ABOUT THIS BOOK

From leading thinker Danielle Allen, a bold and urgent articulation of a new political philosophy: power-sharing liberalism.

At a time of great social and political turmoil, when many residents of the leading democracies question the ability of their governments to deal fairly and competently with serious public issues, and when power seems more and more to rest with the wealthy few, this book reconsiders the very foundations of democracy and justice. Scholar and writer Danielle Allen argues that the surest path to a just society in which all are given the support necessary to flourish is the protection of political equality; that justice is best achieved by means of democracy; and that the social ideals and organizational design principles that flow from recognizing political equality and democracy as fundamental to human well-being provide an alternative framework not only for justice but also for political economy. Allen identifies this paradigm-changing new framework as “power-sharing liberalism.”

Liberalism more broadly is the philosophical commitment to a government grounded in rights that both protect people in their private lives and empower them to help govern public life. Power-sharing liberalism offers an innovative reconstruction of liberalism based on the principle of full inclusion and non-domination—in which no group has a monopoly on power—in politics, economy, and society. By showing how we all might fully share power and responsibility across all three sectors, Allen advances a culture of civic engagement and empowerment, revealing the universal benefits of an effective government in which all participate on equal terms.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor and director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Her many books include the widely acclaimed Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality; Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A.; Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education; and Democracy in the Time of Coronavirus, the last two also published by the University of Chicago Press.

REVIEWS

“With a philosophically rich set of arguments, Allen brilliantly reveals how democracy is the means to achieve justice. As impressively, she derives from her political theory practical steps for the achievement of our common purpose and flourishing. This is a book in the tradition of Rawls and Dahl, but it is a book informed by the recognition of difference and diversity and the search for more encompassing standards of justice. It is without doubt one of the most important books ever written on democracy.”

— Margaret Levi, professor of political science and codirector of the Ethics, Society, and Technology Hub, Stanford University

“Justice by Means of Democracy is a compelling, major statement by one of the most important, influential, and original political philosophers working today. The goal of the book, which is admirably achieved, is to reorient current discussions of justice, away from the primary economic focus on equal distribution of material goods (income or wealth) and toward democratic political equality. This book will transform academic debates in political philosophy and set the terms for how justice is made manifest in social policy. Superb.”

— Josiah Ober, author of "Demopolis: Democracy before Liberalism in Theory and Practice"

“Ambitious in scope, Justice by Means of Democracy rivals John Rawls’s Theory of Justice, the standard twentieth-century go-to text for liberal political philosophies seeking to address structural inequalities. Taking the idea of the ‘basic structure of society’ as its point of departure, Justice by Means of Democracy adds positive liberties and public autonomy to Rawls’s emphases on negative liberties and private autonomy and replaces Rawls’s famous ‘difference principle’ with a principle of ‘difference without domination.’ Offering an exciting new theory of justice for the twenty-first century, Justice by Means of Democracy is a remarkable achievement.”

— Jill Frank, author of "Poetic Justice: Rereading Plato’s 'Republic'"

“Allen is an important political theorist and classicist who’s tried to turn theory into action. . . . And Allen’s vision, which she puts forward in her new book, Justice by Means of Democracy . . . is something called power-sharing liberalism. To her, one mistake liberalism has made has been that it is willing, again and again, to deprioritize political equality in favor of material redistribution. But she thinks renewal isn’t going to come from people just getting more from government. They’re going to have to be more full participants in government, and that’s going to require fundamentally overhauling the system. And maybe more than that, it’s going to require potentially constructing entirely new possibilities within it.”

— Ezra Klein, The Ezra Klein Show, New York Times

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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