Thursday seminar: BIFD Sandrine Baume + BIFD Nana Akua Anyidoho
The Paradox of Militant Democracy Through the Lens of Dirty Hands
by Sandrine Baume
The idea that democracy may need to protect itself against actors seeking to undermine it from within lies at the heart of militant democracy. Yet militant democracy raises a fundamental normative problem: how can democracies defend themselves against forces exploiting democratic rights for antidemocratic purposes without themselves violating those rights? This tension has been described as the “paradox of democratic self-injury.” Existing scholarship has generally adopted two contrasting positions. Some regard the paradox as insurmountable and therefore reject militant measures as incompatible with democratic principles. Others consider it surmountable, apparent, or essentially pragmatic, and argue that suitably constrained militant measures can be justified.
This paper develops a third approach by interpreting the paradox of democratic self-injury as a “dirty hands” scenario. Such scenarios involve genuine moral conflicts in which competing values cannot be fully reconciled. Militant democracy, we argue, confronts democracies with a conflict between political self-determination, requiring free political competition, and the preservation of stable democratic institutions, which may require restricting that competition. This perspective acknowledges the genuine moral costs of militant measures while allowing for their qualified justification. It also implies that such measures require compelling evidence of a serious threat to democratic institutions and must remain sensitive to the moral risks inherent in defending democracy.
Bio
Sandrine Baume is a Full Professor at the University of Lausanne. Her research lies at the intersection of democratic theory and the history of political thought. She has focused in particular on institutions (such as constitutional courts), key actors (such as political parties), principles (including transparency and democratic self-defence), and practices (such as political compromise). Her extensive knowledge of legal scholars from the Weimar Republic has played a pivotal role in shaping her research and publications.
More recently, she has broadened her research to examine the political competence of people with intellectual disabilities, with particular attention to the role that the concept of autonomy plays in this debate.
Title TBC
by Nana Akua Anyidoho
Bio
Nana Akua Anyidoho is a researcher in social policy and social development at the University of Ghana. She is interested in the ways in which marginalized social groups (in particular, young people and women) navigate unfavourable policy structures in their struggles for social and economic rights. Her research focuses on higher education policy, youth and women’s employment, with emphasis on themes of agency, participation and inclusion.