important dimension of democratic politics than the macropolitical sphere
of public reasons and party politics. Since their theory of assemblages of
desire and aVect provides a language in which to describe micropolitical
movements of this kind, it complements liberal democratic conceptions of
decision-making and challenges these to take into account such micropoli-
tical processes. On this basis, William Connolly argues that Deleuzian
micropolitics and democratic theory are not merely compatible but that
they require one another. In order to remain open to the kinds of changes in
fundamental conviction mentioned above, democratic institutions must be
supplemented by a pluralist and democratic ethos of engagement, ‘‘respon-
sive to both the indispensability of justice and the radical insuYciency of
justice to itself ’’ (Connolly 1999 , 68 ).
Derrida’s exploration of the politics of friendship also presupposes the
value of the democratic tradition even as it addresses a problem within it,
namely the manner in which philosophers have deWned friendship and
democracy in familial, patriarchal, and fraternal terms. From an historical
point of view friendship, like democracy, has been an aVair among men.
Derrida’s deconstructive genealogy asks:
is it possible to think and to implement democracy, that which would keep the old
name ‘‘democracy’’, while uprooting from it all thoseWgures of friendship (philo-
sophical and religious) which prescribe fraternity: the family and the androcentric
ethnic group? Is it possible, in assuming a certain faithful memory of democratic
reason and reasontout court—I would even say the Enlightenment of a certain
Auf kla ̈rung(thus leaving open the abyss which is again opening today under these
words)—not to found, where it is no longer a matter offounding, but to open
out to the future, or rather to the ‘‘to come’’, of a certain democracy? (Derrida
1997 , 306 )
The phrase ‘‘to-come’’ here stands for the future understood in such a way
that it is not to be identiWed with any future present but rather with something
that remains in the future, a structural future which will never be actualized in
any present even though it remains capable of acting in or upon the present.
In other words, it stands for a perpetually open, yet to be determined future, a
‘‘to come’’ understood as ‘‘the space opened in order for there to be an
event, the to-come, so that the coming be that of the other’’ (Derrida 2002 ,
182 ). This constant orientation towards the other, or towards the open future
that is named here by the phrase ‘‘to-come,’’ underwrites the pragmatic,
political function of deconstructive analysis. Whenever the question of the
purpose or the politics of deconstruction is raised, Derrida points to
post-structuralism and liberal pragmatism 133