The Boundaries of Democratic Pluralism

Abstract

In any society, political participation presupposes membership in the political community. From a legal perspective, it is often citizenship which grants a person privileges of political participation. This Article explores the reasons for the relationship between political participation and membership and argues that membership should not be identified with citizenship. Instead, membership entails a certain range of identities, affiliations and loyalties which qualify a person to participate in the political discourse. The requirement of membership constrains the value-pluralism of a liberal society and dictates whose voice is meaningfully part of political discourse. The article exploits numerous rules and practices governing political discourse and constructs a distinct rationale for their existence. Foreign participation in political discourse is analogous to an uninvited attempt to provide advice and to participate in the deliberation governing one’s intimate affairs (for example the way one should raise one’s children). Constraints on foreign participation therefore guarantee the intimacy of political discourse and preserve the authorship of the members of the political community over the deliberative process.

Using this analogy, the paper examines the citizens’ duties and argues that membership dictates a certain degree of identification with the political community. Most importantly, it limits the range of conflicting identities which a participant in the political community can have. To demonstrate it, this article also analyzes the concept of hyphenated identities. Hyphenated identities are often legitimate and desirable; yet sometimes they conflict with membership in ways which undermines one’s identity as a member of the political community and disqualify her from political participation.

I wish to express my gratitude to Yuval Aayalon, Lior Barshack, Eyal Benvenisti, Brian Bix, Allan Brudner, Joseph Carens, David Enoch, David Estlund, Elizabeth Garret, Chaim Gans, David Heyd, Tamar Miseles, Mike Otsuka, Harry Rajak, Oren Shriqui, Daniel Statman and Bert van den Brink.