Transnational Concepts, Transfers and the Challenge of the Peripheries Annual Conference of the History of Political and Social Concepts Group, Istanbul, 30 August–2 September 2007

no abstrac

Transnational Concepts, Transfers and the Challenge of the Peripheries Annual Conference of the History of Political and Social Concepts Group, Istanbul, 30 August–2 September 2007

no abstrac

How not to respond to populism

Although the nature and definition of populism are a source of considerable disagreement, there seems to be a minimal consensus by now that populism poses a number of threats to liberal democracy, and that public authorities should therefore act in defence of the latter. In searching for appropriate responses, however, most scholars draw from strategies for combatting anti-democratic or extremist parties, without considering the important differences between populist parties and these other political actors. We argue that the two central types of democratic defence—the ‘intolerant’ militant democratic defence and the ‘tolerant’ defence—do not offer satisfying responses to populist parties precisely because they were conceived and developed as responses to different phenomena. For public authorities to successfully address populism, responses need to contain its most egregious characteristics, yet salvage its productive side

Lost Voters: Participation in EU elections and the case for compulsory voting. CEPS Working Document No. 317, 24 July 2009

Since the mid-1990s, a declining trend of electoral participation in Western countries has triggered numerous discussions about civic education, awareness-raising and new voting techniques. Some have argued that turnout fluctuations are valuable per se, as they indicate the changing degrees of voter satisfaction or criticism against the government. However, in the case of the EU, low voter turnout undermines the representativity of the European Parliament and its symbolic importance vis-à-vis the EU citizens and the two other major EU institutions, argues Anthoula Malkopoulou in this CEPS Working Document, as it damages the image of the Union abroad, especially since democracy and political rights are the cornerstone of its foreign policy and development aid programmes

Making Constituencies : Representation as Mobilization in Mass Democracy

Making Constituencies is Lisa Disch's latest contribution to the theory of political representation. One of the most recognizable voices of the “constructivist turn,” with this book Disch offers an enriched overview of her well-established idea: representation is not a passive reflection of pre-existing social identities, but rather a dynamic process that actively shapes and mobilizes political identifications and preferences

More Representation, Less Radicalism : How Compulsory Voting Was Defended in Europe

This chapter examines how the practice of compulsory voting was debated in Belgium and France at the turn of the twentieth century. Two principal arguments in favour of compulsory voting stand out. One builds on the concept of ‘true’, ‘exact’ and ‘mirror’ representation. Abstention, it is argued, creates a ‘false’ and ‘corrupt’ image of majority will; by summoning all voters, parliaments will be more representative, election results more credible, and democracies more legitimate. The second argument is that compulsory voting brings out the moderate vote. Radicals tend to either boycott elections or obsess about them. By contrast, abstainers are thought to be less passionate about voting, thus less radical in their views. Compulsory voting will prevent ‘turbulent minorities’ from being overrepresented and more influential than they deserve. As well as justifying compulsory voting historically, these arguments can also provide valuable conceptual resources for thinking about ways of countering the crisis of contemporary democracies

Heller on Democratic Self-Defence : Militant Democracy Revisited

The debate on militant democracy is very much consumed by the question of whether legal restrictions against antidemocratic parties are justified. By contrast, this paper gestures towards a social conception of democratic self-defence. It does so by examining Hermann Heller’s ideas on the origins and solutions to antidemocratic threats. Arguing against Schmitt’s ‘authoritarian liberalism’, Heller pointed at the autocratic and decisionistic logic of restricting participation rights in the name of liberty. Not only did this programme negate rather than defend constitutionalism and democracy, it also promoted a liberalisation of the economy at the expense of social welfare. In pretending to make social concessions when in reality it subordinated all economic life to the state, authoritarian liberalism was comparable to Italian fascism. The antidote for Heller was a social state based on the rule of law (sozialer Rechtsstaat). Such a state would be governed by laws, which would draw their validity from the representation of all social classes in law-making. It would also produce loyal citizens through an economy that catered for the needs of the many. But above all, a social Rechtsstaat would create a genuine sense of community by integrating all members of society into a common political culture

What militant democrats and technocrats share

In their efforts to prevent democratic backsliding, militant democrats havetraditionally been sympathetic to technocratic arrangements. Does this sym-pathy imply a logical congruence? Comparing theories of militant democracyand epistemic technocracy (aka epistocracy), I discover a common approach tobasic aspects of representative democracy. Both theories see voters as fallible orignorant instead of capable political agents; and they both understand politicalparties to be channels of state rule rather than democratic expression. Thisshared suspicion of grassroots political agency explains why they employ non-democratic means to pursue their goals. But the two theories appear to be alsoanalytically co-extensive. Like militant democrats, epistemic technocrats polem-icize antidemocrats inasmuch as the latter are proxies for epistemically fouldecision-making. Conversely, militant democrats try to block ‘incorrect’ deci-sions as long as these lead to democratic subversion, thereby producing adistinct type of militant technocracy. The article ends by drawing the implica-tions of this symbiosis of epistemic and militant democratic ideas for contem-porary democratic theory