Because election results bind all citizens, voting should proceed from joint deliberation

Evidence

For the ‘pluralist’ approach, the claim of a democratic constitution is sufficiently fulfilled with the procedure of ‘free elections’, because the statistical aggregation of votes ensures that each citizen’s vote is counted equally, hence fairly, and in this formal sense comes ‘into play’. This minimalist reading ignores the question of how the democratic vote comes about. In general elections, however, the summation and distribution of individual votes determines which among the competing forces should govern the country and with which declared objectives. The result, therefore, regardless of the fact that it is composed of many autonomously cast individual votes, concerns all of the citizens in common; it is ‘their’ government to which the voters have bound themselves with their vote. Since each individual already expects such an institutional result – i.e. one that has far-reaching consequences for all citizens alike – when she casts her vote, it would only be consistent if the individual election decisions had proceeded from a corresponding, i.e. joint, political decision-making process. — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 101

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The argument that the collective-binding nature of the result retroactively imposes a deliberative duty on the individual vote is a subtle normative inversion worth sitting with.
• XREF: Reverses the pluralist claim about private voting; connects to Rousseau’s general will and deliberative theories of aggregation (Elster). — connects to: Democratic elections legitimize only as outcomes of prior public deliberation, not preference aggregation — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 94; Voting alone does not constitute the full work of democracy — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 616; Advocates must manufacture collective attention before issues reach ballots (+2 more)

Related

• Democratic elections legitimize only as outcomes of prior public deliberation, not preference aggregation (similarity 0.86)
• Voting alone does not constitute the full work of democracy (similarity 0.84)
• Deliberative politics is constitutive of democracy, not a regulative ideal (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Deliberative politics is constitutive of democracy, not a regulative ideal #corroborates (0.90) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 54
• Voting alone does not constitute the full work of democracy #expands (0.78) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 616
• Negative campaigns spur voter deliberation while positive ones merely mobilize #corroborates (0.74)
• Advocates must manufacture collective attention before issues reach ballots #complicates (0.72)