Pierre-Etienne Vandamme | KU Leuven (original) (raw)
Books by Pierre-Etienne Vandamme
Michalon ("Le bien commun"), 2023
Puisque l'avènement d'une société égalitaire n'est pas inéluctable, contrairement à une idée souv... more Puisque l'avènement d'une société égalitaire n'est pas inéluctable, contrairement à une idée souvent attribuée à Marx, l'égalité doit être défendue sur le plan philosophique, en prenant au sérieux les objections des adversaires politiques. C'est à ce projet que s'est attelé le philosophe britannique – d'origine canadienne – G.A. Cohen (1941-2009), après avoir proposé une interprétation originale de la pensée marxiste. L'égalité est-elle en tension avec la liberté, la responsabilité et l'efficacité économique ? À travers une discussion fine des philosophes politiques parmi les plus stimulants de son temps – Nozick, Dworkin, Rawls – G.A. Cohen offre une défense de l'égalité combinant un profond engagement social avec une honnêteté intellectuelle inégalée.
Democracy by Pierre-Etienne Vandamme
American Journal of Political Science, 2024
Two of the founding principles of representative governments - the independence of elected repres... more Two of the founding principles of representative governments - the independence of elected representatives and popular accountability - are notoriously in tension. The more independent representatives are, the less citizens can exercise control over them. This article defends an institutional proposal - Semi-Directed Mandates - aiming to capture the main concerns of both advocates and critics of imperative mandates and to strike a better balance between independence and accountability than the one usually prevailing in contemporary representative governments. The proposal consists in i) asking candidates or parties to put forward key priorities before the election; ii) allowing voters to give a more specific mandate to their representatives and iii) allowing them to revoke the mandate in case of betrayal of key promises unless they can offer convincing justifications for departing from their mandate. More flexible than the traditional imperative mandate, this proposal also preserves the benefits of a partial division of political labor. It therefore seems better suited to the typical circumstances of mass democracies.
Contemporary Politics, 2023
Populism comes in so many forms, both historically and in its contemporary manifestations, that w... more Populism comes in so many forms, both historically and in its contemporary manifestations, that we cannot assess its relationship with democratic institutions and practices as if it were homogenous. In this article, we reconnect with the history of the first movements that have called themselves populists and draw on an understanding of populism as an egalitarian impulse against oligarchic tendencies, centered on anti-elitism and the defense of a democratic common sense. This genetic approach to populism goes against the dominant definitions which tend to overstretch its range of application while assuming a form of antipluralism as part of its common features. Then, we draw attention to the diversity of conceptions of democracy within populist thought and practices and show that, owing to their ideological plasticity, the types of democratic institutions favored by populist movements, as well as their attitudes towards representation and intermediary bodies, are highly contextual. The article ends with a focus on the relationship between populism and democracy in the current context of disintermediation, in which we argue that populism's inherent ambiguities shed some doubt on its capacity to respond to the current challenges faced by representative institutions.
Res Publica, 2023
In mass democracies, voting—in elections or referendums—is the main way in which most citizens ca... more In mass democracies, voting—in elections or referendums—is the main way in which most citizens can publicly express their political preferences. And yet this means of expression is sometimes perceived by them as highly frustrating, partly because it does not allow for much expression. Dominant voting methods lead to a reduction of options, pressure citizens to vote tactically at the cost of expressing their genuine preferences, and fail to convey what they really think about different candidates, parties, or options. Yet citizens do not merely have a right to vote; they have a more fundamental right to political expression from which one can derive a right to a voting method that offers the most opportunities for expression among those satisfying other important requirements. The aim of this article is therefore to add this consideration about the importance of political expression to debates about voting methods that have mainly been conducted from the perspective of social choice theory. To illustrate what is at stake, it introduces evaluative voting methods (allowing voters to grade all of the candidates, parties, or options) as a promising way of honoring the right to political expression without jeopardizing other important properties of voting methods.
Raison publique, 2023
Considérer le vote comme un devoir inconditionnel et l’abstention comme une forme d’incivisme est... more Considérer le vote comme un devoir inconditionnel et l’abstention comme une forme d’incivisme est une erreur. L’abstention, dans certains cas, peut être moralement justifiée et même souhaitable. Notamment quand les élections ne sont pas minimalement compétitives, ou quand on n’a pas de raisons de penser qu’une option électorale est préférable aux autres. Néanmoins, il existe bien souvent des raisons fortes de ne pas s’abstenir. Le vote est en effet un moyen (certes limité et très imparfait) de contribuer à l’amélioration du monde, ou de ne pas se rendre complice de la perpétuation des injustices. Les victimes d'injustices pourraient raisonnablement nous reprocher de renoncer à notre pouvoir de lutter par ce biais contre les injustices, d'autant que voter ne nous empêche pas de lutter de multiples autres façons, y compris contre le gouvernement éventuellement soutenu par notre vote.
De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens’ Assemblies, 2023
The main theoretical objection pressed against empowered citizens' assemblies is that randomlys e... more The main theoretical objection pressed against empowered citizens' assemblies is that randomlys elected representativesw ould not be accountable.I nc ontrast, accountability is often held to be one of thek ey benefitsoffered by elections. To allow readers to assessthe validity of this objection, this chapter starts by distinguishing different understandingso fa ccountability.I tt hen explains whyc itizen representatives would not be accountable in the same waya se lected representativesa re, while qualifying the accountability of the latter.Itexplores the notion of deliberative or discursive accountability,which can applyt oC As,a nd different forms of non-electoral sanctions that mays trengthen the accountability of citizen representatives. Finally,c onsidering that it is oftent he organizers of CAs that make the representative claim as well as key design choices, the chapter explores different ways in which organizers can be made accountable.
