Jan-Werner Müller, Contesting

Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-

A. Craiutu

Society

ISSN 0147-2011

Soc
DOI 10.1007/s12115-012-9588-y

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 Author's personal copy
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DOI 10.1007/s12115-012-9588-y

BOOK REVIEW

Jan-Werner Müller, Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas

A. Craiutu

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

“The basic lesson is that no people should be written them, one on Carl Schmitt and another one on the concept of
off … as lacking the desire for freedom” (István Bibó) “constitutional patriotism”). Political ideas, he argues here,
have played an exceptionally important role in the history of
One of the most convincing arguments in favor of the
the twentieth-century. During this age of ideologies and
power of ideas can be found in the writings of a famous
irrational extremes, many prophets of a radiant future,
economist. “The ideas of economists and political philoso-
speaking with a renewed sense of urgency and mission,
phers,” John Maynard Keynes once wrote, “both when they
urged their contemporaries to build a better world purified
are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is
of the sins of the past. The outcomes differed widely from
commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else.
country to country, but it is fair to assume that virtually no
Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt
corner of Europe (with the possible exception of Switzer-
from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some
land) was spared the turmoil that ensued and changed the
defunct economist.” The story of the twentieth-century has
face of the old continent. As Müller reminds us, “from the
confirmed Keynes’ words and disproved skeptics like Hamil-
late 1930s to the late 1940s, more people had been killed by
ton Fish Armstrong, the editor of Foreign Affairs, who after
their fellow human beings than ever before in the history of
visiting Europe in 1947, claimed that when “you are as wor-
mankind.” How can one then neglect the power of ideas
ried as Europe is about the bare essentials of existence, you are
behind the movements that made for such grim statistics?
not much interested in ideas.” Subsequent developments
Tracing the intellectual and political contours of this age of
proved the American editor wrong. The devastation and
extremes and explaining why and how ideologies came to be
changes brought forth by wars and various forms of totalitar-
so attractive and influential, producing an unusual combina-
ianism were self-inflicted and made many realize, often under
tion of despair and hope, is not an easy task. To render justice
tragic circumstances, that their fate (in Czeslaw Milosz’s
to the complexity and richness of such a subject, the author not
phrase) “could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse
only needs an excellent knowledge of many cultures, lan-
books of philosophy.”
guages, and subjects, but must also rely on a complex mix
Jan-Werner Müller’s Contesting Democracy offers yet
of secondary sources which are not easily accessible even
another proof of the power and influence of ideas, with
today. He or she would also have to point to some form of a
twentieth-century Europe being the main case-study. Müller,
grand narrative while leaving readers the freedom to draw any
who was born in Germany and was trained at Oxford in the
conclusions from it. More importantly, such a task would have
1990s, teaches political theory at Princeton and has written
to highlight how abstract ideas come to matter politically and
three other insightful books on Continental thought (among
would have to pay attention to both the work of the ideologues
and the concrete initiatives of politicians who might think
themselves as free from the influence of ideas.
A. Craiutu (*) Arguably the most successful attempt in this regard has
Department of Political Science, Indiana University,
come from the pen of the late Leszek Kolakowski who after
210 Woodburn Hall 1100 E. 7th St.,
Bloomington, IN 47405, USA emigrating from Poland, became a fellow of the All Souls
e-mail: [email protected] College at Oxford and taught at the prestigious Committee
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on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. His mon- six main chapters, the book is organized chronologically,
umental three-volume Main Current of Marxism (reedited in following the path that led Europe from the Age of Security
one single volume by Norton in 2005), a landmark in and Parliamentarism through the two world wars into to the
intellectual history, is not only the definitive history of a post-war era and the subsequent trentes glorieuses. The
major tradition of thought in Western political thought, but volume explores key topics such as the legacy of World
also an unmatched encyclopedic work illustrating the pro- War I, the interwar experiments culminating in various
found impact of ideas on modern politics. François Furet’s totalitarian and authoritarian regimes across Europe, the
The Passing of an Illusion followed (to some extent) in reconstruction of Europe and the emergence of a consensus
