Designing for Democracy

Designing for Democracy addresses the question of how to “fix” digital technologies for democracy by examining how the design of the built environment (whether streets, sidewalks, or social media platforms) informs how, and whether, citizens can engage in democratic practices. “Democratic spaces”—built environments that support democratic politics—must have three characteristics: they must be clearly bounded, durable, and flexible. Each corresponds to a necessary democratic practice. Clearly bounded spaces make it easier to recognize what we share and with whom we share; they help us form communities. Durable spaces facilitate our attachments to the communities they house and the other members within them; they help us sustain communities. And flexible spaces facilitate the experimental habits required for democratic politics; they help us improve our communities. These three practices—recognition, attachment, and experimentalism—are the affordances a built environment must provide in order to be a “democratic space”; they are the criteria to which designers and users should be attentive when building and inhabiting the spaces of the built environment, both physical and digital. Using this theoretical framework, Designing for Democracy provides new insights into the democratic potential of digital technologies. Through extended discussions of examples like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, it suggests architectural responses to problems often associated with digital technologies—loose networks, the “personalization of politics,” and “echo chambers.” In connecting the built environment, digital technologies, and democratic theory, Designing Democracy provides blueprints for democracy in a digital age.

r/democracy

The final necessary element of democratic space is flexibility. Flexible spaces facilitate the experimental habit required for democratic politics; they help us improve our communities. Using the work of John Dewey, this chapter explains how flexible spaces provide an environment in which citizens can develop the experimental habits required for a progressive democratic politics. In flexible spaces—spaces characterized by both variety and malleability—citizens will not only encounter difference but will also be able to use it in the process of democratic decision-making. The chapter then turns to the case of Reddit as an example of a digital democratic space. It also shows the effects of flexible spaces by comparing two subreddits: r/the_donald and r/TwoXChromosomes. The chapter concludes by suggesting how the spaces of Reddit could be redesigned to be more flexible, further facilitating the democratic practice of experimentalism.

Democratic Assessment Colored by Understandings of Democracy

This chapter examines the attitudinal consequences of popular understandings of democracy. In particular, we focus on the influence of this critical mass opinion on how citizens assess democratic practices in both foreign countries and their own societies. Mixed-effect regressions confirm that, ceteris paribus, people who have embraced the procedural understanding of democracy by prioritizing its institutions and procedures in protecting basic rights and liberty are more critical of China’s democratic practice but more favorable to that in the United States. Similar mixed-effect regressions reveal that, again, people’s different understandings of democracy significantly shape how they assess their own societies’ democratic practices. On average, people who prioritize the intrinsic values of democracy are less satisfied with their regime’s democratic practices and more critical in assessing their regimes’ democratic nature. Furthermore, even a full democracy still needs to deliver to win over people’s hearts and minds, thereby fostering its popular support.

Contemporary Nigeria and the Deficit of Deliberative Democracy: Exploring the Indigenous Value of Àgbájọ ọwọ́ as Collegiality

The paper advances three groups of interrelated claims. First, a fundamental deficit of democratic practice in contemporary Nigeria is that electoral choices/candidates are largely disconnected from the spirit of vibrant deliberation/consideration by the Nigerian demos. Second, candidates that emerge tend to be more parochially disposed to serving the interests of the political sponsors, rather than working towards the promotion of the common good. Third, to address the problem of the research, it is argued that well-meaning, democratically conscious Nigerians should practically embrace the indigenous value of àgbájọ ọwọ́as collegiality to resist electoral choices/candidates of the noted politically influential elites. As one of the socio-moral values of an ideal Yoruba persona, or ọmọlúwàbí, àgbájọ ọwọ́ underscores the critical point that the realty of the common good properly derives from a rational collaboration of the members of a political collectivity. Ultimately, this understanding of collegiality helps in the promotion of deliberative democracy and its benefits in Nigeria.