Acta Politica, 2023
Can democratic innovations (DIs) offer a cure for the widespread loss of support for electoral in... more Can democratic innovations (DIs) offer a cure for the widespread loss of support for electoral institutions? This widely held assumption among advocates of DIs should be questioned more thoroughly. Insufficient attention has been paid so far to the impact of different types of DIs on electoral legitimacy, defined as the support for the principles grounding electoral representation. What is at stake is the compatibility and equilibrium between different parts of the new democratic systems that are developing in many political contexts. To address this issue, the article offers an innovative typology, distinguishing five types of DIs based on their relationship with traditional representative institutions. This allows to identify DIs that do have the potential to strengthen electoral legitimacy (initiative, recall, abrogative referendums, deliberative town-halls) from others overtly attacking it (lottocracy, liquid democracy) or potentially challenging it (citizen-initiated referendums and empowered citizens' assemblies). The article shows that it is not because an innovation is conceived as complementary to electoral representative institutions that it cannot challenge the latter's foundations. Finally, it identifies several issues on which empirical knowledge is lacking, opening perspectives for future research.
Raisons politiques, 2021
This article examines the extent to which the random selection of political representatives, i.e.... more This article examines the extent to which the random selection of political representatives, i.e., sortition, could be a vehicle for social justice. Given sortition's ability to bring representatives of disadvantaged groups into positions of power, the answer may seem positive. However, it assumes that the representatives selected from these groups are capable of acting in the group's best interests - and thus that they are aware of the injustices they suffer and of effective ways to fight them. Yet both Marxist thought and contemporary social psychology have shown that such a "consciousness of injustice" is not guaranteed for people educated and socialized in contexts dominated by anti-egalitarian ideologies. Such a consciousness is sometimes acquired only after a rather slow process of collective politicization and in an agonistic logic. Far from condemning sortition, this article takes this reality into account and examines the benefits of citizens' assemblies that take place over a longer period of time, while not losing sight of the benefits of electoral democracy - such as political parties' capacity to mobilize citizens and raise consciousness - and the essential role played by civil society.
Participations, 2022
Should we abandon the ideal of a large-scale, structured deliberation including all citizens? Not... more Should we abandon the ideal of a large-scale, structured deliberation including all citizens? Not necessarily. Staggered deliberation, which is studied in this article, consists in setting up deliberations by groups of twenty people, with representatives from these groups presenting their provisional conclusions to those taking part in the next level of deliberation, such that the model takes the form of a pyramid. Given the exponential reduction of the number of participants between the levels of deliberation, it would take only six steps to arrive at the final deliberation. This article explores the theoretical plausibility of such a model and examines the main objections that it could face.
Representation, 2022
Conceived as an alternative form of democratic representation, the random selection of citizens f... more Conceived as an alternative form of democratic representation, the random selection of citizens for a political task comes in tension with the logic of electoral representation. The idea, carried by random selection, that anyone can be a good enough representative challenges the assumption that we need to choose the most competent among ourselves. And the fact that citizens’ assemblies are sometimes tasked to draft legislation may undermine the authority of elected representatives. This article tests this hypothesis of tension between competing forms of representation on a recent case: the French Citizen Convention for Climate (CCC) in 2020. Drawing on parliamentary hearings and questions as well as public political reactions to the CCC, we find indications that elected representatives may feel threatened in their legitimacy even when most randomly selected citizens do not see themselves as representatives. This may be due to the fact that the CCC was seen by some as stepping on the prerogatives of the Parliament. This suggests that future experiments of the sort could benefit from a clearer functional division between the two forms of representation.
ConstDelib Working Papers, 2022
Representative democracy is inconceivable without political parties, most scholars seem to agree.... more Representative democracy is inconceivable without political parties, most scholars seem to agree. Parties are required to recruit political leaders, aggregate demands, organise government and opposition, and mobilise citizens. However, they also close the representative process, reduce citizens’ capacity for spontaneous action and impede open-minded deliberation. While parties suffer from public hostility, alternative democratic forms have been conceived and sometimes tried out either in historical regimes or in small-scale experiments: assembly democracy, individual representation, council democracy, referendum democracy, liquid democracy and sortition. Exploring these alternatives with open-mind challenges the path-dependent assumption that parties are indispensable, but also helps to re-appreciate their roles and value.
Responding to a call for more dialogue between empirical research on political parties and contemporary democratic theory, this article widens the debate on the necessity of political parties by extending it to new theoretical proposals, and maps it by bringing together insights from both fields.
Raisons politiques, 2021
This article examines the extent to which the random selection of political representatives could... more This article examines the extent to which the random selection of political representatives could be a vehicle for social justice. Given its ability to bring representatives of disadvantaged groups into positions of power, the answer may seem positive. However, it assumes that the representatives selected by lot from these groups are capable of acting in the best interest of the group – and thus that they are aware of the injustices they suffer and of effective ways to fight them. Yet both Marxist thought and contemporary social psychology have shown that such an “injustice consciousness” is not evident for people educated and socialized in contexts dominated by anti-egalitarian ideologies. Such a conscience is sometimes acquired only after a rather slow process of collective politicization, in an agonistic dynamic. Far from condemning political sortition, taking this reality into account invites measuring the benefits of citizens’ assemblies taking place over a longer time, and not to lose sight of some benefits of electoral democracy, such as the capacity of political parties to mobilize and raise consciousness and the essential role played by civil society.
Contemporary Political Theory, 2021
One of the greatest challenges facing current generations is the environmental and climate crisis... more One of the greatest challenges facing current generations is the environmental and climate crisis. Democracies, so far, have not distinguished themselves by their capacity to bring about appropriate political responses to these challenges. This is partly explicable in terms of a lack of state capacity in a globalized context. Yet we also argue that election-centered democracies suffer from several flaws that make them inapt to deal with this challenge properly: youth is not appropriately represented; parliaments suffer from a lack of diversity; elected representatives’ time-horizon is too narrow; anti-regulation lobbies have too much influence. Considering this, we argue for rejuvenating our democratic systems by introducing a randomly selected legislative chamber, which would be permanently integrated to our political systems and would play a deliberative and scrutinizing role. We have identified four eco-political arguments in favor of such reform. The generational rebalancing argument, which we examine first, has some plausibility but is not the strongest. The other three arguments – its eco-epistemic promises; its wider time horizon; and the independence of its members from short-term corporate interests – however, appear to us to be much more convincing.
