scholarly journals Speaking for Nature: Hobbes, Latour, and the Democratic Representation of Nonhumans

2017 ◽  
pp. 31-51
Author(s):  
Mark B. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Constructivist Theory ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Promising Avenue

Environmental theorists have often considered how best to represent nature's interests. This essay develops an approach to the democratic representation of nonhuman nature by examining the relation between Bruno Latour’s account of representation and that of Thomas Hobbes. Both Hobbes and Latour develop a constructivist theory of representation as an ongoing process that partly constitutes what it represents. In this respect, Latour’s account complements the “constructivist turn” in recent democratic theory, and it suggests a promising avenue for representing nonhumans. However, Latour also follows Hobbes in viewing representation as a matter of unifying and replacing the represented. This aspect of Latour’s approach obscures certain key features of representative democracy in pluralist societies. The last part of the essay takes up an aspect of Hobbes’s theory neglected by Latour, the notion of “representation by fiction,” which suggests a way of representing nonhumans that offers more support for representative democracy than other approaches

The improper politics of representation

2019 ◽  
pp. 224-238
Author(s):  
Mark Devenney
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Politics Of Representation ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Proper Form ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter takes issue with the renewed justification and theorisation of representative democracy associated with the constructivist turn, to reframe debates concerning the relationship between representation, property and civil society. Drawing on a set of older debates about democracy, property and representation the chapter contends that theorists such as Nadia Urbinati and Lisa Disch do not adequately account for existing forms of inequality, structured around property and wealth. The chapter defends a principle of democratic representation as improper in respect of existing orders of property and propriety, as against constructivist accounts that too quickly forget constituted representative interests so as to focus on the coming into being of new claims (e.g. Michael Saward). By contrast to the procedural justification of representative democracy defended most coherently by Urbinati, which seeks to establish a proper form of politics, the chapter argues that democracy is always in excess of particular forms of representation and property.

Democratic Perspectives on Interactive Political Leadership

2020 ◽  
pp. 41-58
Author(s):  
Eva Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
The People ◽  
Input Legitimacy ◽  
The Way

Representative democracy is in transition in theory as well as in practice, and this transition affects the way we think about political leadership and democratic representation. New theories of democracy challenge traditional understandings of what it entails to represent the people, and a mushrooming of new forms of political participation destabilizes traditional views of the role of citizens in democratic decision-making. Chapter 4 shows how these theoretical and empirical developments, which are partially triggered by inherent tensions in democratic thought, promote a turn towards interactive forms of political leadership. Interactive political leadership can potentially alleviate the tensions in democratic thought and strengthen the input legitimacy of representative democracy in times of declining trust in politicians. A turn to interactive political leadership is no panacea. It triggers new dilemmas and challenges for elected politicians.

Harrington’s Republicanism

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-80
Author(s):  
Rachel Hammersley
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Publishing History ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
Commonwealth Government ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Agrarian Law

Chapter 4 focuses on the nature of Harrington’s republicanism and the key features of his ‘equal commonwealth’. It begins by examining the complex publishing history of Oceana and the political and intellectual context in which that work was written. It then traces Harrington’s commitment to key features of commonwealth government: his use of republican models ancient and modern, his adoption of the neo-Roman understanding of liberty and his conflict with Thomas Hobbes on this issue, and his commitment to government in accordance with reason and the public good. Harrington’s understanding of, and emphasis on, the concepts of empire and authority are then explored. Finally, the central features of his equal commonwealth are set out: the agrarian law to ensure equality at the foundation, and then a bicameral legislature, rotation of office, and the Venetian ballot to secure equality and prevent corruption in the superstructure.

scholarly journals Thinking about elections and about democratic representation

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
LH ◽  
GvdS ◽  
WTE
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Modern Representative

[Political representation] is the basis of modern representative democracy. Older and less sophisticated forms, such as direct democracy, subsist marginally, even if they keep exerting a certain attraction. But representative democracy does not carry the self-evident authority it once had. Like every modern institution it is under challenge and consequently needs to be defended. In actual politics, the defence often takes the form of discussion of the merits of one system over the other and of proposals for change. The part of this defence appertaining to constitutional scholarship is not concerned primarily with proposals and changes. It is, before all, to brush up the fundamentals underlying representative democracy, on the basis of topical issues.There are three current issues upon which we would like to draw attention. They are: equality in structuring electoral systems, the processes of electoral reform and the rise of non-majoritarian institutions versus parliamentary democracy.

scholarly journals Claims of Representation: Between Representation and Democractic Innovations

