Deliberation and Deconstruction: Two Views on the Space of a Post-National Democracy

2001 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 763-790 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Morris
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Democratic Experience ◽  
Promising Development ◽  
Theory Of Democracy

Theorists of deliberation and deconstruction each claim commitments to a more open and legitimate democracy than existing liberal democracy. Eschewing traditional foundations such as natural law, historical inheritance, or the constitutive formation of the nation, they seek to develop a theory of democracy that is more inclusive in conditions of social diversity and complexity. This article investigates the meaning of the open political space that fosters the democratic experience under such conditions. First, a sociologically informed political theory, such as Jürgen Habermas' powerful if flawed attempt, is required to conceive participation in the democratic political sphere. Drawing on Jacques Derrida and others, the author then argues that deconstructive insights that introduce an openness to the non-identical contribute to a more complete democratic theory, offering a crucial mode of democratic inclusion of the other and an acknowledgment of difference that might assist in reforming current institutions. Thus a blend of Habermasian orientation toward deliberation and deconstruction's ethical sensibilities presents a promising development of democratic possibilities.

Restoring Catharine Macaulay’s Enlightenment Republicanism?

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Karen Green ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Commons

Can Catharine Macaulay’s enlightenment democratic republicanism be justified from the point of view of contemporary naturalism? Naturalist accounts of political authority tend to be realist and pessimistic, foreclosing the possibility of enlightenment. Macaulay’s utopian political philosophy relies on belief in a good God, whose existence underpins the possibility of moral and political progress. This paper attempts a restoration of her optimistic utopianism in a reconciliation, grounded in a revision of natural law, of naturalist and utopian attitudes to political theory. It is proposed that the coevolution of language, moral law, and conscience (the disposition to judge one’s own actions in the light of moral principles) can be explained as solutions to the kinds of tragedy of the commons situations facing our ancestors. Moral dispositions evolved, but, in the light of its function, law is subject to rational critique. Liberal democracy plausibly offers the best prospect for developing rationally justifiable law.

THE INFLUENCE OF POPULISM ON DEMOCRACY IN THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEORY

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 46-52
Author(s):  
Mirilias Azad ogly Agaev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Silent Majority ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Impact

The article is devoted to the impact of populism on democracy. To investigate the impact of populism on democracy, the author explores key approaches to the populism notion: political, socio-cultural and ideological. The article notes that populism studies lack a single definition and emphasizes there are negative, positive and neutral evaluations of the nature of this phenomenon. These conclusions are used for further assumptions about the impact on liberal democratic institutions. After analyzing the works on the populism of such scholars as B. Arditi, H.-G. Betz, M. Canovan, E. Laclau, K. Mudde, S. Mouffe, K. Rovira Kaltwasser, N. Urbinati, and others, the article draws conclusions about the multidimensionality of influence on liberal democracy and, in particular, about the fallacy of solely negative assessments of this impact. The author underlines the presence of both positive aspects (providing the interests of the “silent majority”, mobilizing excluded groups and integrating them into the political sphere), and negative aspects (rejection of representative democracy and parliamentarism) of populism.

Freiheit von Religion?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Fioole
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Majority Rule ◽  
The Other ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
The Public ◽  
Institutional Ethics ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

How much freedom from religion can a secular individual claim in a liberal democracy? How much freedom from religion is justified when considering religious individuals' liberties? By means of new realistic methods (Geuss), this study of political theory tries to give practical answers to these questions. In this book, we find that previous solutions generated by the public justification paradigm (Rawls, Audi, Habermas, Gaus, Cooke et al.) systematically result in a democratic trilemma. Instead, the individual sphere is proposed. This interplay between freedom, autonomy and privacy has an obligation to liberal institutional ethics. On the one hand, the theory of the individual sphere allows an individual to act according to his or her religious or secular ideas of what is good; on the other hand, it identifies contexts in which majority rule is justified.