Ludivine DAMAY et Vincent JACQUET (dir.), Les transformations de la légitimité démocratique. Idéaux, revendications et perceptions, Louvain-la-Neuve, Academia-L’Harmattan, 2021
Swiss Political Science Review, 2020
This article discusses from the perspective of democratic theory an innovative proposal for the s... more This article discusses from the perspective of democratic theory an innovative proposal for the selection of constitutional, supreme court, or federal judges that aims at combining the values of expertise and political independence. It consists in combining a certification process-selecting a pool of properly qualified candidates-with a random selection among this pool. We argue that such selection procedure would better respect the separation of powers and the specific legitimacy of courts, and we champion this two-stage mechanism vis-à-vis other, more traditionally employed, selection procedures. We then deal with a diversity of objections to our proposal and conclude by taking stock of both its virtues and limitations.
Frontiers in Political Science, 2020
Empirical studies reveal many citizens' unwillingness to get rid of representative democracy. A g... more Empirical studies reveal many citizens' unwillingness to get rid of representative democracy. A great number of them, however, distrust their representatives and would want representation to be improved, for example by giving citizens more control over their representatives. One possible mechanism of control is the recall-the possibility to remove elected representatives from office through a vote before the end of their term. Although this democratic tool is on the rise worldwide and was supported in the past by influential figures such as Rousseau and Marx, its study has been neglected by contemporary political theorists. The aim of this contribution is to identify the main arguments for and against the use of recall mechanisms, and to assess both their normative and empirical validity. In particular, it asks whether they have the capacity to improve the quality of representation or at least the perception of representative institutions' legitimacy, and answers with a moderate "yes"-especially for the latter aspect (perceived legitimacy).
Epistemic justifications of democracy affirm the comparative quality of democracies’ decisions. T... more Epistemic justifications of democracy affirm the comparative quality of democracies’ decisions. The challenge faced by those who endorse such views is to explain why we should prefer standard democratic institutions to some sort of epistocracy or rule of the wisest. This article takes up this challenge by assessing the epistemic potential of an epistocratic council, as imagined by Jason Brennan. Members of such council would be selected through competency exams, the required competencies being defined by the whole population. The argument defended in this article is that the potential gain in instrumental rationality that such an institution could offer under certain questionable conditions would be outweighed by the increased risks of misrule and involuntary biases if such council has decision-making or veto power. In comparison with the existing literature, this argument stresses the importance of moral rightness, here defined as impartiality, in the epistemic assessment of democracy and its alternatives. The article then ends with a qualified assessment of purely epistemic justifications of democratic inclusion, which could be insufficient to reject implausible but imaginable forms of epistemically justifiable disenfranchisement.
Michalon ("Le bien commun"), 2023
Puisque l'avènement d'une société égalitaire n'est pas inéluctable, contrairement à une idée souv... more Puisque l'avènement d'une société égalitaire n'est pas inéluctable, contrairement à une idée souvent attribuée à Marx, l'égalité doit être défendue sur le plan philosophique, en prenant au sérieux les objections des adversaires politiques. C'est à ce projet que s'est attelé le philosophe britannique – d'origine canadienne – G.A. Cohen (1941-2009), après avoir proposé une interprétation originale de la pensée marxiste. L'égalité est-elle en tension avec la liberté, la responsabilité et l'efficacité économique ? À travers une discussion fine des philosophes politiques parmi les plus stimulants de son temps – Nozick, Dworkin, Rawls – G.A. Cohen offre une défense de l'égalité combinant un profond engagement social avec une honnêteté intellectuelle inégalée.
American Journal of Political Science, 2024
Two of the founding principles of representative governments - the independence of elected repres... more Two of the founding principles of representative governments - the independence of elected representatives and popular accountability - are notoriously in tension. The more independent representatives are, the less citizens can exercise control over them. This article defends an institutional proposal - Semi-Directed Mandates - aiming to capture the main concerns of both advocates and critics of imperative mandates and to strike a better balance between independence and accountability than the one usually prevailing in contemporary representative governments. The proposal consists in i) asking candidates or parties to put forward key priorities before the election; ii) allowing voters to give a more specific mandate to their representatives and iii) allowing them to revoke the mandate in case of betrayal of key promises unless they can offer convincing justifications for departing from their mandate. More flexible than the traditional imperative mandate, this proposal also preserves the benefits of a partial division of political labor. It therefore seems better suited to the typical circumstances of mass democracies.
Contemporary Politics, 2023
Populism comes in so many forms, both historically and in its contemporary manifestations, that w... more Populism comes in so many forms, both historically and in its contemporary manifestations, that we cannot assess its relationship with democratic institutions and practices as if it were homogenous. In this article, we reconnect with the history of the first movements that have called themselves populists and draw on an understanding of populism as an egalitarian impulse against oligarchic tendencies, centered on anti-elitism and the defense of a democratic common sense. This genetic approach to populism goes against the dominant definitions which tend to overstretch its range of application while assuming a form of antipluralism as part of its common features. Then, we draw attention to the diversity of conceptions of democracy within populist thought and practices and show that, owing to their ideological plasticity, the types of democratic institutions favored by populist movements, as well as their attitudes towards representation and intermediary bodies, are highly contextual. The article ends with a focus on the relationship between populism and democracy in the current context of disintermediation, in which we argue that populism's inherent ambiguities shed some doubt on its capacity to respond to the current challenges faced by representative institutions.
