Quoting,

Victor Koschmann’s study of postwar theorists of shutaisei distinguishes carefully between the conception of democracy as a thoroughgoing revolution to extend equality and liberty, and democracy as a formal system of rights and responsibilities in the public realm, i.e., between a way of living and a way of ruling, between a subjectivity formed through praxis and a subjectivity discovered in a form of being. Koschmann, Revolution and Subjectivity in Postwar Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), esp. “Conclusion: The Subject of Modernity.”

I think we all feel that democracy makes claims on the system as it is toward a more inclusive way both of governing and living that also draws  more out of people.