In the intellectual confusion prevailing since the demise of Marxism and “marxism”, the attempt is made to define democracy as a matter of pure procedure, explicitly avoiding and condemning any reference to substantive objectives. It can easily be shown, however, that the idea of a purely procedural “democracy” is incoherent and self-contradictory. No legal system whatsoever and no government can exist in the absence of substantive conditions which cannot be left to chance or to the workings of (...) the “market” but must be posited as objectives of political activity. The confusion results from a deficient understanding of what makes a society and an empty idea of “freedom”. The objective of politics is not happiness, an affair to be left to the individuals, but it certainly is liberty understood as participation in the governance of the polity; it is also the pursuit of the common good, defined as the sum of the prerequisites and facilitations of individual autonomy depending on collective action, and as the realization of commonly agreed collective goals. (shrink)

In the intellectual confusion prevailing since the demise of Marxism and “marxism”, the attempt is made to define democracy as a matter of pure procedure, explicitly avoiding and condemning any reference to substantive objectives. It can easily be shown, however, that the idea of a purely procedural “democracy” is incoherent and self‐contradictory. No legal system whatsoever and no government can exist in the absence of substantive conditions which cannot be left to chance or to the workings of (...) the “market” but must be posited as objectives of political activity. The confusion results from a deficient understanding of what makes a society and an empty idea of “freedom”. The objective of politics is not happiness, an affair to be left to the individuals, but it certainly is liberty understood as participation in the governance of the polity; it is also the pursuit of the common good, defined as the sum of the prerequisites and facilitations of individual autonomy depending on collective action, and as the realization of commonly agreed collective goals. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to investigate the Habermasian way of problematizing the European political situation through consideration of the conceptual framework within which he develops his proposal. I begin by clarifying various conceptual difficulties that emerge when thinking about politics within the European Union. I then focus on the concept of popular sovereignty as procedure, which Habermas develops in Between Facts and Norms against the historical backdrop of the nation state. In the debate regarding European constitutionalization, the (...) concept of popular sovereignty as procedure first assumes a critical function against proponents of the no demos thesis. More recently, Habermas has advanced a concept of shared/divided sovereignty, which becomes indispensable when we consider Europe as a democratic federation. The conclusions hereby drawn disclose two problematic aspects of Habermas’s recent proposal. Respectively, these concern the viability of his approach and the questionable plausibility of this proposed federation’s ability to uphold democracy in terms of self-determination. (shrink)

This essay reclaims a political proceduralist vision of democracy as the best normative defense of democracy in contemporary politics. We distinguish this vision from three main approaches that are representative in the current academic debate: the epistemic conception of democracy as a process of truth seeking; the populist defense of democracy as a mobilizing politics that defies procedures; and the classical minimalist or Schumpeterian definition of democracy as a competitive method for selecting leaders.

In this article I attempt a normative analysis of the relations between the ideal of democracy and the distribution of power. In particular, I suggest that democratic institutions and procedures, as they are generally understood, are not able per se to avoid domination. In line with the interpretation of domination that I propose, I claim that in order to promote an ideal of democracy as non-domination we need to take into account power inequalities present outside the political sphere. (...) More specifically, I suggest that the obtainment of a certain degree of equality in the distribution of social power should be understood as a procedural requirement for the realization of the democratic ideal. (shrink)

Abstract Democracy is a fundamental right linked to the realization of a person’s worthy life project regarding its corresponding fulfillment of Human Rights. Along with the procedures to form political majorities, it is mandatory to incorporate the substantial part as a means and end for the normative content of Human Dignity to be carried out allowing it to: i) freely choose a project of valued life with purpose and autonomy ii) to have material and intangible means to function in (...) society; and iii) to live free from harm and fear in order to achieve human flourishing. The integral democracy is a means and an end to materialize individual happiness and the common good as long as everyone has concrete opportunities to unfold its inherent human dignity capacities within the trademark of the democratic constitutional State. Assuming this, integral democracy is the fundamental right of Fundamental Rights. (shrink)

Robert Talisse objects that Deweyan democrats, or those who endorse John Dewey’s philosophy of democracy, cannot consistently hold that (i) “democracy is a way of life” and (ii) democracy as a way of life is compatible with pluralism, at least as contemporary political theorists define that term. What Talisse refers to as his “pluralist objection” states that Deweyan democracy resembles a thick theory of democracy, that is, a theory establishing a set of prior restraints on (...) the values that can count as legitimate within a democratic community. In this paper, it is argued that his pluralist objection succumbs to some combination of four charges. The first two sections of the paper are devoted to presentations of Talisse’s two formulations of his pluralist objection, as they appear in his essay “Can Democracy be a Way of Life?” and his book A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy , respectively. The four charges against the pluralist objection receive attention in the second section. In the third section, Dewey’s pluralist procedure is articulated and illustrated using a recent Canadian public policy debate, followed by some concluding remarks on the acceptability of relying on contemporary political examples of Deweyan democracy in action. (shrink)

The overall aim of this thesis is to assess the legitimacy of constitutional laws and bills of rights within the framework of procedural epistemic democracy. The thesis is divided into three sections. In the first section, I discuss the relevance of an epistemic argument for democracy under the circumstances of politics: I provide an account of reasonable disagreement and explain how usual approaches to the authority of decision-making procedures fail to take it seriously. In the second part of (...) the thesis, I provide an account of the epistemic features of democracy and of the requirements of democratic legitimacy. I develop a revised pragmatist argument for democracy which relies on three presumptive aims of decision-making: justice, sustainability and concord. In the third and last section, I first argue for the desirability of constitutionalism. I then explain why constitutionalism, as it is usually understood, is incompatible with my procedural epistemic account of democratic legitimacy. In the last chapter, I offer a two-pronged solution to the apparent incompatibility of constitutionalism and epistemic democracy. I first argue for the appropriateness of political constitutionalism, as opposed to legal constitutionalism, in understanding the relationship between rights and democracy. I then provide an account of rights protection and judicial review compatible with epistemic democratic legitimacy. Finally, I use the notion of pragmatic encroachment to explain how constitutional laws can achieve normative supremacy through the increased epistemic credentials of the procedure. (shrink)