Res Publica, 2023
In mass democracies, voting—in elections or referendums—is the main way in which most citizens ca... more In mass democracies, voting—in elections or referendums—is the main way in which most citizens can publicly express their political preferences. And yet this means of expression is sometimes perceived by them as highly frustrating, partly because it does not allow for much expression. Dominant voting methods lead to a reduction of options, pressure citizens to vote tactically at the cost of expressing their genuine preferences, and fail to convey what they really think about different candidates, parties, or options. Yet citizens do not merely have a right to vote; they have a more fundamental right to political expression from which one can derive a right to a voting method that offers the most opportunities for expression among those satisfying other important requirements. The aim of this article is therefore to add this consideration about the importance of political expression to debates about voting methods that have mainly been conducted from the perspective of social choice theory. To illustrate what is at stake, it introduces evaluative voting methods (allowing voters to grade all of the candidates, parties, or options) as a promising way of honoring the right to political expression without jeopardizing other important properties of voting methods.
Raison publique, 2023
Considérer le vote comme un devoir inconditionnel et l’abstention comme une forme d’incivisme est... more Considérer le vote comme un devoir inconditionnel et l’abstention comme une forme d’incivisme est une erreur. L’abstention, dans certains cas, peut être moralement justifiée et même souhaitable. Notamment quand les élections ne sont pas minimalement compétitives, ou quand on n’a pas de raisons de penser qu’une option électorale est préférable aux autres. Néanmoins, il existe bien souvent des raisons fortes de ne pas s’abstenir. Le vote est en effet un moyen (certes limité et très imparfait) de contribuer à l’amélioration du monde, ou de ne pas se rendre complice de la perpétuation des injustices. Les victimes d'injustices pourraient raisonnablement nous reprocher de renoncer à notre pouvoir de lutter par ce biais contre les injustices, d'autant que voter ne nous empêche pas de lutter de multiples autres façons, y compris contre le gouvernement éventuellement soutenu par notre vote.
De Gruyter Handbook of Citizens’ Assemblies, 2023
The main theoretical objection pressed against empowered citizens' assemblies is that randomlys e... more The main theoretical objection pressed against empowered citizens' assemblies is that randomlys elected representativesw ould not be accountable.I nc ontrast, accountability is often held to be one of thek ey benefitsoffered by elections. To allow readers to assessthe validity of this objection, this chapter starts by distinguishing different understandingso fa ccountability.I tt hen explains whyc itizen representatives would not be accountable in the same waya se lected representativesa re, while qualifying the accountability of the latter.Itexplores the notion of deliberative or discursive accountability,which can applyt oC As,a nd different forms of non-electoral sanctions that mays trengthen the accountability of citizen representatives. Finally,c onsidering that it is oftent he organizers of CAs that make the representative claim as well as key design choices, the chapter explores different ways in which organizers can be made accountable.
Acta Politica, 2023
Can democratic innovations (DIs) offer a cure for the widespread loss of support for electoral in... more Can democratic innovations (DIs) offer a cure for the widespread loss of support for electoral institutions? This widely held assumption among advocates of DIs should be questioned more thoroughly. Insufficient attention has been paid so far to the impact of different types of DIs on electoral legitimacy, defined as the support for the principles grounding electoral representation. What is at stake is the compatibility and equilibrium between different parts of the new democratic systems that are developing in many political contexts. To address this issue, the article offers an innovative typology, distinguishing five types of DIs based on their relationship with traditional representative institutions. This allows to identify DIs that do have the potential to strengthen electoral legitimacy (initiative, recall, abrogative referendums, deliberative town-halls) from others overtly attacking it (lottocracy, liquid democracy) or potentially challenging it (citizen-initiated referendums and empowered citizens' assemblies). The article shows that it is not because an innovation is conceived as complementary to electoral representative institutions that it cannot challenge the latter's foundations. Finally, it identifies several issues on which empirical knowledge is lacking, opening perspectives for future research.
Raisons politiques, 2021
This article examines the extent to which the random selection of political representatives, i.e.... more This article examines the extent to which the random selection of political representatives, i.e., sortition, could be a vehicle for social justice. Given sortition's ability to bring representatives of disadvantaged groups into positions of power, the answer may seem positive. However, it assumes that the representatives selected from these groups are capable of acting in the group's best interests - and thus that they are aware of the injustices they suffer and of effective ways to fight them. Yet both Marxist thought and contemporary social psychology have shown that such a "consciousness of injustice" is not guaranteed for people educated and socialized in contexts dominated by anti-egalitarian ideologies. Such a consciousness is sometimes acquired only after a rather slow process of collective politicization and in an agonistic logic. Far from condemning sortition, this article takes this reality into account and examines the benefits of citizens' assemblies that take place over a longer period of time, while not losing sight of the benefits of electoral democracy - such as political parties' capacity to mobilize citizens and raise consciousness - and the essential role played by civil society.
Participations, 2022
Should we abandon the ideal of a large-scale, structured deliberation including all citizens? Not... more Should we abandon the ideal of a large-scale, structured deliberation including all citizens? Not necessarily. Staggered deliberation, which is studied in this article, consists in setting up deliberations by groups of twenty people, with representatives from these groups presenting their provisional conclusions to those taking part in the next level of deliberation, such that the model takes the form of a pyramid. Given the exponential reduction of the number of participants between the levels of deliberation, it would take only six steps to arrive at the final deliberation. This article explores the theoretical plausibility of such a model and examines the main objections that it could face.
