Democracy

The contemporary crisis of democracy has provoked a steady outpouring of popular and scholarly reflections diagnosing its underlying causes, assessing the nature of the threat, and envisioning diff...

I am deeply grateful to the respondents in this symposium for reflections both subtle and stimulating. A book with the title Democracy Rules is easy to caricature as yet another contribution to wha...

According to the G. Mosse, the economical and moral crisis after the Great War led to the European totalitarian regimes, because people need to be part of a great reconstruction project of their Nations. He focuses his attention especially on Italy and Germany. Moreover, Mosse criticizes Arendt about the notion of ‘banality of evil’, since he believes that Nazis were used to identify people with widespread stereotypes: all people who collaborated in the genocide of the Jewish were worn out by (...) this kind of aggressive propaganda which identified the Jews as the destructive element of the German moral and political integrity. According to him, those who adhered to the Nazis party ideology did so because, at that historical moment, the propaganda’s ideas met the political and cultural needs of that social crisis context: Jewish had to be killed since they were perceived as a threat. As Mosse, Arendt analyses totalitarianism and she recognizes its causes in ideology, but she also describes more in detail the kind of agent who acted during this tragic historical period. Therefore, she focuses her attention on both executioners and victims. Moreover, regarding the Nazis, Arendt speaks about the “banality of evil” in the sense that those people did not reflect on the consequences of their actions in ethical-political terms. To sum up, the aim of this paper is to highlight the value of philosophy as a discipline able to urge people to compare and critically analyse historical, social, ethical, political phenomena. Keywords: democracy, philosophy as a method, critical thinking. (shrink)

Can one teach democracy? This question came repeatedly to my mind as I read Jan-Werner Müller's stimulating contribution to the recent literature on the past history, current travails, and future p...

This article addresses the unusually elaborate dramatic context in Plato’s Protagoras and effect of sophistry on democratic Athens. Because Socrates evokes Odysseus’ κατάβασις in the Odyssey to describe the sophists in Callias’ house (314c-316b), I propose that Socrates depicts the sophists as bodiless shades residing in Hades. Like the shades dwelling in Hades with no connection to embodied humans on Earth, the sophists in the Protagoras are non-Athenians with no consideration for the democratic body of the Athenian πόλις. I conclude (...) that sophistry can be detrimental to Athenian democracy because it can produce education inequality founded on wealth inequality. (shrink)

This paper examines two ideas of John Rawls that are rarely discussed in conjunction: pure procedural justice (PPJ) and property-owning democracy. Applied to matters of distribu- tion, PPJ orders the establishment of fair procedures under which any private transaction can be considered just. It aims to secure equality without fixating on patterns of distribu- tion. How such an approach is constituted and how it applies to different stages of theori- sation are explored. Three components of PPJ and three guidelines for (...) its institutionalisa- tion are identified. As such, PPJ also provides a backbone to property-owning democracy. The understanding of property-owning democracy as an institution of PPJ helps us assess various interpretations and refinement of property-owning democracy. (shrink)

Democracy is widely praised as a great achievement of humanity. However, in recent years there has been an increasing amount of concern that its functioning across the world may be eroding. In response, efforts to combat such change are emerging. Considering the pervasiveness of technology and its increasing capabilities, it is no surprise that there has been much focus on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to this end. Questions as to how AI can be best utilized to extend the (...) reach of democracy to currently non-democratic countries, how the involvement in the democratic process of certain demographic groups (e.g. ethnic minorities, women, and young people) can be increased, etc. are frequent topics of discussion. In this article I would like not merely to question whether this is desirable but rather argue that we should be trying to envisage ways of using AI for the exact opposite purpose: that of replacing democratic systems with better alternatives. (shrink)

In response to the growing social discontent at what is perceived as generational injustice, due to younger generations of voters facing long-term negative consequences from issues disproportionately decided by the votes of older generations of voters, there have been suggestions to introduce an upper age voting threshold. These have been all but universally dismissed as offensive and contrary to basic democratic values. In the present article, I show that the idea is in fact entirely consonant with present-day democratic practices and (...) far from without a precedent. Hence, I describe how the aforementioned generational injustice can be rectified using a simple vote weighting scheme which is easy to implement and interpret. Lastly, I discuss the societal effects that this alteration of the voting system would have on the distribution of the origins of political power. (shrink)

