The Uneasy Alliance between Consensus and Democracy

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6401015
AutoresGeorge Vasilev (0000-0002-1318-8992, autor de correspondencia)
Año2015
Volumen77
Número1
Páginas73-98
Fecha de publicación2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670514000849
OpenAlexW2003602037
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias 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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