Dominique Leydet

The ideas of 1789 or solidarity unbound: A sceptical appraisal

One 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

Which conception of political equality do deliberative mini-publics promote?

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?

Compromise and Public Debate in Processes of Constitutional Reform: the Canadian Case

In this article, I concentrate on one central issue that has arisen since the 1987 Meech Lake Accord and the 1992 Charlottetown Accord failed to secure sufficient popular support to allow their ratification. Many theorists have argued that there exists an unavoidable disjunction between the kind of compromise agreement that can come out of complex intergovernmental negotiations and the type of outcome that a majority of citizens might be made to support. Any agreement produced by formal talks can be presumed to have involved significant logrolling and be made of various, mutually dependent, sets of compromises. Such a composite agreement, it is argued, has but little chance to stand the test of public debate and attract sufficient popular support to ensure ratification. In the present article, I want to revisit the story of the failed Charlottetown Accord to show the ways that the risks of disjunction can be alleviated. More specifically, I attempt to show that referendums, if properly integrated in the process, can have positive effects both on the negotiations themselves and on the ability of the parties concerned to rise to the challenge of public justification.

Pluralism and the Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy

Carl Schmitt levels two kinds of criticism against liberal parliamentarism. First, Schmitt seeks to refute the liberal conception of politics (which assumes the possibility of rational will formation) on the basis of his own existential view of the political (which employs the distinction between friend and foe). Second, Schmitt attempts to show why and how the evolution of our political system, specifically the development of mass democracy, has made parliament an obsolete institution. This approach is both more dangerous and plausible, because it does not presuppose an acceptance of Schmitts own controversial conception of politics, and relies on observations about the parliamentary system that are shared and deplored equally by many liberals. In The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy , Schmitt does not confront directly what he considers to be fundamental principles of the parliamentary system—rational and public discussion—but rather shows that since these principles are unrealizable given the changes which the system has undergone, parliamentary institutions remain an empty shell, devoid of any justification and credibility.