to protect democracy by placing restrictions on democracy. In turn, he holds that democracies might be made more democratic by fostering internal party democracy, pluralism in the media, social pluralism, stronger unions, and divided political power.

Maravall’s diagnosis is well supported. He meticulously sticks to the facts and rigorously develops his arguments. The author is also judicious and responsible in making recommendations. All of his prescriptions serve as a counterweight to extreme views and merit consideration. However, one of the book’s virtues, its brevity, is also a source of some shortcomings.

The book introduces many points without an adequate degree of elaboration. Some of the challenges that democracy faces are treated too briefly, given their complexity and importance. For example, problems related to the judicialization of politics and politicization of the judiciary, and the impact of media owners on politics and policy, are mentioned but not really discussed. Likewise, some recommendations are not spelled out in enough detail. For instance, it is not clear why the author thinks that countermajoritarian institutions might protect citizens’ interests and empower citizens, among other things by providing critical information about politics, and if this suggestion means that the delegation of power to nonelected authorities is not a threat to democracy.

More consequentially, Maravall omits a discussion of some issues that are central to an understanding of current democracy and social democracy in the West. Overall, the diagnosis does not quite capture the anger at the political class and the policies they have supported during the age of globalization. The problem of popular disempowerment is addressed to a certain extent in the chapter on the European Union. However, Maravall is so focused on parties distinguished mainly by left-to-right ideology, that he understates the possibility of a real cleavage between the people and the political class, and does not provide tools for understanding the potency of populist movements in the West. Moreover, lacking an analysis of populism, he does not consider the relevance of populism to democratic renewal. In short, the book has little to say about the sources, nature, and possible implications of recent populist challenges to the political status quo in Europe and the United States.

There are also some gaps in the book’s prescriptions. Concerning democracy, Maravall is on solid ground in dismissing calls for “more democracy” based solely or mainly on the idea of direct democracy. Modern democracy is representative democracy. However, there is little consideration of alternative models of democracy that build on the idea of representative democracy, a matter addressed extensively in the literature on the quality of democracy. Though the institutions of democracy figure centrally in this book, the idea of democratic institutional reconstruction, that is, institutional changes that would make democracy work better, is not given the attention it merits.

In turn, concerning social democracy, Maravall writes eloquently about social democracy’s commitment to the idea of equality of conditions. This is a critical issue. Inasmuch as inequality of conditions affects the political equality of citizens, it is not merely a problem for social democracy but, more fundamentally, a problem of democracy. Yet Maravall offers a rather conventional and narrow discussion of the issue. He highlights that social democracy has abandoned old ideas about state intervention, while remaining committed to the retrospective correction of market-induced inequalities through government transfers. Nevertheless, he is silent, as are social democratic parties these days, about production as opposed to redistribution. Even though the author pays considerable attention to social democracy’s electoral programs, no note is made of social democracy’s lack of a distinctive proposal for acting on market-induced inequalities by reshaping the world of production. No real discussion is offered of the consequences of social democracy’s decision to give up the fight to directly check market income inequality, at a time when this source on inequality has surged to pre—World War II levels, and to focus instead on containing inequality exclusively through post—market redistributive policies. No hint is provided that the development of a productivist program is a challenge for social democracy.

Maravall offers a critical assessment of democracy and social democracy in our times. He clearly signals that not all is well with the status quo and openly says that social democracy has not done enough. Nonetheless, I think he underplays the challenges faced by democracy and social democracy and, consequently, does not convey the scope and urgency of the reforms needed to adequately address the demands on democracy. Maravall’s answer to the question “Do democracy and social democracy have answers to the challenges of our times?” is essentially “yes, they largely do.” Another plausible answer, one that factors in omissions in Demands on Democracy, is “maybe they will, but only inasmuch as they reinvent themselves.”