Participatory Democracy

When faced with an urgent and credible threat of grave harm, we should take proportionate precautions. This maxim captures the core commitments of the “precautionary principle”. But what is it for a precaution to be “proportionate”? I construct an account of proportionality (the “ARCANE” account) that consists of five fundamental conditions (absolute rights compatibility, reasonable compensation, consistency, adequacy and non- excessiveness) and a tie-breaker (efficiency). I apply this account to two examples from the COVID-19 pandemic (border closures and school closures), (...) arguing that my account captures the key questions on which it is both feasible and important to integrate expert input with democratic input. I close by considering how we might try to manage the risk of future pandemics in a proportionate way. (shrink)

Este artículo brinda algunas respuestas y alternativas a ciertos problemas y propuestas en el área de la teoría democrática. El ensayo tiene como enfoque la cuestión de distinguir sistemas que pueden parecer democráticos sin serlo de sistemas realmente democráticos. Develando algunos actores disfrazados del discurso democrático en América Latina, el artículo argumenta que es preferible la regla de la mayoría como base para la identificación del bien común por medio del interés general, que reglas de minorías, consentimiento total o bases (...) constitucionales opuestas al gobierno de la mayoría. Esto se hace sin desestimar a las minorías ni las constituciones, ni lo ideal de la unanimidad. Simplemente las ubica. La investigación incluye una nueva respuesta al problema de la supuesta irracionalidad de la democracia identificada originalmente por Platón y después formalizada por Arrow. (shrink)

Few recent developments in information technology have been as hyped as blockchain, the first implementation of which was the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Such hype furnishes ample reason to be skeptical about the promise of blockchain implementations, but I contend that there’s something to the hype. In particular, I think that certain blockchain implementations, in the right material, social, and political conditions, constitute excellent bases for common knowledge. As a case study, I focus on trust in election outcomes, where the ledger records (...) not financial transactions but vote tallies. I argue that blockchain implementations could foster warranted trust in vote tallies and thereby trust in the democratic process. Finally, I argue that if the promise of blockchain implementations as democratic infrastructure is to be realized, then democracies first need to ensure that these material, social, and political conditions obtain. (shrink)

Abstract: In this article we introduce an input-oriented democratic innovation – that we term ‘TaxTrack’ – which offers individual taxpayers the means to engage with their political economies in three ways. After joining the TaxTrack program, an individual can: (1) see and understand how much, and what types, of taxes they have contributed, (2) see and understand how their tax contributions are, or have been, used, and (3) control what their tax contributions can, or cannot, be spent on. We explain (...) this democratic innovation in two ways. The first is through evocation to prefigure what the innovation could look like in future practise which raises the prospects for both good and problematic outcomes. The second is through formal theory to produce a detailed model of the innovation to assist theory building. We conclude by discussing three interactive outcomes of ‘TaxTrack’ through the democratic innovations literature to establish the beginnings of a theory for the model. This theory tells us that ‘TaxTrack’ can return benefits to its users and the democratic regimes in which they are located but it may also place restrictions on output-oriented innovations like Participatory Budgeting. (shrink)

Structural injustice exists when the influence of social structure exposes some groups of people to undeserved burdens while conferring unearned power to others. It has been argued that the responsibility for addressing structural injustices should be shared among those participating in the social structure and can only be discharged through collective action; however, the proper form of collective action does not happen easily. To address structural injustice effectively, we need to gain clarity on the practical challenges that are involved and (...) explore possible means of implementing shared responsibility. This chapter thus aims to contribute to the study of addressing structural injustice in the following two ways. First, building on previous studies, I categorize three forms of practical challenges that have been encountered by existing proposals for discharging shared responsibility for structural injustice. Second, I offer an alternative proposal, which I will refer to as the deliberative mini-public proposal, and argue that it has the potential to mobilize structural change and better overcome the identified practical challenges. (shrink)

I am interested in the “rational irrationality hypothesis” about voter behavior. According to this hypothesis, voters regularly vote for policies that are contrary to their interests because the act of voting for them isn’t. Gathering political information is time-consuming and inconvenient. Doing so is unlikely to lead to positive results since one's vote is unlikely to be decisive. However, we have preferences over our political beliefs. We like to see ourselves as members of certain groups (e.g. “rugged individualists”) and being (...) part of those groups depends on having certain beliefs (e.g. about welfare spending). Even if a decrease in welfare spending would be bad for me, I might still benefit by believing in and, consequently, voting for a decrease since my vote is unlikely to make a difference but getting to see myself as a rugged individualist will make a noticeable difference to my wellbeing. It is sometimes argued that this hypothesis fails for empirical reasons. I will argue that things are worse: it is conceptually incoherent. I will do so by first showing that it is a rationalizing explanation and then argue that rationalizing explanations must be reflectively stable from the agent's perspective. The rational irrationality hypothesis is not. (shrink)

Recent debates about the most appropriate political agents for realising social justice have largely focused on the potential value of national political parties on the one hand, and trade unions on the other. Drawing on the thought of Murray Bookchin, this article suggests that democratic municipalist agents – democratic associations of local residents that build and empower neighbourhood assemblies and improve the municipal provision of basic goods and services – can often also make valuable contributions to projects of just social (...) change. I identify a long-term and a more short-term argument for the value of democratic municipalist agency in Bookchin's thought and claim that the latter provides a compelling case for the valuable contributions this form of action can make to the achievement of a wide variety of visions of social justice. This provides a useful partial corrective to recent political theorising about the nature of the partisanship and trade unionism necessary to secure social justice. (shrink)

According to the prevailing opinion, the classical formulation of the principle of the sovereignty of the people is found in Rousseau. Against that view, this article argues that Marsilius of Padua and Locke should be regarded as earlier pioneers and important forerunners of this principle. To demonstrate this thesis, the paper examines Marsilius’s conception of the “human legislator” and Locke’s ideas on legislation, representation, and on the limitation of the legislative power. Though Locke excludes the majority of the people from (...) the right to be represented in the legislative power, his concept of this “supreme power” is progressive compared to the conceptions of “sovereignty” found in Bodin and Hobbes. Even for Rousseau, women are still excluded from the sovereignty of the people. This is a strong argument to include Locke and Marsilius in the history of the idea of the sovereignty of the people. (shrink)

