Domination and the Rule of Law

Republicans hold that people are dominated merely in virtue of others' having unconstrained abilities to frustrate their choices. They argue further that public officials may dominate citizens unless subject to popular control. Critics identify a dilemma. To maintain the possibility of popular control, republicans must attribute to the people an ability to control public officials merely in virtue of the possibility that they might coordinate their actions. But if the possibility of coordination suffices for attributing abilities to groups, then, even in the best case, countless groups will be dominating because it will be possible for their members to coordinate their actions with the aim of frustrating others' choices. We argue the dilemma is apparent only. To make our argument, we present a novel interpretation of the republican concept of domination with the help of a game-theoretic model that clarifies the significance of collective action problems for republican theory.

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“…See most importantly Simpson (), but similar arguments can be found in Dowding (), Sharon (), List and Valentini (), and Kolodny ().…”

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confidence: 56%

Republican Freedom, Popular Control, and Collective Action

Ingham

Lovett

2019

American J Political Sci

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“…In this article, I challenge the strong thesis or the view that law is a necessary condition for our freedom because law in part constitutes our freedom. One way to challenge the strong thesis is to challenge the premise that law constitutes our freedom (Sharon, 2016). This is not my strategy here.…”

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confidence: 99%

Freedom without law

Frye

2017

Politics, Philosophy & Economics

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Untangling the relationship of law and liberty is among the core problems of political theory. One prominent position is that there is no freedom without law. This article challenges the argument that, because law is constitutive of freedom, there is no freedom without law. I suggest that, once properly understood, the argument that law is constitutive of freedom does not uniquely apply to law. It also applies to social norms. What law does for freedom, social norms can do too. Thus, I claim the question facing us is not the easy one of either law or social norms. Respecting this draws attention to the unique risks to our freedom introduced by both sets of norms.

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“… 16. Several authors have raised this issue previously: see for example, Oliver (2013), Sharon (2016), or Kolodny (2019). …”

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confidence: 99%

Domination and democratic legislation

Ingham

Lovett

2022

Politics, Philosophy & Economics

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Republicans hold that people are unfree if they are dominated, that is, if others have an insufficiently constrained ability to frustrate their choices. Since legislation can frustrate individuals’ choices, republicans believe that the design of legislative institutions has consequences for individual freedom. Some have argued that if legislative institutions are democratic, then they need not be sources of domination at all. We argue this view is incorrect: the introduction of legislative authority, even if democratically organized, always creates a new site of domination. However, republicans can defend democratic procedures as the best means of minimizing the degree to which citizens are dominated, subject to the constraint of equalizing everyone’s freedom. We formulate and prove this claim within a simple model of legislative authority and domination.

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Domination and the Rule of Law

Cited by 13 publications

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Republican Freedom, Popular Control, and Collective Action

Republican Freedom, Popular Control, and Collective Action

Freedom without law

Domination and democratic legislation

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