In democratic political systems, political equality is often defined as an equality of opportunity for influence. But inequalities in resources and status affect the capacity of disadvantaged citizens to achieve an effective political equality. One common thread running through recent democratic innovations is the belief that appropriate institutional devices and procedures can alleviate the impact of background inequalities on the presence and voice of the disadvantaged within those designs. My objective is to achieve a clearer understanding of the conception of political equality that informs a specific subset of these designs: deliberative mini-publics. I focus firstly on the methods of participant selection advocated to secure equal presence. According to what principle is participation distributed? If it is according to the ‘equal probability’ principle, rather than ‘equal opportunity’, what difference does this make in terms of political equality? Secondly, achieving equality of voice is usually conceived in terms of equalising opportunities for influence among participants. How is this objective understood and what does this say about the underlying conception of political equality?
Résumé L’objectif de cet article est de proposer quelques éléments d’évaluation du processus canadien d’établissement de traités comme politique de la reconnaissance. Dans la première section, j’explique les raisons pour lesquelles le gouvernement fédéral et les grandes associations autochtones ont considéré la négociation de traités comme la principale voie pouvant mener à une entente sur l’autonomie gouvernementale des premières nations. Dans la seconde section, je m’intéresse aux négociations en cours entre le gouvernement fédéral, le gouvernement du Québec et les nations innues afin de mettre en évidence certaines limites de cette politique. Dans la dernière section, je propose trois conditions que devrait satisfaire tout processus de négociation pour permettre le développement sur le terrain d’un véritable « multilogue » préservant la justice et assurant une plus grande légitimité de ses résultats.
The principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) has become increasingly important in Indigenous peoples’ rights discourse. But continuing debates over the meaning of consent show the need for further clarification. In Part I of the article, I give a brief description of consent’s ‘standard grammar’ as developed in other areas of Western legal and ethical discourse to clarify what those who use the language of consent within that tradition commit themselves to, if they are to do so correctly. I also highlight the features that explain why consent has the potential to diminish coercion in relations of deep asymmetry. I argue that this potential is not related to the existence of an ‘absolute’ veto but, rather, to the specific way in which consent structures the interactions between the parties. In Part II, I turn to the Canadian context and the duty to consult developed by the Supreme Court of Canada. I make two main arguments: first, I show that that language is importantly different from consent and, second, I argue that though the Court in Tsilqoth’in Nation uses consent in a way that is closer to the standard grammar, the significance of this move remains limited. In Part III, I turn toward the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to assess whether it presents a better framework for the fulfilment of consent’s promise. I argue that not only is it possible to interpret the Declaration as formulating a conception of consent that follows broadly the standard grammar but also that this reading best fits the Declaration’s basic purposes. However, to develop a functional conception of FPIC, we need to face a challenge for which the grammar of consent has little answer: the often-contested character of Indigenous rights. I conclude by sketching three possible responses to that challenge.
The ideas of 1789 or solidarity unbound A sceptical appraisalOne of the main objectives of Hauke Brunkhorst in his book Solidarity is to show how the democratic concept of solidarity, born out of the ideas of 1789, can be extended to a globalized world and help us frame and confront the problems of economic, socio-cultural and legal exclusion associated with globalization. We can all recognize the particular challenge that globalization represents for democratic theory and practice: the so-called sovereign nation-state has lost some (although by no means all) of its relevance in the context of a globalized world as the main locus for economic, legal and political decision-making while remaining a kind of horizon indépassable for both democratic theory and practice. It is not clear at all how we can transpose or extend democratic mechanisms, democratic structures, democratic citizenship beyond the boundaries of the national state. As Brunkhorst writes: what we are faced with is 'national de-democratisation without international democratisation' (118).In the first chapter of his book, Brunkhorst outlines a normative concept of solidarity, showing how it developed out of the third idea of the triad Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Brunkhorst shows the specificity of the revolutionary concept of fraternity by contrasting it to two of its main historical sources: the classical idea of civic friendship and the Judeo-Christian notion of brotherhood. In the third section of the chapter, Brunkhorst goes on to show how the ideas of 1789 already imply the requirement of the extension of solidarity from the nation to humanity. 'Since the French revolution', writes Brunkhorst at the end of the chapter, 'the normative horizon of the state citizen has been the status of the world citizen, which transforms the old ideas of civic solidarity PSC
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