The Uneasy Alliance between Consensus and Democracy

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6401015
AutoresGeorge Vasilev (0000-0002-1318-8992, autor correspondente)
Ano2015
Volume77
Fascículo1
Páginas73-98
Data de publicação2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670514000849
OpenAlexW2003602037
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas37

Consensus both serves and threatens democratic inclusion. On the one hand it provides the means for individuals to will in common. On the other hand, it can impose assimilatory pressures that marginalize perspectives at odds with the prevailing point of view. Agonists have responded to this tension with a call to abandon consensus-oriented politics, contending an adversarial democracy more credibly advances inclusionary and egalitarian goals. I argue this wholesale rejection of consensus is unsustainable from the very pluralist perspective agonists wish to promote. In place of the view of consensus as an unattainable and undesirable absolute, I put forward an understanding of it as a matter of degree. I contend this understanding better captures the complexity of human relations and allows us to distinguish the potential accomplishments of consensus from its potential hazards

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