It is a long‐standing debate within political philosophy generally whether we want our political outcomes to be right or whether we want them to be fair; while democratic theory has traditionally taken the latter focus, democracy can be defended in the former way as well; how that can be done is the subject of this chapter and the next. For epistemic democrats, the aim of democracy is to ‘track the truth’, while for procedural democrats, the aim is to (...) embody certain procedural virtues. When voters are choosing between only two options, both epistemic and procedural standards point in the same direction, and in that case, Condorcet's jury theorem reassures both epistemic and procedural democrats that the correct outcome is most likely to win a majority of votes; however, where there are three or more options on the table, recommendations of the different strands of democratic theory diverge. In these cases, plurality voting is arguably the simplest and possibly the most frequently used voting rule, and this chapter demonstrates that the Condorcet jury theorem can indeed be generalized from majority voting over two options to plurality voting over many options; other decision rules, Condorcet pairwise criteria, Borda count procedures, and the Hare and Coombs systems have also been shown to have considerable truth‐seeking powers. This chapter addresses the question of which of these alternative possible democratic decision rules are the most reliable truth‐tracker in the more general ‘many‐option’ case. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I argue that we should reframe the presentation and defense of the program of discourse ethics and deliberative democracy (DEP) in such a way that we make clear its connection to the substantive moral ideas of solidarity, equality and freedom. This program basically says that we should, when we can, determine the validity of the norms regulating our social life through practices of public deliberation. If we want to understand why engaging in public deliberation makes moral (...) sense, or is obligatory, we need to make explicit the connection between the formal procedures of deliberation and our most basic substantive moral ideas of freedom, equality and solidarity. In order to unpack this claim, I construct what I call an expressive-elaboration model of the relation between substance and procedure in public deliberation. According to this model, we should see the two dimensions as working in tandem, in such a way that deliberative procedures are understood as the medium of expression and elaboration of our basic substantive ideas of solidarity, equality and freedom. The three ideas are expressed in the fact and form of deliberation, and elaborated in their changing and specific interpretations as topics and consequences of deliberative practices. To develop this model, I start with a consideration of certain insights of Kant's moral theory, and proceed to bridge the gap between Habermas's more formalistic and Rawls's more substantive neo-Kantian accounts of practical reason. The result is a straightforwardly substantive articulation and defense of the dialogic procedures of DEP based on the recognition of the fact of widespread moral disagreement and a fundamental project of justice demanding that we deal with that condition of disagreement by constructing social arrangements in which we include each other, solidaristically, as free and equal members. This morally substantive defense of DEP referring to the fact of widespread moral disagreement and the fundamental project of justice is different from, and more compelling than, other common, formalistic and prudential defenses of DEP. (shrink)

Deliberative theories of democracy place the legitimacy of the use of coercive political power in democratic procedures and outcomes produced through a process of fair, equal, and reasoned deliberation. Under debate is whether mutual respect requires the use of ‘public reasons’ rather than ‘the whole truth’ in democratic deliberations. Many deliberative democrats have rejected the public reason requirement as too exclusionary and unfriendly to reasonable pluralism, opting instead for an epistemic theory of democracy that places legitimacy in the (...) epistemic function of democratic deliberation. For instrumental, outcome-based epistemic theories, legitimacy resides in the ability of democratic deliberation to determine ‘correct’, ‘likely true’, or ‘best’ solutions to social problems, while utilizing a procedure-independent standard, such as a common good, to gauge the epistemic success of deliberation. However, the procedure-independent standard may fall prey to the same objection from reasonable pluralism as public reason – it is a requirement that can be reasonably rejected. In this essay, I briefly outline several outcome-based epistemic approaches, highlighting the disagreement over the common good as a procedure-independent standard for correctness. I argue that due to fact of reasonable pluralism, the most promising path forward for outcome epistemic democracy is to abandon the procedure-independent standard entirely. I propose that the pragmatist epistemic democracy offers the best balance of including and utilizing diverse viewpoints with the truth-tracking, problem solving ability of group deliberation towards a common good. (shrink)

Majority rule is an essential element of the institution of democratic government. In three steps, I will explore the conditions of its acceptance as a mechanism of pure procedural legitimacy. Starting from H.L.A. Hart's analysis of the concept «rule», I will argue that the validating conditions of rules are not normative beliefs or reasons, but essentially social patterns of conduct and reasoning that manifest themselves in political agency and discourse. Second, I will outline a normative rationale that defends majority rule (...) as a source of «political» legitimacy under conditions of social pluralism. Finally, I will explain why majority rule's legitimating potential requires that political agency and discourse accept the separation of the political sphere from private spheres. (shrink)

This paper generalises the classical Condorcet jury theorem from majority voting over two options to plurality voting over multiple options. The paper further discusses the debate between epistemic and procedural democracy and situates its formal results in that debate. The paper finally compares a number of different social choice procedures for many-option choices in terms of their epistemic merits. An appendix explores the implications of some of the present mathematical results for the question of how probable majority cycles (as (...) in Condorcet's paradox) are in large electorates. (shrink)

