Most students of politics are familiar with Carl Schmitt’s definition of politics as a friend–enemy distinction. Yet, only few know of alternative conceptions of politics in interwar Germany that emphasize cooperation and legality over confrontation and decisionism. To unlock such views, this article examines the work of Hermann Heller, a social-democratic constitutional theorist, and takes a close look at his conceptualization of politics as a sphere, activity and discipline. For Heller, ‘the political’ consists in turning human conflict into social cooperation. (...) For him, the political may be conflictual, but is also conditioned by shared norms and agreed rules. By consequence, to act politically means to order the antagonistic social relations that are typical of every human society. In this sense, politics is a purposeful activity, but one which leaves the content of every decision unconfined and the potentialities that follow endless. Like politicians, politics scholars must reflect on ethical and legal principles, while remaining focused on context-specific political problems. The study of politics cannot be disconnected from the study of law, ethics and social reality. Heller’s work showed that the way we conceive of politics is directly related to the way we study politics and vice-versa. (shrink)

In their efforts to prevent democratic backsliding, militant democrats have traditionally been sympathetic to technocratic arrangements. Does this sympathy imply a logical congruence? Comparing theories of militant democracy and epistemic technocracy (aka epistocracy), I discover a common approach to basic aspects of representative democracy. Both theories see voters as fallible or ignorant instead of capable political agents; and they both understand political parties to be channels of state rule rather than democratic expression. This shared suspicion of grassroots political agency explains (...) why they employ non-democratic means to pursue their goals. But the two theories appear to be also analytically co-extensive. Like militant democrats, epistemic technocrats polemicize antidemocrats inasmuch as the latter are proxies for epistemically foul decision-making. Conversely, militant democrats try to block ‘incorrect’ decisions as long as these lead to democratic subversion, thereby producing a distinct type of militant technocracy. The article ends by drawing the implications of this symbiosis of epistemic and militant democratic ideas for contemporary democratic theory. (shrink)

Due to the persistent rise of extremism, democrats in recent years have been exploring old and new possibilities of democratic self-defence. This article explores an unconventional and little known alternative to militant democracy that places the demos at the centre stage of the struggle against extremism. Through a neo-procedural reinterpretation of ancient ostracism and modern-day recall, I suggest that citizens should have rights of democratic de-selection of elected parties and candidates. I argue that, if properly designed, such a mechanism of (...) de-presentation distributes the burden of democratic self-defence among citizens and creates a bottom-up majoritarian resistance to anti-democratic threats, without compromising free parliamentary mandate or minority rights. (shrink)

This volume is primarily concerned with equality as a basic component of the democratic character of representation. In other words, of the many types of equality that have attracted the attention of theorists since democracy's beginnings - arithmetic equality, equality before the law, equality of opportunity- we would like to draw attention to representational equality, that is, the role of equality in systems of democratic representation. In what form is equality present in traditional forms of electoral representation? How can it (...) be secured in new forms of representation, such as claims-making, deliberative, klerotarian and epistemic representation? And to what extent are electoral or non-electoral models of representation able to accommodate increasing social inequalities? The articles in this volume discuss these issues from a normative and conceptual point of view, seeking to shed new light on the important but under-explored relationship between equality and representation. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 3, Page 296-309, September 2022.