TY - JOUR
T1 - The Problem(s) of Constituting the Demos
T2 - A (Set of) Solution(s)
AU - Lippert-Rasmussen, Kasper
AU - Bengtson, Andreas
N1 - Funding Information:
A previous version of this paper was presented at ECPR in Hamburg, 23 August 2018. We thank Andreas Brøgger Albertsen, Ludvig Beckman, Didde Boisen Andersen, Göran Duus-Otterström, Jonas Hultin Rosenberg, Søren Flinch Midtgaard, Lasse Nielsen, Andrei Poama, Viki Møller Lyngby Pedersen, Tore Vincents Olsen and Fabio Wolkenstein for helpful comments. We are especially grateful to Robert Huseby for written comments on an earlier draft. Kasper Lippert-Rasmussens was funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF144) during part of the time he worked on this article and he thanks DNRF for its support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - When collective decisions should be made democratically, which people form the relevant demos? Many theorists think this question is an embarrassment to democratic theory: (1) because any decision about who forms the demos must be made democratically by the right demos, which itself must be democratically constituted and so on ad infinitum; and (2) because neither the concept of democracy, nor (3) our reasons for caring about democracy, determine who should form the demos. Having distinguished between these three versions of the demos problem, we argue that each of them can be solved.
AB - When collective decisions should be made democratically, which people form the relevant demos? Many theorists think this question is an embarrassment to democratic theory: (1) because any decision about who forms the demos must be made democratically by the right demos, which itself must be democratically constituted and so on ad infinitum; and (2) because neither the concept of democracy, nor (3) our reasons for caring about democracy, determine who should form the demos. Having distinguished between these three versions of the demos problem, we argue that each of them can be solved.
KW - All affected principle
KW - Democracy
KW - Demos problem
KW - Relational egalitarianism
KW - PARADOX
KW - LEGITIMACY
KW - DEMOCRATIC-THEORY
KW - RULE
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116112789&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10677-021-10237-w
DO - 10.1007/s10677-021-10237-w
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85116112789
SN - 1386-2820
VL - 24
SP - 1021
EP - 1031
JO - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
JF - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
IS - 4
ER -