Abstract Democracy as a political system entailing multi-party competition for power is only one form of democracy. Given that democracy is government by consent, the question is whether a less adversarial system than the party system, which is bound up with majoritarian decision-making, cannot be devised. This paper contends that a system based on consensus as a decision procedure would be a democracy of just such a description. It is important to note that the kind (...) of consensus envisaged here is not agreement regarding questions of truth and morality; it is concerned only with the question of what is to be done. And it is an important fact that reasonable human beings can come to an agreement about what is to be done by virtue of compromise without agreeing on issues of truth or morality. A consensual system will naturally be a non-party arrangement. However, as I explain, such a polity need not be one without parties. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Democracy, Culture, Catholicism: Voices from Four Continents eds. by Michael J. Schuck and John Crowley-BuckSteven P. MilliesDemocracy, Culture, Catholicism: Voices from Four Continents Edited by Michael J. Schuck and John Crowley-Buck NEW YORK: FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2016. 350 pp. $105.00 / $35.00Democracy, Culture, Catholicism is the product of a three-year, international project that started from a less specific inspiration. Originally begun at Loyola University Chicago's Joan and (...) Bill Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage in 2010 as a broad inquiry into the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and politics, the project leaders eventually took a different bearing from events as diverse as the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, and Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Caritas in Veritate to focus their project more squarely on democracy. Examining democracy from within the diverse experiences found in Lithuania, Peru, Indonesia, and the United States, the editors [End Page 208] present us with a valuable snapshot of where the Catholic engagement with democracy as a cultural expression finds itself today in a global perspective.Given the amount of material at play, the volume is a monumental achievement, if only for the clarity with which it presents its findings. Some essays are stronger than others. Still, the volume benefits tremendously from an apparent and unusual amount of editorial attention that sequences the essays and interrelates them with useful references to one another in such a way that Democracy, Culture, Catholicism escapes entirely the fate of so many volumes of collected essays. Here, the reader has the sensation of reading one coherent narrative, not twenty-three disparately connected, individual essays. This alone is impressive.The volume possesses other strengths. Reflections emerge throughout that engage the deeper questions of democracy. Who are these people making decisions together? How can we understand the composition of a political community? Too much democratic theory overlooks the complex interweaving of history, memory, and identity that operates like a substrate of our consciousness beneath our reason while we are presuming ourselves to be rational decision makers using democratic procedures. The book's engagement not just with democracy and Catholicism but also with culture is important. These essays treat culture not only in different local expressions but also (and in a way that is deep, serious, and sustained) as a phenomenon of consciousness.The American perspective always lurks in the narrative, threatening to dominate. This is inevitable not only because the project was managed in the United States but also because the polarizing obsessions of the church in the United States about how to acknowledge the norms of modern political arrangements have tended to dominate conversation in the church worldwide. The editors have shrewdly chosen to save the United States for the last part of this volume, allowing other voices to come forward first to claim their own space. This editorial decision, like so many others, improves the volume and keeps the narrative in good balance. Still, some questions linger in this reviewer's mind as the volume concludes.What do we mean by democracy? Throughout, the authors treat this as a question that is largely settled. Democracy is identified with democratic values that the church accepts, and in Schuck's words, what is under way is "a critical conversation with the culture of democracy" (330). Yet procedural democracy cannot be severed from these values. Are democratic norms and values vindicated when majorities choose undemocratic values? A more careful drawing of distinctions between democracy, liberalism, and republicanism would expose the inner conflicts in which Catholicism meets modern political norms.Perhaps most urgently for the subject matter of this book, are the claims of Catholic social teaching and Christian ethics a foundation for the democratic, participatory values of this secular age, as writers like Charles Taylor and David [End Page 209] Walsh have suggested? This also would raise questions about how culturally conditioned we should understand democracy to be, surely an important consideration for this very fine study.Steven P. MilliesCatholic Theological UnionCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This paper takes aim at contemporary conceptions of liberal democracy and the accompanying loss of faith with liberal democratic theory which may be observed. There exist problems with procedure, outcomes, and the decline of universality in the face of liberal nationalism which only serve to reinforce boundaries. The clearest cases of these problems have arisen in the United States over the past few years, and especially since the events of September 11, 2001.

Why should one person obey another? Why (to ask the question from the first-person perspective) ought I to submit to another and follow her judgment rather than my own? In modern political thought, which denies that some are born rulers and others are born to be ruled, the most prominent answer has been: “Because I have consented to her authority.” By making authority conditional on the subjects’ consent, political philosophers have sought to reconcile authority’s hierarchical structure with the equal moral (...) standing of governor and governed. Yet such consent accounts of authority have long been deemed problematic on a number of grounds, not the least of which is that few citizens have given their consent to the state under whose laws they live. So unless we are willing to deny the state’s authority over those who have not consented, or revert to the pre-modern assumption of a natural political hierarchy, we must find another way of reconciling authority with our standing as free and equal moral agents. In recent political and legal philosophy, the most influential solution to this problem has been Joseph Raz’s service conception of authority, according to which legitimate authority, while it does not require the consent of the governed, must exist for their sake, or serve them. The normal way to justify someone’s authority, on the service conception, is to show that, by treating her directives as binding, the subjects are likely better to conform to reasons that apply to them anyway. The service conception has, however, recently been criticized (by, among others, Thomas Christiano, Scott Hershovitz, and Jeremy Waldron) for being insufficiently attuned to the significance that procedural, and in particular democratic, features of political and legal institutions have for the justification of their authority. If these ‘democratic critics’ are right, then two commitments that many in the liberal-democratic tradition may find independently attractive turn out to be in tension: the liberal idea that authority is normally legitimate only insofar as it serves its subjects, and the democratic idea that legitimate authority can (and regularly does) rest on fair procedures. In this article I argue that the critics’ arguments rest on a misunderstanding of the service conception; yet their worries point the way to an under-appreciated and interesting view of democracy as an authoritative arbitration procedure. After introducing the service conception’s view of justified authority, I briefly distinguish a broad and a narrow interpretation of it, and suggest that we should embrace the latter to make sense of the idea that political authority serves its subjects (Section I). Next I turn to the objection raised by the democratic critics: the service conception, they say, cannot make room for the intrinsic fairness of democratic procedures because it is preoccupied with the quality of outcomes (Section II). But, I argue, the objection rests on an illicit identification of two different kinds of outcomes: the outcome of the decision-making procedure on the one hand, the outcome or result of treating that first outcome as authoritative on the other. Distinguishing between these is crucial for an adequate understanding of democracy’s authority. While the service conception is indeed organized around the latter, this does not commit it to an exclusive concern with the former; yet it is a singular commitment to the former that is problematic from a democratic point of view (Section III). To bring home this point, I sketch a model of authority as arbitration that is frequently overlooked in recent discussions of authority even though it is centrally concerned with procedural (and ultimately democratic) values and fits squarely into the service conception of authority (Section IV). (shrink)