This article argues against the idea that European Union (EU) member states (MSs) that have turned autocratic should be ejected from the EU to ensure that the latter does not itself violate the principle of democracy identified with the all subjected principle (ASP). First, the ASP requires that MSs be democratic before a decision to eject them would be acceptable and at that point, there is no reason to eject them. Second, if EU membership is voluntary as the protagonist of (...) the above idea presupposes, any MS can decide to leave at any point in time and other MSs can decide to leave any MS behind and create a new European organization without it. Taken together, this means that the ASP, which pertains to permanent subjection (to EU law), is irrelevant already from the outset and cannot be used as the main premise for the argument for ejection. Finally, the very disagreement about what kind of organization the EU is and should become, implies that the democratic rights of citizens be given priority over the rights of states. This speaks against the legitimacy of ejecting MSs for democracy protection. (shrink)

Managers often have discretion in interpreting their ethical requirements, and they should seek democratic guidance in doing so. The undemocratic nature of managerial ethical discretion is shown to be a recurring problem in business ethics. Joseph Heath’s market failures approach (MFA) is introduced as a theory better positioned to deal with this problem than other views. However, due to epistemic uncertainty and conceptual indeterminacy, the MFA is shown to allow a much wider range of managerial discretion than initially appears. The (...) paper explores how this range can be narrowed down with democratic input, comparing models based on formal state institutions and on the informal public sphere. A case study from the pharmaceutical industry illustrates the merits of the informal public sphere approach. (shrink)

This article brings to bear findings from the debate on the boundary problem in democratic theory on discussions of workplace democracy to argue that workplace democrats’ focus on workers is unjustified and that more constituencies will have to be included in any prospective scheme of workplace democracy. It thereby provides a valuable and underdiscussed perspective on workplace democracy that goes beyond the debate’s usual focus on the clarification and justification of workplace democrats’ core claim. It also goes beyond approaches like (...) stakeholder theory in law and economics that determine decision-making rights without taking into account genuinely democratic considerations. My discussion proceeds by considering three principles for inclusion from democratic theory for the specific case of the corporation. I submit that two of them, the all-coerced and the all-subjected principle, are not appropriate for this specific case, because they cannot capture the distinguishing features of the corporation. The all-affected principle however is appropriate but has a very wide range. I further argue that this is not as big of a problem as it first might seem and that this principle is still the most appropriate for defining the demos of the democratic corporation. The article closes by pointing out the consequences of this result for the workplace democracy debate and for the legitimacy of the market as a coordination mechanism. (shrink)

The main aim of the paper is to analyse T. G Masaryk’s ideas about the importance of education in democratic systems. In particular, the study analyses the ideas that Masaryk associates directly or indirectly with the nature of democracy or with the improvement of the democratic system through changes in the education system. The first part of the paper traces the basic aspects of democratic systems in his work that immediately condition ideas about the importance and role of education in (...) democratic systems. The second part analyses the importance of education in the reproduction of national values, the role of the arts and humanities in the formation of the “democratic man”, and the significance of education of broad social strata and political authorities in democratic systems. (shrink)

Robert Alexy has argued that the democratic objection to judicial review of legislation can be successfully addressed by assuming that judges exercise a special form of argumentative representation. In this article we argue that Alexy does not explain (as he should) under what circumstances judicial review tends to produce better decisions than parliamentary procedure, nor does he explain how judicial review can have a greater intrinsic value than parliamentary procedure. Subsequently, we argue that the intrinsic value of argumentative representation depends (...) on the promotion of citizen deliberation, whereas its instrumental value depends on judges being committed to the rights of discrete and insular minorities in the face of hostile majorities. (shrink)

Plato is often acknowledged as the first philosophical critic of democracy and his Republic is regularly taken as a paradigm of an anti-democratic work. While it is true that Plato objected to much about the democracy of his own time, Plato’s political theorizing also reveals an interest in improving democratic institutions. This chapter explores three themes in Plato’s thinking about democracy: firstly, Plato's insistence that rulers should be knowledgeable and his claim that most people are politically incompetent (§1); secondly, Plato's (...) criticisms of oratory and the corrupting effects of public rhetoric (§2); thirdly, Plato's use of democratic institutions in the Laws (§3). Once we appreciate these different evaluations of democratic practices, we can see that Plato was not simply ‘anti-democratic’ or ‘pro-democratic’ but thought some democratic practices should be abandoned, some reformed, and some adopted. (shrink)

