A Citizen-Centered Theory

Jane Mansbridge

doi:10.16997/jdd.411

Abstract

Because our collective needs for state coercion will steadily increase with greater human interdependence, we must take far more seriously the need to justify that coercion to the coerced. Cristina Lafont moves to the forefront of democratic theory the goal that citizens should ‘own and identify with the institutions, laws and policies’ that coerce them – an important move, particularly today, when many feel, often correctly, that they have not been ‘heard’ in producing the laws that coerce them. Lafont’s approach might be furthered, I argue, by a theory of legitimacy that a) explicitly endorses plural sources of democratic legitimacy, b) acknowledges the aspirational quality of the many democratic ideals that make up this legitimacy, and c) recognizes consequently that democratic legitimacy is always partial.

Highlights

In Democracy without Shortcuts: A Participatory Conception of Deliberative Democracy, Cristina Lafont moves to the forefront of democratic theory the goal that citizens should ‘own and identify with the institutions, laws and policies’ (Lafont 2019: 3) that coerce them
It provides original answers to the questions raised by majoritarianism, judicial review, minipublics based on random selection, and the role in the public sphere of arguments based on religious commitment
That understanding begins with a willingness to speak the word ‘coercion’ and recognize the burdens of justification that the fact of state coercion requires from the voters and representatives who benefit from, or think the polity as a whole will benefit from, the imposition of coercion on those who would otherwise act differently

Summary

A Citizen-Centered Theory

Because our collective needs for state coercion will steadily increase with greater human interdependence, we must take far more seriously the need to justify that coercion to the coerced.

Introduction

The Central Principle

Legitimacy

Conclusion