The Limits to Democratic Authority

Christiano, Thomas

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198297475.003.0008

Cited by 64 publications

(57 citation statements)

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“…First, legitimacy standards are grounded in special procedural (Rawls, 1996), substantive (Erman, 2015) or non-ideal (Valentini, 2012) moral principles , posited as more fundamental than the value of particular institutional standards themselves. For example, it is commonly claimed that liberal and democratic standards generate legitimacy by helping institutions satisfy moral demands for individual autonomy (Valentini, 2012) or political equality (Christiano, 2008); similarly, consequentialist moral principles are invoked as grounds for ‘output’ legitimacy standards (Keohane, 2011; Scharpf, 1999). Such ‘moralist’ (Williams, 2005) accounts appeal to normative reasons articulated by moral philosophers; but in many global institutional contexts, philosophers’ moral principles are rejected by many political agents whose support is at issue – due to repudiation of cosmopolitan morality (Walzer, 1980) or the view that the scope of liberal and democratic moral principles is limited to domestic (Miller, 2010; Rawls, 2001) or otherwise circumscribed (Maffettone and Ulas, 2019) institutional spheres.…”

Section: Legitimacy and The Normative Grounds Of World Ordermentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a ‘pluralist’ world order: creative agency and legitimacy in global institutions

Macdonald

2019

European Journal of International Relations

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This article addresses the question of how we should understand the normative grounds of legitimacy in global governance institutions, given the social and organizational pluralism of the contemporary global political order. We argue that established normative accounts of legitimacy, underpinning both internationalist and cosmopolitan institutional models, are incompatible with real-world global social and organizational pluralism, insofar as they are articulated within the parameters of a ‘statist’ world order imaginary: this sees legitimacy as grounded in rational forms of political agency, exercised within ‘closed’ communities constituted by settled common interests and identities. To advance beyond these statist ideational constraints, we elaborate an alternative ‘pluralist’ world order imaginary: this sees legitimacy as partially grounded in creative forms of political agency, exercised in the constitution and ongoing transformation of a plurality of ‘open’ communities, with diverse and fluid interests and identities. Drawing on a case study analysis of political controversies surrounding the global governance of business and human rights, we argue that the pluralist imaginary illuminates how normative legitimacy in world politics can be strengthened by opening institutional mandates to contestation by multiple distinct collectives, even though doing so is incompatible with achieving a fully rationalized global institutional scheme.

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Section: Legitimacy and The Normative Grounds Of World Ordermentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a ‘pluralist’ world order: creative agency and legitimacy in global institutions

Macdonald

2019

European Journal of International Relations

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“…Second, people tend to be cognitively biased towards their own well-being, conception of the good and the role they play in their financial success (cf. Christiano 2008, pp. 58–60; Halliday 2018, pp.…”

Section: The Efficacy Objectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defending the Democratic Argument for Limitarianism: A Reply to Volacu and Dumitru

Timmer

2018

Philosophia

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In this paper, I argue that limitarian policies are a good means to further political equality. Limitarianism, which is a view coined and defended by Robeyns ( 2017 ), is a partial view in distributive justice which claims that under non-ideal circumstances it is morally impermissible to be rich. In a recent paper, Volacu and Dumitru ( 2018 ) level two arguments against Robeyns’ Democratic Argument for limitarianism. The Democratic Argument states that limitarianism is called for given the undermining influence current inequalities in income and wealth have for the value of democracy and political equality. Volacu and Dumitru’s Incentive Objection holds that limitarianism places an excessive and inefficient burden on the rich in ensuring political equality. The Efficacy Objection holds that even if limitarianism limits excessive wealth it still fails to ensure the preservation of political equality. In this paper, I will argue that both of these objections fail, but on separate grounds. I argue that the Incentive objection fails because one could appeal to limitarian policies that are different from the ones discussed by Volacu and Dumitru and which escape the problem of reduced productivity. I argue against the Efficacy Objection that limitarian policies are a partial but highly valuable step towards establishing political equality, and that they can and should complement or be complemented by other strategies.

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“…More precisely, the focus is on what he calls ‘liberal equality’: the idea that each citizen must be treated equally by the formal institutions of democracy. This is also a core idea for Christiano (1996, 2008), who discusses and develops its deeper philosophical foundations. McGann (2013) insists that once we are committed to liberal equality – which we should be as democrats – we can understand certain institutional choices as logical requirements and thus in a quasi-objective manner.…”

Section: Political Equality and Fair Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconciling Representation and Accountability: Three Visions of Democracy Compared

Ganghof¹

2015

Gov. & oppos.

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An egalitarian approach to the fair representation of voters specifies three main institutional requirements: proportional representation, legislative majority rule and a parliamentary system of government. This approach faces two challenges: the under-determination of the resulting democratic process and the idea of a trade-off between equal voter representation and government accountability. Linking conceptual with comparative analysis, the article argues that we can distinguish three ideal-typical varieties of the egalitarian vision of democracy, based on the stages at which majorities are formed. These varieties do not put different relative normative weight onto equality and accountability, but have different conceptions of both values and their reconciliation. The view that accountability is necessarily linked to 'clarity of responsibility', widespread in the comparative literature, is questioned -as is the idea of a general trade-off between representation and accountability. Depending on the vision of democracy, the two values need not be in conflict.

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The Limits to Democratic Authority

Cited by 64 publications

References 0 publications

Towards a ‘pluralist’ world order: creative agency and legitimacy in global institutions

Towards a ‘pluralist’ world order: creative agency and legitimacy in global institutions

Defending the Democratic Argument for Limitarianism: A Reply to Volacu and Dumitru

Reconciling Representation and Accountability: Three Visions of Democracy Compared

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