problems with democracy

1. problems with democracy rule of the people? ‘the strongest will rule anyway’ - everyone cannot rule - who is really in power? the majority - no longer a power of the people, only of the majority - tyranny of the majority ≈ rule of number, not of reason - epistemic problem: how to reach good decisions ‘the problem of stupidity’: democracy is not as such about the goodness or wisdom of decisions the (fluctuating) will of the people - factionalism, conflicts between groups - continuous power struggle - instability, war, anarchy

2. democracy demos + kratein: power/rule of the people moral ideal - freedom - equality - pluralism - participation (of all (demos)) in power + - peace (political society vs. war) system of government/mode of action - sufficient unity - functionality - capability to make and implement decisions - stability ought to regulate realist limits on the ideal set of other issues - definition of the people - who and what is really ruling? - other values (reason)

3. types of response: mixed government, incorporating non-democratic elements within democracy • Aristotle: combination of oligarchy and democracy - political society (politeia): has the common good as its aim: make the good life possible for all by means of a system of government and rule that enhances these possibilities - simultaneously individualistic and corporative (republican conception) ”oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy of the needy: none of them the common good of all … oligarchy is when the men of property have the government in their hands; democracy, the opposite, when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers … the real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth” (Aristotle, The Politics III:8) - solution: rule of the middle ‘classes’ - educational aspect: first learn what it means to be ruled (up until 35 years of age), then take part in the ruling • combining democracy with other values, especially reason - Rousseau: the general will (≈ what is in the reasonable interest of all) ought to rule (democratic republicanism) - a simultaneously rationalist and democratic conception  epistemic problem: how do we know the general will? the wise legislator (incorporates more reason) - Hegel: the universalist class of bureaucrats whose task it is to think the universal (not democracy, non-democratic republicanism)

4. types of response mixed government, incorporating non-democratic elements within democracy • democracy and a representative system representative democracy - the representative system is not originally part of democracy - representative board ≈ elected oligarchy - Thomas Paine: ”The representative system takes society and civilisation for its basis; nature, reason, and experience, for its guide … the representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom from where it can be found … By ingrafting representation upon democracy, we arrive at a system of government capable of embracing and confederating all the various interests and every extent of territory and population” Rights of Man, Chapter 3(1791) - increases the amount of reason, makes possible democracy in larger populations • the aggregative model - a system that gradually increases the amount of reason in political government public debate  non-governmental organisations  political parties  representative body  government  policy • Robert A. Dahl: contemporary democracy is a polyarchy (a set of different issues internally related with each other: participation, institutional frameworks, multiparty system, administrative apparatus etc.) (1989, Democracy and Its Critics)

5. types of response radicalising or reformulating the ideal: • ‘democratization of democracy’ • radical conceptions of democracy • relocating democracy in action (vs. in the system of government) • deliberative democracy - not opposed to the idea of mixed government

6. the theoreticians of the political: politics - activity involving the art of government (of the whole of a society) - often differentiated from other areas of activity: economic activity, jurisprudence (legality), private life the political neutral usage: the art of government - used to define the domain of politics diagnostic-critical usage: a region of being - the co-existence of a plurality of human beings - with divergent positions and views - the existence of antagonism - and power relations - unified by something (the common) - an aim to settle their co-existence in a peaceful manner - anchors politics and other societal processes at a deeper level of reality (political ontology)

7. diagnostic-critical usage: • the ‘standard’ ways of viewing society and political order (also in philosophy) do not manage to bring the whole of political reality into view - standard view: the art of government and the form (system) of government • insofar as politics (and political philosophy) is about questions of power, of what governs us, the standard view is far too limited • Foucault: studies the forms of power present in the practices and institutional arrangements in society at large (a broader view on power that anchors forms of power in contingent, historical constellation)  historical constellation as regime (compare Lefort) - philosophy/genealogy as a critical ontology of ourselves - makes visible what really steers us (what we are, do and think) • Hannah Arendt: the contemporary conflation between ‘management of the social system’ (economic balance, social policies etc.), and - politics as the constructive creation of something new, of thinking the direction, of the people or humanity as a plurality acting in concert  to bring into view the political ground of society  the rehabilitation of politics - a certain nostalgia for politics as the creation of the new

8. economic activity politics the law court private life defines a specific area of activity another region of being another region of being another region of being the political a region of being - the co-existence of a plurality of human beings - with divergent positions and views - the existence of antagonism - and power relations - unified by something (the common) - an aim to settle their co-existence in a peaceful manner

9. economic activity politics the law court private life fundamental to the constitution of society as a whole the political a region of being - the co-existence of a plurality of human beings - with divergent positions and views - the existence of antagonism - and power relations - unified by something (the common) - an aim to settle their co-existence in a peaceful manner

10. the task of constitution constitutive problems the political a region of being - co-existence of a plurality - divergent positions and views - antagonism - power relations - unification - settle their co-existence problems: - plurality is not unity - divergence is not settlement - antagonism is not peace - power is the power of some over others ≈ domination - a unity of whom and what?

11. social contract - agreement that settles basic issues (the basic structure of society) - settles issues of political authority (who has the right to use power) liberal social contract - the agreement involves a set of basic moral principles - guaranteeing equal rights of freedom to all - Rawls: involves agreement on basic (moral) principles of (distributive) justice ‘democratic’ contract - agreement on the legitimate principles of political processes - involves basic citizenship rights - deliberative democracy: justice as norm of the process (vs. the distribution of resources) the task of constitution constitutive problems

12. social contract - agreement that settles basic issues (the basic structure of society) - settles issues of political authority (who has the right to use power) liberal social contract - the agreement involves a set of basic moral principles - guaranteeing equal rights of freedom to all - Rawls: involves agreement on basic (moral) principles of (distributive) justice ‘democratic’ contract - agreement on the legitimate principles of political processes - involves basic citizenship rights - deliberative democracy: justice as norm of the process (vs. the distribution of resources) the theoreticians of the political: - main insight: lack of ultimate foundation - Rancière: an-archic ground - constitution is an action (an agreement) - involves power - paradox of the people - constructs a moral foundation of the political order: primacy of rights and principles of justice - the domain of politics limited and conditioned by moral principles - anti-political, rationalistic - liberalism: against domination ≈ skepticism towards the political - moral principles that set limits and conditions on political processes - rational criteria of legitimate processes - too rationalistic view of politics