L6 - democracy Flashcards
intro
idea that liberalism and democracy go together is wrong
everything we know about democracy is wrong
- put your money where your mouth is
jan 6 storming of the capital US = democracy
- long period of time we thought it is great
- sometimes you hear the people and you’re like okay thats something, why are they/we so stupid (it’s insane the people we vote for) + in direct votes people also vote for stupid things
-> is it even a value? (same like equality)
- everyone would think we have a right to vote
- given that we vote for stupid people -> how many people would think it would be okay to prevent stupid people from voting (1/3)
- inshitification of democracy
- stupid people also have rights to decide + who decides who is stupid? (could be correlated with sex/gender/race, bc state failed to educate them)
= core disagreement: democracy at its bestness (smart people making smart decisions) but liberal concerns that this will be arbitrary, take away your rights and be detrimental for minorities, women, etc.
liberalism and democracy don’t go good together at all
democracy is community
maybe problem is not that democracy is too stupid, but that there is a much more fundamental tension between liberalism and democracy that education is trying to conceal
there s something really wild about democracy: uncontrolled, which is its best and its worst
democracy = popular sovereignty, idea that people ought to govern themselves
democracy is complicated
who is the polis?
- are borders even legitimate in the first place?
liberalism is in principle unbounded: personhood rather than citizenship defines rights, liberalism is unbounded
democracy is bounded
-> !principles are completely different: as liberal you care about all people, as democracy only the people who vote with you
what is “liberal democracy” anyway?
examples
e.g. racism in the US was democratic (all white courts, all white parliaments), individual rights of a minority and the majority can be in direct clash
e.g. anti-migrant voices = again perfect tension between liberalism and democracy
in Europe the strength of the right of voting is stronger than in US: convicted murderers are allowed to vote
if you think the polity is stupid, you’re gonna be happy to have liberal rights
- e.g. rights claim issues LGBTQ peoples: people happy to beat minorities up, liberal rights are good to protect queer communities
if you think your society is really healthy, doing good thinks, the more likely you think that democratic concerns are to be priortized
individual value of liberalism and community value of democracy aren’t the same, can be at tension
demos claims and rights claims are in conflict
Robert Dahl: democracy and equality
- what is democracy?
democracy = rule by the people
it means people rule equally
-> for Dahl democracy and equality are coterminous (they mean the same thing)
in democracies all people are considered to be equal
- push toward democratic participation develops out of what we might call the logic of equality
- in democracies, all members are to be considered as politically equal
tension between individual rights (liberalism) and democratic impulses towards the collective
-> tension between liberty and equality but in more practical context
Dahl - how is equality manifest?
= conditions that make states democratic
- inclusive citizenship
- effective citizenship
inclusive citizenship =
“No adult permanently residing in the country and subject to its laws can be denied the rights that are available to others and are necessary to [key political institutions]. These include the rights to vote in the election of officials in free and fair elections; to run for elective office; to free expression; to form and participate in independent political organizations; to have access to independent sources of information; and rights to other liberties and opportunities that may be necessary to the effective operation of the political institutions of large-scale democracy” (Dahl 1998: 86)
- practice of democracy and the theory are sometimes quite far apart
effective participation =
“As the focus of democratic government shifted to large-scale units like nations or countries, the question arose: “How can citizens participate effectively when the number of citizens becomes too numerous or too widely dispersed geographically (or both, as in the case of a country) for them to participate conveniently in making laws by assembling in one place? And how can they make sure that matters with which they are most concerned are adequately considered by officials – that is, how can citizens control the agenda of government decisions?” (Dahl 1998: 93)
-> to what degree are these philosophical conditions practically valid for actual “democracies”
- e.g. social media: effective participation more or less likely to be realized? control of the agenda
- e.g. Musk: is standing fatly on stage yelling things even though he isn’t elected
David Held: Models of Democracy
diff models with diff values
Ancient Athens: liberty as equality (Aristotle)
- freedom through (equal) participation in the polis
- humans are political animals who find fulfillment in the polis
- liberty meant equality
Renaissance Republicanism: non-domination and community (Machiavelli, Rousseau)
- freedom as self-governance and focus on participation
- The freedom of a political community rest[s] upon its accountability to no authority other than that of the community itself. Self-government is the basis of liberty, together with the right of citizens to participate … The highest political ideal is the civic freedom of an independent, self-governing people” (Held 2006: 34)
- idea of independence: we the people make our own rules (not necessarily about equality for all)
(Modern) Liberal Democracy: rights, duties and consent (Hobbes, Locke, Mill)
- idea that democratic norms should be tempered by rules of consent and rights and duties (concern about tyranny of the majority)
- Individual freedom to pursue one’s own ends
- “[Liberalism signifies] the attempt to uphold the values of freedom of choice, reason and toleration in the face of tyranny, the absolutist system and religious intolerance … Individuals should be free to pursue their own preferences in religious, economic and political affairs – in fact, in most matters that affected daily life” (Held 2006: 59)
Bureaucracy: competitive elitism and the technocratic vision (Marx, Weber, Schumpeter)
- democracy ought to be abut competitive elitism
Parties: pluralism, corporate capitalism and the state (Dahl)
Publics: Deliberative Democracy (Habermas)
- shift of thinking away from democratic institutions and back to idea of the public sphere: it is by coming together and hammering out ideas that we substantiate the democatic value, rather than just voting
-“There must be a shift in democratic theory from an exclusive focus on macro-political institutions to an examination of the various diverse contexts of civil society, some of which hinder and some of which nurture deliberation and debate” (Held 2006: 234)
-> in sum: many variations in democracies
all diff versions of democracy have diff relation with liberalism
- how direct is the democracy?