This paper articulates a general distinction between two important communicative ideals—expressive sincerity and discursive integrity—and then uses it to analyze problems with political debate in contemporary democracies. In the context of philosophical discussions of different forms of trustworthiness and debates about deliberative democracy, self-knowledge, and moral testimony, the paper develops three arguments for the conclusion that, although expressive sincerity is valuable, we should not ignore discursive integrity in thinking about how to address problems with contemporary political debate. The paper concludes (...) with a brief discussion of a strategy for improving discursive integrity within public political debate by reflecting on which principles of responsible public debate would promote better democratic decision making. (shrink)

The Catholic Church never officially endorses political candidates but rather respects the freedom of its faithful to vote according to the dictates of their conscience. However, in the last presidential elections, some Catholic bishops and priests in the Philippines publicly and openly supported the presidential candidacy of Vice President Leni Robredo while urging the rest of the faithful to do the same. These bishops and priests anchored their position on their shared belief that voting for Robredo was the only rightful (...) and moral option because of her clean track record, non-involvement in any act of corruption, and principled approach in governance. In contrast, her political archnemesis Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. had long been embroiled in several allegations of corruption, non-payment of taxes, and fakery of educational attainments. Hence, for these bishops and priests, voting for Marcos Jr. was both wrong and immoral. And yet, the election results hit them with a big “slap in the face,” as more than 31 million Filipinos (majority of whom are Catholics) cast their votes for Marcos Jr., while only 15 million voted for Robredo. This outcome, no doubt, raises the question: Why did the repeated calls of these bishops and priests go unheeded? In this paper, I will attempt to answer this question by subjecting the political moralism of these Catholic leaders to some objective postmodern evaluation. To do this, I will employ the postmodern thoughts of Nietzsche, Lyotard, and Rorty as a lens to examine why many Filipino Catholics today no longer buy the political moralism of their religious leaders. (shrink)

Since its inception, a core aspiration of deliberative democracy has been to enable more and better inclusion within democratic politics. In this article, we argue that deliberative democracy can achieve this aspiration only if it goes beyond verbal forms of communication and acknowledges the crucial role of non-verbal communication in expressing and exchanging arguments. The article develops a multidimensional approach to deliberative democracy by emphasizing the visual, sonic and physical dimensions of communication in public deliberation. We argue that non-verbal modes (...) of communication can contribute to public deliberation when they (1) are used as part of reason-giving processes, (2) enable the inclusion of marginalized actors in public debates and (3) induce reflection and encourage new ways of thinking about the public controversies at hand. (shrink)

This article is a review of the contemporary ‘leftist’ republican project. The project stands on two legs, and we examine them both in turn. The first leg is a novel reading of history. This reading suggests, on the one hand that, contrary to some popular assumptions, republicanism does have a leftist, even a radical stream. But on the other hand, it also suggests that several authors and movements that did not self-identify as republicans actually did, in fact, employ a characteristically (...) republican thinking. The second leg of the project is a normative one. It is essentially an attempt by political philosophers to demonstrate that there is something in republican theory from which all these leftist, even radical streams spring forth. Primarily, it is suggested that it is republicanism’s sensitivity to the freedom-restricting role of great inequalities of power that provides the normative resource for the development of a characteristically republican critique of capital and capitalism. We briefly review the main arguments in favor of these claims, and also, as a conclusion, raise a few challenges that the ‘leftist’ republican project potentially faces. (shrink)

Online deliberation is one important instance of civic tech that is both for and by the citizens, through engaging citizens in Internet-supported deliberative discussions on public issues. This article explains the origins of a set of symposium articles in this journal issue based on the 2017 'International Conference on Deliberation and Decision Making: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Civic Tech' held in Singapore. Symposium articles are presented in a sequence that flows from designing decision making systems to platforms to specific technological nudges.

Although successive generations of digital technology have become increasingly powerful in the past 20 years, digital democracy has yet to realize its potential for deliberative transformation. The undemocratic exploitation of massive social media systems continued this trend, but it only worsened an existing problem of modern democracies, which were already struggling to develop deliberative infrastructure independent of digital technologies. There have been many creative conceptions of civic tech, but implementation has lagged behind innovation. This article argues for implementing one such (...) vision of digital democracy through the establishment of a public corporation. Modeled on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the United States, this entity would foster the creation of new digital technology by providing a stable source of funding to nonprofit technologists, interest groups, civic organizations, government, researchers, private companies, and the public. Funded entities would produce and maintain software infrastructure for public benefit. The concluding sections identify what circumstances might create and sustain such an entity. (shrink)

In this essay, I address several questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to the special issue on my book Democracy without Shortcuts. In particular, I address some implications of my critique of deep pluralism; distinguish between three senses of ‘blind deference’: political, reflective, and informational; draw a critical parallelism between the populist conception of representation as embodiment and the conception of ‘citizen-representatives’ often ascribed to participants in deliberative minipublics; defend the democratic attractiveness of participatory uses over empowered uses (...) of deliberative minipublics; clarify why accepting public reason constraints does not imply limiting deliberation to questions about constitutional rights, and argue that overcoming a state-centric conception of democracy does not require replacing the ‘all subjected’ principle with the ‘all affected’ principle. (shrink)

In this essay, I address some questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to this special issue on my book ‘Democracy without Shortcuts’. First, I clarify different aspects of my cri...