Representation, 2022
Conceived as an alternative form of democratic representation, the random selection of citizens f... more Conceived as an alternative form of democratic representation, the random selection of citizens for a political task comes in tension with the logic of electoral representation. The idea, carried by random selection, that anyone can be a good enough representative challenges the assumption that we need to choose the most competent among ourselves. And the fact that citizens’ assemblies are sometimes tasked to draft legislation may undermine the authority of elected representatives. This article tests this hypothesis of tension between competing forms of representation on a recent case: the French Citizen Convention for Climate (CCC) in 2020. Drawing on parliamentary hearings and questions as well as public political reactions to the CCC, we find indications that elected representatives may feel threatened in their legitimacy even when most randomly selected citizens do not see themselves as representatives. This may be due to the fact that the CCC was seen by some as stepping on the prerogatives of the Parliament. This suggests that future experiments of the sort could benefit from a clearer functional division between the two forms of representation.
ConstDelib Working Papers, 2022
Representative democracy is inconceivable without political parties, most scholars seem to agree.... more Representative democracy is inconceivable without political parties, most scholars seem to agree. Parties are required to recruit political leaders, aggregate demands, organise government and opposition, and mobilise citizens. However, they also close the representative process, reduce citizens’ capacity for spontaneous action and impede open-minded deliberation. While parties suffer from public hostility, alternative democratic forms have been conceived and sometimes tried out either in historical regimes or in small-scale experiments: assembly democracy, individual representation, council democracy, referendum democracy, liquid democracy and sortition. Exploring these alternatives with open-mind challenges the path-dependent assumption that parties are indispensable, but also helps to re-appreciate their roles and value.
Responding to a call for more dialogue between empirical research on political parties and contemporary democratic theory, this article widens the debate on the necessity of political parties by extending it to new theoretical proposals, and maps it by bringing together insights from both fields.
Raisons politiques, 2021
This article examines the extent to which the random selection of political representatives could... more This article examines the extent to which the random selection of political representatives could be a vehicle for social justice. Given its ability to bring representatives of disadvantaged groups into positions of power, the answer may seem positive. However, it assumes that the representatives selected by lot from these groups are capable of acting in the best interest of the group – and thus that they are aware of the injustices they suffer and of effective ways to fight them. Yet both Marxist thought and contemporary social psychology have shown that such an “injustice consciousness” is not evident for people educated and socialized in contexts dominated by anti-egalitarian ideologies. Such a conscience is sometimes acquired only after a rather slow process of collective politicization, in an agonistic dynamic. Far from condemning political sortition, taking this reality into account invites measuring the benefits of citizens’ assemblies taking place over a longer time, and not to lose sight of some benefits of electoral democracy, such as the capacity of political parties to mobilize and raise consciousness and the essential role played by civil society.
Contemporary Political Theory, 2021
One of the greatest challenges facing current generations is the environmental and climate crisis... more One of the greatest challenges facing current generations is the environmental and climate crisis. Democracies, so far, have not distinguished themselves by their capacity to bring about appropriate political responses to these challenges. This is partly explicable in terms of a lack of state capacity in a globalized context. Yet we also argue that election-centered democracies suffer from several flaws that make them inapt to deal with this challenge properly: youth is not appropriately represented; parliaments suffer from a lack of diversity; elected representatives’ time-horizon is too narrow; anti-regulation lobbies have too much influence. Considering this, we argue for rejuvenating our democratic systems by introducing a randomly selected legislative chamber, which would be permanently integrated to our political systems and would play a deliberative and scrutinizing role. We have identified four eco-political arguments in favor of such reform. The generational rebalancing argument, which we examine first, has some plausibility but is not the strongest. The other three arguments – its eco-epistemic promises; its wider time horizon; and the independence of its members from short-term corporate interests – however, appear to us to be much more convincing.
Ludivine DAMAY et Vincent JACQUET (dir.), Les transformations de la légitimité démocratique. Idéaux, revendications et perceptions, Louvain-la-Neuve, Academia-L’Harmattan, 2021
Swiss Political Science Review, 2020
This article discusses from the perspective of democratic theory an innovative proposal for the s... more This article discusses from the perspective of democratic theory an innovative proposal for the selection of constitutional, supreme court, or federal judges that aims at combining the values of expertise and political independence. It consists in combining a certification process-selecting a pool of properly qualified candidates-with a random selection among this pool. We argue that such selection procedure would better respect the separation of powers and the specific legitimacy of courts, and we champion this two-stage mechanism vis-à-vis other, more traditionally employed, selection procedures. We then deal with a diversity of objections to our proposal and conclude by taking stock of both its virtues and limitations.
Frontiers in Political Science, 2020
Empirical studies reveal many citizens' unwillingness to get rid of representative democracy. A g... more Empirical studies reveal many citizens' unwillingness to get rid of representative democracy. A great number of them, however, distrust their representatives and would want representation to be improved, for example by giving citizens more control over their representatives. One possible mechanism of control is the recall-the possibility to remove elected representatives from office through a vote before the end of their term. Although this democratic tool is on the rise worldwide and was supported in the past by influential figures such as Rousseau and Marx, its study has been neglected by contemporary political theorists. The aim of this contribution is to identify the main arguments for and against the use of recall mechanisms, and to assess both their normative and empirical validity. In particular, it asks whether they have the capacity to improve the quality of representation or at least the perception of representative institutions' legitimacy, and answers with a moderate "yes"-especially for the latter aspect (perceived legitimacy).
Epistemic justifications of democracy affirm the comparative quality of democracies’ decisions. T... more Epistemic justifications of democracy affirm the comparative quality of democracies’ decisions. The challenge faced by those who endorse such views is to explain why we should prefer standard democratic institutions to some sort of epistocracy or rule of the wisest. This article takes up this challenge by assessing the epistemic potential of an epistocratic council, as imagined by Jason Brennan. Members of such council would be selected through competency exams, the required competencies being defined by the whole population. The argument defended in this article is that the potential gain in instrumental rationality that such an institution could offer under certain questionable conditions would be outweighed by the increased risks of misrule and involuntary biases if such council has decision-making or veto power. In comparison with the existing literature, this argument stresses the importance of moral rightness, here defined as impartiality, in the epistemic assessment of democracy and its alternatives. The article then ends with a qualified assessment of purely epistemic justifications of democratic inclusion, which could be insufficient to reject implausible but imaginable forms of epistemically justifiable disenfranchisement.
