scholarly journals Representative Democracy and Colonial Inspirations: The Case of John Stuart Mill

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
SHMUEL LEDERMAN
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Colonial Experience

Focusing on John Stuart Mill, a particularly illuminating contributor to modern democratic theory, this article examines the connections between modern democracy and the European colonial experience. It argues that Mill drew on the exclusionary logic and discourse available through the colonial experience to present significant portions of the English working classes as domestic barbarians, whose potential rise to power posed a danger to civilization itself: a line of argument that helped him legitimate representative government as a democratic, rather than an antidemocratic form of government, as it had been traditionally perceived. The article contributes to our understanding of the development of modern democratic theory and practice by drawing attention to the ways the colonial experience shaped core Western institutions and ways of thinking, and it makes the case that this experience remains an essential, if often unacknowledged, part of our collective “self.”

scholarly journals Transformation of democracy in the information age: the role of new media and civic communication

2021 ◽  
pp. 90-105
Author(s):  
Serhiy Danylenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
New Media ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Corporate Influence ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
The Media

The article aims to outline the transformation in the functioning of modern democracy as a form of government, to explore the influence of modern media on the mechanisms of its implementation. The issue is raised about the preservation of its fundamental principles during the information revolution (primarily in the media sphere) and changes in the forms and methods of communication of people during political interaction. The model of „monitoring democracy” was chosen as the theoretical and conceptual basis for considering these processes, which is based on the „idea of a monitoring citizen” and which is caused by rapid growth of various extra-parliamentary (non-representative) mechanisms of government. Among them, the most important for us is the rapid development of media instruments, namely social networks. The imperative of elections, political parties and parliamentary life, typical for representative democracy over the last two centuries of the history of civilization, is now far behind the capacity of other actors of public life to influence the political decisions of citizens. The author also points to the fact that technology companies, which have concentrated both information − microtargeting supply of information based on psychological profiling, and business activities, demonstrate a new phenomenon, which is assessed by citizens as the most competent and ethical center of gravity and trust. At the same time, governments, independent public institutions and traditional media are perceived as less effective and ethical. Such a concentration of information and corporate influence in one actor (a small group of technology companies) is a new challenge for democracy. Respectively, basic principles that ensure its functioning as the most successful form of government, namely − election and control of power, protection of human rights, participation of citizens in political life and governance, rule of law and accountability of government agencies, prevention of usurpation of power – nowadays experience theoretical rethinking, and are embodied in new political practices. In addition, they (foundations of democracy) are torpedoed by negative phenomena of the period of transformation and political turbulence, among which populism in all its manifestations is the most threatening. Key words: representative democracy, monitoring democracy, mediacracy, constructive journalism, civil communication, social networks.

Contesting Conformity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennie C. Ikuta
Keyword(s):  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Public Rhetoric ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Steve Jobs ◽  
Political Ideal ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Martin Luther King

“Be yourself!” “Don’t just follow the crowd!” Such injunctions valorizing nonconformity pervade contemporary American culture. We praise individuals such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Steve Jobs who chart their own course in life and do something new. Yet surprisingly, recent research in social psychology has shown that in practice, Americans are averse to nonconformity. This disjunction between our public rhetoric and practice raises questions: Why is nonconformity valuable? Is it always valuable, or does it pose dangers as well as promise benefits for democratic societies? What is the relationship between nonconformity as an individual ideal and democracy as a form of collective self-rule? Contesting Conformity brings a fresh interpretive lens to the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche to investigate nonconformity and its relationship to modern democracy. Drawing new insight from their work, the book argues that nonconformity is an intractable issue for democracy. While nonconformity is often important for cultivating a most just polity, it can also undermine democracy. Insofar as democracy depends on the ability of each citizen to critically reflect and dissent from an unjust public opinion when necessary, Tocqueville and Mill enable us to appreciate nonconformity as an ethical and political ideal for democratic citizens. However, nonconformity can also undermine democracy, as Nietzsche helps us see, insofar as unconstrained expressions of nonconformity may stand in tension with the equality constitutive of democracy. Contesting Conformity demonstrates that while nonconformity can enhance democracy, it is not necessarily democratic.

