The purpose of this research is to examine Radical Democracy by C. Douglas Lummis. The plan of the research will be to set forth a critical analysis of the book with reference to central questions about the meaning of democracy, the idea of the people as principal actors in a democracy, how the issue of power and equality surfaces in a democracy, the relationship between democracy and development, democratic movements in Japan and the Philippines, and Lummis's assessment of an effective cure for what he terms "the social disease called political cynicism."
Central questions about the meaning of democracy come down to the locus of power on one hand and the manner in which the discourse of governance of civil society will be conducted. To the question of power, Lummis says that democracy means "that the people rule. To do so, the people must form itself into a body by which power can in principle be held" (21). This implies a participatory experience of civil society, and that is where the manner of civil-society discourse enters the picture. Citing Thomas Paine's Common Sense as a straightforward description of the meaning he would assign to democracy, Lummis says that "the project of thought itself must be carried forward at the level of common sense, in the language of common sense" (21). The language of "moral discourse, choice, and action" is at the core of meaning. At the core of action is the original meaning of democracy--demos for the people and kratia for power. However, democracy articulates an ideal, not a particular program. It is in this context that Lummis describes democracy as a "historical project" (22). This implies active political engagement on the part of the people who compose whatever society is the product of that engagement.
What is important about Lummis's formulation of democracy as a project of civil discourse among the people is that it does not give an account of governance, still less governance as s...