Most vaunted democratic goods are not inherent to popular rule

Evidence

Over the centuries, of course, there have been many accounts of democracy’s superiority and advantages over other political forms. However, most of them have little or nothing to do with popular rule and instead attribute features to democracy that are not inherent to it: equality, liberty, rights or civil liberties, individuality, tolerance, equal opportunity, inclusiveness, openness, proceduralism, the rule of law, peaceful conflict resolution and change. None of these belong exclusively to democracy defined as rule of the people. Each could be promulgated or secured by nondemocratic regimes. Moreover, any demos could affirm one or more of the following: extreme inequality; invasive policing and surveillance; limited or nonsupervenient rights; nonuniversal rights; severe restrictions on speech, assembly and worship; conformism; intolerance; exclusions or persecutions of targeted peoples and practices; rule by experts or bureaucrats; war, colonialism, or a domestically militarized society. Many have done so. It will not do to say that such phenomena are undemocratic, if the demos willed or sanctioned them. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 405

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The inversion — that a demos can democratically will illiberal outcomes, so calling them ‘undemocratic’ fails — collapses standard liberal-democratic conflations.
• XREF: connects to: Democracy minimally requires popular authorization of laws and shared power — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 362; Modernity and democracy are contested concepts, not checkable off-the-shelf goods — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 31; Liberal democratic values are ambiguous and can legitimize domination — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice: Society,…, 114 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Modernity and democracy are contested concepts, not checkable off-the-shelf goods #corroborates (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 31
• Liberal democratic values are ambiguous and can legitimize domination #qualifies (0.78) — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 114