https://theloop.ecpr.eu/the-need-for-critical-democratic-realism/
Adrian Bua highlights an issue to which the field of democratic theory has poor response. Indeed, it's a point that Iris Marion Young, Markus Pausch, Remi Chukwude Okeke, and Kei Nishiyama, among many other notables, have made: why is there so little focus on the social when it comes to where we study democracy?
For example, Bua focuses on the workplace and the politics of economics (similar to Nancy Fraser, Colin Hay, Roberto Frega, Tom Malleson, Carole Pateman, etc); Iris Marion Young made major contributions to the experience of the female individual in society (this leads me to think, as well, of Kathleen McCrudden-Illert's work on women thinkers in history but also Anna Drake's work on the experiences of racialized minorities in electoral democracies today); Markus Pausch writes of rebellion in the family or at work or school relying on Albert Camus (which makes me think of James E. Caraway); Okeke focuses on the political psychology of private citizens (similar to Fathali Moghaddam and Hubert Hermans); and Kei Nishiyama writes about the rights of children in many different social structures (similar to John Wall).
All of these examples do not centre the state, nor political parties, or governments. If anything, many intentionally work against these political subjects in their respective quests to understand democracy in the social, and not formally political, realm.
And yet, as far as I can see, this social approach to democracy research is in the minority.
Why is that the case?
https://theloop.ecpr.eu/the-need-for-critical-democratic-realism/
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