Abstract
This chapter examines the normative grammar of the concept of democracy and compare its most general features with those of similar and competing normative political concepts such as those of justice and nondomination. It begins by problematizing the very concept of democracy and the normative function it has traditionally fulfilled in political philosophy and the political sciences. It then identifies two main conditions that a theory of democracy should perform if it is to play a more ambitious normative function, that I tentatively call ‘paradigm normativity’. It then introduces the notion of ‘normative practices’, that will provide the conceptual background for the discussion of the public-based conception of politics undertaken in subsequent chapters.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
I have to thank Jörg Volbers for having pointed out to me the connection between paradigmatic normativity and open-endedness.
- 2.
To this list we may add the concept of legitimacy, which in the political sciences seems to have played a similar paradigmatic function.
- 3.
Ceva and Ottonelli (2015) for example construe the concept of democracy as being primitive and at the same time strictly confined to the domain of politics. Such an account would be insufficient for the purposes of a paradigmatic account, precisely because it lacks sufficient width of reach.
- 4.
Gould (2014) takes a different route from mine and proposes instead to combine different normative frameworks into an integrated one. I do not think that this route is feasible, precisely because of the intrinsic logic of normative concepts. In fact, what Gould does is the opposite of what she claim she is doing. Rather than combining a plurality of normative frameworks, she develops a justice-based conception within which she proceeds to accommodate the normative requirements of freedom, democracy, and human rights.
- 5.
By democracy as regime I mean a conception of democracy defined in terms of political institutions such as the separation of powers, universal suffrage, constitutional guarantees. By democracy as procedure I mean a conception of decision making based on criteria of equal power and inclusion.
- 6.
- 7.
“Normative democratic theory deals with the moral foundations of democracy and democratic institutions. […] It aims to provide an account of when and why democracy is morally desirable as well as moral principles for guiding the design of democratic institutions” (Christiano , 2015, 1).
- 8.
See, for example, Sartori (1987).
- 9.
- 10.
See, for example, Inglehart and Welzel (2005).
- 11.
Frega (2015c) explores in greater details the normative implications of social interactionism.
- 12.
For a similar list and a justification see, for example, Anderson (2009).
- 13.
This is notably what happens in what Miranda Fricker calls cases of epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007).
- 14.
For an analysis of authority along these lines, see McMahon (1994).
- 15.
- 16.
In referring to reconstruction what I have in mind is neither Habermas’ nor Honneth’s well known reconstructive methodologies, but rather the standard pragmatist—particularly Deweyan—account of this notion. Reconstruction is an intellectual process of reinterpretation of reality that is conducted with the aim of providing guidance to present and future action, rather than as a basis for retrospective criticism. For a useful comparison among these three conceptions see (Gaus, 2013).
- 17.
For a more complete account of the social interactionist roots of this approach to the ontology of democracy, see Frega (2019b).
- 18.
The recurs to social ontology in political theory is not new, and the revival of Hegel’s scholarship since the late 1970s has played a major role in renewing the prospects of social ontology as a basis for democratic theory. Social ontology has generally been conceived of as a countermeasure against mainstream methodological individualism, as a way to emphasize the social prerequisites upon which political regimes rely. For this reason, political ontologies never attempted to provide a micro-foundation of politics. Similarly, no attempt has been made to flesh out a full social ontology in terms of the constitutive layers composing social reality. Although philosophers such as Crawford B. Macpherson, Carol Pateman, and Carol G. Gould have relied upon social ontological arguments to extend democratic practices to nonpolitical institutions such as the workplace, their argument lacks a systematic social-theoretical foundation of the kind attempted here.
- 19.
- 20.
I discuss in greater details Dewey’s theory of inquiry as a basis for political rationality in Frega (2012b, Ch. 2).
References
Anderson, E. (1999). What Is the Point of Equality? Ethics 109(1), 287–337.
Anderson, E. (2009). Democracy: Instrumental vs. non-instrumental value. In T. Christiano and J. Christman (Eds.), Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy, pp. 213–27. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Anderson, E. (2010). The Imperative of Integration. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Arneson, R. (2013). Egalitarianism. In E. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 ed.).
Bayat, A. (2010). Life as politics: How ordinary people change the Middle East. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Ceva, E. and V. Ottonelli (2015). Rescuing democracy from reductivism. Unpublished manuscript.
Christiano, T. (2008). The constitution of equality: Democratic authority and its limits. Oxford University Press.
Christiano, T. (2015). Democracy. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 ed.).
Darwall, S. (2001). Normativity. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge.
Eckstein, H. and T. Gurr (1975). Patterns of authority: A structural basis for political inquiry. New York: Wiley.
Estlund, C. (2003). Working together: How workplace bonds strengthen a diverse democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Follett, M. P. (1919a). Community is a process. The Philosophical Review, 576–588.
Frega, R. (2012b). Practice, Judgment, and the Challenge of Moral and Political Disagreement. A Pragmatist Account. Lanham: Lexington.
Frega, R. (2014). The normative creature: Toward a practice-based account of normativity. Social Theory and Practice 40(1).
Frega, R. (2015c). The normative structure of the ordinary. European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 7(1).
Frega, R. (2017c). Pragmatizing critical theory’s province. Dewey Studies 1(2), 4–47.
Frega, R. (2019a). Pragmatist ontology from habits to patterns of social interaction. In I. Testa and F. Caruana (Eds.), Habit: Pragmatist Approaches from Cognitive Neurosciences to Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Frega, R. (2019b). The social ontology of democracy. Journal of Social Ontology. forthcoming.
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gaus, D. (2013). Rational reconstruction as a method of political theory between social critique and empirical political science. Constellations 20(4), 553–570.
Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gould, C. (2014). Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots of Global Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Honneth, A. (2014). Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life. Cambridge: Polity.
Hughes, E. C. (1984). Going concerns: The study of American institutions. In The Sociological Eye, pp. 52–64. New Brunswick: Transaction Books.
Inglehart, R. and C. Welzel (2005). Modernization, cultural change, and democracy: The human development sequence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jaeggi, R. (2014). Kritik von Lebensformen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Mansbridge, J. (1983). Beyond adversary democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McMahon, C. (1994). Authority and democracy. A General Theory of Government and Management. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Merkel, W. (2010). Are dictatorships returning? Revisiting the ‘democratic rollback’ hypothesis. Contemporary Politics 16(1), 17–31.
Pateman, C. (1970). Participation and democratic theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pettit, P. (1997). Republicanism. A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Putnam, R. (1994). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton university press.
Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Rose, R. and D. C. Shin (2001). Democratization backwards: The problem of third-wave democracies. British Journal of Political Science 31(02), 331–354.
Rostbøll, C. (2014). Non-domination and democratic legitimacy. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 18(4), 424–439.
Sartori, G. (1987). The theory of democracy visited. Part 1: The contemporary debate. New York: Chatham House.
Sen, A. (1999). Democracy as a universal value. Journal of Democracy 10(3), 3–17.
Shapiro, I. (1999). Democratic justice. Yale University Press.
Viehoff, D. (2014). Democratic equality and political authority. Philosophy and Public Affairs 42(4), 337–375.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Frega, R. (2019). The Normativity of Democracy. In: Pragmatism and the Wide View of Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18561-9_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18561-9_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-18560-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-18561-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)