Rosanvallon Democratic Legitimacy

Impartiality, Reflexivity, Proximity
Core Textbook
ISBN: 978-1-4008-3874-5
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 248 Seiten

It's a commonplace that citizens in Western democracies are disaffected with their political leaders and traditional democratic institutions. But in Democratic Legitimacy, Pierre Rosanvallon, one of today's leading political thinkers, argues that this crisis of confidence is partly a crisis of understanding. He makes the case that the sources of democratic legitimacy have shifted and multiplied over the past thirty years and that we need to comprehend and make better use of these new sources of legitimacy in order to strengthen our political self-belief and commitment to democracy.

Drawing on examples from France and the United States, Rosanvallon notes that there has been a major expansion of independent commissions, NGOs, regulatory authorities, and watchdogs in recent decades. At the same time, constitutional courts have become more willing and able to challenge legislatures. These institutional developments, which serve the democratic values of impartiality and reflexivity, have been accompanied by a new attentiveness to what Rosanvallon calls the value of proximity, as governing structures have sought to find new spaces for minorities, the particular, and the local. To improve our democracies, we need to use these new sources of legitimacy more effectively and we need to incorporate them into our accounts of democratic government.

An original contribution to the vigorous international debate about democratic authority and legitimacy, this promises to be one of Rosanvallon's most important books.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rosanvallon, Pierre

Weitere Mitwirkende

Goldhammer, Arthur

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Demokratie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: The Decentering of Democracies 1

Part One: Dual Legitimacy 15

Chapter One: The Legitimacy of Establishment 17

Chapter Two: The Legitimacy of Identification with Generality 33

Chapter Three: The Great Transformation 60

Part Two: The Legitimacy of Impartiality 73

Chapter Four: Independent Authorities: History and Problems 75

Chapter Five: The Democracy of Impartiality 87

Chapter Six: Is Impartiality Politics? 104

Part Three: Reflexive Legitimacy 121

Chapter Seven: Reflexive Democracy 123

Chapter Eight: The Institutions of Reflexivity 137

Chapter Nine: On the Importance of Not Being Elected 154

Part Four: The Legitimacy of Proximity 169

Chapter Ten: Attention to Particularity 171

Chapter Eleven: The Politics of Presence 187

Chapter Twelve: Interactive Democracy 203

Conclusion: The Democracy of Appropriation 219

Index 227

Über Autor(innen)

Pierre Rosanvallon is professor at the Collège de France and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His many books include Counter- Democracy, The Demands of Liberty, Democracy Past and Future, and The New Social Question (Princeton).