Reviving democracy: Creating pathways out of legitimacy crises

IF 1.3 Q2 POLITICAL SCIENCE

European Journal of Political Theory Pub Date : 2021-09-13 DOI:10.1177/14748851211020625

Terry Macdonald

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Abstract

Over the last several years, democratic citizens and theorists have been grappling with an upsurge in political commentary on the crisis and decline of democratic legitimacy around the world. Increasingly, theoretical attention is turning from the philosophical justification of ambitious moral ideals of democracy, to the interpretation of potentials within existing political practice for democratic renewal and repair. This review article examines three new books at the forefront of this theoretical turn towards engagement with the real-world political dynamics of democratic crisis and revival: Open Democracy by Hélène Landemore; Hope for Democracy by John Gastil and Katherine Knobloch; and Mending Democracy by Carolyn Hendriks, Selen Ercan and John Boswell. It begins by surveying the new contributions of these books – highlighting the importance all attribute to creative political agency as a source of revival in democratic practice. It then discusses several questions left unresolved by these books – concerning the problem of democratic legitimacy, the normativity of democratic standards and the power dynamics undergirding democratic agency – which jointly mark out an important agenda for future theoretical work on pathways out of democratic crisis.

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复兴民主：创造摆脱合法性危机的途径

在过去几年里，民主公民和理论家一直在努力应对世界各地对民主合法性危机和衰退的政治评论热潮。理论上的注意力越来越多地从对雄心勃勃的民主道德理想的哲学论证转向对现有政治实践中民主复兴和修复潜力的解释。这篇评论文章考察了三本新书，它们处于这一理论转向民主危机和复兴的现实世界政治动态的前沿：Hélène Landemore的《开放民主》；约翰·加斯蒂尔和凯瑟琳·诺布洛赫的《民主的希望》；Carolyn Hendriks、Selen Ercan和John Boswell的《修复民主》。它首先调查了这些书的新贡献，强调了创造性政治机构作为民主实践复兴源泉的重要性。然后，它讨论了这些书中悬而未决的几个问题——关于民主合法性问题、民主标准的规范性和支撑民主机构的权力动态——这些问题共同为未来摆脱民主危机的理论工作制定了重要议程。

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来源期刊

European Journal of Political Theory POLITICAL SCIENCE-

CiteScore

2.60

自引率

9.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： The European Journal of Political Theory provides a high profile research forum. Broad in scope and international in readership, the Journal is named after its geographical location, but is committed to advancing original debates in political theory in the widest possible sense--geographical, historical, and ideological. The Journal publishes contributions in analytic political philosophy, political theory, comparative political thought, and the history of ideas of any tradition. Work that challenges orthodoxies and disrupts entrenched debates is particularly encouraged. All research articles are subject to triple-blind peer-review by internationally renowned scholars in order to ensure the highest standards of quality and impartiality.