Kolakowski’s footsteps, with Furet’s book striking an ever policy in the West, the revolt of the sixties, and the last two
more polemical tone in the aftermath of the fall of commu- decades of communism culminating with the fall of the
nism in 1989–1991. Tony Judt’s award-winning Postwar Berlin Wall in 1989. Müller highlights the complexity of
belongs to a different category; it excels at political and the post-1918 European political scene which became, in
social history but its ventures into intellectual history are Thomas Masaryk’s own words, “a laboratory built over the
less brilliant (Judt famously had little patience for Continen- graveyard of the World War” when dictatorship was slowly
tal thought). This is not the case of Jan-Werner Müller who but inevitably becoming contagious. Mass deportations,
is strong precisely where Judt’s book falls short. He agrees expulsion of minorities, attempts at creating modern bureau-
with Furet and Judt that the twentieth century was different cratic states and the ever-present drive to national self-
from its predecessors insofar as it was “an age of compul- determination loom large in these pages along with the
sive doctrine production (and doctrine consumption),” often declining faith in parliamentarism, the all-consuming obses-
in the name of democracy and democratic values that came sion with the mediocrity of mass society, the attempts at
to be interpreted quite differently across Europe. making Marxism compatible with organized capitalism,
The account Jan-Werner Müller gives in this learned and forced industrialization and collectivization, new personali-
beautifully illustrated 278-page book about the impact of ty cults, and the emergence of movements meant to coun-
ideas on European politics and societies is intellectually tervail the rising influence of Bolshevism. The reader will
rigorous and concise (by comparison, Kolakowski’s classic find here, among other things, interesting comments on war
trilogy has 1214 pages, Judt’s award-winning book 878 communism, Fascism, and corporatism. Fascism, Müller
pages, while Furet’s tome only 600!). Müller’s command argues (challenging a thesis of Zeev Sternhell and, partly,
of the material is overall excellent although he understand- Isaiah Berlin, who wrongly regarded Joseph de Maistre as
ably is bound to rely on a limited set of sources on politics in the forerunner of Fascism), was the opposite of traditional
Central and Eastern Europe, the contours of which remain conservatism and mixed the archaic with the ultra-modern
somewhat sketchy in this volume. The originality of his and the avant-garde, while shifting the conceptual focus
book stems from his focus on what he calls “in-between from class to nation.
figures: statesmen-philosophers, public lawyers, constitu- Seeking to trace the impact of ideas, Müller deftly com-
tional advisers, bureaucrats with vision, philosophers close ments on the contributions made by characters as diverse as
to political parties and movements, as well as second-hand Max Weber, George Sorel, V. I. Lenin, Antonio Gramsci, the
dealers in ideas.” All this makes Müller’s foray into the English pluralists, the Austrian Marxists (Bauer, Hilferding),
intellectual history of twentieth-century Europe a fasci- Giovanni Gentile, George Lukács, Jacques Maritain, J. M.
nating story explaining the new political-constitutionalist Keynes, Friedrich von Hayek, Wilhelm Röpke, Herbert
synthesis that Western Europeans created after 1945, in Marcuse, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and Adam
response to both the immediate (Fascist) past and the Michnik. In particular, the intellectual portraits of Sorel,
rise of “people’s democracies” in the East, in the men- Weber, Lukács, and Marcuse, are very well done. In
acing shadow of the Soviet Union. This was, in many spite of the fact that he was not a systematic thinker by
respects, a rather tragic story since a significant part of any means, Sorel is presented as the key to all contemporary
Europe came to be amputated of a part of its flesh, in political thought, especially in light of his emphasis on social
the words of the Romanian-born historian of religions myths and his anti-materialist revision of Marxism. Max
Mircea Eliade, who himself had fallen prey to the sirens Weber emerges from these pages as a prescient political
of ideologies in the late 1930s (before emigrating first thinker, preoccupied with the threats posed by bureaucracy
to France and then to the United States). and demagogy and the rising influence of “specialists without
The originality of Contesting Democracy stems in good spirit [and] hedonists without a heart.” Yet, as Müller notes,
part from the diversity of its subject, its well thought-out for all of his talk about the need to combine an ethics of
structure, and, last but not least, its lively anecdotes and responsibility with the ethics of conviction, Weber seems to
memorable quotes. Müller writes elegantly and has a good have lacked the “calm nerves” required for politics and was
eye for important ideas and neglected authors. Divided into not immune to the temptations of nationalism.
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In turn, George Lukács was a very important figure who, this respect) proved remarkably resilient and won popular
