Agonistic Pluralism and Competitive Model of Democracy: Problems of Normative Justification

IF 2.9 1区 哲学 Q1 ETHICS Journal of Political Philosophy Pub Date : 2023-03-20 DOI:10.30570/2078-5089-2023-108-1-6-24
N. A. Shaveko
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Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the main tenets of the theory of competitive democracy and its underlying principle of agonistic pluralism, which have become quite widespread among the Western political philosophers in the recent years. The author identifies two main approaches to the normative substantiation of the value of democratic competition. The first approach is based on the postulate about the importance of maintaining the diversity of public discourses and, therefore, inadmissibility of giving one of them the status of dominant or preferred. The second approach emphasizes the importance of constantly challenging the established power relations. Having demonstrated serious flaws in these approaches, one of which, in fact, promotes diversity for the sake of diversity, and the other — variability for the sake of variability, the author turns to the strategy of justifying competitive democracy that focuses on providing all stakeholders with an equal opportunity to change the existing power relations. In his estimation, this strategy, which largely overcomes the shortcomings of the above mentioned approaches, also has its weaknesses related to (1) the difficulty of disentangling between unequal opportunities for transforming power mechanisms and other social inequalities, (2) the unattainability of the complete equality of opportunities, and (3) the ambiguous relationship between the value of the opportunity to define and abolish social restrictions (political equality) and other values (in particular, the so-called intrinsic equality). A special attention in the article is paid to the identification of the deep value foundations of agonistic pluralism. The author notices that advocates of agonism want to evade clarification of these foundations and states that agonistic pluralism as the highest moral basis of politics is highly doubtful, while the part of the concept that is acceptable does not represent anything fundamentally new. According to his conclusion, all this speaks of the purely instrumental nature of this principle, and thus of its relative importance in comparison with those ideals that it intends to achieve.
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竞争的多元主义与民主的竞争模式:规范正当化的问题
本文分析了近年来在西方政治哲学家中广为流传的竞争民主理论的主要原则及其基本原则——竞争多元主义。作者确定了民主竞争价值的规范性实证的两种主要途径。第一种方法是基于保持公共话语多样性的重要性的假设,因此,不允许给予其中一种主导或优先地位。第二种方法强调不断挑战既定权力关系的重要性。在证明了这些方法的严重缺陷之后,作者转向了为竞争民主辩护的策略,该策略的重点是为所有利益相关者提供改变现有权力关系的平等机会。在他看来,这一策略在很大程度上克服了上述方法的缺点,但也有其弱点,涉及:(1)难以将权力机制转化的不平等机会与其他社会不平等区分开来;(2)不可能实现完全的机会平等;(3)定义和废除社会限制的机会价值(政治平等)与其他价值(特别是所谓的内在平等)之间的模糊关系。本文特别关注的是对对抗多元主义的深层价值基础的识别。作者注意到,斗争主义的倡导者想要回避对这些基础的澄清,并指出斗争主义的多元主义作为政治的最高道德基础是非常值得怀疑的,而概念中可接受的部分并不代表任何新的东西。根据他的结论,所有这些都说明了这一原则的纯粹工具性质,从而说明了它与它打算实现的那些理想相比的相对重要性。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
4.10
自引率
5.60%
发文量
17
期刊介绍: The Journal of Political Philosophy is an international journal devoted to the study of theoretical issues arising out of moral, legal and political life. It welcomes, and hopes to foster, work cutting across a variety of disciplinary concerns, among them philosophy, sociology, history, economics and political science. The journal encourages new approaches, including (but not limited to): feminism; environmentalism; critical theory, post-modernism and analytical Marxism; social and public choice theory; law and economics, critical legal studies and critical race studies; and game theoretic, socio-biological and anthropological approaches to politics. It also welcomes work in the history of political thought which builds to a larger philosophical point and work in the philosophy of the social sciences and applied ethics with broader political implications. Featuring a distinguished editorial board from major centres of thought from around the globe, the journal draws equally upon the work of non-philosophers and philosophers and provides a forum of debate between disparate factions who usually keep to their own separate journals.
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