ABSTRACT A new ‘political philosophy’ is indispensable to the ‘post-Corona world,’ and this paper tries to analyze the future of ‘liberal democracy’ in it. It shows that ‘liberal democracy’ faces a ‘global crisis’ that has begun before, but the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic,’ as a setback for it, strongly encourages that crisis. ‘Liberalism’ and ‘democracy,’ which had long been assumed by ‘political philosophers’ to go together, are now becoming decoupled, and the ‘liberal values’ of ‘democracy’ are eroding. (...) To find why and how, this paper analyzes ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘totalitarianism,’ and the evils and propensities of ‘democracy’ that bring about further erosions of ‘liberal values.’ There may be difficult trade-offs to be made between ‘liberal’ and ‘authoritarian’ ‘values’ - and, after the experience of ‘Coronavirus,’ this paper shows the ‘illiberal or authoritarian democracy’ may become stronger. -/- KEYWORDS: democracy, liberalism, liberal democracy, illiberal democracy, the novel Coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19, authoritarianism, totalitarianism. -/- EXTENDED ABSTRACT For almost a century in West, ‘democracy’ has meant ‘liberal democracy’-a political system marked not only by ‘free and fair elections,’ but also by ‘liberal values.’ ‘Liberalism’ applied to the problem of the limits of the criminal law would require commitment to the presumption in favor of ‘liberty.’ If the word ‘liberal’ is to have any utility in this context, it should refer to one who has so powerful a commitment to ‘liberty’ that she is motivated to limit the number of acknowledged liberty-limiting or coercion-legitimizing principles as narrowly as possible. So, she only believes in ‘harm-principle’ as the morally relevant reason for criminal prohibitions. ‘Offense principle’ and ‘paternalistic’ and ‘moralistic’ considerations, when introduced as support for penal legislation, have no weight at all. So, it means ‘autonomy’ and ‘self-regarding vs. other-regarding actions distinction’ based on which the human is the owner of her mind and body and everything consenting adults do is beyond the realm of morality and law. It leads to ‘individual’ ‘basic rights and liberties’ such as ‘basic rights and liberties’ of ‘speech,’ ‘religion,’ and ‘property’ and ‘collective’ ‘basic rights and liberties’ such as ‘basic rights and liberties of assembly,’ ‘civil society,’ ‘political pluralism,’ ‘democratic institutions,’ and ‘non-governmental organizations.’ ‘Liberalism’ also believes in ‘equality of conditions, ‘equal and free participatory rights in political decision making,’ and ‘collective self-governance.’ It also believes in the ‘rule of law,’ a ‘separation of powers,’ and ‘checks and balances.’ However, even under fair and free elections, the elected leaders can be ‘populists,’ ‘ultra-nationalists,’ ‘racists,’ ‘fascists,’ and ‘authoritarians’ who do not respect ‘inviolable basic rights and liberties,’ and suppress ‘minorities.’ Democratically elected leaders can routinely ignore constitutional limits on their power and deprive their citizens of ‘basic rights and liberties.’ The two strands of ‘liberal democracy’ have been coming apart in the world, and the ‘liberal’ elements of ‘democracy’ have been fraying and eroding even before the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic.’ Even before the Coronavirus hit, there was already much discussion of a crisis of ‘liberal democracy.’ In particular, there has been a debate about whether ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy,’ which had long been assumed to go together, were becoming decoupled. This paper shows ‘liberal democracy’ faces a ‘global crisis’ that had begun before the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic.’ It also analyzes ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘totalitarianism,’ ‘liberalism,’ and ‘democracy’ and shows that Covid-19 is a setback for ‘liberal democracy.’ What is striking about the current moment is that many of the ‘liberal’ elements of ‘democracy’ are so far holding up under immense pressure. ‘Illiberal democracies’ seemed to be emerging in many countries. This model of ‘illiberal democracy,’ in which elections continue to be held but some individual rights and liberties are curtailed, may emerge stronger from this new crisis. In that sense, the ‘pandemic’ may become a challenge not only to ‘democracy’ as such but also to ‘liberal democracy’ in particular – in other words, a system of popular sovereignty together with guaranteed basic rights, such as freedom of association and expression and checks and balances on executive power. ‘Authoritarian’ procedures may succeed in mitigating the spread of the ‘Coronavirus,’ but the world now faces another problem: that when the virus recedes, many ‘liberal democracies’ will be far less ‘liberal’ or ‘democratic’ than they were before. In times of crisis, ‘liberal values’ have been ignored temporarily in the name of executive power. However, the ‘temporary’ can become ‘permanent.’ In addition, if citizens lose their faith in the legitimacy of ‘liberal democracy’ as the best form of government, and think ‘liberal democracy’ cannot function effectively during a crisis, and ‘authoritarian regimes’ manage the crisis more decisively, the world will slide towards ‘illiberal or authoritarian democracy,’ and many ‘liberal democracies’ will be at grave risk of failure. There may now be difficult trade-offs to be made between those basic rights and security - and, after the experience of Covid-19, many citizens may choose security. (shrink)

This article critically examines Busk's Democracy in Spite of the Demos, which critiques the “categorical imperative of democracy.” Although Busk effectively challenges the commitment to value-neutral democratic procedures as the foundation for legitimate law, his alternative, curtailing powerful interests ability to manipulate voters using “socially necessary delusions,” risks establishing elite rule. This article instead proposes basic liberal rights as the normative foundation for legitimate public order and militant democracy as its most effective institutional safeguard, arguing that this (...) combination better realizes human emancipation. (shrink)

Liberal political theorists often argue that justice requires limits on policy outcomes, limits delineated by substantive rights. Distinct from this project is a body of literature dedicated to elaborating on the meaning of democracy in procedural terms. In this article, I offer an alternative to the traditional divide between procedural theories of democracy and substantive theories of justice; I call this the ‘value theory of democracy’. I argue that the democratic ideal is fundamentally about a core set (...) of values (political autonomy, equality of interests, and reciprocity) with both procedural and substantive implications. Further, I contend that limits on policy outcomes can be newly understood as part of the democratic ideal. Key Words: democracy • rights • substantive • procedural • Habermas. (shrink)

This paper explores the value of the eros motif for critical pedagogy and citizenship education. The conceptual affinities between eros and democracy are identified and integrated into a theory of democratic political education. Long recognized as vital to the process of self knowledge, the ancient Greek concept of eros has nevertheless been largely erased from contemporary educational debate. By retrieving eros from the fringe of academic discourse and integrating it with critical pedagogy, the aims of radical democracy can (...) be more fully achieved. The essay emphasizes the civil society or cultural dimensions of democracy as against its legal or procedural aspects. Renewed emphasis on the associational qualities of democracy underscore the importance of eros as an educational principle. The ancient pedagogical motif of educating the desires is posited as an alternative to the liberal/modernist paradigm of education which de-values affective domains of knowledge. (shrink)

Although the root meaning of democracy is simple – ‘rule by the people’ from the fifth‐century bc Greek demokratia – and democracy is almost universally commended in contemporary politics, the ideal of democracy is complex and contested, as are its justifications and practical implications. Democracy is sometimes identified narrowly with majority rule and other times broadly to encompass all that is humanly good, but neither view is adequate to an understanding of democracy as a social (...) ideal. Majoritarian decision making may be a presumptive means of democratic rule, but it cannot be a sufficient democratic standard. Other standards – concerning who rules, by what procedures, over what matters, within what limits, and with what degree of deliberation – have from the beginning been implicated in the ideal of democracy as rule by the people, and continue to be entailed by the public aspirations of democratic and democratizing societies. (shrink)

