7. Fostering civilized coexistence: Governing as balancing political and societal integration

Governing as balancing political and societal integrationThe democratic-optimistic faith in popular self-government assumes that the ruled as rulers choose not only how they are to be organized and governed politically but also how they are to live together.Governing involves fashioning the interface between polity and society-that is, the autonomy and capabilities of the political realm, as well as the autonomy and capabilities of society's social, cultural, and economic organization.A democratic order expresses normative and organizational principles through an arrangement of both political and societal institutions and identities that are intended to tie a population together, create order and predictability, and integrate citizens in spite of divides, inequalities, and power differentials.Legitimacy is based on balancing political and societal differentiation and integration, and things are supposed to work well because there is congruence between the two.Peaceful settlement of conflicts, institutional change, and civilized coexistence are secured because the organization of both polity and society represents the will of the people.The vision that life is structured and given force and meaning by the members of society themselves (Bendix 1968: 70) assumes that there is a fairly broad consensus regarding what constitutes a good polity and a good society, or that there are institutionalized, authoritative ways of settling order conflicts, including which disputes are to be addressed in the political, societal, and private realms.In practice, democratic polities and societies are more or less institutionalized and integrated.They are arrangements of partly autonomous, partly interdependent, and interacting institutions and identities, and it is not necessarily clear what citizens want or how democracies actually reconcile political and societal integration, unity and diversity, system coordination, and unit and individual autonomy."The people" as citizens may think and act differently from "the people" as private individuals.Behavior in the political, societal, and private realms may be guided by a civic ethos, solidarity, and duties as members of the political community, or by individual or group interests and a perceived right to choose one's own identity and lifestyle.Public and private institutions and organizations, developed to cope with different