Post-truth has become a commonplace strategy. No longer are objective facts viewed as having evidentiary value; scientific knowledge is on a par with emotions or personal beliefs. We intend to show that in the context of post-truth, those proffering and receiving an assertion do not care about the truth-value of the assertion or about the best way to gather evidence concerning it. Such attitudes raise several questions about how relativism can be a corrupting influence in contemporary democracies. We will analyse (...) Steve Fuller’s use of the term «post-truth» – especially, the political connotations about epistemic democracy that he highlights. Instead, we offer a pragmatist defence of the truth and an alternative meaning of epistemic democracy. (shrink)

Vor wenigen Tagen hat das Hamburger Kabarett-Theater Schmidts Tivoli die Zusammenarbeit mit dem Komiker Kay Ray beendet, offenbar weil rassistische Witze in der Show einen zentralen Platz einnehmen. Kurz nach der Cancel-Affäre zwischen Lisa Eckhart und dem Hamburger Nochtspeicher sieht sich nun auch Ray als Opfer von „Cancel Culture“, die die Kunstfreiheit immer weiter einschränke. Um die Kunst und Kunstfreiheit geht es dabei aber eigentlich gar nicht. Sie ist nur der Austragungsort gesellschaftspolitischer Auseinandersetzungen um Sexismus, Rassismus und Transphobie. Dabei sind (...) Kunstfreiheit und Meinungsfreiheit zentrale Argumente – oder besser: Waffen – des konservativen politischen Projekts geworden, mit dem emanzipative Änderungen abgewehrt werden (s. auch Schubert, in: Leviathan, 48 (1), S. 29–51). Dieser machtpolitische Missbrauch muss klar von der grundrechtlichen Dimension unterschieden werden. Dafür ist zwischen drei Ebenen Kunstfreiheit zu differenzieren: im nichtstaatlichen, parastaatlichen und staatlichen Bereich. Die Neuregelungen von Diskurs, Kultur und Kunst durch „Politische Korrektheit“, „Cancel Culture“ oder „Identitätspolitik“ bedeuten nicht den Zerfall der Demokratie, sondern sind ein Schritt in Richtung ihrer vollständigeren Realisierung. (shrink)

Reseña del libro Claves de la Justicia desde América Latina (2019).

The standard view of academic freedom and free speech is that they play complementary roles in universities. Academic freedom protects academic discourse, while other public discourse in universities is protected by free speech. Here I challenge this view, broadly, on the grounds that free speech in universities sometimes undermines academic practices. One defense of the standard view, in the face of this worry, says that campus free speech actually furthers the university’s academic aims. Another says that universities have a secondary (...) democratic function, which cannot be fulfilled without free speech on campus. I identify shortcomings in both types of arguments. (shrink)

A predisposição genética para ajudar nossos parentes próximos ("altruísmo"), que era vital para sobreviver em nossos ancestrais nas planícies da África dezenas de milhares a dezenas de milhões de anos atrás, é um defeito fatal em um mundo superlotado onde nossos vizinhos não estão mais intimamente relacionados e estão envolvidos em uma luta de vida e morte pela sobrevivência. Eu me referi a isso como "A Única Grande Ilusão De Família Feliz" e é central para as ilusões utópicas suicidas da (...) esquerda política, que surgem devido à abundância temporária de recursos e paz relativa possibilitada pelo impiedoso estupro da terra. Visões políticas liberais que faziam sentido no passado estão trazendo o colapso das sociedades democráticas modernas e talvez da própria civilização. Embora isso seja óbvio para qualquer criança brilhante de 10 anos com acesso à rede ou mesmo tv via satélite, é totalmente opaco ao liberal/democrático/neomarxista/neofascista/terceiro supremacista mundial/20,30,40 algo googloides e iPhoners, que em breve assumirão e destruirão a prosperidade e a paz na América e no Reino Unido, e depois no mundo, ambos diretamente, e deixando-o aberto à destruição pelos Cartéis mexicanos, jihadistas islâmicos e muito acima e além de tudo, os Sete Sociopatas que governam a China. A América e o mundo estão em processo de colapso devido ao crescimento excessivo da população, a maioria no século passado, e agora tudo isso, devido ao povo do 3º mundo. O consumo de recursos e a adição de mais 2 bilhões de ca. 2100 desonram a civilização industrial e provocarão fome, doenças, violência e guerra em escala impressionante. A Terra perde pelo menos 1% de seu solo a cada ano, então, à medida que se aproxima de 2100, a maior parte de sua capacidade de cultivo de alimentos desaparecerá. Bilhões morrerão e a guerra nuclear é quase certa. Na América, isso está sendo extremamente acelerado pela imigração maciça e reprodução de imigrantes, combinado com abusos possibilitados pela democracia. A natureza humana depravada inexoravelmente transforma o sonho da democracia e da diversidade em um pesadelo de crime e pobreza. Euentendo a biologia básica e a psicologia leva aos delírios da engenharia social dos parcialmente educados que controlam as sociedades democráticas. Poucos entendem que se você ajuda uma pessoa que você machuca outra pessoa — não há almoço grátis e cada item que alguém consome destrói a terra além do reparo. Consequentemente, as políticas sociais em todos os lugares são insustentáveis e uma por uma todas as sociedades sem controles rigorosos sobre o egoísmo entrarão em colapso em anarquia ou ditadura. Os fatos mais básicos, quase nunca mencionados, são que não há recursos suficientes na América ou no mundo para tirar uma porcentagem significativa dos pobres da pobreza e mantê-los lá. A tentativa de fazer isso está faliu a América e destruindo o mundo. A capacidade da Terra de produzir alimentos diminui diariamente, assim como nossa qualidade genética. E agora, como sempre, de longe, o maior inimigo dos pobres é outros pobres e não os ricos. Sem mudanças dramáticas e imediatas, não há esperança para evitar o colapso da América, ou qualquer país que siga um sistema democrático. (shrink)

