Democratic elections legitimize only as outcomes of prior public deliberation, not preference aggregation

Evidence

Even if the recourse to the threat potential of the superior physical force of a majority of citizens is only supposed to serve as a reserve in case the directives of those in power meet with physical resistance, this version would scarcely provide an adequate explanation of the underpinnings of a political order based on human rights. A self-determining association of free and equal legal subjects is founded on the idea of the self-empowerment of each citizen only to obey those laws that she has given herself based on a political process of opinion and will formation in which she engages with all other citizens. This demanding idea cannot be redeemed using the empiricist notions of power and freedom according to which majority decisions are legitimized by aggregating the numbers of ‘raw’ preferences of all participants. Instead, democratic elections must be understood as the final stage of a problem-solving process, that is, as the result of a joint formation of opinion and will by citizens who first form their preferences in the course of a public, more or less rational debate over how to deal with the problems requiring political regulation. — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 94

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core contrast between empiricist/aggregative and deliberative accounts of majority rule.
• XREF: The aggregative-vs-deliberative contrast engages rational choice and social choice theory directly. — connects to: Deliberative politics is constitutive of democracy, not a regulative ideal — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 54; Poll-driven politics is undemocratic because it bypasses public opinion formation — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 99; Power-legitimation must come from within democracy itself once unifying worldviews fade — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 92 (+7 more)

Related

• Deliberative politics is constitutive of democracy, not a regulative ideal (similarity 0.90)
• Because election results bind all citizens, voting should proceed from joint deliberation (similarity 0.86)
• Deliberative legitimacy requires considerations neutral across interest groups (similarity 0.83)
• Power-legitimation must come from within democracy itself once unifying worldviews fade (similarity 0.82)
• Poll-driven politics is undemocratic because it bypasses public opinion formation (similarity 0.82)
• Legitimacy requires a visible link between votes and policy, not just good results (similarity 0.81)
• Depolarization requires deliberation framed by deliberative-democracy conditions. (similarity 0.80)
• Minorities accept majority rule only under a shared constitutional consensus. (similarity 0.80)
• Voting alone does not constitute the full work of democracy (similarity 0.80)
• Legitimacy arises from inclusion plus deliberation filtered through reasons (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Because election results bind all citizens, voting should proceed from joint deliberation #corroborates (0.92) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 101
• Deliberative politics is constitutive of democracy, not a regulative ideal #expands (0.88) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 54
• Poll-driven politics is undemocratic because it bypasses public opinion formation #corroborates (0.82) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 99
• Legitimacy requires a visible link between votes and policy, not just good results #qualifies (0.75) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 98
• Power-legitimation must come from within democracy itself once unifying worldviews fade #expands (0.72) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 92