Democracy without shortcuts : a participatory conception of deliberative democracy /

Democracy without shortcuts : a participatory conception of deliberative democracy /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Lafont, Cristina, author.
Edition:First edition.
Imprint:Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2020.
©2020
Description:x, 266 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Language:English
Subject:
Deliberative democracy.
Deliberative democracy.
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12041367
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:0198848188
9780198848189
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-254) and index.
Summary:This book articulates a participatory conception of deliberative democracy that takes the democratic ideal of self-government seriously. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it. The book critically analyzes deep pluralist, epistocratic, and lottocratic conceptions of democracy. Their defenders propose various institutional ''shortcuts'' to help solve problems of democratic governance such as overcoming disagreements, citizens' political ignorance, or poor-quality deliberation. However, all these shortcut proposals require citizens to blindly defer to actors over whose decisions they cannot exercise control. Implementing such proposals would therefore undermine democracy. Moreover, it seems naive to assume that a community can reach better outcomes 'faster' if it bypasses the beliefs and attitudes of its citizens. Unfortunately, there are no 'shortcuts' to make a community better than its members. The only road to better outcomes is the long, participatory road that is taken when citizens forge a collective will by changing one another's hearts and minds. However difficult the process of justifying political decisions to one another may be, skipping it cannot get us any closer to the democratic ideal. Starting from this conviction, the book defends a conception of democracy ''without shortcuts''. This conception sheds new light on long-standing debates about the proper scope of public reason, the role of religion in politics, and the democratic legitimacy of judicial review. It also proposes new ways to unleash the democratic potential of institutional innovations such as deliberative minipublics.
Other form:Electronic version: Lafont, Cristina, 1963- Democracy without shortcuts. Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2019] 9780191882746
Table of Contents:
  • List of Figures
  • Introduction: Democracy for Us, Citizens
  • I. Why Deliberative Democracy?
  • 1. The Democratic Ideal of Self-Government
  • 1.1. Political Equality vs. Democratic Control: The Problem of Blind Deference
  • 1.2. Democracy from a Participatory Perspective
  • 1.3. Participatory vs. Third-Personal Perspective
  • 2. Deep Pluralist Conceptions of Democracy
  • 2.1. Deep Pluralism's Solution to the Problem of Disagreement: The Procedural Shortcut
  • 2.2. Deep Pluralism's Solution to the Problem of Political Alienation: Put Up or Give Up
  • 2.3. Can Disagreement Go All the Way Down?
  • 2.4. The Agonistic Critique of the Politics of Deliberative Agreement
  • II. Why Participatory Deliberative Democracy?
  • 3. Purely Epistemic Conceptions of Democracy
  • 3.1. Elite Epistocracy and the Promise of Better Outcomes: The Expertocratic Shortcut
  • 3.2. Democratic Epistocracy and the Ideal of Self-Government
  • 4. Lottocratic Conceptions of Deliberative Democracy
  • 4.1. Deliberation vs. Participation: The Micro-Deliberative Shortcut
  • 4.2. The Illusion of Democracy or "Beware of Usurpers!"
  • 4.3. No Shortcuts: The Return of the Macro-Deliberative Strategy
  • 5. Lottocratic Institutions from a Participatory Perspective
  • 5.1. The Democratic Case for Political Uses of Minipublics
  • 5.2. Deliberative Activism: Some Participatory Uses of Minipublics
  • 6. A Participatory Conception of Deliberative Democracy: Against Shortcuts
  • 6.1. The Democratic Significance of Political Deliberation: Mutual Justifiability
  • 6.2. Would Mutual Justification Take Too Many Evenings? A First Delimitation of the Proper Scope of Public Deliberation
  • 6.3. The Overdemandingness Objection Revisited: Hypothetical, Aspirational, and Institutional Approaches to Mutual Justification
  • III. A Participatory Conception Of Public Reason
  • 7. Can Public Reason Be Inclusive?
  • 7.1. The Debate on the Role of Religion in the Public Sphere
  • 7.2. Political Justification and the Religious-Secular Distinction: Exclusion, Inclusion, and Translation Models
  • 7.3. What if Religion Is Not Special? Political Justification Beyond the Religious-Secular Distinction
  • 7.4. The Public Reasons Conception of Political Justification from an Institutional Perspective
  • 8. Citizens in Robes
  • 8.1. Judicial Review as an Expertocratic Shortcut: Empowering the People vs. Blindly Deferring to Judges
  • 8.2. The Democratic Case for Judicial Review: A Participatory Interpretation
  • 8.3. Can We Own the Constitution? A Defense of Participatory Constitutionalism
  • References
  • Index

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