along with Ernst Bloch, emerged as the one of the most approval and support, presenting themselves at the same
prominent Marxist philosophers of the first half of the time as opponents of Communism and promoters of prog-
twentieth century. Believing that Marxism was above all a ress. Successfully resisting pressure from the Vatican to
method rather than a dogma, he argued that Marxism was support more conservative and even authoritarian regimes,
both a science and an attempt to transform the word. Müller Christian Democrats became the founding fathers of the
pays special attention to the contradictions in Lukács’s European Community, their leaders (Alcide De Gasperi,
works which ended up providing a sophisticated justifica- Konrad Adenauer, and Robert Schumann) playing a key
tion of vanguard-party dominance. Marcuse’s “peculiar role in advocating subsidiarity and strengthening Europe’s
combination of despair and hope” undergirding his widely Christian-humanist heritage (or looking for a new human-
influential One-Dimensional Man is discussed here over a ism advocated by Jacques Maritain). Responding to those
few pages along with his advocacy of a new form of polit- who had claimed that the European federation was a mere
ical action that did not focus on mass parties but aimed at the myth, De Gasperi conceded that it as a myth in the Sorelian
more “diffuse disintegration of the system through local and sense, and then added that this was a much needed “myth of
autonomous groups.” Müller successfully explains Marcuse’s peace,” to be preferred to the old myths of dictatorship,
major appeal among libertarian socialists and students who power, and nationalism that had previously dominated the
proudly referred to the influence of the three “Ms” on their European political scene.
lives: Marx, Mao, and … Marcuse. He is also successful at Another major development in post-war politics, accord-
resurrecting forgotten or lesser-known figures such as ing to Müller, was the creation of constitutional courts as the
Alexander Yessenin-Volpin (who took “socialist legacy” idea of testing the constitutionality of the laws gained new
seriously and challenged the Soviet authorities in the ground in countries like Austria and Germany and the
name of the Soviet Constitution), Johannes Agnoli (the polit- newly-created European Court of Justice passed several
ical theorist of the German 1968), Guy Debord (author of an landmark decisions in 1963 and 1964, establishing that
influential book, The Society of the Spectacle, and prominent European Community laws had supremacy over national
member of the Situationist International), or István Bibó (the laws. These courts proved to be particularly successful at
so-called Isaiah Berlin of Mitteleuropa). combating the rise of militant groups and parties, even if
Almost half of Contesting Democracy is devoted to ex- they limited the sovereignty rights of the member states.
amining the movements and currents of ideas that made Believing that “fire should be fought with fire” (to use Karl
possible the post-war synthesis, a form of consensus poli- Loewenstein’s phrase), German judges banned some anti-
tics, focused on promoting peace and stability, and relying democratic parties and restricted their freedom of assembly
on pragmatic politicians and Weberian technocrats, some of and expression. There were, however, two notable side
whom came to believe that modernization would spell the effects—the weakening of parliaments and the strengthen-
end of ideologies and class struggle. Post-war politics in the ing of the executive power—but they was seen throughout
West, in Müller’s own words, was a new and successful most of Western Europe (with the exception of England) as
“balance of democracy and liberal principles, and constitu- rather positive phenomena, since it was impossible to forget
tionalism in particular, but with both liberalism and democ- that democratic legislatures had previously given power to
racy redefined in light of the totalitarian experience of mid- leaders such as Hitler or Pétain.
twentieth-century Europe.” This was first and foremost a This political laboratory in which doctrines like person-
Christian Democratic moment rather than the triumph of alism, Ordo-liberalism, Christian Democracy, Social De-
social democratic ideas as it is commonly believed. mocracy, socialism, and communism vigorously competed
In the eyes of many observers, the distinctiveness of for power, came to be tested in the late 1960s and 1970s
Europe lies in its embrace of social democratic values, when many Western thinkers focused on the internal contra-
culminating in the emergence of powerful and relatively dictions of capitalism, renewed their critique of imperialism
successful welfare states. Müller begs to differ. In his ac- and colonialism, and became attracted to radical politicians
count, “if one had to choose one movement in ideas and (Mao), Third World liberation movements, and guerilla
party politics that has created the political world in which leaders (Che Guevara). Müller devotes an entire chapter
Europeans still live today, the answer has to be Christian (five) to discussing the significance of the 1968 moment,
