ABSTRACT Militant democracy calls for pre-emptive measures against political actors who use democratic institutions to undermine or outright abolish a democratic political system. Born in the context of interwar fascism, militant democracy has recently been revived by political and legal theorists concerned about the rise of authoritarian right-wing populists. A long-standing charge against militant democracy—also articulated with renewed force in our era—is that, as a top-down way to deal with the intolerant, militant democracy is inherently elitist and bears uncomfortable similarities (...) with technocracy. But while it is true that militant democracy relies on state institutions to preserve democracy, it by no means excludes citizen engagement: “courts or the people” is a false choice. On the other hand, citizens engaged in militant democracy must take on the difficult task of distinguishing very clearly between democratic essentials under threat and political questions about which citizens might reasonably disagree. While citizen assemblies are not the answer to all of contemporary democracies’ travails, they might be very helpful in clarifying such distinctions for wide audiences. (shrink)

This article challenges the association between realist methodology and ideals of legitimacy. Many who seek a more “realistic” or “political” approach to political theory replace the familiar orientation towards a state of justice with a structurally similar orientation towards a state of legitimacy. As a result, they fail to provide more reliable practical guidance, and wrongly displace radical demands. Rather than orienting action towards any state of affairs, I suggest that a more practically useful approach to political theory would directly (...) address judgments, by comparing the concrete possibilities for action faced by real political actors. (shrink)

Digital Democratic Innovations (DDIs) have largely been conceived of, by the academic community, as a possible solution to the crisis of representative democracy. DDIs can be defined as initiatives or institutions designed with the goal of deepening citizens’ participation and influence on political decisions through the use of digital tools and platforms. There is a hope that DDIs (as well as usual, non-digital DIs) could help nurture political trust in governing institutions. Yet the vast majority of research on trust and (...) DDIs/DIs focuses only on one side of political trust – the trust of citizens vis-à-vis government. What has largely been ignored, however, is the trust of decision-makers towards citizen participation and its outcomes. We contend that political trust should be seen as a two-sided relationship that implies reciprocity. Therefore, we claim that it is necessary to design DDIs in such a way that they generate political trust from both common citizens and decision-makers. Citizens must trust institutions and processes implemented by the ones in power, and decision-makers must trust the input of citizens’ participatory processes. We argue that transparency is crucial when it comes to fostering reciprocal trust, and we identify the necessary elements to achieve it via DDIs. (shrink)