Download PluralismEqualityDemocracy2

The Problem of Democracy
• generally taken as an ideal
• “too much democracy is a problem”
=> has today become almost
synonymous with “the good society”
=> the question of good society
becomes blurred
- no longer a real question, because
it is already answered
=> difficulties with examining
democracy in a critical fashion
- a revival of classical forms of critique of
democracy (e.g. unreason, power of the poor,
consumer power, anarchy etc.)
- a culture of hatred of democracy is also
common today (Rancière, 2005)
=> democracy is good only in restricted forms
- Churchill: "Democracy is the worst form of
government, except for all those other forms
that have been tried from time to time.”
(House of Commons speech, 1947)
• disaffiliation
- increasing distance
between democracy as a
system and the power of the
people
• What is democracy?
- as an issue of political philosophy and political theory
• How shall we understand democracy in this
age of globalization and post-national society?
Sheldon Wolin: “… while democracy is widely proclaimed as the political identity
of the American system, the demos is becoming disenchanted with the forms
that claims it. Disaffiliation is one of the marks that identify the state not only as
postdemocratic but as postrepresentative”
Politics and Vision (expanded edition), 2004, p. 601
The Problem of Democracy
• its goodness, how
to define it (in what
sense is democracy a
good thing?)
• problematic consequences and
effects, its relation with other
good things
• its meaning, what is it?
democracy
demos + kratein: power/rule of the people
a moral ideal
(here: moral ≈ goods of our life with others
that ought to be realized)
• the concept of democracy tells us
something about some goods of social life
(in case we endorse it/them)
• a limited ideal: democracy does not
contain all goods of social life
 might exist other goods beside and in
addition to democracy that a society ought
to realise
- welfare? human rights?
ought to regulate
a system of government
or
a mode of (successful) action
• the dimension of ideality is not sufficient, it must also
be realised/realisable in practice
(like all other moral ideals)
• compare: Jacques Derrida: the sense of urgency
present in all moral imperatives:
- if something really is morally good, it ought to be
realised right now, without further delay
(“Ethics and Politics Today” in Negotiations, 2002)
 realist demands:
- sufficient unity (specification of the people)
- functionality (economic resources, political legitimacy
etc.)
- capability to make decisions and to successfully
implement them (power ≈ successful power)
- stability (decisions stay valid tomorrow)
realist limits on the ideal
Democracy,
the goodness and meaning of: some classical conceptions
Pericles (c. 490-429 B.C.) on democracy:
“Our constitution … favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we
look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing,
advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to
interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not
hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends
also to our ordinary life.”
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, (translated by Richard Crawley, 1951), pp.104-106.
freedom
- respects and secures the freedom of
the individual
- in private life
 modern liberal conception
- “freedom of the moderns”
- private freedom as contrasted with
political rule
- freedom from rule/domination
- freedom as the possibility to rule over oneself
- political rule is ”rule over free and equal persons”
(Aristotle, The Politics Book I.vii)
- everyone is both ruler and ruled
- participatory, political freedom
 republican conception of freedom
- ”freedom of the ancients”
- freedom as the possibility to participate in societal life
and political rule
Democracy,
the goodness and meaning of: some classical conceptions
Pericles (c. 490-429 B.C.) on democracy:
“Our constitution … favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we
look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing,
advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to
interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not
hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends
also to our ordinary life.”
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, (translated by Richard Crawley, 1951), pp.104-106.
freedom
equality
- of all, before the law
(of all free citizens)
 modern liberal
conception
- formal equality
- liberal rights
 modern addition?: social
equality and economic equality
- egalitarianism
- welfare state
- Marxism: real equality
- political equality
- political rule is ”rule over free and equal
persons” (Aristotle, The Politics Book I.vii)
- to be simultaneously ruler and ruled
- participatory equality
 republicanism
 radical democratic equality
Democracy,
the goodness and meaning of: some classical conceptions
Pericles (c. 490-429 B.C.) on democracy:
“Our constitution … favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we
look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing,
advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to
interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not
hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends
also to our ordinary life.”
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, (translated by Richard Crawley, 1951), pp.104-106.
freedom
equality
pluralism
- the many, instead of the few
- in all their differences
”to greater unity, from being a state, it becomes a family (oikos, household), and from being a family, an
individual; for the family may be said to be more one than the state, and the individual than the family. So that
we ought not to attain this greatest unity even if we could, for it would be the destruction of the state … Again a
state is not made up only of so many men, but of different kinds of men; for similars do not constitute a state. It
is not like a military alliance” Aristotle, The Politics Book II:ii
Democracy,
the goodness and meaning of: some classical conceptions
Pericles (c. 490-429 B.C.) on democracy:
“Our constitution … favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we
look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing,
advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to
interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not
hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends
also to our ordinary life.”
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, (translated by Richard Crawley, 1951), pp.104-106.
freedom
equality
pluralism
participation
- citizenship = taking part in
power/the practice of ruling
Democracy
demos = people
• people as demos
• people as ethnos
demos?
nationality, ethnic group,
culturally defined group
- all of the citizenry, independently of wealth,
status, ethnic background, culture or
personality, in equality
- plurality, pluralistic
common restrictions to the citizenry (full
political rights):
- membership
- age (only adults)
- knowledge skills, sufficient education
- freedom (not slaves nor other ‘dependants’
nor those incapable of freedom)
- ethnic background, language, culture
- otherwise substantially defined group
(e.g. religion, ideology)
 ethnocracy
• an ethnocratic version of democracy is
of course possible to develop