Freedom is Power: Reinventing Representative Democracy (pre-proof version) (original) (raw)

Freedom Is Power: Reinventing Representative Democracy

The Good Society, 2018

In this article I propose a different founding view of liberty to help reinvent representative democracy: freedom as power through representation. I argue that representation and associated relations of power can be assessed contextually in terms of whether they enable or disable domination and enhance judgment in politics. I submit that freedom obtains if and only if the existing forms of representation manage power relations to minimize domination in the determination of needs and interests. I end by proposing a set of institutional changes for reinventing representative democracy in line with my account of freedom as power through representation. These include ideas around district assemblies, a revitalized consiliar system, an updated tribunate of the plebs, and constitutional revision. I thereby suggest that my account of liberty in Freedom Is Power would underpin a more robust, critical view of representative democracy.

Freedom is Power: Liberty through Political Representation

International Journal of Social Science & Interdisciplinary Research, 2016

This paper is an attempt to critically review the arguments presented by Lawrence Hamilton in his book "Freedom is Power: Liberty through Political Representation" in support of political representation. The work gains significance in the wake of emerging presumptions and practices that define liberty as something that defines how free an individual is from other things-including political representation or political participation. The conception of liberty has taken a particular shape where the individuals are made to perceive that they have liberties when they have freedom from external impediments from other individuals, groups, state, or society. This notion of privatized liberty makes an individual to withdraw from the political aspects of the society that she is part of. This withdrawal puts the individual in a weak position vis-à-vis others who have been engaged actively in the political process. The negative conception of liberties i.e., negative liberties, though important and inalienable, because of the autonomous space that these liberties provide, may not be sufficient for an individual to be free in a complete sense. Expanding these liberties at the cost of political representation may result in losing these liberties fully i.e., the autonomous space that the individual is trying to protect in the name of negative liberty may not withstand the power of those who are politically active. Hence, freedom from politics may make the individual experience un-freedoms in many ways-including impediments in her privatized-negative liberties. Hence, freedom can be pursued or gained through politics-and not by keeping away from political representation. Political representation helps the individual to protect and pursue her liberties (both negative and positives conceptions), it helps the individual to exert power in defense or in expansion of her liberties, and it helps the individual to resist domination by others i.e., to resist the encroachment of others on her liberties. Hamilton's timely work critically evaluates the horizons of liberties (both negative and positive conceptions) in modern day political situation where the individual autonomy in the name of negative conception of liberties can be said to have depreciated to privatized entertainments-or reduced to being apolitical. Hamilton explores how this apolitical position of individuals may lead them to un-freedoms, and how political representation empowers them.

Reflections in Three Mirrors: Complexities of Representation in a Constitutional Democracy

1999

In his Frank Strong Lecture, Professor Peter Shane responds to commentators who have embraceda particularly strong view of the unitary presidency that would legitimate virtually unlimited executive discretion in the conduct offoreign policy and public administration. Professor Shane argues insteadfor a robust version of checks and balances in which Congress enjoys a substantial role in shaping the exercise of executivepower and thejudiciary conscientiously constrains both of the elected branches to adhere to constitutional principles. He contends that only a vigorous system of checks and balances can implement the philosophy of representation embedded in the Constitution. According to Professor Shane, the Constitution embodies the view that effective representation can be accomplished only through an amalgam ofdifferent political institutions, with different constituencies, authorities, capacities, and decisional processes. He identifies a variety of possible meanings for "repr...

Representation is Democracy

Constellations, 1997

Complaints about the quality of representation appear widely in contemporary politics. Angry citizens assail representatives for acting in elitist and narrowly self-interested ways. Some critiques target the inefficiency of legislative procedures. Others blame elected officials and interest groups for creating dense, corrupt networks of influence that prevent action on crucial matters. Participatory democrats and postmodern radicals often reject representation altogether in favor of immediacy and direct control. My argument takes a different direction. I will first discuss how debates about representation took shape during the Cold War, and how the end of that conflict changes the terms of debate. Then I propose a view of representation which differs in crucial ways from the main views advocated during the Cold War. I argue that the opposite of representation is not participation. The opposite of representation is exclusion. And the opposite of participation is abstention. Rather than opposing participation to representation, we should try to improve representative practices and forms to make them more open, effective, and fair. Representation is not an unfortunate compromise between an ideal of direct democracy and messy modern realities. Representation is crucial in constituting democratic practices. "Direct" democracy is not precluded by the scale of modern politics. It is unfeasible because of core features of politics and democracy as such.

Democratizing Constituent Power

Journal of Legal Philosophy, 2023

This brief symposium contribution on constituent power contends that what often goes missing from constituent power theory is a sense of how the theory should be guided by democratic choices. Constituent power theory places the people themselves at the center of constitutional decision-making in a conceptual sense, yet often fails to do so in a genuine democratic sense. To avoid contradiction, we may need to ask the people themselves – who notionally possess the constituent power – how they understand such power. This proposition responds to recent prompts in the democratic theory literature to “democratize democratic theory”. However, while exploring the case for democratizing constituent power, the article also adopts a critical caveat. Democratization may be criticized for, among other things, allowing might to make right, or for offering too little normative guidance as to which citizen groups’ constitutional legitimacy claims should dominate. Yet the growing field of “deliberative constitutionalism” offers institutional methods that may address such worries, providing guidance as to how democratization can be conducted in a more deliberative key.

The power of political representation

Contemporary Political Theory, 2023

A Critical Exchange on representation in contemporary politics and political theory with Nadia Urbinati, Lisa Disch, Lasse Thomassen and Monica Brito Vieira, inspired by Lisa Disch's book, Making Constituencies: Representation as Mobilization in Mass Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021)