What does the open-carried gun tell us about the contemporary political structure of whiteness, and how do such objects operate to reinforce this structure? To work through these questions, this article brings together political theories of racialized democracy and political theoretical analyses of gun-rights debates with insights from interdisciplinary scholarship on guns to generate a political theoretical account of the relationship between guns and white democracy. To do so, we analyze two open-carry spectacles: recurring Second Amendment protests featuring the prominent (...) display of open-carried weapons, and open-carrying protestors in Michigan demonstrating against stay-at-home orders in response to COVID-19 in 2020. Our analysis of these two cases illuminates our central arguments about guns and white democracy. We argue that guns operate to politically align white bodies amid the ongoing constitution of political whiteness: open-carried firearms work to reinforce and reproduce white democracy. We further claim that the force of open-carried guns in sustaining white democracy works through two linked dynamics: first, guns extend, generate, and secure the wages of whiteness; second, they protect and assert white dominion. Taken together, these dynamics explain how guns uphold white democracy, but also illuminate, we argue, the contingency of that political power. It is that contingency which suggests that the open-carried firearm might also help contest it in turn, a point illustrated by turning to scholarship on the relation of firearms to the civil rights movement. (shrink)

The longstanding tension between the procedural and instrumental justification of democracy has been challenged by the theories that try to combine both approaches. These theories portray epistemic features of democracy in an instrumental framework and then try to reconcile them with procedural values. In this paper, I argue that it is possible to incorporate an epistemic dimension into a justification of democracy, without resorting to instrumentalism. On the view that I advance, Peircean epistemology, when combined with intrinsically valued epistemic virtues, (...) constitutes a purely procedural argument for democracy. (shrink)

This chapter analyzes how the main ideas of Mencius’s political thought were interpreted, reconstructed, and appropriated by the three members of New Confucianism “xin rujia 新儒家” in the twentieth-century China, namely Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 (1904–1982), Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (1909–1978), and Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995). It presents the core textual analysis by the three thinkers in their interpretation of Mencius’s ideas, discusses these interpretations, and argues that Mencius was portrayed as pro-democracy and anti-monarchy in their writings. The chapter then concludes that (...) the arguments that support the former image are doomed, and those that support the latter image are more convincing. Next, the chapter considers the set of Mencius-inspired arguments the thinkers hold in favour of democratic political participation. The thinkers attempted to conclude that democracy, which entails political subjectivity, is a more viable means to achieve the Confucian ends than a traditional monarchical system. The last part of this chapter argues that the thinkers’ arguments justify only a political account of individual subjectivity for democratic participation, which cannot explain why individuals as moral agents should take part in politics. A Mencian line of argument for an ethical account of political participation is therefore developed on the thinkers’ behalf. (shrink)

Nussbaum's analysis of our predicament turns on a contrast between two rival models of education. The "old model," concerned with education for profit and economic growth, places heavy emphasis on the skills associated with science and technology. From this perspective, the study of literature, history, philosophy, languages and the arts make no real or significant contribution to our basic economic needs and concerns - they may even be obstacles. In contrast, Nussbaum defends "the human development mode," which regards the humanities (...) as having a crucial role in our commitment to a democratic community and social equality. This alternative approach is perhaps better described as the "ethical model," since in respect of both its method and content it aims to produce humane, sympathetic and creative "global citizens." -/- ... This book will certainly add weight to Nussbaum's considerable reputation and influence as a major public intellectual. Her core diagnosis is both accurate and compelling. There are, nevertheless, features of this book that may be questioned.... Some may argue, for example, that Nussbaum's defence of the humanities leans too heavily on the political value we attach to these studies and, more particularly, on the specific ideological goals that they are supposed to secure. The general objection here is that it is a mistake simply to assume that the humanities' primary role is to serve as a vehicle for those progressive social forces concerned with issues of race, gender and sexuality. Although the contemporary humanities program has veered heavily in this particular direction, it is a matter of intense debate, within the humanities, to what extent this has been healthy and constructive. Clearly there are more traditional or conservative forces who take the view that this way of politicizing the humanities, of imposing a particular ideological agenda on its content and concerns, has not only narrowed and impoverished our understanding of humanities education, it has left the humanities vulnerable to hostile and reactionary forces only too willing to scrap them altogether.... -/- . (shrink)

