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ABSTRACT
Democracy in Spite of the Demos challenges democratic authority when the people are no longer able to make good decisions in an economic environment generating systemic social delusion. However, the solution offered to overcome the stalemate remains precarious, and the tension between democracy and emancipation is addressed with wrong conceptual tools. This calls for a reflection on the conditions for a democratically legitimate refoundation of democracy, bridging the gap between critical and democratic theory.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 I underline. See also p. 20: “I argue that our present political conjuncture is better theoretically understood and critically confronted by a theory of social delusion than by the logic of democracy as a categorical imperative”.
2 “Democratizing democracy” has indeed reached the status of a slogan in the western world. In the US, see (Brennan and Landemore Citation2021). In France, see Balibar (Balibar Citation1992, Citation2010), whose denunciation of the exclusionary tendencies of instituted democracies may have been of interest for the author’s purpose. Unfortunately, his works are not mentioned.
3 As quoted by the author, Jacques Rancière writes that “the promise of emancipation linked with the endless critique of the illusions produced by the system of domination died in 1989” Recognition and disagreement, 153.
4 For instance, see (Rancière 2009 92-5).
5 See (Brennan Citation2016).
6 See Jonathan Shell’s introduction to Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (Arendt 2006).
7 My emphasis.
8 See also the debates surrounding her positioning on the “black question” (Gines Citation2014).
9 In the end, “the political” seems to be granted an autonomous force. Busk acknowledges this while specifying that “consciousness is not determined by objective social conditions but only mediated by them” (118).
10 Regrettably, the note attached to this sentence leads to a completely different remark according to which people don’t show any interests in participating in politics.
11 It has even been argued that the belief that a political belief should not be disqualified on the basis of its alleged false content is the only moral basis for canceling opposite political beliefs (Estlund Citation1998).
12 Does the author suggest the legal restriction of free speech for political stakeholders and politically active citizens when they propagate and vindicate climate scepticism?
13 https://www.jean-jaures.org/publication/climatoscepticisme-le-nouvel-horizon-du-populisme-francais/
15 If the popular fraction of the people is more susceptible to xenophobia and climate scepticism, it is not in the sense of an absolute ruler, but rather as a powerless casualty, the sole remaining leverage of which lies in its ability to threaten the current rules of the game.
16 I take this distinction in its original sense, that of its first utterance in A Theory of Justice (Rawls Citation1971, 8-9). Since then, the ideal/non-ideal distinction has spread out and taken different meanings depending on the context (Valentini Citation2012).