가장 먼저 명심해야 할 점은 중국이 이것을 말한다면, 우리는 중국 인민에 대해 말하는 것이 아니라 중국 공산당을 통제하는 사회병리학자들, 즉 중국 공산당의 7대 노인사회병연쇄살인범(SSSSK)이나 공산당 상무위원 25명 등이다. 중국 정부의 제3차 세계대전과 총체적 지배에 대한 중국 공산당의 계획은 중국 정부의 출판물과 연설에서 아주 분명하게 드러나며 이는 시진핑의 '중국의 꿈'이다. 중국을 지배하는 소수 민족(아마도 수십~수백 명)과 다른 모든 사람들에게 는 악몽(14억 중국인 포함)의 꿈입니다. 매년 100억 달러를 통해 그들 또는 인형은 신문, 잡지, TV 및 라디오 채널을 소유하거나 제어하고 매일 대부분의 주요 (...) 미디어에 가짜 뉴스를 배치할 수 있습니다. 또한, 그들은 더 많은 선전을 배치하고 합법적 인 논평 (50 센트 군대)을 익사 모든 미디어를 트롤 군대 (어쩌면 수백만의 사람들)가있습니다. 자원의 3rd 세계를 제거하는 것 외에도, 수조 달러 벨트 와 도로 이니셔티브의 주요 추진력은 전 세계적으로 군사 기지를 구축하고있다. 그들은 소련과의 냉전을 피크닉처럼 보이게 하는 거대한 첨단 무기 경쟁으로 자유 세계를 강요하고 있습니다. SSSSK, 그리고 세계의 나머지 군대는 고급 하드웨어에 엄청난 금액을 지출하고 있지만, 그것은 WW3 (또는 그에 이르는 작은 계약)가 소프트웨어가 지배 될 가능성이 높습니다. 그것은 SSSSK, 아마 더 많은 해커와 함께 (코더) 다음 결합 세계의 모든 나머지, 단지 그물을 통해 적을 마비하여, 최소한의 물리적 충돌로 미래의 전쟁을 이길 것입니다. 위성, 전화, 통신, 금융 거래, 전력망, 인터넷, 고급 무기, 차량, 기차, 선박 또는 비행기가 없습니다. 중국 공산당을 제거하고 14억 명의 중국 포로를 석방하고 제3차 세계대전으로 의한 미치광이 행진을 끝내는 두 가지 주요 경로가 있습니다. 평화로운 것은 군대가 공급되고 중국 공산당을 퇴화할 때까지 중국 경제를 황폐화하기 위해 전격적인 무역 전쟁을 시작하는 것입니다. 중국 경제를 폐쇄하는 대안은 중국 의 20대의회에서50대의 열경화성 드론을 표적으로 삼는 것과 같은 제한된 전쟁이며, 최고 위원전원이 한 자리에 있지만 2022년까지는 연례 본회의를 열수 있을 것입니다. 중국은 공격이 일어났을 때 무기를 내려놓고 민주선거를 준비하거나 석기 시대로 들어갈 준비를 해야 한다는 통보를 받을 것이다. 다른 대안은 전지적 핵 공격입니다. 중국공산당의 현재 진로를 감안할 때 군사적 대결은 불가피하다. 수십 년 내에 남중국해 나 대만의 섬에서 일어날 가능성이 있지만 전 세계적으로 군사 기지를 세우면 어디서나 발생할 수 있습니다 (웅크리고있는 호랑이 등 참조). 미래의 갈등은 모든 군사 및 산업 통신, 장비, 발전소, 위성, 인터넷, 은행 및 인터넷에 연결된 모든 장치 또는 차량의 제어 시스템을 해킹하고 마비시켜 사이버 전쟁을 강조하는 CCP의 명시된 목표와 하드 킬 및 소프트 킬 측면을 가질 것입니다. SS는 중국의 신호를 기다리거나 미국 선박이나 비행기의 서명을 찾고 있을 수 있는 재래식 또는 핵무기를 발사할 수 있는 전 세계 유인 및 자율 표면 및 수중 잠수함 또는 드론을 서서히 수비하고 있습니다. 우리의 위성을 파괴하는 동안, 따라서 전 세계적으로 미국과 우리 군대 사이의 통신을 제거, 그들은 그들의 를 사용합니다, 대상과 현재 우수한 해군을 파괴하기 위해 드론과 함께. 물론 이 모든 작업은 AI에 의해 자동으로 수행됩니다. 지금까지 중국 공산당의 가장 큰 동맹국은 미국의민주당이다. 선택은 지금 중국 공산당을 중지하거나 전 세계에 걸쳐 중국 감옥을 확장으로 보는 것입니다. 현대 사회의 미치광이 경로에 대한 자세한 내용은 미국의 민주주의 - 부고와 세계 3rd Edition 2019 및 21st 세기의 자살 유토피아 망상:철학, 인간의 본성과 문명의 붕괴 th (2019)와 같은 내 다른 작품을 참조 할 수 있습니다. (shrink)

L’idéal démocratique est accusé d’être irréaliste. Le gouvernement du peuple par le peuple et pour le peuple serait une chimère dans les sociétés contemporaines. Il faudrait lui préférer les visées plus modestes associées à l’élection : un droit de vote égal et la satisfaction du plus grand nombre. La démocratie ne se laisse pourtant pas réduire à la compétition électorale. Les acteurs et les institutions politiques qui s’en réclament invoquent non seulement un marché, où rivalisent des intérêts privés, mais un (...) forum, où s’affrontent des visions adverses de la justice. Ils attendent de la délibération collective qu’elle serve l’autonomie politique et le bien commun, mais savent aussi qu’elle peut les menacer, lorsque la liberté, l’égalité ou la publicité lui font défaut. Cette enquête philosophique interroge la pertinence de l’idéal démocratique pour des sociétés complexes, dotées d’institutions représentatives et soumises à la communication de masse. Elle montre à quelles conditions cet idéal peut aujourd’hui orienter la critique et l’action. Les citoyens peuvent encore aspirer à se gouverner eux-mêmes, donc à délibérer en égaux. -/- The democratic ideal is accused of being unrealistic. Government of the people by the people and for the people would be a chimera in contemporary societies. The more modest aims associated with election should be preferred: equal suffrage and the satisfaction of the greatest number. But democracy cannot be reduced to electoral competition. The political actors and institutions that claim it invoke not only a market, where private interests compete, but also a forum, where opposing visions of justice confront each other. They expect collective deliberation to serve political autonomy and the common good, but they also know that it can threaten them when it lacks freedom, equality or publicity. This philosophical inquiry questions the relevance of the democratic ideal for complex societies with representative institutions and subject to mass communication. It shows under what conditions a deliberative understanding of this ideal can today orient criticism and action. Citizens can still aspire to govern themselves, hence to deliberate as equals. (shrink)