Invention et (dé)stabilisation d’un espace politique singulier: Brasilia un demi-siècle après la fondation

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-119
Author(s):  
Daniella Rocha
Keyword(s):  
Federal District ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Flexible Structure ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Point Of Departure

Resume The instability of political life in the Federal District is a curious research problem from a scientific standpoint. This article attempts to unveil the paradoxes underlying the difficulty of stabilizing this space of relations and competences. In so doing, it looks into the processes that led, in the mid-1980s, to the specialization of a political sphere peculiar to Brasilia and to its rapid but low-key institutionalization. The invention of a local political space appears as a process deeply marked by the specificities of the territorial problematic specific to the Brazilian urban configuration. The author’s point of departure is the hypothesis that, in spite of its institutionalized rules and agencies, the political space of the Federal District tends to produce a more flexible structure than the political spaces found in the other units of the Brazilian federation.

scholarly journals Israelijew Jewisraeli: Yoram Kaniuk’s Adam Resurrected and the Problem of the Human

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Netta van Vliet
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Legacy ◽  
New Jew

This article considers the political and philosophical genealogies of the category “Israeli Jew” in terms of Israeli novelist Yoram Kaniuk’s Adam Resurrected, which I situate within the wider context of contemporary Israel. Israel is defined by some as a colonial and occupying state and by others as a liberal democracy founded on narratives of modern nationalism, but also on the Abrahamic narrative of 2000 years of Jewish exile. The category “Israeli Jew” thus brings together the figure of the diasporic Jew as not fully sovereign with Zionism’s figure of the “New Jew,” based on European modernity’s ideal of a sovereign, autonomous, citizen subject. I show how, by bringing these figures together, rather than replacing one with the other, the category “Israeli Jew” brings together the specificity of the different genealogies that these terms carry. In this regard, I argue, Israel can be understood as an instantiation of the historical legacy of the philosophical binary between the Athenian and the Hebraic, which, as Miriam Leonard, Jacques Derrida, and others have pointed out, informs the long durée of Western political philosophy.

The Final ‘Thank You’

Derrida Today ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Grant Farred
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
The Other ◽  
World Cup ◽  
The Core ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Black President ◽  
The Moment

‘The Final “Thank You”’ uses the work of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche to think the occasion of the 1995 rugby World Cup, hosted by the newly democratic South Africa. This paper deploys Nietzsche's Zarathustra to critique how a figure such as Nelson Mandela is understood as a ‘Superman’ or an ‘Overhuman’ in the moment of political transition. The philosophical focus of the paper, however, turns on the ‘thank yous’ exchanged by the white South African rugby captain, François Pienaar, and the black president at the event of the Springbok victory. It is the value, and the proximity and negation, of the ‘thank yous’ – the relation of one to the other – that constitutes the core of the article. 1

Islamic-Secular Dialogue in the Arab World

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 63-89
Author(s):  
Mohammed El-Msaoui
Keyword(s):  
Action Theory ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Political Sphere

Many debates between Islamists and secularists have taken place in the Arab political sphere with the aim of building bridges of communication between the two actors who contributed to the transformations that have taken place in the Arab world. Despite the multiple dialogues between Islamists and secularists, conflict and tension have prevailed on both sides, with conflict taking on all forms of material and moral violence. One of the most significant indicators of the crisis in communication is the emergence of violence. That being so, this study broaches the problem using Habermas’s basic idea, which focuses on violence as a disease of human discourse and communication. According to Habermas, violence is the result of distorted discourse between fundamentalists and others; it is a distorted discourse because it does not recognize the other as it is. The study employs the Habermas communicative action theory as a central concept. Accordingly, Habermas’s theory of communication is invoked to understand the causes of the escalation of violence in the Arab political sphere.

