Carole Pateman reflects on her fifty years of scholarship in conversation with Graham Smith. The discussion focuses particular attention on Pateman's work on participatory democracy and considers her contributions to debates on political obligation, feminism, basic income, and deliberative democracy.
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Reflecting on Fifty Years of Democratic Theory
Carole Pateman in Conversation with Graham Smith
Carole Pateman and Graham Smith
Systematizing Democratic Systems Approaches
Seven Conceptual Building Blocks
Rikki Dean, Jonathan Rinne, and Brigitte Geissel
Abstract
The notion that democracy is a system is ever present in democratic theory. However, what it means to think systemically about democracy (as opposed to what it means for a political system to be democratic) is under-elaborated. This article sets out a meta-level framework for thinking systemically about democracy, built upon seven conceptual building blocks, which we term (1) functions, (2) norms, (3) practices, (4) actors, (5) arenas, (6) levels, and (7) interactions. This enables us to systematically structure the debate on democratic systems, highlighting the commonalities and differences between systems approaches, their omissions, and the key questions that remain to be answered. It also enables us to push the debate forward both by demonstrating how a full consideration of all seven building blocks would address issues with existing approaches and by introducing new conceptual clarifications within those building blocks.
In Democratic Theory
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 41–57 (17 total)
Theorizing about Democracy
Michael Saward
Abstract
How can we theorize about democracy? We can identify the major topics that form the focus of democratic theorists (and others traversing the field), such as democracy's meaning and value. This article focuses on the methodological lenses through which the topics have been and can be viewed. Different lenses bring into focus different phenomena, questions, and problems of democracy. It is argued that the lenses that bring conventional democratic theory approaches into view can provide an unnecessarily narrow and restrictive perspective. Donning different methodological lenses can introduce alternative perspectives, such as renewed attention to value pluralism and the “everyday.” The article sketches four “circles” that capture different potential types of and sources for theoretical work, some of them radically unconventional. It concludes by discussing the specific example of how methods and assumptions of design theory can prompt promising new approaches to theorizing about democracy.
In Democratic Theory
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 1–11 (11 total)
Three Concepts of Tyranny in Western Medieval Political Thought
Cary J. Nederman
Abstract
During the Latin Middle Ages, as today, “tyranny” connotes the exercise of power arbitrarily, oppressively, and violently. Medieval thinkers generally followed in the footprints of early Christian theologians (e.g., Gregory the Great and Isidore of Seville) and ancient philosophers (especially Aristotle) regarding the tyrant as the very embodiment of evil rulership and thus as the polar opposite of the king, who governed for the good of his people according to virtue and religion. However, examination of the writings of some well-known and influential authors from ca. 1150 to ca. 1400—including John of Salisbury, Ptolemy of Lucca, William of Ockham, Bartolous of Sassoferrato, and Nicole Oresme—reveals three very diverse and distinct conceptions of tyranny, each of which justified the tyrant in one way or another.
In Contributions to the History of Concepts
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 1–22 (22 total)
Times of Democracy
The Unavoidable Democracy of Mid-Nineteenth-Century Denmark
Anne Engelst Nørgaard
Abstract
Democracy became a popular and highly contested concept in the Danish-speaking parts of the Danish monarchy in 1848. For a brief time, it went from being an occasional guest in political language to a popular concept in the constitutional struggle of 1848–1849. This article argues democracy became attached to an equally popular concept of the time, movement, when introduced into everyday political communication in Denmark. In this context, democracy became a name for the movement observed in Europe and in the Danish monarchy. The article identifies three main interpretations of democracy that occurred in the Danish constitutional struggle of 1848–1849 and argues the battle over the constitution was essentially a battle over how one interpreted the past, the present, and the future. Democracy became a key term in this battle in 1848 Denmark.
In Contributions to the History of Concepts
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 23–45 (23 total)
What Are We Doing When We Are Doing Democratic Theory?
