Does Public Reason Require Supermajoritarian Democracy? Liberty, Equality, and History in the Justification of Political Institutions

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Ganghof
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Public Reason

The True, the Good and the Reasonable: The Theological and Ethical Roots of Public Reason in Islamic Law

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Fadel
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Moral Inquiry ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Normative Pluralism ◽  
Substantive Law

The events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent declaration of an open-ended “war on terror” have given a new urgency to long-standing discussions of the relationship of Islam to liberalism. In order to avoid the polemics that characterize much of the writing in the “Islam/Liberalism” genre, this Article proposes to use the framework set forth in John Rawls’ Political Liberalism to examine the grounds on which Muslim citizens of a liberal state could participate in a Rawlsian overlapping consensus. An overlapping consensus according to Rawls arises among citizens in a politically liberal state when they - despite holding incompatible theories of the good - each endorse the constitutional essentials of a politically liberal state for reasons within their own comprehensive religious or philosophical doctrines. This Article argues that the basis on which orthodox Muslims can participate in such an overlapping consensus can be found in Islamic theology and ethics. Because theology and ethics comprise the fundamental commitments of orthodox Islam, the political commitments set forth in Islamic substantive law which are inconsistent with constitutional essentials must be interpreted in light of those commitments. After describing orthodox Islam’s theological and ethical commitments to rational theological and moral inquiry, the Article argues that such commitments implicitly require political institutions that allow free theological and ethical inquiry. The Article illustrates this aspect of Islam by describing the development of a system of intra-Muslim normative pluralism in which the existence of conflicting ethical judgments was accepted as a legitimate and inevitable product of moral reasoning. The existence of normative pluralism in the realm of ethics, in turn, made the project of a legal system derived entirely from revelation an epistemological impossibility. The result was that Islamic substantive law was forced to adopt non-theological modes of justification. The Article argues that, in the course of so doing, Muslim jurists made appeals to what Rawls would deem to be public reason. The Article concludes with a series of examples from Islamic substantive law that illustrate the ways in which the pre-modern Islamic legal system represents a qualified form of public reason, consistent with the public culture of a liberal democracy.

Chains of Persuasion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin R. Hertzberg
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Civic Society ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Proper Role ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
Philosophical Debates ◽  
Democratic Norms

Democratic citizens around the world appeal to religious arguments, ideals, identities, and institutions in their political activism. And yet predominant theoretical accounts of liberal democracy provide precious little applicable guidance to citizens who must make judgments about religion’s proper role in their politics. Chains of Persuasion: A Framework for Religion in Democracy provides a new moral framework to guide citizens’ evaluations of religious politics. Rejecting claims that religion must be relegated to the private sphere or that all attempts to evaluate its political roles are oppressive, the book argues that democratic ideals are robust enough to assess the full range of ways religion influences democratic political life. The analysis weaves together insights from critical theories of religion, philosophical debates about public reason, deliberative and instrumental justifications of democracy, and democratic virtue theory to argue that citizens must understand democracy as a way of life—with crucial implications for civic society beyond formal political institutions—in order to properly evaluate the ways in which religion can both enhance and undermine democracy. The analysis concludes by criticizing American public discussions of two prominent religious minorities: Mormons and Muslims. If citizens are to make judgments consistent with democratic norms, they must pay more attention to the nature of religions’ authority claims instead of merely evaluating the values religions proclaim.

Realism and Democratic Renewal

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Nick Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Citizenship Education ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Digital Democracy ◽  
Opening Up

This chapter examines two types of realist challenge to ideas for democratic renewal. The realist political scientists stress the role of irrational, group-based behaviour amongst the electorate, and the capture of democratic processes by powerful and wealthy elites. They see little scope of civic participation reversing the hollowing out of representative democracy and mainstream political parties. On the other hand, realist political theorists focus on practical advice and political action, rather than ideal theory; and are concerned with rhetoric and persuasion, as much as public reason. It is argued that the second type of realist challenge can help us better understand how to advance state-citizen cooperation through practical initiatives such as citizens assemblies, participation in local government, digital democracy, the opening up of political parties; and how these can be supported by applying realist theorists’ insights to the reforming of political institutions, harnessing passion in social activism, and the development of citizenship education.

scholarly journals Is there a need for political liberalism to have an account of pre-overlapping consensus reasoning?

