Why Democracy?

Paul Fairfield

Description

While much of the world now embraces the democratic idea—that the people must rule—the philosophical case for democracy has yet to be made convincingly. Why Democracy? not only reexamines the current debates in normative democratic theory, but also challenges popular conceptions that tend toward an uncritical idealization of popular rule. It is not enough to call for more extensive public deliberation, or for greater participation and inclusion in the democratic process, or for a radical extension of the scope of the process. Making the case for democracy requires examining its imaginative and rhetorical dimensions as well. The democratic idea of "rule by the people" must be understood less as a definition than as an aspiration, a trope, and the beginning of a narrative that includes, while extending beyond, the domain of government.

Introduction
Posing the Question

1. “The Fountainhead of Justice”?

2. Democracy: Communitarian, Participatory, or Radical?

3. Deliberative Democracy

4. A Modest Phenomenology of Democratic Speech

5. Why Democracy?

6. Between the Market and the Forum

Conclusion and Prognosis

Notes
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie politique

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791478950
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Why Democracy?

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WhyDemocracy? Paul Fairfield

S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K P R E S S

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

©2008State University of New York Press, Albany

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Library of Congress of CataloginginPublication Data

Fairfield, Paul, 1966- Why democracy? / Paul Fairfield. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN978–0–7914–7315–3(hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Democracy. I. Title.

JC423. F355 2007 321 . 8— dc22

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2007005486

INTRODUCTION Posing the Question

C O N T E N T S

CHAPTER 1 “The Fountainhead of Justice”?

CHAPTER 2 Democracy: Communitarian, Participatory, or Radical?

CHAPTER 3 Deliberative Democracy

CHAPTER 4 A Modest Phenomenology of Democratic Speech

CHAPTER 5 Why Democracy?

CHAPTER 6 Between the Market and the Forum

Conclusion and Prognosis

Notes Index

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

Posing the Question

olitical idealsthat gain currency in a culture tend to become moribund with the passage of time and to suffer the fate of ha P d to speak to us, to open up new pathways for thinking, and to inspire. dogmas and dead metaphors: they lose the power they originally As Friedrich Nietzsche so aptly observed, ideals tend to deteriorate into idols, bromides, and clichés with some regularity. No sooner does an ideal become dominant than its original power to orient thought dimin- ishes and it is transformed, slowly and imperceptibly, into an orthodoxy as needful of critique as the dogmas that it once replaced. The democratic ideal may currently stand in this condition. In the older constitutional or liberal democracies of the West, the democratic idea, or ideal, has effectively silenced its competitors, so much so that the ques- tion posed in the title of this book now strikes us as peculiar, as a rhetorical question perhaps, one that is its own answer. Is it possible any longer to pose this question in an intellectually honest way — that is, where the answer is not self-evident, and where we could be in genuine doubt about the matter? It would genuinely seem that we are all democrats now. Political theo- rists of both the left and the right — from liberals to conservatives, feminists, socialists, Marxists, communitarians, critical theorists, and others — are united in this much at least, that political power in principle belongs to the people, thedemos, rather than to something from which the will of thedemosis ostensibly opposed: the will of unelected rulers, aristocracy, capital, patriarchy, colonial power, religious authority, or some other form of hegemony. It is not only political scientists and philosophers who consent in one fashion or another to the democratic

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Why Democracy?

idea but the general citizenry of the older democracies of Europe and North America, including persons of radically different political persua- sions, of different cultures, religions, and languages. Indeed even authoritarian regimes and the great tyrants of the past century or two have claimed democracy as their ally, insisting that they were building a more perfect, a more authentic, democracy than the liberal democracies of the West which, they so often argued, were not genuinely democratic at all. We would be hard pressed indeed to find today an intelligent expo- nent of avowedly nondemocratic politics, all such persons being readily dismissible as cranks, fanatics, and possible terrorists. Democracy, it would seem, has won the day. The questions that remain for students of politics within the older democracies are now decidedly narrower in scope: in what ways should we qualify the democratic idea, as liberal or social democracy, radical or deliberative democracy; what institutional arrangements and public policies best approximate this idea; what theoretical model best allows us to articu- late it; what is the proper scope of democracy, and so on. The idea itself, however, has ceased to be a question. It is rather the starting point of political reflection, a first principle or axiom. The question, Why democ- racy? is now a decidedly academic question in the ordinary sense of the term, one about which no one any longer is in serious doubt. Theorists, politicians, or activists calling openly for nondemocratic institutions today would have their arguments not refuted but ignored. The ques- tion for politics is how to make our institutions ever more democratic, egalitarian, and inclusive — not whether to, but how. If this is how matters stand in the older democracies, they stand decid- edly otherwise in the emerging democracies of the world, in societies struggling to overcome the legacy of authoritarianism in its many forms, from communism to colonialism, military dictatorship, theocracy, or one-party rule. Societies struggling to negotiate the transition from parochial ways of thinking to modern, globalized culture and the market economy are struggling as well with democracy and human rights, with contemporary imperatives of change and adaptation to a “new world order” and the “new thinking” which so many are endeavoring to artic- ulate. Why democracy? is not an academic question but an urgent one for the citizens of Russia and the former Soviet republics, many of whom remain unconvinced that the transition from communism to democracy has been all for the good. Nor is it a settled matter for the people of China, Afghanistan, and much of the Middle East. In such nations and many others it is a genuine and urgent question indeed, one for which the

Introduction

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answer is often very much in doubt: Why ought the reigns of power to be held by the general citizenry rather than by the most powerful party, the military, or religious authorities, by those persons who appear to many to be naturally suited for political power and who can be trusted to govern with wisdom and benevolence? Is not the democratic idea itself so much hegemony, an aggressive imposition of the Western world, the political face of globalization or even militarization? It would undoubt- edly serve the interests of the powerful democracies of the West should the second and third worlds find their way toward Western-style democ- racy, but how exactly would it serve the interests of the latter societies themselves, and from their points of view rather than our own? In questioning the philosophical basis of democracy it is well to bear in mind the peoples of the world for whom this is not an academic ques- tion but an urgent and indeed dangerous one. There is, allow me to suggest, a common tendency in much of the contemporary literature of democratic theory to assume that the case for democracy has been made, convincingly and universally, that the reservations and criticisms that political philosophers have had regarding democracy from its inception in ancient Greece until very recent times have met with irrefutable replies. Let me suggest as well that there is a tendency in much of the literature, as unfortunate as the first, to preach to the converted, and the converted largely within one’s own theoretical camp. If liberal democrats most often address other liberal democrats about the nature and merits of liberal democracy and the shortcomings of its rivals, social democrats, deliberative, radical, communitarian, participatory, and other democrats respond largely in kind. Partly due to the nature of the scholarly enter- prise, no doubt, but partly for other reasons, we typically address our arguments in the main to fellow travelers rather than to those of other schools or traditions, much less to any who may entertain serious misgiv- ings about the democratic idea itself, those who take seriously the claims of theocracy or one-party rule, as so many in the world continue to do. The political point of view from which the following reflections are offered could be loosely described as liberal-democratic, albeit a liber- alism that differs significantly from mainline utilitarian and contractarian approaches. Liberal democracy, rather desperately in my view, requires a fresh infusion of ideas, including a reminder of the originally radical and indeed revolutionary, emancipatory, and also participatory spirit of liberal politics. Historically, as liberal democracy made the gradual tran- sition from a radical minority position to the political mainstream and eventually to become dominant in the democracies of the West it began