Kesav explains:

 On the communitarian view, democracy requires that individuals embody the virtues that make them capable of the true freedom of self-government, and that these virtues can be properly nurtured only within the context of a proper community. Therefore, the state in a democratic society must undertake the project of forming its citizens’ characters by providing the necessary conditions under which communities, and hence the individuals who compose them, can flourish. A state that fails to embrace this formative role is illegitimate since it fails to provide the conditions necessary for freedom; it “cannot secure the liberty it promises, because it cannot sustain the kind of political community and civic engagement that liberty requires”