Democracy Rules

Jan-Werner Müller, a political theorist who teaches at Princeton University, asks what actually holds a democracy together. He argues that democracy rests not only on liberty and equality but also on uncertainty.

That idea may sound unappealing at a moment when the pandemic has left many people anxious about what comes next. Müller contends that openness to the unknown is what keeps democratic politics adaptable and inventive, and that this openness is one of democracy's clearest strengths over authoritarian systems, which try to lock both government and ordinary citizens into a fixed and foreseeable order.

The book focuses on the rules and norms that sustain democratic life, with particular attention to elections and political parties. Müller maintains that the intermediary institutions regarded as indispensable to democracy since the nineteenth century, including political parties and a free press, need to be revitalized.