Revue française de science politique, 2018
A great deal of work has enquired into the benefits that could result from a more frequent use of... more A great deal of work has enquired into the benefits that could result from a more frequent use of random selection in politics. Most proposals see sortition as complementary to elections rather than as a substitute. This article aims first at highlighting the properties and virtues that make these selection mechanisms appear as complementary rather than rival. Secondly, it makes a distinction between some uses of sortition able to take advantage of this complementarity, and others more likely to generate issues of compatibility and possibly mutual delegitimation dynamics.
John Gastil and Erik Olin Wright propose a hybrid bicameralism, with one chamber composed of elec... more John Gastil and Erik Olin Wright propose a hybrid bicameralism, with one chamber composed of elected politicians and the other of ordinary citizens chosen by sortition. Though they envision interactions between the two chambers as a “creative tension,” the question of intercameral relations deserves more careful attention. We argue that the chambers would not only have different virtues but also different legitimacies, which might become particularly conflictual if each chamber has the power to veto the proposals of the other, as Gastil and Wright recommend. To imagine these intercameral relations, picture a triangular relationship among the two chambers and the public. To understand how those relationships might develop, we wanted to get a preliminary measure of the public support for each mode of selection. In addition, we sought to grasp current political support for sortition among elected officials. We investigated these questions in Belgium, where the idea of sortition has received particular attention in recent years. We conducted a survey among a representative sample of the Belgian population and Belgian Members of Parliament (MPs) to assess their views of sortition, if it were used for political representation. Beyond our survey findings, we also offer theoretical reflections on the respective legitimacies of elections and sortition—and on their potential antagonisms. This leads us then to consider the effects of different possible distributions of power between the chambers as a crucial determinant of their interactions.
Raisons politiques, 2021
Talking about basic income in the singular does not make much sense. Evaluating such a propositio... more Talking about basic income in the singular does not make much sense. Evaluating such a proposition in the abstract, without specifying what kind of basic income we are talking about, even less so. For it is an instrument that can be used for a diversity of purposes and with varied effects depending on the political project guiding its implementation. Therefore, this article proposes to distinguish between three ideal types of basic income: neoliberal, social-democratic, and of ecological and social transition. These ideal types distinguish themselves by their internal characteristics (amount; financing; articulation with existing social protection) and by the political projects that guide them. The question of the radicality of the basic income proposal thus depends on the model envisaged. The "neoliberal" model is radical in the simplification of the welfare state it proposes, while the "transition" model is radical in its aim to transform social relations and economic dynamics. The "social-democratic" model, in contrast, does not intend to revolutionize social protection, but rather to introduce a reform that, while being more realistic in the short term, is likely to initiate a more gradual transformation of welfare states towards a strengthening of social protection.
Moral Philosophy and Politics, 2020
Political judgments usually combine a normative principle or intuition with an appreciation of em... more Political judgments usually combine a normative principle or intuition with an appreciation of empirical facts regarding the achievability of different options and their potential consequences. The interesting question dividing partisans of political idealism and realism is whether these kinds of consideration should be integrated into the normative principles themselves or considered apart. At first sight, if a theorist is concerned with guiding political judgments, non-ideal or realist theorizing (directly integrating such considerations) can seem more attractive. In this paper, however, I argue that ideal theorizing might be considered valuable even by theorists moved by a pragmatic concern (guiding political judgments) because it is less exposed to conservatism. I nonetheless contend that the aim to guide action in the world as it is should not be abandoned. Therefore, I outline a four-step method for proceeding from abstract moral principles to concrete political judgments and apply it to a test case.
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2019
Some luck egalitarians argue that justice is just one value among others and is thus not necessar... more Some luck egalitarians argue that justice is just one value among others and is thus not necessarily what we should strive for in order to make the world better. Yet, by focusing on only one dimension of what matters – luck equality – it proves very difficult to draw political implications in cases where several values are in tension. We believe that normative political philosophy must have the ambition to guide political action. Hence, in this paper we make a negative and a positive point. Negatively, we argue that the inability to offer recommendations on what to strive for potentially weakens Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen’s account of luck egalitarianism. In order not to be irrelevant for political practice, a more serviceable version of luck egalitarianism that would allow for all-things-considered judgments is needed. Positively, we examine two possible routes toward such a view. One would be to stick to pluralism, but to discuss possible clashes and find a rule of regulation in each case. Another would consist in giving up value pluralism by identifying an over-arching value or principle that would arbitrate between different values. We suggest that Lippert-Rasmussen’s foundation of equality carries the potential for such an overarching principle.
For people starting from a presumption in favor of equality, the very idea of a sufficiency thres... more For people starting from a presumption in favor of equality, the very idea of a sufficiency threshold where the demands of justice would stop because everyone has enough is puzzling. However, Liam Shields, offers an account of sufficiency that has the potential to reconcile these egalitarians with the principle of sufficiency. This comes from his endorsement of what he calls " the shift thesis ", stating roughly that there is a discontinuity in the weight of our reasons to benefit people once they have enough. This thesis distinguishes his theory from other accounts of sufficientarianism by not denying the injustice of inequalities above the threshold. It thereby changes the way one can look at the relation between sufficiency and equality. The principle of sufficiency becomes the first principle of a conception of justice that must be completed by another – possibly egalitarian – principle. In the first section, I start with a brief exposition of the shift thesis and the way it relates to other accounts of sufficiency. In the second, I introduce a distinction between agnosticism and indifference towards inequalities above the sufficiency threshold. In the third, I argue that pragmatism might provide positive reasons to focus on insufficiency if one is agnostic about these inequalities. I conclude with a brief discussion of this pragmatic stance and of the choice to defend a partial view of justice as Shields does.