Freiheit, Gleichheit, Sinnlichkeit–Jacques Rancière, Hegel und die holländische Malerei

2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leander Scholz
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Traditional Concept ◽  
Jacques Ranciere ◽  
Jacques Rancière ◽  
Political Intervention ◽  
The French Revolution

Der Aufsatz geht der These nach, daß die Fundierung der politischen Theorie in einer ästhetischen Theorie bei Jacques Rancière eine Aktualisierung der Losung der Brüderlichkeit aus der Französischen Revolution darstellt. Diese Aktualisierung der Brüderlichkeit als »ästhetische Gemeinschaft« erlaubt es Rancière, an den Klassenbegriff von Marx anzuschließen, ohne die damit verbundene Gemeinschaftserfahrung begrifflich bestimmen und damit an positive Merkmale binden zu müssen. Weil Rancière seine Demokratietheorie vor allem als eine Interventionstheorie angelegt hat, soll die »ästhetische Gemeinschaft« im Unterschied zum Klassenbegriff es ermöglichen, eine prinzipiell unabgeschlossene Reihe von politischen Subjektivierungsprozessen zu denken. Um diese These zu schärfen, wird Rancières Demokratietheorie mit der von Jacques Derrida verglichen, der auf ganz ähnliche Weise das Demokratische der Demokratie in einem Streit gegeben sieht, der jenseits von demokratischen Spielregeln stattfindet, die Losung der Brüderlichkeit jedoch für überaus problematisch hält.<br><br>This article argues that the foundation of political theory in aesthetics by Jacques Rancière can be seen as an actualization of the slogan of fraternalism during the French Revolution. This actualization of fraternalism as »aesthetic community« gives Rancière the possibility to operate with the Marxian concept of classes without positively defining the experience of community. Because Rancière understands democracy as the chance for political intervention, the concept of an »aesthetic community« (as opposed to the traditional concept of classes) allows him to posit an endless process of political subjectification. To sharpen this argument, the article compares Rancière’s understanding of democracy to Jacques Derrida’s, who also focuses on a democratic struggle beyond democratic rules, but is very skeptical about the slogan of fraternalism.

Five Lessons from European Democracy

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Matijasevich
Keyword(s):  
Political Community ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
Track Record ◽  
European Democracy ◽  
Democratic Experience ◽  
Theory Of Democracy ◽  
The Eu

Outside of some states still struggling with post-communist transitions, Europe itself may be the first European democracy to collapse in decades. Though never a bastion of participatory democracy and even subject to continuous criticism due to its democratic deficit, the European Union (EU) has provided hope to those who envision a post-national democratic political community. As such, whether the EU survives its present crisis or not, cosmopolitan democrats will look to the EU as a vindication of their ideals. Though perhaps surprising given their track record, this paper will argue that political scientists, especially those concerned with democratization, can also be optimistic about what the EU has brought to the table in terms of how we conceive processes of democratic development. Throughout the paper it will be demonstrated that the creation and maintenance of the European democracy has challenged much of the literature's fundamental assumptions of what makes democracy work. Five key lessons from the European democratic experience will be presented in an attempt to disrupt some of these assumptions including lessons regarding the diversity of the demos, the contingency of democratic upkeep, the challenges of the state, the role of elites in political transformation, and the necessity of exclusion within inclusive spaces. Though a general theory of democracy will not be presented, suggestions will be made as to how we can incorporate some of these lessons into the dominant approaches to democracy found in the literature.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v7i1.214

“Ambiguist” Statesmanship

Worldview ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 3 (9) ◽  
pp. 7-8
Author(s):  
Will Herberg
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Fixed Points ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Actual Situation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mixed Feelings ◽  
Rational Mind ◽  
The One

John Courtney Murray's writing cannot fail to be profound and instructive, and I have profited greatly from it in the course of the past decade. But I must confess that his article, "Morality and Foreign Policy" (Worldview, May), leaves me in a strange confusion of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I can sympathize with what I might call the historical intention of the natural law philosophy he espouses, which I take to be the effort to establish enduring structures of meaning and value to serve as fixed points of moral decision in the complexities of the actual situation. On the other hand, I am rather put off by the calm assurance he exhibits when he deals with these matters, as though everything were at bottom unequivocally rational and unequivocally accessible to the rational mind. And I am really distressed at what seems to 3ie to be his woefully inadequate appreciation of the position of the "ambiguists," among whom I cannot deny I count myself.

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