The standard epistemic justification for inclusiveness in political decision making is the Condorcet Jury Theorem, which states that the probability of a correct decision using majority rule increases in group size (given certain assumptions). Informally, majority rule acts as a mechanism to pool the information contained in the judgements of individual agents. I aim to extend the explanation of how groups of political agents track the truth. Before agents can pool the information, they first need to find truth-conducive information. Increasing (...) group size is also important in the initial search for truth-conducive information. (shrink)

The paper starts with brief biographical details of John Rawls’s life, and indications regarding the significance of his proposal. The most relevant part of the article is dedicated to the discussion of the concept of democracy as it is included in Rawls’s theory of Justice. Rawls tries to find a solution to the incompatibility of two different motivations for democracy: the instrumental and the intrinsic defence. It followsfrom Rawls’s proposal that the two defences need not necessarily to be (...) incompatible. Participation in public decision procedures helps citizens to improve their capacities. According to the author of the paper, the main criticisms of Rawls come not so much from doubts about the validity of these arguments, but from questioning the realism of his proposals. (shrink)

Constitutional reform has been an important means to push populist authoritarian agendas in Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Venezuela. The embrace of constitutional means and rhetoric in pursuit of these agendas has led to the growing recognition of ‘populist constitutionalism’ as a contemporary political phenomenon. In all four examples mentioned above, democracy, popular sovereignty and direct plebiscitary appeal to the people is the rhetorical and justificatory framework for constitutional reform. This, I worry, gives democracy a bad name and reinforces (...) the widespread suspicion that citizens should not be directly involved in constitutional reform as popular participation can lead to dangerous majoritarianism and is easily manipulated by elite actors seeking to weaken constitutional checks and balances. But the problem, I argue, is not inherent in citizen’s participation in constitutional reform. In contrast to populist constitutionalism, I develop an idea of deliberative constitutionalism in which citizens can participate in constitution-making and reform without hijacking constitutionalism for majoritarian, nationalist or anti-pluralist ends. Deliberative constitutionalism as I understand it has four features: a Habermasian co-originality thesis that articulates the interdependence of democracy and liberalism mediated by a conception of discourse; a proceduralized idea of popular sovereignty that reduces the tension between appeal to the people and respect for pluralism; the centrality of the public sphere over the voting booth as the cradle of democracy; institutional innovations intended to include citizens in constitutional reform (including through referendums) but avoid majoritarian and populist pathologies. (shrink)

In her recent book, Democratic Reason, Hélène Landemore argues that, when evaluated epistemically, “a democratic decision procedure is likely to be a better decision procedure than any non-democratic decision procedures, such as a council of experts or a benevolent dictator” (p. 3). Landemore's argument rests heavily on studies of collective intelligence done by Lu Hong and Scott Page. These studies purport to show that cognitive diversity – differences in how people solve problems – is actually more important to (...) overall group performance than average individual ability – how smart the individual members are. Landemore's argument aims to extrapolate from these results to the conclusion that democracy is epistemically better than any non-democratic rival. I argue here that Hong and Page's results actually undermine, rather than support, this conclusion. More specifically, I argue that the results do not show that democracy is better than any non-democratic alternative, and that in fact, they suggest the opposite – that at least some non-democratic alternatives are likely to epistemically outperform democracy. (shrink)

Democracy and tragedy captured a delicate poise in ancient Athens. While many today perceive democracy as a finite, unquestionable and almost procedural form of governance that glorifies equality and liberty for their own sake, the Athenians saw it as so much more. Beyond the burgeoning equality and liberty, which were but fronts for a deeper goal, finitude, unimpeachability and procedural norms were constantly contradicted by boundlessness, subversion and disarray. In such a world, where certainty and immortality were luxuries (...) beyond the reach of humankind, tragedy gave comfort and inspired greatness. Before the disciplinary segregation and the delimiting of the poetic and artistic, tragic art dramatized the paradox of existence in a most political manner. The purpose of this paper is to explicitly highlight the crucial links that existed between democracy and tragedy during their formative years in ancient Athens. What was it about democracy that necessarily incited and depended upon the ascendency of tragedy during the time of the Athenian city-state? And why and how did a peculiar institution such as Athenian tragedy play so central a role in the democratic polis of Athens? (shrink)

Militant democracy is an attempt to defend democracy against totalitarian parties that would use democratic procedures to rise to power. This article is focused on the consistency of the concept of ‘militant democracy’. I argue that what militant democracy defends is not the democratic procedure itself but rather certain rights and the rule of law, and that those elements may in fact be compromised by democracy. This applies both if the democratic procedure is (...) concerned and if democracy is interpreted as a reflection of the will of the people. Those elements may be upheld, but democracy is to be mitigated rather than fortified in order to do so. (shrink)

The new and vibrant field of the epistemology of democracy, or the inquiry about the epistemic justification of democracy as a social system of procedures, institutions, and practices, as a cross-disciplinary endeavour, necessarily encounters both epistemologists and political philosophers. Despite possible complaints that this kind of discussion is either insufficiently epistemological or insufficiently political, my approach explicitly aims to harmonize the political and epistemic justification of democracy. In this article, I tackle some fundamental issues concerning the nature (...) of the epistemic justification of democracy and the best theoretical framework for harmonizing political and epistemic values. I also inquire whether the proposed division of epistemic labour and the inclusion of experts can indeed improve the epistemic quality of decision-making without jeopardizing political justification. More specifically, I argue in favour of three theses. First, not only democratic procedures but also the outcomes of democracy, as a social system, need to be epistemically virtuous. Second, democracy’s epistemic virtues are more than just a tool for achieving political goals. Third, an appropriate division of epistemic labour has to overcome the limitations of both individual and collective intelligence. (shrink)

In accord with Jean–Luc Nancy and Alain Badiou the article argues for an understanding of the idea of democracy as a “truth procedure” that is instigated by the event of the encounter of at least two persons or peoples. When Nancy states that democracy is “spirit,” “breath,” and “sense” he implicitly links democracy to the idea of the soul. As life principle of the human being the soul instigates a truth procedure which brings humanity into (...) being as an idea that exceeds any concept of citizenship bound to a state or nation. In association with both Giorgio Agamben’s reading of Karl Marx and Jacques Rancière’s concept of politics the article concludes with the statement that the idea of democracy refers to the soul of politics which is the idea of humanity. (shrink)