« Prolétaires de tous les pays, unissez-vous ! ». Aujourd'hui, la conclusion du Manifeste du part... more « Prolétaires de tous les pays, unissez-vous ! ». Aujourd'hui, la conclusion du Manifeste du parti communiste fait figure de voeu pieux. À l'heure où les partis xénophobes gagnent du terrain dans presque toutes les démocraties, séduisant largement (mais pas uniquement) un électorat populaire autrefois acquis à la gauche, on a beaucoup de mal à imaginer l'union sacrée des travailleurs du monde. Il n'est pourtant pas dit que cette exhortation ait perdu de sa pertinence. Si la gauche veut maintenir son engagement historique en faveur des plus désavantagés, elle ne peut se désintéresser ni des classes populaires, en partie hostiles à l'immigration, ni de ceux qui cherchent à fuir la misère et migrent dans l'espoir d'une vie meilleure. Or, à bien des égards, ces objectifs sont en tension - et c'est cette tension qui traverse les gauches dans les pays riches qui fait l'objet de cet article.
Astrolabio, 2017
Two widely endorsed moral principles-sufficiency and reciprocity-lie at the core of existing soci... more Two widely endorsed moral principles-sufficiency and reciprocity-lie at the core of existing social protection systems. The tension between these two principles accounts for most political conflicts around the appropriate form of social protection and for the contemporary normative crisis of the welfare state. International human rights law is also ambiguous on this issue. As a result, the human right to a decent standard of living-maybe the most fundamental of all rights-is widely abused. This paper considers several ways of improving social protection in order to protect this fundamental right. It argues for the recognition of a right to a subsistence income, its unconditionality, its constitutionalization, and reviews several objections from a variety of perspectives.
This paper offers a definition of exploitation, restricted to work relationships, which pretends ... more This paper offers a definition of exploitation, restricted to work relationships, which pretends to be closer to a common sense understanding of the concept – an unfair remuneration in relation to the work performed. The proposed definition also aims at avoiding the troubles that have affected the traditional Marxist definition of exploitation as surplus value extraction in its various forms. Thus, the paper investigates the connection between exploitation and the material obligation to work in order to satisfy one’s basic needs. It warns against the damages induced by the politics of activation of the unemployed. Finally, it concludes that exploitation can be fought using relatively simple instruments, even in capitalist societies. Nonetheless, relocating exploitation among other fundamental concerns for an egalitarian political philosophy, it reminds that the fight against exploitation is not enough for the achievement of social justice.
Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis, 2023
To many people, the idea of a state-organized political education evokes indoctrination. Authorit... more To many people, the idea of a state-organized political education evokes indoctrination. Authoritarian states wanting to secure the obedience of their citizens indeed have a strong incentive to shape their political beliefs, and this is often what political education organized by public authorities has looked like in the past and may look like nowadays. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that a form of publicly organized political education is necessary in democratic contexts. Understood as the attempt by a political community to choose its laws while respecting the equal standing of each citizen, democracy can only succeed if citizens understand what is at stake in the decisions they have to make, are sufficiently informed about the options available to them, and show respect and concern for their fellow citizens. These democratic competencies are not innate. Currently, they are acquired mainly through family education and informal interactions in the private and professional spheres of people’s lives. My main claim in this article is that, in contexts of sufficient political pluralism, political education should more firmly be taken in charge by primary and secondary schools because it is an important and demanding collective good, unlikely to be appropriately secured without state intervention.
Many rich countries are witnessing the rise of xenophobic political parties. The opposition to im... more Many rich countries are witnessing the rise of xenophobic political parties. The opposition to immigration and global redistributive policies is high. How can we pursue global justice in such non-ideal circumstances? Whatever the way we want to pursue global justice, it seems that a change in the political ethos of citizens from rich countries will be necessary. They must come to internalize some genuine concern for foreigners and relativize national identities. Can education contribute to the promotion of such cosmopolitan ethos? An overtly cosmopolitan educational agenda is not likely to be endorsed in these societies where national ties and national priority may be considered fully legitimate by the majority. Nevertheless, this paper argues, some more achievable educational aims may have desirable cosmopolitan spillover effects although it is not their primary purpose. Decentration, empathy, critical thinking, understanding of social reality and social mix can be defended as necessary for a better domestic society. Yet these aims also make the widespread development of a cosmopolitan ethos more likely. This paper thus considers the arguments that can be made for these educational aims and their potential effects on citizens’ attitudes towards foreigners. Then, it discusses a possible tension with another aspect of national civic education: national integration.
This paper critically assesses the current organisation of the so-called philosophical courses - ... more This paper critically assesses the current organisation of the so-called philosophical courses - religions and secular morality - in francophone Belgium and its alternatives. It advocates their (partial) substitution by a course of Ethics and Society common to all and imagines its possible content.
Vincent Peillon, the French minister of education, introduced the idea of a class of secular mora... more Vincent Peillon, the French minister of education, introduced the idea of a class of secular morality at the beginning of the 2012-2013 academic year. This paper examines both the plausibility of a moral education program respecting the imperatives of state neutrality and secularism, and the desirability of such a program. Making the distinction between conventional and post-conventional understandings of morality, it argues for the social necessity of educating for the individual moral faculty of decentration.
Cet article propose une réflexion sur la notion de décentrement – empruntée à l’anthropologie et ... more Cet article propose une réflexion sur la notion de décentrement – empruntée à l’anthropologie et à la psychologie du développement – et son intérêt pour la philosophie morale et politique. Il fait l’hypothèse que ce concept permet de mieux penser l’articulation de la moralité individuelle et de la justice sociale. En effet, si l’on renonce à l’utopie libérale de la société comme harmonie d’intérêts et que l’on refuse par ailleurs d’assimiler l’idée de justice avec celle d’avantage mutuel, il s’avère que les intérêts individuels ne convergent pas vers le bien public. La capacité de décentrement individuel devient alors un élément clef dans la quête de justice sociale. Après avoir exploré divers usages et définitions du concept, l’article situera l’importance de l’idée de décentrement dans la philosophie morale impartialiste, avant de proposer une réflexion sur l’importance de la moralité individuelle pour l’avènement de la justice sociale. Il terminera par une brève exploration des moyens de promouvoir, au niveau sociétal, une véritable culture du décentrement.