This article attempts a reinterpretation of Aeschylus’ Persians as primarily a warning about the instability of democracy following a major military victory against an overpowering totalitarian enemy. It discusses the historical and our contemporary ideas of the democratic principles of government versus the constant tendency towards a strongman regime. I argue that the play’s underlying philosophy is based on the Heraclitan idea of constant flux, which predates our modern ideas of the relativity of time and space, and the core concept (...) underpinning any democracy that the only constant thing about it is continuous change. A short retrospective of modern productions of The Persians reveals the relationship between history and current events that can or cannot be associated with the play. By treating the thorny issue of translations and adaptations and the temptations of simplistic patriotic or antiwar interpretations of the play, the article also addresses the challenging task of determining what constitutes a just war and why a democracy is necessarily engaged in a continuous defensive battle against the forces of totalitarianism. (shrink)

The Rawlsian institutional approach holds that distributive principles apply to socioeconomic institutions rather than transactions within the institutional framework. Critics claim that the approach is baseless. I defend Rawls’s institutionalism by showing that it has a rational basis: Rawls “constructs” a theory of justice from considered judgments, especially ideas found in the political culture and historical conditions of democracy, including the fact of reasonable pluralism, which supports his institutionalism. I use Rawls’s “fact-sensitive constructivism” to interpret his claim that “utilitarianism does (...) not take seriously the distinction between persons.” Rawls’s claim refers to his contrast between impartial spectator reasoning for the classical principle of utility and his original position, which aims to motivate the original position’s use of mutually disinterested parties to an agreement as more accurately reflecting democracy’s fact of reasonable pluralism. Rawls then shows that these original position conditions, meant to reflect separate persons in democracy, justify his egalitarian principles over classical utility. I extend his contrast to act-egalitarianism to show that Rawls’s fact-sensitive constructivism supports his institutionalism. I argue that the original position, which reflects separate persons, only justifies the institutional difference principle and that the natural reasoning for act-egalitarianism does not take seriously the separateness of persons. (shrink)

Alors que la défense d'une organisation davantage démocratique de la production est souvent basée sur une réduction implicite du bien-être de la population au bien-être d'un sous-groupe de celle-ci, cet article a pour objectif d'étudier la désirabilité de la démocratie d'entreprise du point de vue d'un observateur impartial se mettant dans la position de tous les membres de la population et évaluant, à la lumière des intérêts de chacun, le bien-fondé d'une démocratisation de la production. Il est montré que la (...) désirabilité, du point de vue de l'observateur impartial, de la démocratie d'entreprise dépend de l'importance du revenu, de la reconnaissance sociale et de l'autonomie en tant que déterminants du bien-être, mais, aussi, de l'évolution de la partition de la population entre travailleurs non actionnaires, travailleurs actionnaires et actionnaires non travailleurs. Vu que les jugements de l'observateur impartial sont sensibles à la forme sous laquelle la composition de la population est prise en compte, la question de la désirabilité de la démocratie d'entreprise exige rien de moins qu'une réexamination du concept d'impartialité dans le contexte d'une population hétérogène à composition variable. (shrink)

We develop a novel argument scheme tailored to debates surrounding public votes on a state action. It can be used to propose reasons for voting “yes” or “no” and allows for natural reconstructions of such debates. These reconstructions are of particular use to voters trying to weigh the pros and cons of the proposed state action. The scheme for proposing reasons helps answering two questions: What changes will the proposed state action bring with it? And are these changes good or (...) not? Using the scheme, we derive a three-layered structure of public debates surrounding votes that aides in constructing systematic and comprehensive overviews. The scheme for proposing reasons also lends itself to concise summaries for voter information and can be incorporated into more general deliberation dialogues. (shrink)