Those who care about and engage in politics frequently fall victim to cognitive bias. Concerns that such bias impacts scholarship recently have prompted debates—notably, in philosophy and psychology—on the proper relationship between research and politics. One proposal emerging from these debates is that researchers studying politics have a professional duty to avoid political activism because it risks biasing their work. While sympathetic to the motivations behind this proposal, I suggest several reasons to reject a blanket duty to avoid activism: (1) (...) even if it reduced bias, this duty would make unreasonable demands on researchers; (2) this duty could hinder research by limiting viewpoint diversity; (3) this duty wrongly implies that academia offers a relative haven from bias compared to politics; and (4) not all forms of political activism pose an equal risk of bias. None of these points suggest that researchers should ignore the risk of bias. Rather, researchers should focus on stronger evidence-based strategies for reducing bias than a blanket recommendation to avoid politics. (shrink)

Америка и мир находятся в процессе краха от чрезмерного роста населения, большинство из них за последнее столетие, и теперь все это, из-за третьего мира людей. Потребление ресурсов и добавление еще 4 миллиардов, около 2100 года, обрушит индустриальную цивилизацию и приведет к голоду, болезням, насилию и войне в ошеломляющих масштабах. Земля теряет по крайней мере 1% своего верхнего слоя почвы каждый год, так как она приближается к 2100, большая часть его потенциала выращивания продуктов питания исчезнет. Миллиарды погибнут, и ядерная война почти (...) наверняка. В Америке это значительно ускоряется благодаря массовой иммиграции и воспроизводству иммигрантов в сочетании со злоупотреблениями, которые стали возможными благодаря демократии. Развратная человеческая природа неумолимо превращает мечту о демократии и разнообразии в кошмар преступности и нищеты. Китай будет продолжать подавлять Америку и весь мир, пока он поддерживает диктатуру, которая ограничивает эгоизм. Коренной причиной краха является неспособность нашей врожденной психологии адаптироваться к современному миру, что заставляет людей относиться к неродственным людям так, как будто у них были общие интересы. Идея прав человека является злой фантазией, пропагандируемой левыми, чтобы отвлечь внимание от беспощадного разрушения земли безудержным 3-м мировым материнством. Это, а также незнание базовой биологии и психологии, приводит к заблуждению социальной инженерии частично образованных, которые контролируют демократические общества. Немногие понимают, что если вы помогаете одному человеку, вы вредите кому-то другому – нет бесплатного обеда, и каждый предмет, который кто-то потребляет, разрушает землю не подлежит ремонту. Следовательно, социальная политика во всем мире является неустойчивой, и один за одним все общества без строгого контроля над эгоизмом рухнет в анархию или диктатуру. Самые основные факты, почти никогда не упоминаемые, таковы, что в Америке или мире не хватает ресурсов для того, чтобы вывести значительную часть бедного населения из нищеты и удержать их там. Попытка сделать это обанкротила Америку и разрушила мир. Способность Земли производить пищу уменьшается с каждым днем, как и наше генетическое качество. И теперь, как всегда, самым большим врагом бедных являются другие бедные, а не богатые. Без драматических и немедленных изменений нет надежды на предотвращение распада Америки или любой страны, которая следует демократической системе. (shrink)

This article criticizes radical labor republicanism on republican grounds. I show that its demand for universal workplace democracy via workers’ cooperatives conflicts with republican freedom along three different dimensions: first, freedom to choose an occupation…and not to choose one; second, freedom within the very cooperatives that workers are to democratically govern; and third, freedom within the newly proletarian state. In the conclusion, I ask whether these criticisms apply, at least in part, to the more modest, incrementalist strand of labor republicanism. (...) To the extent that they do, delaboring republicanism might be the best response. (shrink)

Genetically engineered (GE) insects, such as the GE OX513A Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, have been designed to suppress their wild-type populations so as to reduce the transmission of vector-borne diseases in humans. Apart from the ecological and epidemiological uncertainties associated with this approach, such biotechnological approaches may be used by individual governments or the global community of nations to avoid addressing the underlying structural, systemic causes of those infections... We discuss here key ethical questions raised by the use of GE mosquitoes, (...) with the aim of fostering discussion between the public, researchers, policy makers, healthcare organizations, and regulatory agencies at the local, national, and international levels. We affect that goal by outlining a procedural approach to decision-making about the use of the “biotechnology” that goes beyond “community engagement.” The protocol we advocate for entails informed deliberations and decision-making at the community level. It is designed to ensure that the voices of the marginalized and vulnerable groups that would be disproportionately affected by the decision are heard during the community-wide discussions. Moreover, we make the case that the values embedded in the risk assessment should be identified so that the community can make an informed decision about the use of GE insects. In addition, we advocate for the involvement of a variety of actors whose responsibility would be to ensure that the community has the opportunity to make an informed decision based on deliberations about the use of the “biotechnology.”. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper I defend a form of epistocracy I call limited epistocracy – rule by institutions housing expertise in non-political areas that become politically relevant. This kind of limited epistocracy, I argue, isn't a far-off fiction. With increasing frequency, governments are outsourcing political power to expert institutions to solve urgent, multidimensional problems because they outperform ordinary democratic decision-making. I consider the objection that limited epistocracy, while more effective than its competitors, lacks a fundamental intrinsic value that its competitors have; (...) namely, political inclusion. After explaining this challenge, I suggest that limited epistocracies can be made compatible with robust political inclusion if specialized institutions are confined to issuing directives that give citizens multiple actionable options. I explain how this safeguards citizens’ inclusion through rational deliberation, choice, and contestation. (shrink)

