This essay reclaims a political proceduralist vision of democracy as the best normative defense of democracy in contemporary politics. We distinguish this vision from three main approaches that are representative in the current academic debate: the epistemic conception of democracy as a process of truth seeking; the populist defense of democracy as a mobilizing politics that defies procedures; and the classical minimalist or Schumpeterian definition of democracy as a competitive method for selecting leaders.

From the theory of ‘deliberative democracy’ to the politics of the ‘third way’, the present Zeitgeist is characterized by attempts to deny what Chantal Mouffe contends is the inherently conflictual nature of democratic politics. Far from being signs of progress, such ideas constitute a serious threat to democratic institutions. Taking issue with John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas on one side, and the political tenets of Blair, Clinton and Schröder on the other, Mouffe brings to the fore the paradoxical nature of (...) modern liberal democracy in which the category of the ‘adversary’ plays a central role. She draws on the work of Wittgenstein, Derrida, and the provocative theses of Carl Schmitt, to propose a new understanding of democracy which acknowledges the ineradicability of antagonism in its workings. (shrink)

The article begins with an outline of the balancing construction as developed by the German Federal Constitutional court since the Lüth decision in 1958. It then takes up two objections to this approach raised by Jürgen Habermas. The first maintains that balancing is both irrational and a danger for rights, depriving them of their normative power. The second is that balancing takes one out of the realm of right and wrong, correctness and incorrectness, and justification, and, thus, out of the (...) realm of the law. The article attempts to counter these objections by showing that there exists a rational structure of balancing that can be made explicit by a “Law of Balancing” and a “Disproportionality Rule.” These rules show, first, that balancing is not a danger for rights but, on the contrary, a necessary means of lending them protection, and second, that balancing is not an alternative to argumentation but an indispensable form of rational practical discourse. (shrink)

The article begins with an outline of the balancing construction as developed by the German Federal Constitutional court since the Lüth decision in 1958. It then takes up two objections to this approach raised by Jürgen Habermas. The first maintains that balancing is both irrational and a danger for rights, depriving them of their normative power. The second is that balancing takes one out of the realm of right and wrong, correctness and incorrectness, and justification, and, thus, out of the (...) realm of the law. The article attempts to counter these objections by showing that there exists a rational structure of balancing that can be made explicit by a “Law of Balancing” and a “Disproportionality Rule.” These rules show, first, that balancing is not a danger for rights but, on the contrary, a necessary means of lending them protection, and second, that balancing is not an alternative to argumentation but an indispensable form of rational practical discourse. (shrink)

Latin American populism is a strategy for capital accumulation oriented through specific state policies; these may include import substitution and income distribution, and rely on the promotion of small and middle-size manufacturing firms producing for the domestic market. It looks for full employment, expansion of middle and working class consumption, agrarian modernization and broad intervention of government agencies in economic and social affairs. Political mobilization of the new urban masses fueled by social welfare and state-supported unionism constitute the basis of (...) the enlarged relative autonomy of the state vis-á-vis the industrialists benefitting from populist economic policies, and traditional elites forced to accept a partial transfer of land rent and foreign trade earnings. Changes in the international setting and the contradictions emerging from the populist strategy lead it to increasing instability and to a usually abrupt end, followed by the establishment of a right-wing political regime. (shrink)