The Constructivist Turn in Political Representation: The Question of Legitimacy

• In Event: Performing Political Representation

Abstract

In this paper, I take up a too-little-explored debate in the constructivist turn of political representation between deliberative and radical democrats. What defines democratic legitimacy? Under what conditions can democratic representation be legitimate? And what can democratic systems do to provide for the conditions of democratic legitimacy? Deliberative and radical democrats have thus far been able to peacefully co-exist in the constructivist turn, even though both schools offer vastly different answers to these questions. Participants in the constructivist turn explore the nature of the ‘representative claim’, the varying forms in which political representation appears, and the normative implications of rejecting the 'standard account' of democratic representation. But what participants seem to forget are the fundamental differences dividing schools on these issues. It matters a great deal for the governance of democratic systems whether one starts a theory of representation from a deliberative ideal of political equality and autonomy, or from a radical understanding of politics as hegemony. In this paper, I intend to bring the consequences of making either choice to light.

The current modus vivendi between deliberative and radical democrats is not entirely peaceful in the sense that two democratic theorists have gone to great lengths to critique deliberative democracy: Lisa Disch and Nadia Urbinati. Disch critiques deliberative democracy, and specifically Jane Mansbridge, for removing indeterminacy from political representation as a result of imposing strict procedural requirements, while Urbinati considers such procedural requirements to remove plurality. The accusations are far-reaching because they place deliberative democracy outside of the constructivist turn, and previous articles written by Disch and Urbinati indeed suggest that exclusion is the goal. Where Disch positions the innovations of deliberative democrats in the ‘representative turn’ and not in the constructivist turn, Urbinati considers constructivism to succeed the in her eyes problematic ‘electoral’ and ‘deliberative’ types of constituency-formation. It is surprising to see that deliberative democrats have not yet felt the urge to reply to said critiques, or more drastically, to critique radical democratic forms of constructivism directly.

To state my intentions more precisely, then, I plan to push the debate between deliberative and radical democrats further by (1) offering a defense of deliberative democracy against the critiques of Disch and Urbinati; and (2) by offering a critique of Disch’s radical democracy on behalf of deliberative democrats. After having properly contextualized the debate, I first argue that the critiques of Disch and Urbinati are misconceived, as they rely on an overly rationalistic conception of deliberative democracy that was prevalent in the early 2000s but not anymore. Second, I argue that Disch’s hegemonic project of radical democracy fails to conceive of constituency-formation as a process that is co-constitutive, and to satisfy the reasonable conditions of judgment that befit such a conception.

Author

• Joshua Stom