Abstract
This essay shall analyze the idea of the possibility of education to freedom through democratic institutions and the role of the constitution in this process. The question shall not be considered from an empirical perspective, but from a theoretical perspective. In the first part democratic institutions will be defined in such a way, that it is possible to speak of democratic habit as a necessary component of democracy. The second part shall introduce a concept of State constitution that takes seriously the hope that such a constitution could be the major tool for the education to freedom of citizens. Finally, this paper shall try to make sense of the very idea of democratic participation as education to freedom: firstly by identifying the conditions in which the latter is possible, and secondly by offering a certain definition of freedom. In this context, freedom shall be defined as political autonomy and deliberative power, taking distance both from the traditional liberal definition of freedom and from the traditional republican one, while accepting partially what is something referred to as the (radical) democratic definition of freedom. However, the impact of the latter will be limited by referring to what we may call the constitutionalist tradition.
Highlights
This essay shall analyze the idea of the possibility of education to freedom through democratic institutions and the role of the constitution in this process
My first move will be to define, roughly, democratic institutions in such a way, that it is possible to speak of democratic habit as a necessary component of democracy
By defining democracy as a form of government in which sovereignty is concretely exercised by elected representatives, and in which the people influence the political agenda and the process of decision-making through certain mechanisms, one avoids the need to take a position on the question of whether political participation should be conceived in terms of a theory of deliberative democracy
Summary
One could say that there are as many definition of democracy as political theories or political thinkers (not even considering the different definitions of it that the same thinker may have given at different moments). E. a form of government which is neither an elective aristocracy, nor a mere partycracy) does not rule out the possibility that the people intervene directly in the decision-making, while at the same time releasing the citizens from the burdens connected to what I shall call a pervasive direct democracy By defining democracy as a form of government in which sovereignty is concretely exercised by elected representatives, and in which the people influence the political agenda and the process of decision-making through certain mechanisms, one avoids the need to take a position on the question of whether political participation should be conceived in terms of a theory of deliberative democracy. I will develop this point by referring to the concept of constitutional consent advanced by John Rawls in Political Liberalism
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