Democracy.” By successfully reconciling their religious wryly noting at the outset the differences between Prague
roots with a genuine commitment to the principles of plu- and Paris: “Prague had been about a reform movement for a
ralist democracy and benefitting from the fact that WWII modicum of pluralism and constitutionalism. By contrast,
had put an end to the counter-revolutionary tradition in the Western’68 was, in a deep sense, anti-constitutional.” He
Europe, Christian Democratic parties in key European states is right to make this claim and notes that there was a major
(Germany, Italy, with France and England being outliers in discrepancy between the negative program of these
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movements—they knew quite well what they were up exhausted for good, a big surprise came from the East
against—and their positive agenda which remained for the where two new important intellectual movements emerged
most part imprecise and tentative, focused on vague con- in the late 1970s. The first was the new evolutionism
cepts such as “autonomy” and youthful slogans such as “it is animated by the concept of the “self-limiting revolution”
forbidden to forbid.” That is why many of the concrete (the expression belongs to Adam Michnik) that made the
proposals and institutions proposed by workers and students triumph of the Solidarity movement possible in communist
at that time (such as action committees, self-management, Poland. The second was the politics of “anti-politics” in
autogestion), seemed “strangely archaic,” a concoction of the works of Vaclav Havel (The Power of the Powerless),
proposals drawing on the vocabulary of the old left, anar- Vaclav Benda (The Parallel Polis) and György Konrád
chist traditions, and syndicalist movements largely out of (Antipolitics). It was ironic that Havel turned out to be the
sync with the pragmatic and efficiency-oriented postwar first elected president of post-communist Czechoslovakia a
liberal ethos. These proposals for reform underestimated decade later.
the importance of formal liberties and uncritically embraced For all the spectacular events of the annus mirabilis 1989
an anti-statist agenda, colored by various “libertarian experi- that we all watched glued to our television sets, the after-
ments in living,” some of which became hotbeds of violent math of the fall of communism, in Müller’s story, has
anarchism and terrorism a decade later. curiously reinforced Max Weber’s fears about the power of
This is only one of the reasons why 1968, initially seen as bureaucracy (this time comfortably located in Brussels) and
a harbinger of a new revolutionary era, was, in fact, as weakened the importance of the political. While he is no
Müller puts it, “the last chapter in the history of insurrection subscriber to the theory of the end of ideologies and has no
in Europe.” For all its influence on feminism or other master narrative to share with us, Müller insists that the
liberation movements, the moment of 1968 left a weak nineteenth-century types of ideologies are now defunct. He
institutional legacy in the short-term. This point was mem- leaves it, however, to the reader to decide whether this
orably made by Raymond Aron in The Elusive Revolution indicates an inevitable impoverishment of political imagina-
(1968). But the real significance of the events of May’68, tion or something else. One thing beyond dispute it is that
Aron claimed, came from elsewhere and it is in this regard the disappearance of grand ideological schemes is a sign
that Aron’s analysis (which would have deserved more of pragmatism. Political thought might still be respon-
space in Müller’s book) is a necessary complement to the sive to real political problems (though I have my own
one proposed in Contesting Democracy. To fully understand doubts in this respect), but political theorists today feel
the significance of the events of 1968 a larger perspective is less inclined to ground their proposals in a grand narra-
needed that takes into account the main trends at work in tives explaining the root of the evil in the world and
modern society. The workers’ protests brought to the fore proposing radical ways of eliminating it.
the tensions of industrial society while the student revolts Of course, there are as always several things which the
that occurred throughout the whole world in the 1960s, from reviewer would have liked the author to have done (slightly)
Japan and France to Berkeley and Dakar, revealed the chal- differently, but that is normal in such an ambitious book (the
lenging of old authorities such as the Catholic Church, the only regrettable thing is the absence of an index, a practice
universities, and the military. common in Europe, but unjustifiable in the case of a major
After surveying the legitimation crisis in the West, publishing house like Yale University Press). For example,
Müller’s account turns to emergence of a new form of more emphasis might be put on the writings of Raymond
anti-Communism in France in response to the progressive Aron, Leszek Kolakowski, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn that
disintegration of communism in Eastern Europe following had an important impact on their readers. The publication of
