Reflexive Democracy
This chapter discusses reflexive democracy, which is democracy's attempt to correct and compensate for three flawed assumptions, thus giving rise to a “generality of multiplication.” In contrast to negative generality, which depends on creating a new position from which the demand for unanimity can be satisfied, here the method is to multiply various more limited approaches so as to achieve a relatively comprehensive vision of the whole. The strategy is one of pluralization rather than detachment and has two components: adding complexity to democratic forms and subjects on the one hand and regulating the mechanisms of the majoritarian system on the other. To describe this reflexive effort of democracy on itself, the chapter first establishes that electoral-representative democracy is itself a disciplined and chastened version of “immediate democracy.” It then describes the effects of multiplication.