Managing Disagreement: A Defense of “Regime Bias”

Stein Ringen’s theory of democratic purpose cannot do the work expected of it. Ringen’s own criteria oscillate between being too vague to be useful (i.e. “freedom”) or, when specified more fully, conflicting, so that almost all democracies will seem to be potentially at cross-purposes with themselves rather than their purposes or sub-purposes being mutually reinforcing. This reflects a bigger and more theoretical problem. Disagreement about the purpose of democracy is built into democracy itself. The whole point of many (perhaps all) of our democratic institutions is to arrive at conditionally legitimate decisions in spite of such disagreement. So-called regime bias, i.e. the tendency to assess democracies according to the form and stability of their institutions rather than their results or their ability to serve certain purposes, does not in fact arise from bias. It arises on the contrary from a determination to avoid the bias inherent in giving some—inevitably partisan—ideals of what democracies should do pride of place over others in a scheme of measurement or evaluation. And even a regime-based definition of democracy must itself make simplifying assumptions that elide possible normative controversies over how the democratic game is best played. Vindicating one’s preferred set of democratic ideals against alternatives is a completely legitimate enterprise and lends richness to debates within and across democracies. But it is an inherently ideological and political enterprise, not a neutral or scholarly one

Integrity in democratic politics

The complaint that many professional politicians lack integrity is common. However, it is unclear what such a judgement amounts to. Taking various codes of political ethics in the United Kingdom as my starting point, I examine the extent to which we can understand political integrity as a matter of politicians adhering to the obligations that official codes of ethics prescribe and, in a more general sense, the public-service ethos that underpins these codes. I argue that although this way of approaching the issue usefully draws our attention to an important class of positional duties that apply to politicians, commitment to principled political causes plays a further, indispensable role in coherent assessments of political integrity. In consequence, I claim that politicians of integrity succeed in furthering their deepest political commitments while avoiding malfeasance or misconduct. As such, the ascription of political integrity can often only be made when assessing a long train of action

Can Modus Vivendi Save Liberalism from Moralism? A Critical Assessment of John Gray’s Political Realism

This chapter assesses John Gray’s modus vivendi-based justification for liberalism. I argue that his approach is preferable to the more orthodox deontological or teleological justificatory strategies, at least because of the way it can deal with the problem of diversity. But then I show how that is not good news for liberalism, for grounding liberal political authority in a modus vivendi undermines liberalism’s aspiration to occupy a privileged normative position vis-à-vis other kinds of regimes. So modus vivendi can save liberalism from moralism, but at cost many liberals will not be prepared to pay

Realism, Liberalism and Non-ideal Theory Or, Are there Two Ways to do Realistic Political Theory?

The charge that contemporary political theory has lost touch with the realities of politics is common to both the recent ideal/non-ideal theory debate and the revival of interest in realist thought. However, a tendency has arisen to subsume political realism within the ideal/non-ideal theory debate, or to elide realism with non-ideal theorising. This article argues that this is a mistake. The ideal/non-ideal theory discussion is a methodological debate that takes place within the framework of liberal theory. Realism, contrary to several interpretations, is a distinct and competing conception of politics in its own right that stands in contrast to that of liberal theory. While the two debates are united in a sense that contemporary liberal theory needs to be more realistic, they differ significantly in their understanding of this shortcoming and, more importantly, what it is to do more realistic political theory