Since in the West-wing populist parties in the feed and in the EU in some post-Communist States, the so-called illiberal regimes have been established, it is increasingly thought about what constitutes democracy, actually. There are many manifestations, but some of the characteristics that are considered to be “brand essence”: This includes the rule of law, free and secret elections, separation of powers, freedom of speech, of the press and freedom of Assembly belong to. A difficulty is that these features formally remain largely intact, but the material step by step eroded, can be, without exactly specifying could be, when the border with the authoritarian form of the state is exceeded. Trumps America, you will call for all the criticism of the obvious contempt of the President for the Constitution, undoubtedly, still as a democracy. But how is it with Viktor Orbán’s Regime in Hungary, and of the PiS-party authoritarian Poland?
The eternal conflict between the welfare and freedom
Trump, Orbán and Kaczynski rely on majorities they had won in the elections; their self-empowerment as a true voice of the people, and as the executor of his will. Here, the Munich-based philosopher and political theorist Julian Nida-Rümelin starts with the practical-institutional conditions of democratic governance, he is busy in his political treatise hardly. In connection to the mathematically-guided proof of the Economics Nobel prize winner Kenneth Arrow, he explained that it has “a comprehensive, direct majority democracy, with logical consequence to the Chaos.” Another Economics Nobel laureate, Sen Indian Amartya, have proved that there was “a fundamental conflict between individual freedom and collective welfare”. Between these contradictions in a way the goal of the book is.
What is Sens conflict is concerned, Nida-Rümelin the democratic “Intuition”, that, in case of conflict, the welfare behind the Rights of the Individual are needed, which leads to a demand for a legal order, the collective decisions on the protection of minorities and individual rights limits. Now, it is exactly what the liberal democracies of the Western type of doing, as a result of a long and often painful historic process. It is also exactly what most of the wrath of the populists and their followers energized, the hold for the true representatives of the people is but. Unfortunately, it is difficult to believe that the mathematical logic of Arrows, Sens, and Nida-Rümelins convince.
dispute must be in order for consensus
As the philosopher Nida-Rümelin has not only Arrows arrows against the majority decisions in the quiver; he also attracts colleagues from Aristotle through Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau up to John Rawls in order to formulate terms of his rational theory of Democracy. Because it’s the virtuous citizen, rather, the Polis-supporting Ethos of the civil society, and in modern times, the social contract theory. They form the basis of a “consensus of a higher order” that ensures the legitimacy of democracy. The runs, in a to the Böckenförde Paradox attached also rejected the formulation, to the fact that democracy is based on principles that could not guarantee even.
to Add to the “Deliberation” is used as “the core of democratic practice”, as a “permanent monitoring and control of legislation and of government action”. Even if it leads to dispute, it is legitimated and delimited by the “consensus of a higher order”, which materialized in the institutions and procedures of democratic systems. This is, transposed it into the language of constitutional doctrine, not a new one, and it corresponds with smears here and there, also good and normal democratic practice.
