Defining the demos

Abstract

Until relatively recently, few democrats had much to say about the constitution of the 'demos' that ought to rule. A number of recent writers have, however, argued that all those whose interests are affected must be enfranchised if decision-making is to be fully democratic. This article criticizes this approach, arguing that it misunderstands democracy. Democratic procedures are about the agency of the people so only agents can be enfranchised, yet not all bearers of interests are also agents. If we focus on agency, rather than who is affected, then this leads us to focus on the permissible limits of action, rather than who makes the decision. Just as individual sovereignty is ordinarily limited by the requirement not to injure others, we may apply similar restrictions to what a demos can permissibly do. Thus, any collection of individuals may choose to regulate their affairs collectively for mutual benefit, but should be prohibited from imposing negative externalities on outsiders. On this view, the constitution or definition of the demos is arbitrary, from the democratic point of view. Moreover, democracy does not require the expansion of the franchise, unless injuries cannot be avoided.

Les élections sont-elles essentielles à la démocratie ?

“…D'abord, parce que la question de ce qui constitue le peuple, le dèmos, est sujette à controverse et ne cesse de se compliquer dans les sociétés complexes (Goodin, 2007 ;Saunders, 2011) : doit-on par exemple considérer que tous ceux, et seulement ceux, qui sont affectés par une décision devraient constituer le dèmos ? Ou l'inclusion dans le dèmos suppose-t-elle l'appartenance à une communauté de citoyens permanente et bien circonscrite ?…”

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“…Sie verstehen Demokratie so, dass nur diejenigen ein Wahlrecht haben, die der Entscheidung einer Regierung unterliegen und befähigt sind, als Akteure (agents) mitzubestimmen: "Since democracy involves some form of collective agency, non-agents cannot meaningfully be included" (Saunders 2011). 13 Saunders will auf diese Weise das all-affected-principle von Goodin (2007) ein- 13 Hyland (1995 S. 80) schreibt: "The second thesis is that the concept of democracy is such that the exclusion of certain people from political power in a given organisation is conceptually irrelevant to the democraticness of that organisation."…”

How to Assess the Democratic Qualities of a Multi-stakeholder Initiative from a Habermasian Perspective? Deliberative Democracy and the Equator Principles Framework

“…Stakeholders do not identify with an MSI because they live in the same territory or belong to the same people, but because they have reasons to recognize the issue(s) that the MSI addresses and to develop regulation(s) with regard to it or to submit themselves to them. Stakeholders that jointly lay down regulations and/or submit themselves to these kinds of regulations are operating as a collective actor (List and KoenigArchibugi 2010;List and Pettit 2011;Saunders 2012) with the purpose of dealing with certain issues. Those stakeholders that develop regulations of an MSI and/or are submitted to them make up the dèmos of a voluntary and selfregulatory soft-law MSI.…”

“…Although these communities and organizations are not part of the actual dèmos, they should be engaged following Habermas' general discourse principle. That is, they should have access to stakeholder discussions and their interests and values should be considered in decision-making to obtain general legitimacy of the regulations established by the actors and addressees (Saunders 2012).…”