The inheritance of a promise of democracy-to-come: of resistance and tolerance

Abstract

This article examines Derrida's conception of democracy-to-come. It argues that democracy is but a promise, a promise to come that never actually arrives. Democracy always remains autoimmune and lacking in-itself. Such democracy always defers its own espoused values exactly in order to protect itself and to become more concrete. The article connects Derrida's discussion of democracy-to-come with resistance and tolerance. Building on Nietzsche and Mouffe the article argues that the agonistic struggle, which is crucial for the democracy that is becoming, is enabled by certain tolerance for differences. The article points to a new status and a new way of thinking of public policy that conceives of public policymaking as an incessant process of exploration of different possibilities of becoming. It concludes that the inheritance of a promise of democracy-to-come is this openness to imagining new horizons, horizons that are impossible to prevision.