Local opposition to infrastructure projects implementing renewable energy (RE) such as wind farms is often strong even if state-wide support for RE is strikingly high. The slogan “Not In My BackYard” (NIMBY) has become synonymous for this kind of protest. This paper revisits the question of what is wrong with NIMBYs about RE projects and how to best address them. I will argue that local opponents to wind farm (and other RE) developments do not necessarily fail to contribute their fair (...) share to producing a desirable public good (clean energy). In fact, with landscape concerns being at the heart of much protest, the question of fair burden distribution becomes sidelined: landscape impacts cannot be distributed nor compensated for. Protests may be attempts to express a true conflict of (incommensurable) values. Understanding them as such will help us better address NIMBY concerns and overcome such opposition through ensuring procedural justice. (shrink)

Los editores de la revista han planteado dos preguntas: ¿Están los ciudadanos en condiciones de incorporar el espíritu científico en sus deliberaciones públicas? ¿Es esto requisito necesario para la democracia? Así, este artículo pretende ofrecer una respuesta que va más allá de tales preguntas.

The paper focuses on the “spillover thesis” which constitutes a pillar of much of contemporary participatory democratic theory; specifically, we assess the claim that workplace democratization leads to a higher degree of political participation amongst labourers. The paper analyses the thesis as formulated by Carole Pateman, including its later revisions triggered by ambiguous results of empirical studies aiming to (dis)prove it. The spillover thesis is then confronted with important methodological and theoretical critiques, the upshot being that in order to be (...) able to arrive at determinate conclusions, more carefully designed empirical studies are needed. Normatively speaking, however, blame can always be laid on the wider environment of market economy and/or representative democracy, to the effect that the spillover thesis is both difficult to disprove and radically subversive. Given the recent dominance of deliberative democratic theory which incorporates a strong participatory element, we finally discuss whether a recent innovation – namely, the concept of deliberative systems – could be fruitfully employed as a flexible umbrella-type framework for the spillover thesis and the participatory ideals related to it. (shrink)

Whereas civil discourse is usually thought to be about defusing conflict, this essay argues it may be fruitfully thought of as fighting honorably for what we believe. Thus agonistic honor, which conceives of rightness in terms of fair and respectful contest for status, will be an especially important virtue in contexts—from classrooms to courtrooms to pluralistic democracies in general—where conflict is inevitable and desirable. To motivate this claim, I take a Hobbesian approach. I begin with a rational reconstruction of honor (...) patterned after Hobbes’ rational reconstruction of justice, and imagine honor-equivalents of “rational” individuals in a “state of nature.” I then describe a multi-stage process that culminates in honorable contests among a natural aristocracy. The lessons from this exercise apply to the question of civil discourse: while the "standard model" of civil discourse aims at resolving disagreement by downplaying rivalry and ego, the more realistic agonistic model harnesses these factors to make our civil debates more culturally sustainable. (shrink)

Sustainable Values, Sustainable Change is a culminating work written for a general audience of environmental professionals. In keeping with what he has long urged for environmental philosophers, Norton focuses on ameliorative processes for resolving disagreements, on making decisions, while sidestepping the monistic quest for the right general principles to think about and govern human relationships with nature. Norton presupposes his “convergence hypothesis” familiar to readers of this journal: multi-scalar anthropocentric arguments, he holds, usually justify the same policies as ecocentric arguments; (...) hence, it is not essential to convince doubters that parts of nature have intrinsic value. Norton’s principal aim in this new work is to spell out his “heuristic proceduralism” while showing that Adaptive Ecosystem Management’s pluralistic model of sustainability works better for real decision making than the narrow focus on economic welfare in mainstream environmental economics. Environmental philosophers will also rightly read the book as, in part, Norton’s seasoned response to a familiar accusation: that pragmatic pluralism is too mushy to guide action, hence ethicists must fall back on defense of antecedent principles. (shrink)

Standard definitions represent political authority as the power to give reasons (or pro tanto duties) by using speech. But the giving of reasons (or pro tanto duties) is routine among ordinary folk. Why, then, is establishing the reason-giving powers of the state not the very same problem as establishing the reason-giving powers of ordinary people? This article (i) shows that the literature does not have the resources to answer, (ii) develops a pragmatist answer, and then (iii) closes by suggesting that, (...) properly understood, the problem of political authority calls not for more permutations of, say, consent theory, but concrete, genuinely democratic political systems. (shrink)

In this commentary, I suggest expanding the deliberative aspects of critical care policy development in two ways. First, critical-care policy development should expand the scope of deliberation by leaving fewer issues up to expertise or private choice. For instance. it should allow deliberation about the relevance of age, disability, social position, and psychological well-being to allocation decisions. Second, it should broaden both the set of costs considered and the set of stakeholders represented in the deliberative process. In particular, it should (...) consider efforts to reduce the cost of end-of-life care and to redirect resources away from the provision of costly interventions, and should expand the set of individuals included in deliberation to include stakeholders outside the health-care system. (shrink)

Is it morally important to vote? It is common to think so, but both consequentialist and deontological strategies for defending that intuition are weak. In response, some theorists have turned to a role-based strategy, arguing that it is morally important to be an excellent citizen, and that excellent citizens vote. But there is a lingering puzzle: an individual vote changes very little (virtually nothing in large-scale elections), so why would the excellent citizen be so concerned to cast a ballot? Why (...) bother with something that has so little effect on the common good? This paper answers by developing the idea of respect for a practice, and then arguing that respect for democracy will often require citizens to vote. (shrink)