In Roger Pielke Jr.’s The Honest Broker (2007) he discusses different roles a scientist can adopt when giving advice to policymakers. The honest broker role focuses on clarifying and expanding the scope of choice for others. This role has the virtues of being sensitive to known problems with experts being partisan by stealth, dominating policy decisions by controlling knowledge input, and reducing the scope of considerations deemed relevant to decision-making. Yet I argue that to the extent the honest broker role (...) involves expanding the scope of choice, an array of problems arises. These include ambiguity about which and whose consensus ought to guide scientists in their decisions about what role to adopt, an implicit tendency to insulate politics from science, and a possible replication of the anti-pluralism of political populism. Drawing upon Phillip Pettit’s critique of Isaiah Berlin’s account of freedom as non-interference, I argue that the honest broker role for scientists inherits the problems afflicting accounts of freedom as the non-restriction of options: namely, the problems of adaptive preference formation and ingratiation. On this basis I suggest not advising scientists to be honest brokers, because doing so might fail to help them be reflexive scientists. (shrink)

The concepts of “radicalism” and “extremism” have been the focus of increasing scholarly attention in recent years, but, surprisingly, there has not been the same kind of effort to specify their opposites, such as the concept of “moderation.” In this article I argue that because “radicalism” and “extremism” have been defined in generally negative terms, we may deepen and refine our understanding of moderation once we are equipped with a more neutral conception of radicalism. Accordingly, I propose a new approach (...) to the study of radical ideologies by comparing them to literary genres. Just as literary genres use tropes that constrain our reading of a text, radical ideologies use tropes—as, for example, the Marxists’ use of “reactionary” or “bourgeois”—that refer to a much wider background dichotomy, on which they base their arguments to discredit those of their opponents or to reinforce those of their supporters. Using this approach, I show how the Marxist theorist and leading German politician Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932)—one of the founders of modern Social Democracy—made a step-by-step critique of the Social Democratic Party’s orthodox Marxist tropes and core narrative that thoroughly undermined their arguments. Bernstein, I further suggest, was a particularly good example of a political moderate because he did not altogether reject the claims of his radical Marxist opponents but rather accepted those parts of their reasoning that he considered valid. By thus opening the way for constructing an anti-radical Marxist narrative, Bernstein’s example shows how moderates can “steal a page” from the radicals’ playbook to create alternative narratives whose central opponents are the radicals themselves. I conclude by briefly discussing two contemporary thinkers—Norberto Bobbio and Karl Popper—who went further than Bernstein in the development of a fully fleshed anti-radical narrative. (shrink)

In this essay, we discuss some urgent challenges for democracy and education in the Deweyan sense in connection with current developments of technologies and questions of sustainability. We proceed in four major parts, following the systematic distinction of four mutually interrelated levels of technologies in culture found in the late work of Michel Foucault. In part 1, we focus on the technologies of production. We connect Foucault’s perspective with more recent research on questions of social inequality and the production and (...) distribution of wealth. In part 2, we address the level of technologies of sign systems, connecting Foucault’s perspective with critical approaches like Chomsky and Zuboff. In part 3, we turn to the level of technologies of power and domination. We use Crouch’s approach to post-democracy in order to examine some crucial dangers for democracy. In part 4, we look at the level of technologies of the self. We consider connections with contemporary constructivist as well as Deweyan perspectives in education that emphasize the role of relationships and processes of social self-creation. The essay closes with a summary of the most important conclusions of our discussion. (shrink)

This paper examines Larry A. Hickman’s warnings about the dangers of algorithmic technologies for democracy and then considers educational policy initiatives that are important for combatting such threats over the long term. John Dewey’s philosophy is considered both in Hickman’s work and in this paper’s review of what Dewey called the “Supreme Intellectual Obligation.” Dewey’s insights highlight crucial tasks necessary and called for with respect to education to value and appreciate the sciences and what they can do to serve humanity. (...) At the same time, a significant cultural effort is needed to ensure that schools are empowered to do this vital work and that the public is informed and enabled to demand the leadership and initiatives that democracy needs to safeguard against threats to it. (shrink)

