Democracy: Two Truncated Definitions

Democracy :   

• as regulative ideal
• as aspirational ideal
• as empty space
• as end of the body politic

• in need of reform
• to come
• inadequate to the task (what task?)

• deliberative
• radical
• liberal
• procedural

Attempts at Definition:

1. The form of government most constituted by the contesting of its content.
2. Or alternately, the form of government that best maintains the hyphen separating the ethico from the political.

Comments

[Adam Thurschwell]

Ken, I like both your definitions (actually I think they're almost the same). Can I vote for both, or is that against the rules?

[Jodi]

Ken--devil's advocate on one point: is it possible that monarchy could be the form of government that best maintains the hyphen? We might think in terms of Kantorwitz and the King's two bodies, where the physical body is politics and the emphemeral body is the ethical; or, we might think this with respect to Hegel where the very point of the monarch is to dot the i's and say "I will", providing the political anchor for ethical life.