THE PROJECT VOLUME - Chapter 3

Open Cite VOLUME

Publisher:  Pragma Publishing
Online publication date:  December 2023
Chapter DOI:  https://doi.org/10.62483/90781505

Different Philosophical Conceptions of Democracy

Marcus Carlsen Häggrot

ABSTRACT

This chapter reconstructs prominent philosophical conceptions of democracy and relates them to key positions and arguments in the field of voting ethics. The chapter specifically describes minimalist, aggregative, deliberative, and counter-majoritarian conceptions of democracy. It further surveys the scholarly literature on the ethics of electoral participation, electoral ends, and voter knowledge, and comprehensively outlines contemporary scholars’ positions and arguments on these matters. Lastly, the chapter traces the philosophical relations that implicitly exist between the individual conceptions of democracy and the various voting ethical arguments. It notably finds that whereas the aggregative conception of democracy coheres with a broad variety of voting ethical arguments, the minimalist, deliberative, and counter-majoritarian conceptions are philosophically incompatible with quite a number of the arguments in the voting ethical literature. Based on this finding, the chapter concludes that in the field of voting ethics, insufficient attention has been paid to developing a voting ethics that can be reconciled with minimalist, deliberative, and counter-majoritarian democracy conceptions, and that attempts to do so face the challenge of negotiating these conceptions’ view of democratic politics as an articulated, multi-stranded process in which voters and voting are only one element among others.

Citation
Häggrot, Marcus. 2023. ‘Different Philosophical Conceptions of Democracy’. In Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis - A Voter-Centred Perspective, ed. Annabelle Lever. Paris: Pragma Publishing, 79–109. https://doi.org/10.62483/90781505.
Häggrot, M. (2023). Different Philosophical Conceptions of Democracy. In A. Lever (Ed.), Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis—A Voter-Centred Perspective (pp. 79–109). Pragma Publishing. https://doi.org/10.62483/90781505
Häggrot, Marcus. 2023. ‘Different Philosophical Conceptions of Democracy’. In Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis - A Voter-Centred Perspective, edited by Annabelle Lever, 79–109. Paris: Pragma Publishing. https://doi.org/10.62483/90781505.
Häggrot, M. (2023) ‘Different Philosophical Conceptions of Democracy’, in A. Lever (ed.) Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis - A Voter-Centred Perspective. Paris: Pragma Publishing, pp. 79–109. Available at: https://doi.org/10.62483/90781505.
Häggrot, Marcus, ‘Different Philosophical Conceptions of Democracy’, in Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis - A Voter-Centred Perspective, ed. by Annabelle Lever (Paris: Pragma Publishing, 2023), pp. 79–109 <https://doi.org/10.62483/90781505>
Häggrot, Marcus. ‘Different Philosophical Conceptions of Democracy’. Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis - A Voter-Centred Perspective, edited by Annabelle Lever, Pragma Publishing, 2023, pp. 79–109, https://doi.org/10.62483/90781505.
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