- how does representation work?
- how equal is political influence?
Democracy and liberalism: odd bedfellows
Given the potential conflict between democracy and liberalism, how should we think about democracy in political philosophy?
A core issue in democracy is whether we want the best outcome (a substantive issue) or simply the one that reflects popular will (a procedural one)
- as a procedure: democracy is a system by which people self-rule (the right)
- this is an intrinsic defense of democracy: democracy is good unto itself - as a substance: democracy is good bc its policies are good
- this is an instrumental defense of democracy: democracy produces good outcomes
words we need to learn: intrinsic and instrumental
intrinsic = good unto itself
instrumental = it creates good outcomes
how might we go about defending democracy - as a procedure
3 intrinsic defenses
- democracy protects freedom as autonomy:
- the fact that we have to think is good for our autonomy
- “What kind of decision-making procedure best respects the autonomy of individuals? This is something like the question Rousseau sets himself: how can we live under law and yet be free? … [Democracy cannot give] all people autonomy in the sense of their never being subject to the will of others. It must hold, rather, that, given the inevitable conflicts that states exist to manage, democracy is the decision-making procedure that best respects people’s autonomy overall” (214).
- we are more actualized in a democratic system, no matter what its outcomes are
- what if we don’t get what we want? “,..One’s opinion has been fed into the decision-making procedure on the same basis as everyone else’s. One has had the opportunity to persuade others to vote differently. One has played a full role in the making of the collective decision
- this kind of reasoning falls in line with liberalism: privileges choice and consent
- but the fit between democracy and liberalism is imperfect : why should someone else have a say in laws that affect my life?
- one answer takes us back to substance: that by and large the system will work in our benefit by generating good laws
- democracy as self-realization (216)
- participation (as with voting) is intrinsically good for human development: There’s a kind of freedom achieved through membership of a self-governing political community [because] participation in collective decision-making is an essential part of a fully flourishing human life … It matters, on this justification of democracy, that citizens deliberate about how things should be. Only then are they making full and proper use of their distinctively human capacities” (216)
- by being forced into democratic system, you become able to make full use of your human capabilities
- democracy as the embodiment of equality (216)
- back to Dahl’s notion that democracy and equality are coterminous
- equality is the principal that determines any vote share
how might we go about defending democracy - as substance?
3 instrumental defenses
it comes to good outcomes
- democracy generates good or correct decisions (221)
- generally democracy make good good decisison (Condorcet’s theory about the likelihood of large numbers of people being right about things)(of course, reasons to doubt this (i.e. bc people vote in factions/groups and choices aren’t binary))
- it also generates deliberation, which is itself important for democratic decisionmaking: “Discussion and debate are good ways of gathering good information relevant to the decision in question … discussion in the public forum improves the quality of the moral thinking that implicitly underpins political decisions … deliberation encourages people to be public-spirited, motivated to pursue the common – rather than their own, particular – good” (224-5).
- for Condorcetian and deliberative democrats, the legitimacy derives from the likelihood of the procedure generating good outcomes
- democracy enables the intellectual and moral development of citizens
- same as intrinsic 2
- for some theorists, what’s good about people making poltiical decisions for themselves is not so much that they will make good decisions as that their making the decisions will make them better people
- it generates good citizens through democracy
- democracy has perceived legitimacy (228)
- funny bc now legitimacy crisis democracy
- in general people think decisions made by the populus are more valid/legitimate/respected than decisions made by an autocrat, a nondemocratic practice
- “It’s a valuable feature of democracy that its decisions tend to be perceived as legitimate” (228)
to take home
- there is a the tension between democracy and liberalism -> figure out what it is
- diff argumentative ways to argue for democracy
relationship between communal values of the good and the individual right
Q&A
substantive and procedural - do they overlap?
- always overlapping: we can always use one or the other
- but they can also differ: you can think it is good that we all got to vote (intrinsic) and at the same time that the outcome wasn’t good (instrumental)
can we ….?
(didn’t repeat the question so not audible)
- it depends on the principle that is being protected
- if you want to say (as a caveat) that democracy is also liberal
- then the idea that substantively: rights claim can be embodied in the procedure, but it is not necessarily attached to the substance (substantively you could have nothing like rights claims at all)
no doubt that they are in tension: substantively things don’t always go our way
- you have to believe something is right about the procedure but not that the outcome has a right
Germany considered as example liberal democracy: outlaws extreme parties
- that’s exactly what we’re talking about - it is completely NOT liberal
- people in commentary not knowing what they’re talking about
- values shouldn’t be legislated (exceptions: armed parties)
- suggestion of violence would make a diff
why doesn’t liberalism view hate speeches as violent? - liberalism doesn’t necessarily say that
- it is a problem liberalism struggles with
- hate speech is considered to be subjective (but that’s not totally true: it can cause as much pain as physical action, state intervention)
- hate speech is a mess, value of not being harmed/hurt and value of freedom of speech are in tension
- it is subjective: maybe you didn’t want them to be hurt, it was just a joke
- moment subjectivity comes in liberalism becomes stressed
violence - gun ownership
- US gun ownership = liberal: property right + check on government
- not necessarily illiberal: no necessary link to violence, questions are not about the right, they are about the good
- until they turn violent there’s nothing much what you can do about it
- THE WORD VIOLENCE IS KEY
