From Self-Legislation to Self-Determination: Democracy and the New Circumstances of Politics

Abstract

It is a distinctive feature of recent political order that democracy is no longer confined to the nation state. Democracy is now applied in complex, pluralist, and globalized settings. These settings are characterized by extensive, multiple and overlapping constituencies. Here we might think of the significance of these developments for self-determining individuals, who are able to influence those interdependencies that are problematic, such as domination and other ways in which self-determination can be undermined. Democracy serves to delegate power to higher and more complex units of decision-making organized around self-determination. Some of these units have generative properties, in the sense that they make it possible for deliberation to occur, without undermining self-determination. Contestability is part of self-determination, where this goes along with forums with the purpose of determining binding norms. In this way, forms of politics emerge based on the rights and powers of self-determining democratic citizens.