Since World War II, US Catholic anti-abortion discourse has been framed in term of rights-language, ascribing civil and human rights to the prenate from the moment of conception. Yet many of those who would criminalize abortion have allied with anti-democratic political movements that buttress White supremacy and threaten civil rights. This contradiction exposes the theoretical inadequacy and epistemological hubris of current Catholic abortion discourse. While the Catholic Church and individual Catholics may subscribe to absolute moral norms against abortion, they should (...) not leverage rights-language to legislate such norms in a pluralistic democracy. Instead, Catholics should draw on our rich tradition of virtuous practical reasoning for an abortion ethic that honors the moral agency of pregnant persons and democratic citizens. (shrink)

Roberto Frega argues for the advancement of workplace democracy theorisation by synergising the conceptual pathways of various disciplines. He places a particular emphasis on the practice of employee involvement, which, according to him, constitutes one of the three pillars of workplace democracy, the other two being voice and representation. The present commentary broadens the interdisciplinary horizons of this debate by reflecting on the central role of accountability in workplace democracy and the workings of the three pillars identified by Frega. The (...) commentary explores the potential of accountability and the insights drawn from critical accounting research to translate democratic ideals into meaningful and sustainable organisational practices and so strengthen workplace democracy. (shrink)

Confucianism evolved into an international philosophy in recent years. Two significant positions have emerged from works which ponder the various possibilities of blending Confucianism and democracy: whereas the first position is fashioned by the Confucian meritocrats, who reject, critique, and/or carefully delimit the functions of democracy for their belief in the leadership of the virtuous and the wise, the second position is held by the Confucian participatory democrats, who perceive participation in political decision-making processes as crucial for moral growth, and (...) therefore attempt to include political involvement, equality, and popular sovereignty in their politics. I would like to examine Liang Shuming (1893–1988) as a voice of modern and contemporary thinkers’ collective enterprise of Confucian democracy. As I focus on Liang’s career in the Republican period, I seek to show the following: By imagining possibilities of cross-fertilization between what he perceived as opposite cultures, and by utilizing concepts like intuition (zhijue 直覺) and ethical rationality (lixing 理性), Liang recognized the value of democracy. He believed that democracy would benefit the collective—be it the human race or the world, the West, or China; he assumed democracy’s contributions to the individual in terms of moral development or personal happiness; and he believed in the intrinsic value of democracy. To conclude, I argue that although Liang foreshadowed considerably the Confucian meritocrats’ and Confucian participatory democrats’ writings, he set himself apart from them for his appreciation of the significance of democracy for the individual’s happiness, and for his belief in democracy’s natural correctness. (shrink)

Paolo Sandro’s book is the latest volume in Hart Publishing’s excellent ‘Law and Practical Reason’ series. The book’s theoretical scope is wide, engaging with analytical legal philosophy (of both A...

This article shows that the democratic borders argument is defensible, albeit not in the way Arash Abizadeh proposes. The democratic borders argument depends on the All-Subjected Principle, according to which the exercise of political power is justified only insofar as everyone who is subjected to that power is guaranteed a right to vote. According to the so-called “scope objection,” the scope of the All-Subjected Principle is too broad, however, and therefore, the argument can be refuted by reductio ad absurdum. Here (...) I argue that Abizadeh’s appeal to the narrow-scope interpretation of jurisdictionally circumscribed legal requirements is not a plausible way of defusing this reductio. Instead, I show that the democratic borders argument is successful if the All-Subjected Principle consists of two individually sufficient conditions corresponding to narrow-scope and qualified wide-scope interpretations. (shrink)

Despite the widespread presence of public arts funding in liberal societies, some liberals find it unjustified. According to the Neutrality Objection, arts funding preferences some ways of life. One way to motivate this challenge is to say that a public goods-styled justification, although it could relieve arts funding of these worries of partiality, cannot be argued for coherently or is, in the end, too susceptible to impressions of partiality. I argue that diversity-based arts funding can overcome this challenge, because it (...) invests in non-excludable infrastructure that fosters cultural literacy. We all have some interest as citizens in living in a society which fosters cultural literacy, seeing as this helps others to understand us, supports us to understand ourselves, and helps alleviate confusion and alienation we feel toward social difference. While some of these benefits can be enjoyed by those who make and consume art, they are also gained by those who don’t, because arts funding affects the makeup of public spaces and the communicative practices we all use to make sense of the world. (shrink)