This article shows that judicial review has a democratic justification even though judges may be no better at protecting rights than legislatures. That justification is procedural, not consequentialist: reflecting the ability of judicial review to express and protect citizen’s interests in political participation, political equality, political representation and political accountability. The point of judicial review is to symbolize and give expression to the authority of citizens over their governors, not to reflect the wisdom, trustworthiness or competence of judges and legislators. (...) Above a threshold level of competence – which may be impossible to determine a-priori – the legitimacy of judicial review does not turn on the special wisdom, virtue or personal qualities of judges. Instead, it reflects the importance that democracies properly attach to the ordinary virtues and competences of individuals in justifying power and authority. Hence, this article takes issue with the defence of judicial review in Eisgruber and Brettschneider, as well as with the critiques of judicial review found in Waldron and Bellamy. (shrink)

Can democracy be at once radical and Islamic? In this paper I argue that it can. My argument is based on a comparison and contrast of certain aspects in the social-political thought of two contemporary authors: Axel Honneth who defends a particular conception of radical democracy, and Rached al-Ghannouchi who defends a particular conception of the Islamic state. I begin with Honneth’s early articulation of his model of radical democracy as reflexive cooperation, which he presents as an (...) alternative that reconciles Arendtian republicanism and Habermasian proceduralism while avoiding their weaknesses. I also refer to his more mature conception of democracy by way of highlighting his understanding of democracy as a process of constituting civil society. This is significant for the purposes of this paper since it forms the most important link between Honneth’s radical democracy and Ghannouchi’s Islamic model of political rule. I then introduce Ghannouchi’s theoretical account of the Islamic state with a focus on his conception of shura (consultation) in order to bring to the fore both the similarities and dissimilarities with Honneth’s theory of democracy. By this point I will have identified Islamic resources for a conception of democracy that, like Honneth’s democracy as reflexive cooperation, shares with proceduralism an instrumental view of democratic procedures, and with republicanism a strong connection between the pre-political social level and politics. Next, I ask whether this conception of radical Islamic democracy can square its dual commitment to pluralism and Islamic unity. Again, I draw on Ghannouchi’s thought to respond to the challenge, doing so in a way that brings out the agonistic dimension in radical Islamic democracy. I conclude by making explicit how radical Islamic democracy carves out a conceptual space in which proceduralist, republican and agonistic features are combined. (shrink)

In 2017, Ukraine’s Parliament passed legislation establishing a single health benefit package for the entire population called the Programme of Medical Guarantees,‎ financed through general taxes and administered by a single national purchasing agency. This legislation was in line with key principles for financing universal health coverage. However, health professionals and some policymakers have been critical of elements of the reform, including its reliance on general taxes as the source of funding. Using qualitative methods and drawing on deliberative democratic theory (...) and criteria for procedural fairness, this study argues that the acceptance and sustainability of these reforms could have been strengthened by making the decision-making process fairer. It suggests that three factors limited the extent of stakeholders’ participation in this process: first, a perception among reformers that fast-paced decision-making was required because there was only a short political window for much needed reforms; second, a lack of trust among reformers in the motives, representativeness, and knowledge of some stakeholders; and third, an under-appreciation of the importance of dialogic engagement with the public. These findings highlight a profound challenge for policymakers. In retrospect, some of those involved in the reform’s design and implementation believe that a more meaningful engagement with the public and stakeholders who opposed the reform might have strengthened its legitimacy and durability. At the same time, the study shows how difficult it is to have an inclusive process in settings where some actors may be driven by unconstrained self-interest or lack the capacity to be representative or knowledgeable interlocutors. It suggests that investments in deliberative capital (the attitudes and behaviours that facilitate good deliberation) and in civil society capacity may help overcome this difficulty. (shrink)

The central argument of this book is that liberalism, constitutionalism, and democracy, as well as, specifically, liberal constitutional democracy all work, when they do, because they serve the mutual advantage of the politically effective groups in the society through coordination of those groups on a political and, perhaps, economic order. These arguments are applied both to the early history of constitutional developments in the United States and to contemporary transitions from autocratic regimes to market democracies. A subsidiary claim (...) is that constitutional political institutions and democratic procedures generally require not so much active support as merely acquiescence in order to survive and work. These are explanatory theses, not normative claims, but they have relevance for normative claims if one takes seriously some relative of Kant's dictum that ought implies can. If we are to insist that some form of government is normatively right for a particular society, we must be able to say that it would or could work for that society. It is commonly argued that what makes democracy right is that it works by consent. If so, it is such a distressingly minimal form of consent—acquiescence—as to be normatively disqualified. If we rule out mere acquiescence as adequate for consent, it seems likely that no credible argument can be adduced to defend liberal constitutional democracy in any detail on grounds of consent or contractarianism. Hence, concern for workability, which should be central to any moral assessment of principles of social order, undercuts the entire consent school of political theory. (shrink)

Deliberative or discursive models of democracy have recently enjoyed a revival in both political theory and policy practice. Against the picture of democracy as a procedure for aggregating and effectively meeting the given preference of individuals, deliberative theory offers a model of democracy as a forum through which judgements and preferences are formed and altered through reasoned dialogue between free and equal citizens. Much in the recent revival of deliberative democracy, especially that which comes through (...) Habermas and Rawls, has Kantian roots. Deliberative institutions are embodiments of the free public use of reason that Kant takes to define the enlightenment project. Within the Kantian model the public use of reason is incompatible with the use of rhetoric. While this paper rejects strong rhetorical criticisms of deliberative democracy which render all communication strategic, it argues that rhetorical studies of deliberation have highlighted features of deliberation which point to significant weaknesses in Kantian approaches to it. Two features are of particular importance: the role of testimony and judgements of credibility in deliberation; and the role of appeal to emotions in public discourse. Both from the Kantian perspective are potential sources of heteronomy. However, the appeal to testimony and emotion are features of public deliberation that cannot and should not be eliminated. For those committed to the enlightenment values that underlie the deliberative model of democracy the question is whether these rhetorical features of deliberation are incompatible with those values. The paper argues that they are compatible. It does so by defending an Aristotelian account of rhetoric in public deliberation which denies the Platonic contrast between reasoned discourse and rhetoric which the Kantian model inherits. (shrink)

