Abstract
One of the oldest and most important debates in liberal democratic regimes involves the alleged tension between democracy and rights. Can majoritarianism easily co-exist with respect for individual liberty and self-determination? From Tocqueville’s worries about the “tyranny of the majority” to J.S. Mill’s concerns about the fate of freedom of thought and expression in democratic societies, from Alexander Bickel’s jurisprudence to contemporary developments post-Arab Spring, this question has been very much with us. Scholars of law and the humanities have regularly engaged this question and offered illuminating descriptive and normative accounts of how it is/might be resolved.
In this issue we take the unusual step of offering a set of commentaries on a single book, Corey Brettschneider’s Democratic Rights: The Substance of Self-Government. Brettschneider’s book draws “on the work of John Rawls and deliberative democrats such as Jürgen Habermas, he demonstrates that such rights are essential components of – rather than constraints on – an ideal democracy. Thus, while defenders of the democratic ideal rightly seek the power of all to participate, they should also demand the rights that are the substance of self-government.” In so doing he offers a bracing challenge to conventional wisdom.