Democratic equality and militant democracy

Abstract

The normative attractiveness of democracy is often taken to consist in the fact that democratic methods of collective will formation offer a plausible answer to the problem of how to deal with pluralism or disagreement in politics. 1,2 Where there is competition between different conceptions of how societies ought to be governed, the democratic method seems to be the fairest way to arrive at a collective decision as to how to go forward. Even those who disagree with the wisdom of a democratic decision that adopts a certain policy can be reminded, if democracy functions adequately, that they had an equal chance to participate in the process of decision-making and thus to influence the outcome. What is more, they can be reminded that the process of democratic politics allows for the future revision of the policy now adopted; on the condition that the outvoted minority manages to convince enough fellow citizens-in free and fair political competition-that the criticized policy ought to be changed. Of course, we will be able to defend the legitimacy of a disfavored outcome, to some outvoted minority, only if the democratic process is in principle open to that minority's favored outcomes. It must be the case that the minority's view would have become official policy if it had been supported by a majority, and it must also be the case that that view will still become official policy if it manages to garner the support of a majority in the future. The view that the democratic process must remain open to the realization of the political goals of all social groups or parties, or lose its power to legitimate legislative outcomes, comes under pressure, however, once we consider the example of political movements that pursue anti-democratic goals, and that do so by way of the democratic process. If the democratic process is to be open to the realization of the political goals of all social groups, then it must be open, it seems, to a group or party that aims to use that process to abolish democracy through a democratic decision. This anti-democratic strategy has at times been successful in the past. Joseph Goebbels famously remarked that it "will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed." 3 Many democracies-in Europe and elsewhere-have responded to the political movements that use democratic means to achieve anti-democratic goals by employing measures of militant democracy. 4 Militant democracy-the term was coined by the German emigré-scholar Karl Loewenstein in a series of articles published in the late 1930s in the American Political Science Review 5-aims to stop anti-democratic parties from abusing the democratic process to gain the political power to realize anti-democratic goals. The most common measures of militant democracy that are in use today are provisions for the closure of anti-democratic parties, limitations of the freedom of political speech as well as of the right of assembly of anti-democratic groups, and, in some cases, the exclusion...

Dansk statsborgerskab: en gave der ikke er givet

“…Perspektivet åbner for en kort diskussion af, om man konsistent med liberaldemokratiske midler kan fratage eller forholde nogen deres politiske rettigheder i forsvaret af demokratiet. Danske strammere ligger på sin vis på linje med første generation af militante demokrater som Karl Loewenstein (1937a, b), der plaederede for at fjerne antidemokraters demokratiske rettigheder, og står dermed i kontrast til både kritikere af det militante demokrati (Kelsen, 2006;Invernizzi Accetti og Zuckerman, 2017) og til den seneste generation af militante demokrater, der i modsaetning til første generation fokuserer på organisationer og tiltag, der i sig selv sigter på at fjerne andres rettigheder (fx Kirshner, 2014Kirshner, , 2019Vinx, 2020).…”

Why and How Should the European Union Defend its Values?

“…7–10; Schupmann 2017 , pp. 205–207; Vinx 2020 ). Space does not allow for a detailed rehearsal of this discussion.…”

“…Space does not allow for a detailed rehearsal of this discussion. However, the rejoinder is that liberal democracy should be conceived as setting limits on what can be considered democratic decisions: they have to meet the requirement that legal norms respect the equal freedom of all including their (future) equal political freedom (Rummens 2006 , 2007 ; Vinx 2020 , p. 691). People who want to use liberal democratic rights and institutions to change them into something else do not live up to this requirement and thus do not respect the equal freedom of all.…”

“…It generally only restricts certain actions and political agendas that have the aim of turning liberal democracy into something else and thus has the purpose of realising the equal freedom of all under non-ideal circumstances, i.e. circumstances in which not all accept and comply with the principles of democracy (Rummens 2019 ; Vinx 2020 ).…”

Democratic self-defense: bringing the social model back in

“…(E.g. Lowenstein , 1937bNiesen 2002;Sajó 2004;Rummens and Abts 2010;Capoccia 2013;Kirshner 2014;Gustavsson, Jonsson, and Lindberg 2018;Urbinati 2019;Lafont 2020;Vinx 2020). 3.…”