Three Models of Democratic Self-Defence: Militant Democracy and Its Alternatives
Abstract
Militant democracy relies on the idea that democracies ought to defend themselves from anti-democratic forces by constitutionalising repressive measures. We offer a criticism of this view by highlighting the exclusionary elitism on which militant democracy is built. In doing this, we consider two competing models of democratic self-defence: the procedural and the social. We suggest that the procedural model, while avoiding the exclusionary and other pitfalls of militant democracy, is detached from socio-political realities and fails to offer a comprehensive vision of democratic stability. The largely neglected social model of democratic self defence avoids this problem; it combines proceduralism’s commitment to dissensus with a social-democratic logic in the design of democratic constitutions. We argue in favour of such a social democratic self-defence and further develop this model around the guiding principle of political and social non-domination.
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Biographies
Anthoula Malkopoulou is a Researcher and Lecturer in the Department of Government, Uppsala University, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Jyväskylä. She is the author of The History of Compulsory Voting in Europe: Democracy’s Duty? (Routledge, 2015), as well as articles in History of Political Thought, Redescriptions, Constellations and Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. She has edited Equality and Representation (Routledge, 2018) and is co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory.
Ludvig Norman is a Researcher and Lecturer in the Department of Government, Uppsala University, and 2016–2017 Visiting Scholar at the Institute of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of The Mechanisms of Institutional Conflict in the European Union (Routledge, 2016), as well as articles in the European Journal of International Relations, Journal of European Public Policy, European Journal of Social Theory and Cooperation and Conflict.
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Article first published online: October 9, 2017
Issue published: May 2018
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