Talisse’s overdoing democracy and the inevitability of conflict

Catarina Dutilh Novaes*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Overdoing Democracy is an important contribution to the literature on (deliberative) democracy, as it offers a sobering diagnosis of the risks and pitfalls of (overdoing) democracy in the form of internal critique. But the book does not go far enough in its diagnosis because it is not sufficiently critical towards some of the basic assumptions of deliberative conceptions of democracy. In particular, Talisse does not sufficiently attend to the inevitable power struggles in a society, where different groups and individuals must protect their own (often conflicting) interests instead of working towards a ‘common good.’ In this essay, I contrast two different visions of democracy and politics, one based on ideals of consensus and cooperation, and another on the inevitability of perennial conflict. I then briefly present an alternative to deliberative conceptions of democracy that has gained traction in recent decades, known as agonism. Next, I offer a short reconstruction of Talisse’s proposal, and finally I sketch a critical assessment of some of his main claims and assumptions from an agonistic perspective.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)155-171
Number of pages17
JournalJOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH
Volume46
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgements: Thanks to the SEA team for discussions and feedback on the paper: Elias Anttila, Caglar Dede, Hein Duijf, Silvia Ivani, Thirza Lagewaard, Colin Rittberg, Merel Talbi. This research is supported by grant 771074—SEA from the European Research Council.

Publisher Copyright:
© Philosophy Documentation Center, Catarina Dutilh Novaes

Keywords

  • Agonism
  • Conflict
  • Consensus
  • Deliberation

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