2024/11/28 by Brian Flanagan · 1 voice
Chemistry · Social Sciences · #Chemistry #Democracy #Dilemma #Epistemology #Law #Law and economics #Philosophy #Political Philosophy and Ethics #Political Systems and Governance #Political Theory and Influence #Political science #Politics #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1093/ajj/auae018
published in The American Journal of Jurisprudence 69(3), 205-216 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2024/11/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract Emphasizing the intrinsic value of formal political equality, a prominent strand of democratic theory—proceduralism—sharply disassociates democracy from substantive justice. This paper elucidates a resultant dilemma: that proceduralism is either underinclusive in its exclusion of robust forms of representative democracy or overinclusive in its inclusion of elective dictatorship. I show how the horns of this dilemma respectively derive from different conceptions of political equality: the standard view, which foregrounds the choice of legislative text itself, and an alternative view, drawn from Robert Dahl’s model of “procedural democracy,” which privileges the choice of procedure by which to resolve disagreement over the choice of text. Conceiving of democracy in terms of political equality alone leads to a rigid characterization of the elected legislature either as an institution whose structure is entirely open or as a mechanism for enacting citizens’ wishes that denies legislators their intuitive input.