Substantive democracy requires foregrounding difference and minority rights

Evidence

The relationship between identity, difference, and culture needs to be located within a broader reconceptualization of substantive democracy that addresses the rights of minorities and the racially marginalized. The value of such a politics is that it foregrounds the complicated issues of difference in the discourse of substantive citizenship. Moreover, it centers the conflict over relations of power, identity, and culture in the broader struggles to advance the critical imperatives of a democratic society. Primary in such struggles is a rethinking and rewriting of difference in relation to wider considerations of membership, community, and social responsibility. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 138

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘substantive democracy’ as distinct from formal democracy by centering difference, power, and marginalized rights.
• XREF: connects to: Systematic minority discrimination inevitably undermines the impartiality of the rule of law — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1382; Pluralism inside the demos contradicts the homogeneity democracy requires — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 234; Formal legal procedure protects minorities better than informal deliberation does — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 549 (+1 more)