Two Models of Public Opinion: Bacon's ‘New Logic’ and Diotima's ‘Tale of Love’ (The Prothero Lecture)

1974 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 79-96
Author(s):  
Samuel H. Beer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Work Done

It is appropriate that an American should address himself to the subject of public opinion. For, in terms of quantity, Americans have made the subject peculiarly their own. They have also invested it with characteristically American concerns. Most of the work done on the subject in the United States is oriented by a certain theoretical approach. This approach is democratic and rationalist. Both aspects create problems. In this paper I wish to play down the democratic problem, viz., how many of the voters are capable of thinking sensibly about public policy, and emphasize rather the difficulties that arise from modern rationalism. Here I take a different tack from most historians of the concept of public opinion, who, taking note of the origin of the term in the mid-eighteenth century, stress its connection with the rise of representative government and democratic theory.

Two regimes of the symbolic: radical democracy between Romanticism and structuralism

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-88
Author(s):  
Warren Breckman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
German Romanticism ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Ernesto Laclau ◽  
Constructed Dialogue ◽  
History Of

The ‘symbolic’ has found its way into the heart of contemporary radical democratic theory. When one encounters this term in major theorists such as Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek, our first impulse is to trace its genealogy to the offspring of the linguistic turn, structuralism and poststructuralism. This paper seeks to expose the deeper history of the symbolic in the legacy of Romanticism. It argues that crucial to the concept of the symbolic is a polyvalence that was first theorized in German Romanticism. The linguistic turn that so marked the twentieth century tended to suppress this polyvalence, but it has returned as a crucial dimension of contemporary radical political theory and practice. At stake is more than a recovery of historical depth. Through a constructed dialogue between Romanticism and the thought of both Žižek and Laclau, the paper seeks to provide a sharper appreciation of the resources of the concept of the symbolic.

Sovereignty, Devolution and the English Constitution

2018 ◽  
pp. 45-67
Author(s):  
Akash Paun
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Parliamentary Sovereignty ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Political Disaffection ◽  
Eu Referendum ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right

This chapter argues that the UK territorial constitution rests upon a profound ambiguity about its central principles. Parliamentary sovereignty remains at the core of how the English understand their constitution. Yet in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, alternative doctrines have flourished, especially since devolution, which conceded the right of each nation to determine its own form of government (popular sovereignty) and established a non-majoritarian system of power-sharing and cross-border governance in (Northern) Ireland. These developments imply that the UK is a voluntary ‘family of nations’ not a unitary state. Yet Westminster has never formally conceded this point and devolution could in theory be reversed by a simple parliamentary majority. Constructive ambiguity has been retained. However, the historic tendency to allow constitutional theory and practice to diverge may be unsustainable in the light of the EU referendum result and the wider mood of English political disaffection that Brexit has tapped into.

scholarly journals The Political Theory of Parties and Partisanship: Catching Up

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-110
Author(s):  
Russell Muirhead ◽  
Nancy L. Rosenblum
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
Political Rivalry

Despite their centrality to modern democracy, until recently political parties were relegated to the margins of normative democratic theory, taking a back seat to social movements, civil society associations, deliberative experiments, spaces for local participatory government, and direct popular participation. Yet, in the past 15 years, a burgeoning literature has emerged in democratic theory focused directly on parties and partisanship; that is our focus in this review. We locate three main normative defenses of parties: one centered in the special role parties can play in political justification as agents of public reason, a second that looks to the way parties contribute to deliberation, and a third that focuses on the partisan commitment to regulated political rivalry and peaceful rotation in office. In this last connection, we survey work on the constitutional status of parties and reasons for banning parties. We then consider the relation of partisanship to citizenship, and in a fourth section we turn to the ethics of partisanship. Parties and partisanship are interwoven but separable: If partisans are necessary to realize the value of parties, the reverse holds as well, and parties are necessary to realize the value of partisanship.

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