Is it not because the relationship between peace and democracy is more complex and less certain than what was generally thought? Today conflicts are multiplying, and the temptation to impose democracy by force is increasing. But doesn’t imposing democracy increase the risk of compromising this ideal and thereby placing peace even further in danger? In a period when the world is unstable and the humanistic ideals of yesterday are increasingly contested, it is high time to directly face the problems of democracy in all their complexity. There is, in fact, no other ideal than the democratic ideal; no ideal can
replace it. This is one more reason to take democracy seriously and to stop treating it in an idealistic manner. This publication identifies some of the problems that the world currently faces in this effort.

Also available in French and Arabic.

Alain Caillé, Professor of Sociology at the University of Paris X-Nanterre, where he also directs GEODE (Groupe d’Etude et d’Observation de la Démocratie, CNRS), is founding director of La Revue du MAUSS (www.revuedumauss.com), an interdisciplinary review of social science and political philosophy (La Découverte, Paris). His latest publications are: Anthropologie du don
(Desclée de Brouwer, 2000) and Histoire raisonnée de la philosophie morale et politique, ed. with C. Lazzeri and M. Senellart (La Découverte, 2001).