The majoritarian conception of democracy implies that counter-majoritarian institutions such as federalism—and even representative institutions—are derogations from democracy. The majoritarian conception is mistaken for two reasons. First, it is incoherent: majoritarianism ultimately stands against one of democracy’s core normative commitments—namely, political equality. Second, majoritarianism is premised on a mistaken view of power, which fails to account for the power of numbers and thereby fails to explain the inequality faced by members of persistent minorities. Although strict majority rule (...) serves the democratic values of political agency and equality as interpreted by a set of formal conditions, an adequate conception of power shows why in real-world conditions formal-procedural inequalities, instantiated by counter-majoritarian institutions such as federalism, are sometimes required to serve democratic equality. (shrink)

The word “populism” commonly elicits images of hordes of angry townspeople with pitchforks and torches. That is the classic picture of “the mob,” bolstered by countless movie and television productions, and it is clearly based on such historical events as the English civil wars, the sans-culottes’ terror, the Bolshevik revolution, and the recent genocides in Rwanda and Burundi. Many of the leaders involved in fostering such horrors are seen as radical democrats whose successors today should also be feared. In this (...) paper, I argue that any mob takeovers of the feared sort are actually antithetical to radical democracy. This is because an authentically democratic regime, even of the most extreme type, is necessarily inconsistent with “mobocracy” or any sort of “tyranny of the majority” given its essential procedural aspects. It is argued, in fact, that leaders of legitimately democratic movements have generally been quite vapid because of the fallibilistic, plebiscitary proceduralism inherent in any authentic attempt to require government policy to reflect the “general will.” And this vapidity is argued to inhere regardless of the extent of rhetorical powers of the advocate or advocacy. (shrink)

Democracy is usually justified either on intrinsic or instrumental, particularly epistemic, grounds. Intrinsic justifications stress the values inherent in the democratic process itself, whereas epistemic ones stress that it results in good outcomes. This article examines whether epistemic justifications for deliberative democracy are superior to intrinsic ones. The Condorcet jury theorem is the most common epistemic justification of democracy. I argue that it is not appropriate for deliberative democracy. Yet deliberative democrats often explicitly state that the (...) process will favour the best argument. This can only be the case if deliberation improves the overall competence of the group and of the individuals that constitute it. I analyse when deliberation will increase competences and when it will not do so and find that individual competences will not reliably increase as a result of deliberation. In order for deliberative democracy to be epistemically more effective than representative democracy, strong procedural assumptions need to be made and deliberative democracy needs to be justified based on a combination of epistemic and intrinsic elements. (shrink)

It has been argued that environmental decision-making can be improved be introducing citizen panels. The authors argue that citizen panels and other models of citizen participation should only be used as a consulting forum in exceptional cases at the local level, not as a real decision-making procedure. But many problems in the field of environmental policy need nonlocal, at least regional or national, regulation due to the fact that they are of national impor-tance. The authors argue that there are (...) good reasons not to institutionalise national citizen panels. They advocate the view that more reasonable and more competent solutions can be found by introducing forms of direct democracy. (shrink)

It has long been argued that the institution of judicial review is incompatible with democratic institutions. This criticism usually relies on a procedural conception of democracy, according to which democracy is essentially a form of government defined by equal political rights and majority rule. I argue that if we see democracy not just as a form of government, but more basically as a form of sovereignty, then there is a way to conceive of judicial review as a (...) legitimate democratic institution. The conception of democracy that stems from the social contract tradition of Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Rawls, is based in an ideal of the equality, independence, and original political jurisdiction of all citizens. Certain equal basic rights, in addition to equal political rights, are a part of democratic sovereignty. In exercising their constituent power at the level of constitutional choice, free and equal persons could choose judicial review as one of the constitutional mechanisms for protecting their equal basic rights. As such, judicial review can be seen as a kind of shared precommitment by sovereign citizens to maintaining their equal status in the exercise of their political rights in ordinary legislative procedures. I discuss the conditions under which judicial review is appropriate in a constitutional democracy. This argument is contrasted with Hamilton's traditional argument for judicial review, based in separation of powers and the nature of judicial authority. I conclude with some remarks on the consequences for constitutional interpretation. (shrink)

Epistemic democrats are rightly concerned with the quality of outcomes and judge democratic procedures in terms of their ability to ‘track the truth’. However, their impetus to assess ‘rule by experts’ and ‘rule by the people’ as mutually exclusive has led to a meagre treatment of the role of expert knowledge in democracy. Expertise is often presented as a threat to democracy but is also crucial for enlightened political processes. Contemporary political philosophy has so far paid little attention (...) to our reliance on experts and has not sufficiently addressed the question of how expertise can be used to improve the epistemic quality of democratic decision making. We believe this lack of interest is spurred by a too hasty acceptance of arguments dismissive of the political role of experts. The article examines a series of often-cited epistemic objections and concludes that several of them are overstated or misconceived, yet they all reflect real difficulties that need to be addressed. On this background, we tentatively outline a set of mechanisms that can contribute to alleviating the irreducible problem of epistemic asymmetries and ensuring that experts really are experts and use their expertise in the right way. (shrink)

I argue that Habermas’s proposed system of rights fails to offer an adequate account of the relation between rights and moral injury. In providing a non-moral justification for rights, Habermas’s functional-normative argument excludes the moral intuition that persons are worthy of being protected from a class of injurious actions (i.e. false imprisonment, religious persecution). Habermas does offer clearly stated reasons for his proposed normative, yet non-moral foundation for a legitimate legal order, including the claim that the functional imperatives of modern (...) legal systems cannot be reduced to morality. My positive thesis is that at least some rights are moral norms whose content and justification derive from a moral point of view informed by the idea of persons as free and equal. (shrink)

SummaryThis article deals with laissez faire arguments as distinguishable in Europe between the final decades of the nineteenth century and 1914. The focus is on Herbert Spencer and the British ‘Individualists’, the Italian Vilfredo Pareto, and the Frenchman Paul Leroy-Beaulieu. Analysis concentrates on the relationship between laissez faire formulations and democracy, the latter amounting to the impact of the extension of the franchise on representative government. All the mentioned authors blamed the mechanisms of democratic government for the contemporary growth (...) in state functions. While Spencer focused on the threat of a new class legislation after the demise of aristocratic power, Pareto and Leroy-Beaulieu viewed the pressure of lobbies and parties as the chief cause of the extension of state interventions. This article also aims to detect similarities and differences with more recent formulations. It is argued that Friedrich Hayek's achievement was to reconcile, against earlier perspectives, laissez faire with democracy. The reconciliation rested on a conceptualisation of democracy as a valuable method or procedure, onto which no values should be grafted. (shrink)

