Alterity as democracy-to-come

2015

Identities-global Studies in Culture and Power, 2004

Democracy is capturing international headlines and gaining global momentum when, paradoxically, its modern home, the imagined and sovereign collectivity called the nation-state, has never appeared more threatened. Hardly a day goes by when new evidence does not materialize indicating that the planetary electronic economy animated by the creation of new systems and cultures of circulation are rendering the borders of even the most empowered nation-states increasingly permeable. Yet, as globalizing processes rapidly transform the conditions and possibilities of nation-making and -maintaining, democratization is in full swing in a significant number of once authoritarian regimes (such as Argentina, Cambodia, and Chile), in the state socialist republics of the former Soviet Bloc (exemplified by the unification of Germany and the recent applicants to the European Union), and perhaps most dramatically, in the southern cone of Africa. Moreover, a number of newly independent states appear to have made a smooth transition from colonialist, apartheid, or authoritarian regimes to constitutional democracies-Papua New Guinea, South Africa, and Hungary being cases in point. In the eyes of many, there has been a near total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to democracy, and more than that, to the Western version of liberal democratic governance . Critically, the emergence of identity politics, with its 2 emphasize on rights and freedoms, has accompanied this process or deepening of democratization. From long-established states (e.g. Canada and Norway) to newly minted ones (e.g. Macedonia and Israel), within the corridors of the United Nations and other institutions concerned with human rights and freedoms, a politics of collective identity, suffering, and entitlement has emerged as a critical center of attention. The turn toward democracy by cultures whose views of politics and personhood, representation and power, governance and governmentality are very different from those of the West, plus the explosive ascension of identity movements in which the terms of identity and the thrust of the movements are much newer than their public ideologies admit, cannot help but underline the issue of just what democracy is. Put another way, in the age of globalization, under the weight of the continuing economic and political encompassment of others by the Western metropole, what can democracy mean to these new democracies, and what are the prospects for freedom and emancipation?

European Journal of Political Research, 1993

Schumpeter argued that the norms of what he called the 'classical' theory were unrealisable within modern societies and offered what he believed to be a more realistic alternative. However, his critics accuse him of confusing 'is' with 'ought'. This paper seeks to save him from this criticism. It shows that Schumpeter's attack on the classical model rested on a correct appraisal of the constraints on individual autonomous action within modern societies. Unlike the 'competitive theory' of Downs and others, Schurnpeter's own alternative cannot be treated as a naive apologia for contemporary parliametary party democracy. He was well aware that such systems easily degenerate into oligopolies. Indeed he welcomed this development, viewing the party elections as means for moulding rather than responding to the people's will. Nevertheless, a series of procedural norms underlay his theory which are elucidated with reference to Wittgenstein's account of language.

Thesis Eleven, 2007

Grounded in newer French socio-political philosophy, this text deals with the paradoxical situation in which the interpretation of society as well as the relation between the individual and the social remains ambiguous even though autonomy and interrogation of the social emerges: Autonomy remains trapped between transcendence and immanence. Modernity is when society claims to know that it has to produce its own myths. Traditional societies did not relate to their myths as if they were their own products. Nevertheless, as soon as the traditional religious points of reference are disclosed and disappear, the community gives itself new points of reference in order to put the social at a distance. Thus the social creates a distance to itself and a mirror for itself in order to perceive itself and work upon itself. The article explores the questions of why this is so and the difference between heteronomous and autonomous autotranscendence.

icird.org

Democracy and the need for autonomy, 2019

Democracy is a system to keep different groups and interests in balance. External changes like climate change, wars, mass immigration and changes in trade policies can influence the balance. That is why it is important to see democracy as a process. However, we have to be alert, a process is never completed. When changing the rules of the process we have to be alert that the citizens of democratic countries still have the perception that they are heard and have control over their own destiny. In this paper some elements are described that can influence this perception of being in control.

SIGUIENDO UNA LINEA DE DEBATE E INVESTIGACIÓN SOBRE LAS POSIBILIDADES REALES DEL ESTADO POSTMODERNO PARA CONVERTIRSE EN UN INSTRUMENTO DE TRANSFORMACIÓN EN LA PERSPECTIVA HEGELIANA-GRAMSCIANA, ADJUNTO ESTE OTRO TRABAJO. FOLLOWING MY INTEREST IN THE DEBATE ABOUT THE POSTMODERN NATION-STATE AND ITS REAL POSSIBILITY TO BECOME AN INSTRUMENT OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION , AS DEFINED FROM AN HEGELIAN-GRAMSCIAN POINT OF VIEW, I WANT TO ADD ANOTHER PAPER THAT I CONSIDERED OF HIGH INTEREST

Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2022

What makes democracy valuable? One traditional answer holds that participating in democratic self-government amounts to a kind of autonomy: it enables citizens to be the authors of their political affairs. Many contemporary philosophers, however, are skeptical. We are autonomous, they argue, when important features of our lives are up to us, but in a democracy we merely have a say in a process of collective choice. In this paper, we defend the possibility of democratic autonomy, by advancing a conception of it which is impervious to this objection. At the core of our account is the idea of joint authorship. You are a joint author of something when that thing expresses your joint intentions. Democracy may not make any one of us sole author of our political affairs, but it can make us their joint authors. It is in such joint authorship, we claim, that the intrinsic value of democratic self-government consists.

An autonomous life – that is, a life which is shaped, to a considerable extent, by the values and choices of the person whose life it is – is, other things being equal, for this reason better than a life that lacks such self-directedness. But we should distinguish between autonomy understood as a harmony between one’s life and one’s deep commitments – which I call non-alienation – and autonomy understood as having the final word on the relevant issue – which I call sovereignty. Both non-alienation and sovereignty are of value, but what is the relation between them? I argue that non-alienation is the more fundamental value, but that sovereignty nevertheless achieves some independence from the value of non-alienation that ultimately grounds it. I also argue that when it comes to politics, it’s sovereignty rather than non-alienation that usually takes center stage. And I show – in a preliminary way – how the distinction between non-alienation and sovereignty and the relations between them is productive in thinking about nudging and about false consciousness.