Why and how do norms emerge? Which norms emerge and why these ones in particular? Such questions belong to the ‘problem of the emergence of norms’, which consists of an inquiry into the production of norms in social collectives. I address this question through the ethnographic study of the emergence of ‘norms against violence’ in the political collective Occupy Geneva. I do this, first, empirically, with the analysis of my field observations; and, second, theoretically, by discussing my findings. In consequence (...) of two episodes categorized as sexual assaults that occurred in their camp, the members of Occupy Geneva decided to tackle those issues in a general assembly. Their goal was to amend their first charter of good conduct in order to reform its norms and complete it with norms aiming to regulate ‘facts’ of ‘unjustified violence’. During a collective deliberation, new norms were devised, debated and consensually adopted. The writing of the new charter took place in a second general assembly during which the wording of the written norms was collectively decided. I show that indignation over the sexual assaults was the main motive that led to the collective deliberation, and that the entire process of the making of these norms was characterized by different collective emotions. Indeed, indignation, contempt and fear played major roles in the emergence of norms prohibiting violence, allowing punishment and exclusion of wrongdoers, and prescribing collective intervention against an aggressor to neutralize the threat represented. These findings prompt me to hypothesize that social norms emerge from emotions thanks to the latters’ internal structure; and that emotions provide causal and grounding explanations for this emergence. Thus, emotions allow us to answer the questions: ‘Why do norms emerge?’ and ‘Why do they have their specific forms?’ In short, I argue that social norms have emotional foundations. (shrink)

L’objectif de cet article est de montrer que le républicanisme d’entreprise développé par Hsieh ne protège pas les travailleurs contre l’ensemble des interférences arbitraires. Comme ils sont fondés uniquement sur la contestation des décisions, les arrangements institutionnels que Hsieh propose n’arrivent pas à saisir l’ensemble des formes que peut prendre la domination. Pour ce faire, nous utiliserons la critique développée par McCormick des institutions républicaines. Pour exploiter cette critique et l’appliquer au contexte d’entreprise, nous aurons besoin de présenter les arguments (...) en faveur du parallèle État-entreprise. Nous verrons ensuite que la critique de McCormick appliquée à l’entreprise nous permet de défendre l’idée selon laquelle il est nécessaire d’aller plus loin que le républicanisme d’entreprise pour réaliser la liberté républicaine. (shrink)

The failure of global governance, and how to remedy this, is a recurrent theme in political philosophy. This essay suggests a number of priorities, including: strengthening and reforming the United Nations system; addressing the pessimism in discourse about global governance, and acknowledging the advances which have been made; and engaging the cult of nationalism, with a reclaiming of the universalist ideals of the renaissance. Part of engaging the cult of nationalism also involves re-thinking the role of religion, especially as a (...) force supporting nationalism and the status quo. Ultimately we do not know what future global governance will look like, but the key is to believe that transformation is possible. (shrink)

According to the deliberative view of democracy, the legitimacy of democratic politics is closely tied to whether the use of political power is accompanied by a process of rational deliberation among the citizenry and their representatives. Critics have questioned whether this level of deliberative capacity is even possible among modern citizenries--due to limitations of time, energy, and differential backgrounds--which therefore calls into question the very possibility of this type of democracy. In my dissertation, I counter this line of criticism, arguing (...) that deliberative democrats and their critics have both idealized the wrong kind of citizen deliberation. Citizen deliberation should not be concerned with the indeterminate project of "translating" abstract democratic principles and values into everyday cases of political problem-solving. Instead, deliberation should take the form of analogy, just as we already find it in everyday politics and affairs. When ordinary citizens use analogies, they do not derive decisions from general principles or values, but they still reason nonetheless. Seen from this analogical perspective, deliberative democracy is already a practical reality to a large degree. When an election is on the horizon, a campaign season arises in which debates, forums, and "barstool" dialogues exponentially increase the amount of citizen deliberation. In these settings, citizens can readily be seen to be mapping analogous past candidates, elections, issues, and problems onto those currently on the ballot so as to reason about them. Consequently, analogical reasoning allows citizens to treat the majority rule mechanisms that proliferate in real politics as "deliberative outlets," which is to say, as catalysts of deliberation akin to the "creative outlets" that catalyze self-expression in the arts. While citizens may recognize majority rule mechanisms as catalysts of deliberation, many democratic theorists will hesitate to embrace this vision of the practical reality of deliberative politics. Isn't analogical reasoning too low in rigor to be placed at the heart of the deliberative ideal? I develop two arguments to explain the foundational role analogy plays in deliberation and to counter such critics. First, I draw on the explosion of research on analogical reasoning over the past two decades to show that it is far more rigorous and systematic than many suppose. Second, I argue that to the extent that citizen deliberation is concerned with rational planning, rather than just reasoning in general, analogical reasoning is logically superior. When we reason about what to do, we make plans that incorporate predictions about what is likely to ensue when a given course of action is selected. However, as soon as predictions enter into deliberation, its underlying logic changes as well. The reason for this change in logic is that as our probabilistic reasoning expands, the probability of its conclusions degenerates. Therefore, when assessing probabilities, we no longer should seek decisions derived from long, elegant chains of reasoning that connect our various options to generalities like values and principles. Instead, what we need is "short and sweet," or terse, humble lines of reasoning, which are more congruent with this form of deliberation. Thus, to the extent that democratic deliberation is involved in rational planning, it calls not for the elegant, deductive kind of reasoning idealized by proponents and critics of deliberative democracy alike. Instead, democratic deliberation calls for the "short and sweet," analogical kind of decision-making we associate with ordinary citizens already. After all, as research has shown, analogies are a much preferred and rigorous way by which even experts engage in probabilistic reasoning. By focusing on analogical reasoning, I therefore conclude that the practical reality of deliberative democracy should be recognized in ways that might ordinarily be dismissed. (shrink)

