Domination and democratic legislation

Sean Ingham and Frank Lovett
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Sean Ingham: Department of Political Science, University of California San Diego
Frank Lovett: Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2022, vol. 21, issue 2, 97-121

Abstract: Republicans hold that people are unfree if they are dominated, that is, if others have an insufficiently constrained ability to frustrate their choices. Since legislation can frustrate individuals’ choices, republicans believe that the design of legislative institutions has consequences for individual freedom. Some have argued that if legislative institutions are democratic, then they need not be sources of domination at all. We argue this view is incorrect: the introduction of legislative authority, even if democratically organized, always creates a new site of domination. However, republicans can defend democratic procedures as the best means of minimizing the degree to which citizens are dominated, subject to the constraint of equalizing everyone’s freedom. We formulate and prove this claim within a simple model of legislative authority and domination.

Keywords: republicanism; freedom; domination; majority rule; democratic legislation. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:pophec:v:21:y:2022:i:2:p:97-121

DOI: 10.1177/1470594X211072272

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