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Proceduralism and Popular Threats to Democracy
Author(s) -
Kirshner Alexander S.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of political philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.938
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1467-9760
pISSN - 0963-8016
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2010.00370.x
Subject(s) - politics , democracy , citation , american political science , political science , library science , history , classics , sociology , media studies , law , computer science
Do pure procedural theories of democracy forbid the active defense of democratic regimes? Pure proceduralists take all democratic decisions, regardless of their content, to be authoritative. Accordingly, most political theorists argue that proceduralism requires individuals to comply with the outcome of a democratic procedure, even if that outcome is substantively undemocratic. In this essay, I challenge this contention. Proceduralists can defensibly disobey authoritative democratic decisions. By reflecting on the example of a procedural democrat in an undemocratic regime, we can see that for the proceduralist, democracy is not merely a method for making decisions - it is also a highly valuable end. Though representative institutions are not created democratically, the proceduralist has good reasons to participate in the establishment of a democratic regime. The same reasons give the proceduralist grounds to disobey authoritative decisions that threaten representative institutions. As I show, proceduralism provides a distinctive framework for thinking about the strategies democrats should employ to defend democracy.