Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

example, involve a real devolution of power to nonparliamentary
organizations and groups. When this happens, those who vote in the
normal elections but are not involved in the participatory projects
will be right to judge that their votes in regular elections have been
diminished in value.
4. Choosing among democratic virtues?
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DEMOCRACY TODAY
Theories of democracy gain little by targeting allegedly minimal models.
This approach radically understates the political and cultural
requirements of basic democratic practices. It allows proponents of
various kinds of allegedly richer democracy to avoid analyzing relations
among democratic virtues. They can simply praise the ones
they prefer. Rather than contrasting minimal and full democracy we
need to appreciate the challenging problems that appear as soon as we
presume that democratic virtues collide and often conflict. We do not
really understand many of these relations. Relations among democratic
virtues vary widely at higher levels, and we should presume that many
of the relations are complex and not necessarily linear. This creates
many opportunities for research and for practical efforts.
How should we think about choosing among forms of democracy
and among different levels of the main democratic virtues? I conclude
with four points, based on the idea that sustaining democracy is a
valid aim.
First, we should recognize a strong constraint. In normative terms
it is undesirable to go below a basic level as regards any of the main
democratic virtues. Models that propose to give up one or more in
order to maximize another allegedly essential virtue should be regarded
with great skepticism.
Second, we should resist choices about relations among virtues that
seem likely to generate grave political instability which could plausibly
jeopardize the maintenance of democratic institutions.
Third, choices are contextual. Democracy is always somewhere.
Choosing forms of democracy and relations among democratic virtues
should consider how different paths will be more or less workable
given the political and social history and main features of the country