The Democracy of Appropriation

This concluding chapter discusses recent developments in democratic legitimacy. It first examines the changing democratic ideals, which have since moved from a democracy of identification to a democracy of appropriation. The main aspects of a democracy of appropriation are: the role of distrust, the agencies of indirect democracy, and the insistence that leaders conduct themselves democratically constrains their actions in ways independent of their mode of selection. From here, the chapter explores the threat of “unpolitical democracy” and then reflects on the history of democracy, briefly tracing its development over the years as well as the recent revival of a range of procedures and institutions that had preceded the advent of universal suffrage.

Appropriation · Democracy · Distrust · Epistemology · Legitimacy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Representative democracy · Sociology · Universal suffrage · Law · Philosophy · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Political Economy and Marxism