Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I. Framing the Thesis

1.Can Democracy Be Overdone?

1.1Democracy’s Value

1.2Too Much of a Good Thing?

1.3Too Much Democracy?

1.4Is the Thesis Conservative?

1.5But Isn’t Everything Politics?

1.6Oligarchy in Disguise?

1.7Moving Forward

2.Democracy’s Expanding Reach

2.1Scope, Site, and Reach

2.2Democracy as a Social Ideal

2.3Capturing the Ideal: The Classical Approach

2.4The Need for Public Engagement

2.5Expanded Democracy in Practice

2.6Overdoing Democracy as an Internal Problem

II. Diagnosis

3.The Political Saturation of Social Space

3.1Preview of the Diagnostic Argument

3.2Expanding the Local

3.3Sorting: Physical, Social, and Political

3.4The Infiltration of Politics

3.5Political Saturation

4.The Problem of Polarization

4.1Two Concepts of Polarization: The Rough Distinction

4.2Political Polarization

4.3Belief Polarization

4.4Degree, Content, and Commitment

4.5The Mechanism of Belief Polarization

4.6Belief Polarization with a Humean Face

4.7The Social Impact of Belief Polarization

4.8The Diagnostic Argument Completed

III. Prescription

5.Civic Friendship

5.1The Better Democracy Response

5.2The Circumstances of Politics

5.3Civic Friends and Civic Enmity

5.4Correlate Social Goods

5.5Breaking the Dynamic

5.6Is Civic Friendship Possible?

6.The Place of Politics

Notes

Works Cited

Index