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petra Guasti ◽  
Brigitte Geissel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Constructivist Theory ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Traditional Theory ◽  
Participatory Budgeting ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Institutional Contexts

This article seeks to build a bridge between the empirical scholarship rooted in the traditional theory of political representation and constructivist theory on representation by focusing on the authorization of claims. It seeks to answer how claims can be authorized beyond elections - selecting three democratic innovations and tracing claims through the claim-making process. Different participatory democratic innovations are selected - providing various claims and taking place in different institutional contexts, i.e., (elected) members of the Council of Foreigners Frankfurt; individual citizens in participatory budgeting procedures in Münster; and citizen’s associations elected politicians in the referendum campaign in Hamburg. We first analyze the claims raised by the different claim-makers to identify their claimed constituency eligible to authorize claims. In the second step, we focus on the authorization by the claimed constituency and the relevant decision-making authority. The article finds that claim-making in democratic innovations is fractured and incomplete. Nevertheless, this is not the reason to dismiss democratic innovations as possible loci of representation; on the contrary, seen through the prism of claim-making, all representation – electoral and nonelectoral – is partial. Focusing on the authorization of claims in democratic innovations provides novel inferences about the potential and limits of democratic innovations for broadening democratic representation

Constitutional Review in Representative Democracy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Kyritsis
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Design ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Constitutional Review ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
Legislative Initiative

The legitimacy of constitutional review of legislation depends on a proper appreciation of the contributions of courts and the legislature in the project of governing. This chapter argues that legislatures rightly have the initiative in this project, because the role of legislators is structured so as to enable them to combine the demands of popular support and moral innovation. This, and not political equality, is the value of democratic representation. Giving legislatures the initiative, however, does not mean giving them the last word. In addition, legislative initiative comes with grave risks, which institutional design must try to avert. By virtue of their independence, courts are well-equipped to check those risks. At the same time, judicial supervision is compatible with the legislature’s valuable contribution. Whether under a system of strong or weak constitutional review, courts can remain subsidiary to the legislature.

Tyranny in Athens

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cinzia Arruzza
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
Democratic Citizen ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Theory Of Democracy

This chapter offers a thorough analysis of both the literary tropes surrounding tyranny and the tyrant in fifth-century Greek literature—with some reference to fourth-century and later texts—and the function they played in democratic self-understanding. The chapter addresses the ongoing debate about the existence of a democratic theory of democracy in fifth- and fourth-century Athens, arguing that a proper democratic theory did not exist. Within the context of this debate, the chapter draws on theses of Diego Lanza, Giovanni Giorgini, and James F. McGlew that the depictions of tyranny in anti-tyrannical literature served the purpose of offering to the democratic citizen an inverted mirror with which he could contemplate the key features of democratic practice, by way of opposition. In other words, hatred for a highly stylized discursive representation of tyranny played a key role in democratic self-understanding.

The Crisis of Representative Democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-52
Author(s):  
Hélène Landemore
Keyword(s):  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
External Shocks ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
Original Design ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Design Flaw ◽  
Core Principle ◽  
Popular Rule ◽  
Electoral Representation

This chapter discusses the crisis of democracy. While this crisis can be attributed in part to specific empirical corruptions, which are themselves likely the result of contingent external shocks, the crisis of democracy can also be traced, more fundamentally, to an original design flaw: the restriction of democratic representation to “electoral” representation. The main problem is that representative democracy was designed on the basis of electoral premises that prevent even its best, most democratized contemporary versions from reaching the full potential of genuine “popular rule,” that is, a rule that empowers all equally. The chapter then looks at the internal problems to a core principle of representative government: the principle of elections. It also addresses the “realists'” objections that there is no crisis of democracy since representative democracy is working as intended.

Representing Efficiency: Corporatism and Democratic Theory

1988 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 420-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor V. Magagna
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Usual Method ◽  
Significant Shift ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Textual Exegesis ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Core ◽  
Economic Practices ◽  
Definition Of

What follows is an attempt to contribute to the renewal of democratic theory. The argument does not offer yet another substantive definition of “genuine” democracy. Nor does it proceed through the usual method of textual exegesis of the texts of democratic thinkers. Instead, it explores the implications for representative government of the set of political and economic practices to which comparativists have attached the label of corporatism. The central proposition of the argument is that corporatism poses a challenge to traditional notions about the core principles of democratic representation. Part one shows that corporatism can be seen as an alternative to the mode of democratic interest articulation known as pluralism. However, part two will show the ways in which the logic of corporatism implies a significant shift from established conventions of representation. The third section tries to build a defense of pluralism as a more democratic mode of representation than either corporatism or neo-Marxism.

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