Literature Analysis of the Theory of Liberative Democracy

During the political liberalization of the reform era (1998 – present), various groups have complained about the evil practices of democratic politics. One of the shooting targets is that we have made the wrong choice, namely adopting a majoritarian or liberal democracy model. In the literature on democracy theory, one of the theories relevant to improving democratic practice is TDD (Theory of Deliberative Democracy). Although still using the principle of representation, TDD, in general, makes corrections or improvements to the procedures and substance of democracy that have been poorly practised in Indonesia today. This research is based on qualitative research using the descriptive-analytical method to provide a clear picture of the object of the problem. The conclusion of this study shows evidence that there is a model of democracy—both in substance and in procedures. They are different from the mechanism of representation initially derived from the theory of representative democracy.

Midcentury Modern: The Emergence of Stakeholders in Democratic Practice

Since the 1960s, “the stakeholder,” or affected party, has emerged as a novel democratic subject whose participation in varied institutional sites—from universities to government agencies, corporate boardrooms to international organizations—is seen as necessary for the management of complex problems. However, few specifically attend to the stakeholder as a distinct political subject and consider its implications for democratic practice. This paper presents a genealogy of the stakeholder, documenting its appearance in corporate managerialism and US public administration and showing how racial mobilization, rapid technological progress, and the political rationality of systems thinking provided the conditions of possibility for its emergence. Though orienting democracy around stakeholders permits opportunities for participation in political life, I argue that this subject is predicated on a circumscribed form of participatory politics that erodes habits of discovering a common good, erases distinctions between individuals and corporate bodies, and amplifies the problem of expertise.

Constitutional Majoritarianism against Popular “Regulation” in the Federalist

In this essay, I make the interpretive claim that we cannot properly understand the Federalist without appreciating the extent to which the papers mount a sustained rejection of extra-constitutional democracy—practices in which people aim to assert authority over the terms of common life in ways that are not sanctioned by existing laws. I survey such practices, which were common in America before and after the Revolution. I argue that there is continuity between Publius’s justification for rejecting extra-constitutional democracy and his justification for his preferred system against constitutional alternatives. Adequate analysis and evaluation of the Federalist’s arguments about faction, representation, and institutional design require attention to the double duty the arguments play against constitutional and extra-constitutional opposition. This interpretive argument supports several analytic and evaluative conclusions. First, we must distinguish a new form of “non-hierarchical dualist” constitutionalism, according to which irregular democratic activity need not be limited to extraordinary “constitutional moments” or revolutions. Second, the politically egalitarian character of procedures depends not on the procedures alone, but how the maintenance of such procedures limits other forms of democratic practice. Third, the argument suggests a novel defense of “uncivil” disobedient politics: one grounded not in contributions to democratic deliberation, but in the entitlements of citizens to direct assertions of authority over common life.

Reviving democracy: Creating pathways out of legitimacy crises

Over the last several years, democratic citizens and theorists have been grappling with an upsurge in political commentary on the crisis and decline of democratic legitimacy around the world. Increasingly, theoretical attention is turning from the philosophical justification of ambitious moral ideals of democracy, to the interpretation of potentials within existing political practice for democratic renewal and repair. This review article examines three new books at the forefront of this theoretical turn towards engagement with the real-world political dynamics of democratic crisis and revival: Open Democracy by Hélène Landemore; Hope for Democracy by John Gastil and Katherine Knobloch; and Mending Democracy by Carolyn Hendriks, Selen Ercan and John Boswell. It begins by surveying the new contributions of these books – highlighting the importance all attribute to creative political agency as a source of revival in democratic practice. It then discusses several questions left unresolved by these books – concerning the problem of democratic legitimacy, the normativity of democratic standards and the power dynamics undergirding democratic agency – which jointly mark out an important agenda for future theoretical work on pathways out of democratic crisis.

Commons, Global (Economic) Governance, and Democracy: Which Way Forward for International Law?

Millions of people have been depending on commons such as forests, pastures, grazing lands, and fisheries to meet their basic needs for centuries. Because these commons are often left unrecognized, they face the threat of enclosure, which risks depriving peoples in the Global South from their most basic access to essential resources. Legal scholars are therefore called upon to rethink the prevailing system of global governance. Very little has been said about the role that international law could play in the empowerment of communities in the self-management of their resources and in the resistance against enclosure. It remains unclear to what extent international law can require states to recognize the commons as a democratic practice of its own and protect marginalized populations from enclosure and dispossession. This chapter asks the question as to whether international law can be rethought as part of the solution in saving the commons from enclosure.