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
Nebojsa Zelic
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Liberal Conception ◽  
Public Reasoning ◽  
Further Development

In his Liberalism without Perfection, Jonathan Quong argues for internal conception of political liberalism which goal is to show that a liberal well-ordered society is internally coherent ideal and that citizens who would be raised in such society could endorse and support their own liberal institutions and principles if those institutions and principles are justified in particular way These institutions should be justified by particular conception of public reason which main feature is that overlapping consensus is the first stage of its justificatory structure. So, public reasoning of citizens in well-ordered society should be based solely on values and ideas inherent to liberal conception of justice - freedom, equality, fair system of cooperation and burdens of judgment. Another important feature of Quong?s conception of public reason concerns its scope. Quong argues for a wide scope of public reason which demands that all coercive or binding laws or public policies should be justified (whenever possible) on basis of these values alone. Thus, reasonable citizens in well-ordered society by definition accord deliberative priority to public reasons over their other comprehensive or nonpublic beliefs whenever they exercise their collective political power over one another. The problem I raise in this paper is that it is very likely that in well-ordered society there will be a group of citizens that will not accord full deliberative priority to political values, especially not at all levels of political deliberation. On certain issues they will like to see their particular values being realized through common political institutions. If our political theory excludes this group from justificatory constituency on this particular issue or categorize them as unreasonable it can easily undermine their general adherence to liberal conception of justice and endanger stability of well-ordered society. Thus, my point is that we need a further development of political liberalism to solve such problems not as a part of non-ideal theory but as a part of its ideal of well-ordered society.

Political Institutions under Dictatorship

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Gandhi
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions

Political Institutions and Party-Directed Corruption in South America

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Gingerich
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Political Institutions

Global Restructuring, Knowledge and Learning

2004 ◽  
pp. 66-76
Author(s):  
E. Hershberg
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Lower Cost ◽  
International Competitiveness ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Global Competitiveness ◽  
Global Restructuring ◽  
Intensive Exploitation ◽  
High Road

The influence of globalization on international competitiveness is considered in the article. Two strategies of economic growth are pointed out: the low road, that is producing more at lower cost and lower wages, with increasingly intensive exploitation of labor and environment, and the high road, that is upgrading capabilities in order to produce better basing on knowledge. Restrictions for developing countries trying to reach global competitiveness are formulated. Special attention is paid to the concept of upgrading and opportunities of joining transnational value chains. The importance of learning and forming social and political institutions for successful upgrading of the economy is stressed.

Inter-country inequality as a dynamic process and the problem of post-industrial development

2018 ◽  
pp. 5-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. M. Grigoryev ◽  
V. A. Pavlyushina
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Modern World ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Development Level ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Post Industrial

The phenomenon of economic growth is studied by economists and statisticians in various aspects for a long time. Economic theory is devoted to assessing factors of growth in the tradition of R. Solow, R. Barrow, W. Easterly and others. During the last quarter of the century, however, the institutionalists, namely D. North, D. Wallis, B. Weingast as well as D. Acemoglu and J. Robinson, have shown the complexity of the problem of development on the part of socioeconomic and political institutions. As a result, solving the problem of how economic growth affects inequality between countries has proved extremely difficult. The modern world is very diverse in terms of development level, and the article offers a new approach to the formation of the idea of stylized facts using cluster analysis. The existing statistics allows to estimate on a unified basis the level of GDP production by 174 countries of the world for 1992—2016. The article presents a structured picture of the world: the distribution of countries in seven clusters, different in levels of development. During the period under review, there was a strong per capita GDP growth in PPP in the middle of the distribution, poverty in various countries declined markedly. At the same time, in 1992—2016, the difference increased not only between rich and poor groups of countries, but also between clusters.

Sinn Féin and the IRA

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathew Whiting
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Sinn Fein ◽  
Peace Processes ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Irish Republicanism ◽  
The Republic ◽  
British State ◽  
State Responses

When Sinn Féin and the IRA emerged in Northern Ireland in 1969 they used a combination of revolutionary politics and violence to an effort to overthrow British rule. Today, the IRA is in a state of ‘retirement’, violence is a tactic of the past, and Sinn Féin is a co-ruler of Northern Ireland and an ever growing political player in the Republic of Ireland. This is one of the most startling transformations of a radical violent movement into a peaceful political one in recent times. So what exactly changed within Irish republicanism, what remains the same, and, crucially, what caused these changes? Where existing studies explain the decision to end violence as the product of stalemate or strategic interplay with the British state, this book draws on a wealth of archival material and interviews to argue that moderation was a long-term process of increasing inclusion and contact with political institutions, which gradually extracted moderate concessions from republicanism. Crucially, these concessions did not necessitate republicans forsaking their long-term ethno-national goals. The book also considers the wider implications of Irish republicanism for other cases of separatist conflict, and has significance for the future study of state responses to violent separatism and of comparative peace processes.

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