Nos choix électoraux sont déterminés par une multitude de facteurs : notre vision du monde, notre... more Nos choix électoraux sont déterminés par une multitude de facteurs : notre vision du monde, notre position sociale, nos intérêts, les informations dont nous disposons, le type de contexte dans lequel nous avons été éduqués, le type de personnalités auxquelles nous faisons confiance, notre rapport aux élites politiques, nos considérations stratégiques, etc. Le résultat, c'est que nous votons tous selon des critères très différents. Y aurait-il néanmoins une manière de voter qui soit supérieure aux autres d'un point de vue éthique ? L'acte de voter ayant potentiellement un impact important sur les autres, ne sommes-nous pas tenus d'agir d'une manière qui soit justifiable devant eux ? Les personnes affectées par notre vote trouveraient-elles acceptable que nous votions sans trop réfléchir ou de manière égocentrée ? La garantie du suffrage universel et de la liberté de vote n'est pas le fin mot de l'histoire. Elle ne suffit pas à faire de sociétés démocratiques des sociétés justes. C'est pourquoi il est intéressant d'interroger également la responsabilité morale du citoyen face à l'urne.
Les politiques d’activation, quand elles ne sont pas justifiées pour des raisons purement économi... more Les politiques d’activation, quand elles ne sont pas justifiées pour des raisons purement économiques – qui ne suffisent pas à elles seules à en établir la désirabilité –, le sont souvent en référence à une obligation morale de travailler, ou de se rendre utile à la société, qui s’appliquerait à l’ensemble des citoyens. Cet article vise à prendre au sérieux cette idée, réfléchir à sa portée et à ses implications concrètes dans l’organisation de l’économie.
Revue française de science politique, 2019
Quelle est la méthode propre à la théorie politique, si ce n'est la récolte et l'analyse de donné... more Quelle est la méthode propre à la théorie politique, si ce n'est la récolte et l'analyse de données permettant de mettre des hypothèses à l'épreuve des faits ? C'est une question légitime que se posent beaucoup de politistes s'interrogeant sur la scientificité de cette sous-discipline si particulière et à laquelle permet de répondre plus aisément l'ouvrage collectif dirigé par Adrian Blau, du King's College London, Methods in Analytical Political Theory (CUP 2017).
Review of a collection of interesting essays written by first rate scholars and dedicated to the ... more Review of a collection of interesting essays written by first rate scholars and dedicated to the idea of political neutrality, its connection with political liberalism and its tension with perfectionism.
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie, Apr 2014
Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie, avril 2014.
Revue française de science politique, Vol. 64, n°1, 2014, p. 131-133.
Revue européenne des sciences sociales [En ligne], 51-1 | 2013, mis en ligne le 10 mai 2013. URL ... more Revue européenne des sciences sociales [En ligne], 51-1 | 2013, mis en ligne le 10 mai 2013. URL : http://ress.revues.org/2481
Intervention on the legitimacy of popular protests against the new Belgian government.
Contemporary Political Theory, 2021
One of the greatest challenges facing current generations is the environmental and climate crisis... more One of the greatest challenges facing current generations is the environmental and climate crisis. Democracies, so far, have not distinguished themselves by their capacity to bring about appropriate political responses to these challenges. This is partly explicable in terms of a lack of state capacity in a globalized context. Yet we also argue that election-centered democracies suffer from several flaws that make them inapt to deal with this challenge properly: youth is not appropriately represented; parliaments suffer from a lack of diversity; elected representatives’ time-horizon is too narrow; anti-regulation lobbies have too much influence. Considering this, we argue for rejuvenating our democratic systems by introducing a randomly selected legislative chamber, which would be permanently integrated to our political systems and would play a deliberative and scrutinizing role. We have identified four eco-political arguments in favor of such reform. The generational rebalancing argument, which we examine first, has some plausibility but is not the strongest. The other three arguments – its eco-epistemic promises; its wider time horizon; and the independence of its members from short-term corporate interests – however, appear to us to be much more convincing.
Revue Nouvelle, 2017
La crise de confiance actuelle à l’égard du monde politique met presque tout le monde d’accord :... more La crise de confiance actuelle à l’égard du monde politique met presque tout le monde d’accord : il faut un électrochoc dans la manière dont fonctionne notre démocratie. Reste cependant à trouver un modèle participatif adéquat et plausible dans le contexte belge. Un bref retour sur une expérience récente de démocratie locale à Louvain-la-Neuve, à l’élaboration de laquelle les auteur.e.s de ce texte ont participé, offre des perspectives pour repenser la place de la population dans la sphère publique de notre pays et au-delà. Avec un mot d’ordre : remettre les citoyens et les citoyennes au centre de la politique.
Politics & Society, 2018
The idea of a hybrid bicameral system combining election and sortition is investigated. More prec... more The idea of a hybrid bicameral system combining election and sortition is investigated. More precisely, the article imagines how an elected and a sortition chamber would interact, taking into account their public perception and their competing legitimacies. The article draws on a survey of a representative sample of the Belgian population and Belgian members of parliament assessing their views about sortition in political representation. Findings are combined with theoretical reflections on election's and sortition's respective sources of legitimacy. The possibility of conflicting legitimacies and mutually detrimental interactions leads to considerations of the effects of different possible distributions of power between the chambers as a crucial determinant of their interactions and perceived legitimacy.