A Citizen-Centered Theory

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.

Lottocracy Versus Democracy

“…311, 320-321;Landemore 2020, p. 148), but often this seems mere lip service. 6 Tellingly, none of them, even those with a genuine commitment to civil society, such as Mansbridge (2019Mansbridge ( , 2020, have concrete proposals for a permanent feedback loop between the wider public sphere and the minipublic. To the contrary, many authors insist that if minipublics are endowed with actual decision-making power, they should be protected from outside interference (Owen and Smith 2018, pp.…”