Participation through Publics: Did Dewey answer Lippmann?

John Dewey's Public and its Problems provides his fullest account of democracy under the emerging conditions of complex, modern societies. While responding to Lippmann's criticisms of democracy as self-rule, Dewey acknowledges the truth of many of the social scientific criticisms of democracy, while he defends democracy by reconstructing it. Dewey seeks a new public in a "Great Community" based on more face-to-face communication about nonlocal issues. Yet Dewey fails to consistently apply his own reconstructive argument, retreating to a communal basis for democracy. I offer an extension of Dewey's argument in this direction in which "publics" and not "the public" offer the best basis for reconstructing democracy.