Bush invoked democracy as a political practice in a speech he gave in 2003. He proclaimed the role of the United States in spreading democracy across the globe, his strategy for democracy in the .Middle East, and his hopes for the future of a democratic Iraq. 12 Citing the lessons of World War II and the Cold War, lessons that teach us that sacrifces made for the sake of democracy are worthwhile, Bush noted that ''now we must apply that lesson in our own time. We've reached another great turning pointand the resolve we show wil shape the next stage of the world democratic movement:' In their well-known and influential description of the current academic consensus around deliberative democracy, Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson invoke democracy as a theoretical justification for rule. They define deliberative democracy "as a form of government in which free and equal citizens (and their representatives) justify decisions in a process in which they give one another reasons that are mutually acceptable and generally accessible, with the aim of reaching conclusions that are binding in the present on all citizens but open to challenge in the future:'13 AB an example, albeit an admittedly imperfect one, Gutmann and Thompson refer to George W. Bush's recognition of a need to justify his decision to go to war, his persistence in making the case for preventive war against Iraq.
What might we make of these three invocations of democracy? A first pass might say that they are not talking about the same thing, that democracy; an empty signifier, is filled in with difering contents in each case. Here one might emphasize the diferences b etween the protestors hailed by the sign in the cofee shop, the leader of a hegemonic power, and academics elucidating a second-order account oflegitimacy in politics. Yet even with these diferences is it not the case that, in each invocation, democracy is somehow missing, outside the frame? That democracy is standing in for aspirations to something lacking in the present, something more than what we have?
Democracy is missing from the protestors' sign when we imagine them saying that their voices have not been heard, that Bush's decision to go to war violated American constitutional principles. The Bush administration violated democratic norms in going to war against the wishes of the majority; The protestors are contesting this decision, saying that it was not in their name, that they do not authorize it, and that this lack of authorization is a lack of democracy. Democracy is outside Bush's frame when we recognize his self-image as a bringer of democracy, an instrument of the future. He looks outside of a present America, sees a global absence that threatens the United States, and acts to fil it. Democracy is missing from Gutmann's and Thompson's account insofar as the argument they make is normative, a theory ofhow things ought to be, not of how they are.
DEMOCRACY
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