The republican case for workplace democracy is presented and defended from two alternative means of ensuring freedom from arbitrary interference in the firm—namely, the right to freely exit the firm and workplace regulation. This paper shows, respectively, that costless exit is neither possible nor desirable in either perfect or imperfect labor markets, and that managerial discretion is both desirable and inevitable due to the incompleteness of employment contracts and labor legislation. The paper then shows that WD is necessary, from a (...) republican standpoint, if workers’ interests are to be adequately tracked in the exercise of managerial authority. Three important objections are finally addressed— that WD is redundant, that it is unnecessary provided that litigation and unionism can produce similar outcomes, and that it falls short of ensuring republican freedom compared to self-employment. (shrink)

The Hanford Advisory Board (HAB) is a broadly representative, deliberative body that provides formal policy advice on Department of Energy (DOE) proposals and decisions at the Hanford nuclear cleanup site near Richland, Washington. Despite considerable skepticism about the effectiveness of citizen advisory boards, we contend that the HAB offers promising institutional innovations. Drawing on our analysis of the HAB’s formal advice as well as our interviews with board members and agency officials, we explore the HAB’s unique design, outline a normative (...) framework for evaluating participatory institutions, and assess the HAB’s effectiveness in rendering the DOE accountable to the local public. (shrink)

This paper presents a preliminary analysis of the first participatory budgeting experiment in the United States, in Chicago's 49th Ward. There are two avenues of inquiry: First, does participatory budgeting result in different budgetary priorities than standard practices? Second, do projects meet normative social justice outcomes? It is clear that allowing citizens to determine municipal budget projects results in very different outcomes than standard procedures. Importantly, citizens in the 49th Ward consistently choose projects that the research literature classifies as low (...) priority. The results are mixed, however, when it comes to social justice outcomes. While there is no clear pattern in which projects are located only in affluent sections of the ward, there is evidence of geographic clustering. Select areas are awarded projects like community gardens, dog parks, and playgrounds, while others are limited to street resurfacing, sidewalk repairs, bike racks, and bike lanes. Based on our findings, we offer suggestions for future programmatic changes. (shrink)

This article is part of a symposium on Bruce Cain's "Democracy More or Less: America’s Political Reform Quandary." It identifies the basic normative framework of Cain's skeptical "reform pluralism" as a form of democratic instrumentalism rather than political realism, and then argues that a more optimistic instrumentalist alternative is available. The instrumentalist can accept that more democracy need not entail better democracy. But the instrumentalist account of better democracy also gives us reason to believe that significant reform efforts remain worth (...) pursuing, for the simple reason that some of them have worked in the past. (shrink)

What is the role of lay deliberation – if any – in health-care rationing, and administration more generally? Two potential answers are suggested by recent debates on the subject. The one, which I will call the technocratic answer, suggests that there is no distinctive role for lay participation once ordinary democratic politics have set the goals and priorities which reform should implement. Determining how best to achieve those ends, and then actually achieving them, this view suggests, is a matter for (...) experts, armed with the best evidence available to them, both of the subject area involved, and of management and administrative excellence. -/- By contrast, the second, deliberative, view holds that lay deliberation has an important role in the administration and execution of government policy, both because these latter inevitably have a political element which needs to reflect democratic norms and values, and because lay people are, themselves, a source of information, even of wisdom, that experts will want to use in fulfilling their professional responsibilities. Recent debates on the value of lay participation in healthcare provision can illuminate the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, as can the experience of NICE. So, I will start by examining two articles by Albert Weale, which attempt to clarify the role that lay deliberation should have in healthcare, before turning to the dilemmas for both the technocratic and deliberative views which emerge from the experience of NICE. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper, I pursue the question whether extending democratic rights to work is good in the broadest possible sense of that term: good for workers, firms, market economies, and democratic states. The argument makes two assumptions in a broadly consequentialist framework. First, the configuration of any relationship among persons in which there is less rather than more coercion makes individuals better off. Second, extending democratic rights to work will entail costs and benefits to both the power and authority (...) of employers and meaningful work for employees. These costs and benefits cannot be determined in advance because they are largely empirical, but there are still good reasons for expanding worker participation all-things-considered. First, I examine the parallel case for extending democratic rights to the workplace based on several similarities between politics and work organization. In addition, I consider the objections from voluntariness and efficiency. Although both objections raise interesting problems I believe that a properly formulated conception of democratic workplaces can answer them. In the final section, I sketch a minimal conception of these rights at the level of the firm that does not require a large-scale transformation of the market economy. (shrink)

This essay examines the implications Wikipedia holds for theories of deliberative democracy. It argues that while similar in some respects, the mode of interaction within Wikipedia represents a distinctive form of “collaborative editing” that departs from many of the qualities traditionally associated with face-to-face deliberation. This online mode of interaction overcomes many of the problems that distort face-to-face deliberations. By mitigating problems that arise in deliberative practice, such as “group polarization” and “hidden profiles,” the wiki model often realizes the epistemic (...) and procedural aspirations of deliberative democracy. These virtues of the Wikipedia model should not, however, lead to the simple conclusion that it ought to replace traditional face-to-face deliberation. Instead, this essay argues that the collaborative editing process found within Wikipedia ought to be viewed as a promising supplement to traditional deliberation. These two modes of communication ought to be viewed in Madisonian terms – as distinctive forms of interaction that check and balance the vices of one another. When combined, the wiki model promotes the virtues of inclusion and accuracy at large scales, while the face-to-face model excels in conditions of localism and promotes the virtues of solidarity and social capital. (shrink)

Should voting be compulsory? This question has recently gained the attention of political scientists, politicians and philosophers, many of whom believe that countries, like Britain, which have never had compulsion, ought to adopt it. The arguments are a mixture of principle and political calculation, reflecting the idea that compulsory voting is morally right and that it is will prove beneficial. This article casts a sceptical eye on the claims, by emphasizing how complex political morality and strategy can be. Hence, I (...) show, while there are good reasons to worry about voter turnout in established democracies, and to worry about inequalities of turnout as well, the case for compulsory voting is unpersuasive. (shrink)