Contestation, not collective will, legitimately constrains discretionary power.

Evidence

Most contemporary civic republicans reject the populist model of democracy according to which all public laws and policies must express the collective will of the people in order to be considered legitimate. Instead, they generally endorse some form of “qualified populism” (Richardson 2002) or “contestatory democracy” (Pettit 1997, 1999, 2001; Maynor 2003). Roughly speaking, the idea is that properly-designed democratic institutions should give citizens the effective opportunity to contest the decisions of their representatives. This possibility of contestation will make government agents wielding discretionary authority answerable to a public understanding of the goals or ends they are meant to serve and the means they are permitted to employ. — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 59

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts with deliberative-democracy and majoritarian models; echoes the republican/liberal liberty debates one often reads alongside (e.g., Pettit’s non-domination vs. Berlin’s negative liberty). — connects to: Delegated discretionary authority need not reduce freedom when properly constrained — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 31; Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy; Power creates freedom, not the other way around. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 273 (+7 more)
• DEFINE: Defines contestatory democracy as an alternative to populist collective-will models of legitimacy.
• corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 59

Related

• Legitimacy of state power rests on contestability, not actual consent (similarity 0.84)
• Non-arbitrary governance needs contestability rather than actual consent (similarity 0.82)
• Contestatory democracy cultivates the civic virtue the state needs (similarity 0.81)
• Freedom as nondomination yields radical policies and democracy through contestability rather than consent (similarity 0.80)
• Delegated discretionary authority need not reduce freedom when properly constrained (similarity 0.79)
• Pure majoritarian democracy enables the very arbitrary power republicans oppose (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy #expands (0.80)
• Power creates freedom, not the other way around. #contradicts (0.80) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 273
• Mystified arbitrary power becomes immune to legal restraint #complicates (0.78) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 628
• Inevitability rhetoric is a fraud that disables resistance to power #complicates (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 704
• Reform-minded dissent within a system strengthens rather than threatens it #corroborates (0.72)
• An ultimate power to decide generates its own norms and cannot be trusted #corroborates (0.70)
• Opposition can contest means without rejecting a regime’s ends #responds-to (0.70)