Incarceration served as a primary apparatus by which abolition democracy was defeated after Reconstruction. Carceral institutions—such as the penitentiary, the convict-lease system, and the chain gang—functioned to demarcate the racial limits of citizenship and to impede equal political power. This article turns to W. E. B. Du Bois to argue that incarceration constrains democratic political equality. Turning to Du Bois’s treatment of crime and imprisonment in works including The Philadelphia Negro (1899), “The Spawn of Slavery” (1901), and The Souls of (...) Black Folk (1903), alongside archival material, I situate incarceration in Du Bois’s democratic thought. According to Du Bois, carceral institutions bounded ideas of full citizenship, fueled panic over Black “criminality,” fomented feelings of inferiority, and hampered the possibility for abolition democracy, a multiracial, multiclass movement committed to worker democracy and a future rid of slavery and subjugation. Du Bois shows us how carceral institutions run into tension with democratic ideals. (shrink)

This is the first edited scholarly collection devoted solely to the epistemology of democracy. Its 15 chapters, published here for the first time and written by an international team of leading researchers, will interest scholars and advanced students working in democratic theory, the harrowing crisis of democracy, political philosophy, social epistemology, and political epistemology. The volume is structured into three parts, each offering five chapters. The first part, Democratic Pessimism, covers the crisis of democracy, the rise of authoritarianism, public epistemic (...) vices, misinformation and disinformation, civic ignorance, and the lacking quantitative case for democratic decision-making. The second part, Democratic Optimism, discusses the role of hope and positive emotions in rebuilding democracy, proposes solutions to myside bias, and criticizes dominant epistocratic approaches to forming political administrations. The third and final part, Democratic Realism, assesses whether we genuinely require emotional empathy to understand the perspectives of our political adversaries, discusses the democratic tension between mutual respect for others and a quest for social justice, and evaluates manifold top-down and bottom-up approaches to policy making. (shrink)

This article argues that the aesthetics of the oppressed—a series of artistic practices elaborated by Augusto Boal (1931-2009) that comprises the theatre of the oppressed, the rainbow of desire technique, and legislative theatre—utilizes art in order to resist epistemic injustice and promote democratic freedom.

This article explores what John Dewey’s political philosophy can offer in regard to the current crisis in digital democracy. It focuses on two digital mechanisms, the “filter bubble” and the “echo chamber”. While there is a prominent, Dewey-inspired debate on “digital publics” in the literature, a reconstruction of the Deweyan concepts of the public and of shared experience shows that it does not adequately reflect the aspect of situated and embodied experience. Based on this, it is shown that digital media (...) offerings must also be rooted in local contexts of experience in order to answer the challenge of those two problematic mechanisms. (shrink)

Kant’s criticism of democracy has been traditionally defused with the consideration that Kant’s aversion is not to democracy per se, but to direct democracy. However, what Kant says – ‘to prevent the republican constitution from being confused with the democratic one, as commonly happens’ (ZeF, 8: 351) – appears to count not only against direct democracy, but also against conceptions of democracy closer to the ones we are accustomed to. By offering a new account of what Kant sees as the (...) real problem of democracy (direct or not), the article unpacks a lesson about the limits of democracy that has gone largely unnoticed among political theorists and Kant specialists. (shrink)

One of the most original assumptions is that political actors are groups of thematized information. They effectively test the political, traditional sources of meaning, and reservoirs of identity. The post-religiousness of the presentness is transcendentally neutral; there is no contradiction between the transcendental and the immanent. Why and how relics steal into the political? The social does not create any meaning considerably stronger than the empty meanings of dedicated metaphysics and discourses, but the social creates itself within the totariental (total (...) - poleless - disorienting). The book contains analyses of the implementation of political crises and crises of the political. In other words, two processes are simultaneously used by political actors in contemporary democracy. These tools are not only moderators of naturally spontaneous democracy. Economic, cultural, and political changes are pressed ahead by technically, sociologically and military equipped actors for whom democracy is efficient. (shrink)

This title tells the story of democracy through the perspective of tragic drama. It shows how the ancient tales of greatness and its loss point to the potential dangers of democracy then and now.