the routinization of charisma in the former Soviet bloc. A Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago was a momentous
few interesting pages are devoted to the writings of the event in France, exercising a profound influence on the
New Philosophers in France (André Glucksmann and media and the country’s intellectual elites. In the same vein,
Bernard-Henri Lévy) and the focus on human rights the ideas of Albert Camus, Pope John Paul II, Denis de
which might have well been Europe’s “last utopia,” as Rougemont, and Andrei Sakharov would have deserved
Europe witnessed an exhaustion of its utopian energies some space here, given that they, too, had significant polit-
and a significant loss of confidence. A fugitive democ- ical implications in their time. The controversy triggered by
racy was the only thing left for radical political theorists the publication of Camus’ The Rebel remains a milestone in
to dream of. “All that seemed to remain,” Müller com- the intellectual life of twentieth-century France.
ments, “were either radical gestures without radical pro- Paradoxically, another valuable proof of the enduring
grammes or a philosophical style emphasizing irony and influence of ideas can be found in Eastern European
pastiche (also without programmes).” And yet, at the countries with a weaker tradition of civil society where
very moment when Europe’s political potential seemed writers and philosophers came to play (often vicariously
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and somewhat in spite of their own intentions) a surprisingly Be that as it may, the reader should welcome the fact that
important public role. One such puzzling example was the Müller’s story does not end on a moralistic tone. “There is
Păltiniş Circle in Romania that formed in the 1970s around no reason,” he writes, “to be triumphant about the West
the inspiring figure of a philosopher, Constantin Noica European post-war constitutional settlement (which was
(1909–1987). Raised in the high tradition of Plato, Kant, essentially extended eastwards after 1989) and the ideas that
Hegel, and Heidegger, Noica had an ambitious educational animated it.” This project had its own highs and lows and
agenda that focused on the preservation of high culture and was not devoid of its internal contradictions. The book ends
ended up justifying a non-political form of “resistance on a note reminiscent of Isaiah Berlin (one of the absent
through culture.” The fascinating story of this circle was figures from this book). “No single master idea or value,
told by one of its members, Gabriel Liiceanu, in The Diary whether stability or autonomy or something else”, Müller
from Păltiniş (translated into English at CEU Press in 2000). writes, “will furnish European democracies with certainty
Unlike another major philosopher, Jan Patočka who became about the future.” He is right. We are left to live with an
involved in the Charter’77, Noica ultimately turned its back imperfect but real form of democracy which, as the late
to history and politics and did not offer a direct alternative to Claude Lefort once argued, is in its essence an institution-
the once dominant Communist orthodoxy. A Platonic spirit, alized form of uncertainty. Contesting Democracy allows its
he believed that the philosopher’s quest for truth must not be readers to become aware of this fact as well as of the
troubled or distracted by the vicissitudes of history and fragility and importance of the very political institutions that
politics. Yet, his ideas attracted many followers and when have given Europe a long and prosperous peace.
he passed away in December 1987, his burial ceremony in Only the future will tell whether the old continent still has
the small mountain resort of Păltiniş in central Romania was the resources to rebound from its current crisis and make its
attended by thousands of people anxiously watched by mark on the twenty-first century. One thing is certain
Securitate agents. though. As long as ideas remain vibrant there and political
Finally, the reader might want to revisit Müller’s take on philosophers are not (entirely) silenced by sophists and
Stalinism which, he claims, “was both mad and method- bureaucrats, there is still hope.
less.” With Stalinism, he adds, “there was no such theory; all
there is are interpretations.” If the latter hypothesis is cor-
rect, then it might be difficult to reconcile it with another
claim to the effect that Stalinism “amounted to a system, Aurelian Craiutu is professor of political science at Indiana Univer-
with its own political logic, and not just a matter of patho- sity, Bloomington, where he teaches courses in the history of political
logical personalities.” It has been argued that Leninism and thought. He has written and edited several books on modern French
political thought, most recently A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Mod-
Stalinism (even if not necessarily in Stalin’s works), could
eration in French Political Thought (Princeton UP, 2012) and (with
be understood as having been based on a specific blueprint Jeremy Jennings) Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and
which did rely upon a clear theoretical self-justification. Other Writings (Cambridge UP, 2009).