Designing for Democracy: How to Build Community in Digital Environments. By Jennifer Forestal. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. 232p. $99.00 cloth.

dedication to mediating divergent and seemingly contradictory powers and interests” (p. 60). Given that conflict is framed by what is shared and agreed upon, it is unclear whether conflict or, on the contrary, that which is shared does the work of “infinite nonexclusion” and of building society that solidarity, on DuFord’s account, does. The argument that I found more compelling comes much later, at the end of chapter 4, in a detailed, sophisticated discussion of wildcat strikes, or strikes unauthorized by the union leadership. It is unfortunate that this example is not at the beginning of the book, instead of being almost hidden in a chapter that makes a different argument: that labor organizing should be considered a central case of solidarity. DuFord discusses the 2018–19 teachers’ strikes inWest Virginia that went wildcat when the union leadership urged teachers to return to their classrooms although they had not won better pay and benefits. When teachers continued to strike, they drew wide public support, including from students who walked in support of their teachers and from school superintendents who closed schools for seven days to allow teachers to put pressure on the state legislature without their action being classified as a strike, which would have made it illegal (pp. 131–32). On DuFord’s reading, this is an example of the type of internal conflict that the book argues is paradigmatic of solidarity groups; it shows that by its nature solidarity is “a relationship thoroughly imbued with conflict.” This is an internal conflict that, when acted on, has the potential—as it did in the case of West Virginia’s teachers’ strikes—to build a broad base of solidarity and, with it, society (p. 132). The problem is that the case—even in DuFord’s rendering—does not show that. It does not show that conflict is fundamental to the internal relationship of solidarity, and that negotiation of that conflict is what builds society. The conflict at issue in the wildcat strikes is not between the members of the solidarity groups, but between membership and leadership; it is a conflict with an authority, no different than the conflict with the external authority of “the bosses,” as DuFord’s account of wildcat strike as “a union fighting both its bosses: union bosses and corporate bosses” suggests (p. 130). Drawing on Joseph Raz’s notion of authority, DuFord convincingly argues that wildcat strikes are cases in which a union leadership fails to provide authoritative directives because the reasons behind the leadership’s directives (presumably avoiding an illegal strike) are different than those ultimately followed (and accepted as reasons that apply to them) by the members who stay on strike (reasons generated by the poor working conditions) (p. 131). In this case, the public—to which the group stands in an external, not internal relation— accepts the latter reasons rather than the former, and that is what builds the union’s support. But this looks tomemore like taking sides than like negotiating internal conflict. Here—as in other cases—one wishes more attention were paid to the specific connections between concepts, cases, and the overall arguments. Yet Solidarity in Conflict introduces us to an important, timely, and undertheorized issue: how to reinvigorate our democratic life while fostering rather than diminishing dissent and contestation. It also challenges us to think of social movements as playing an important role in this task. It combines close critical engagement with major texts in critical theory with rich, detailed discussions of social movements and activist groups. The result is a wide variety of arguments, some developing over several chapters, some not fully developed, and the relationship of some unclear to the overall themes and argument. Yet, this is a book worth reading and with which we should continue to engage.