Suppose a committee or a jury confronts a complex question, the answer to which requires attending to several sub-questions. Two different voting procedures can be used. On one, the committee members vote on each sub-question and the voting results are used as premises for the committee’s conclusion on the main issue. This premise-based procedure can be contrasted with the conclusion-based approach, which requires the members to directly vote on the conclusion, with the vote of each member being guided by (...) her views on the relevant sub-questions. The two procedures are not equivalent: There may be a majority of voters supporting each of the premises, but if these majorities do not significantly overlap, there will be a majority against the conclusion. Pettit (2001) connects the choice between the two procedures with the discussion of deliberative democracy. The problem we want to examine instead concerns the relative advantages and disadvantages of the two procedures from the epistemic point of view. Which of them is better when it comes to tracking truth? As it turns out, the answer is not univocal. On the basis of Condorcet’s jury theorem, the premise-based procedure can be shown to be superior if the objective is reach truth for the right reasons, without making any mistakes on the way. However, if the goal instead is to reach truth for whatever reasons, right or wrong, there will be cases in which using the conclusion-based procedure turns out to be more reliable, even though, for the most part, the premise-based procedure will retain its superiority. (shrink)

This paper examines the ways in which liberal theory and democratic procedure have sought to address the justificatory challenge posed by the existence of coercive states, given the liberal account of individuals as naturally free and equal. In doing so, this paper invokes the justifications for the limited state advanced by the Austrian school of political economy, referring in particular to the work of F.A.Hayek. It argues that the scepticism this school of theory advances, with regard to the effectiveness (...) and desirability of state intervention into the affairs of free individuals, offers a better approach to understanding state legitimacy than does the ideal theory often relied upon by liberal political theorists. It further argues that the simple inclusion of majoritarian democratic procedure as the method for deciding whether, when and how states should intervene into the affairs of free individuals cannot legitimise these interventions in a manner consistent with the demands of liberalism. This paper finally employs the Austrian school’s scepticism about the state’s capacity to ‘do good’ in order to advance a proposal for reducing the degree to which any individual need be coerced by a state seeking to advance particular ends, rather than to enforce general rules. (shrink)

The quest for a decent political order in many societies is imperative today because of the heterogeneous nature of our social existence and the complexity of our ever increasing socio-economic and political experiences. Since the public sphere is a domain of freedom exemplified by dialogical engagements, the outcome of such encounter must involve the intelligible thoughts of all discussants with the sole aim of dealing with the concerns and commanding the commitment of all to the decisions reached. In this study, (...) it is argued that Deweyan democracy as an alternative theory of rational inquiry is relevant for engaging the present sordid condition of many Africans democratic practice and policy outcomes. As a rational procedure, it is averred that John Dewey’s emphasis on epistemic properties of democratic discourse makes the proceduralist account of democracy superfluous and exposes the weakness of the content of democratic discourse in political actions and decisions. The study also contend that given the consensual state of Dewey’s epistemic thought, Jürgen Habermas theory rather than expanding the space of epistemic democracy stifled it because of his insistence on the force of a better argument in the resolution of conflicting concerns of dialoguers. The study therefore, argues for Dewey’s democracy as an alternative mode of political order since it does not undermine the views of the citizens but gives room for the activation a certain set of attitude that can challenge prevailing opinions and accepts the views that do not embrace conventional wisdom—a procedure that is necessary for the growth and development of our democratic space. (shrink)

This book provides a critique of current international law-making and draws on a set of principles from Persian philosophers to present an alternative to influence the development of international law-making procedure. The work conceptualizes a substantive notion of democracy in order to regulate international law-making mechanisms under a set of principles developed between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries in Persia. What the author here names 'democratic egalitarian multilateralism' is founded on: the idea of 'egalitarian law' by Suhrawardi, the (...) account of 'substantial motion' by Mulla Sadra, and the ideal of 'intercultural dialectical democracy' developed by Rūmī. Following a discussion of the conceptual flaws of the chartered and customary sources of international law, it is argued that 'democratic egalitarian multilateralism' could be a source for a set of principles to regulate the procedures through which international treaties are made as well as a criterion for customary international law-ascertainment. (shrink)

After the fall of the “Iron Curtain,” Francis Fukuyama formulated a thesis on structural victory of liberal democracy and its fundamental values, such as freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of worldview, freedom of the press etc. This thesis was demonstrably erroneous, as at the beginning of the 21st century, the crisis of liberal democracy in relation to the growth of populist movements is mentioned more and more frequently. While seizing power through democratic means, populist parties abandon (...) the ideals of liberal democracy and values and pivot towards an autocratic governance model while ostensibly adhering to the rules of formal democracy. It was Hannah Arendt, who warned against such a situation saying that tendencies to move towards autocracy within democracies are specific for multi-party systems, while two-party systems in democracies are relatively less prone to such transformation. With regard to the above, the problem which philosophy of politics calls a “paradox of democracy” reappears. Among other things, it is related to the question on the limit of tolerance the liberal democracy has for thoughts, attitudes, actions and words which are substantially opposed to democracy and may lead to autocracy. At the same time, we are observing the fact of reappearance of the militant democracy theory, formulated by Karl Loewenstein. The aim of this article is to look closely at the theory and its suggested modifications (described as neo-militant democracy), as well as to answer the questions on what tools are needed and if they are even possible to be used to defend not only procedures, but also values of democracy from its progressive destabilisation in the face of digital revolution. (shrink)

Where are democratic mores cultivated? Amid contemporary worries about democratic backsliding and authoritarian siren calls, this article advances the Tocquevillian point that discussions of seemingly mundane questions in formalized contexts, such as neighborhoods meetings, are excellent sites to foster democratic “habits of the heart.” Grounding the normative argument in ethnographic observations carried out in Paris, I contend that quotidian spaces such as these, often dismissed as procedural or trivial, are meaningful sites of democratic practice that nurture democratic affects and a (...) democratic ethos. While seemingly too localized to be significant for the wider democratic society, the topics considered in these neighborhood meetings pertain to political concerns such as the distribution of public goods, the possibilities of collective action, the limits of private property, and the ability of the law to compel behavior. However, the discussions’ democratic potential is undermined by the difficulty of getting past the doors of the meetings, not because of exclusionary formal rules but because of informal practices often taxing for newcomers. (shrink)