Dannica Fleuß and Gary S. Schaal
Abstract
The article analyzes the (often implicit) understanding of democratic theory that is presupposed by scholars who engage in this practice and provides an answer to the question: “What are we doing when we are doing democratic theory?” We flesh out the core features of this scholarly activity by relating it to and differentiating it from assessments made from the perspective of political philosophy and political science. We argue that democratic theory aims at proposing institutional devices that are (a) problem-solving approaches and (b) embodiments of normative principles. This two-faced structure requires democratic theorists to engage in feedback loops with political philosophy on the one hand and empirical political science on the other. This implies that democratic theorists must adopt a dynamic approach: democratic theories must “fit” societal circumstances. In consequence, they must be adapted in case of fundamental societal transformations. We exemplify this dynamic character by referring to digitalization-induced changes in democratic societies and their implications for democratic theorists’ practice.
In Democratic Theory
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 12–26 (15 total)
What Is Democratic Theory?
Rikki Dean, Jean-Paul Gagnon, and Hans Asenbaum
What is democratic theory? The question is surprisingly infrequently posed. Indeed, the last time this precise question appears in the academic archive was exactly forty years ago, in James Alfred Pennock's (1979) book Democratic Political Theory. This is an odd discursive silence not observable in other closely aligned fields of thought such as political theory, political science, social theory, philosophy, economic theory, and public policy/administration – each of which have asked the “what is” question of themselves on regular occasion. The premise of this special issue is, therefore, to pose the question anew and break this forty-year silence.
Why History Matters for Democracy
John Keane
Abstract
In this critical commentary, John Keane defends, extends, and reasserts the role of history in democratic theory through an articulation of seven methodological rules: (1) treat the remembrance of things past as vital for democracy's present and future; (2) regard the languages, characters, events, institutions, and effects of democracy as a thoroughly historical way of life and handling of power; (3) pay close attention to the ways in which the narration of the past by historians, leaders, and others is unavoidably a time-bound, historical act; (4) see that the methods that are most suited to writing about the past, present, and future of democracy draw attention to the peculiarity of their own rules of interpretation; (5) acknowledge that, until quite recently, most details of the history of democracy have been recorded by its critics; (6) note that the negative tone of most previous histories of democracy confirms the rule that tales of its past told by historians often harbor the prejudices of the powerful; and (7) admit that the task of thinking about the past, present, and future of democracy is by definition an unending journey. There can be no Grand Theory of Democracy.
In Democratic Theory
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 96–110 (15 total)
“Amazing Rapidity”
Time, Public Credit, and David Hume's Political Discourses
Edward Jones Corredera
Abstract
This article explores David Hume's views on public credit, the state, and geopolitics as outlined in his Political Discourses. By drawing attention to Hume's analysis of the speed of political economic dynamics, the article suggests the philosopher feared that public credit, a crucial source of eighteenth-century European economic growth, fundamentally revolutionized the pace of social relations, the mechanics of the state, and European geopolitics at large. Hume's study of public credit highlighted its role in reshaping eighteenth-century visions of time, and the philosopher's disappointment with his own solution, in turn, reinforces the need to consider the multifaceted effects of public credit in the modern world.
In Contributions to the History of Concepts
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 17–41 (25 total)
Belonging to Spontaneous Order
Hayek, Pluralism, Democracy
Stephanie Erev
Abstract
Reading Friedrich Hayek's late work as a neoliberal myth of the state of nature, this article finds neoliberalism's hostilities to democracy to be animated in part by a romantic demand for belonging. Hayek's theory of spontaneous order expresses this desire for belonging as it pretends the market is capable of harmonizing differences so long as the state is prevented from interfering. Approaching Hayek's work in this way helps to explain why his conceptions of both pluralism and democracy are so thin. It also suggests that neoliberalism's assaults upon democracy are intimately linked to its relentless extractivism. Yet the romantic elements in Hayek's work might have led him toward a more radical democratic project and ecological politics had he affirmed plurality for what it enables. I conclude with the suggestion that democratic theory can benefit from learning to listen to what Hayek heard but failed to affirm: nature's active voice.
In Democratic Theory
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 1–26 (26 total)