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Democratic Ethos: A Theory of Informal Politics

ABSTRACT: Any defensible democratic ideal places requirements on informal, everyday life, not just on formal state institutions. In this dissertation, I investigate the demands democracy places on extra-institutional social life, an area often neglected by theorists. Understandings of how to regard or act toward others pervade social life. Such background phenomena, which usually lack institutional enforcement and backing, include social norms, shared presuppositions, and customs. These constitute what I call the informal sphere. Some, but not all, of these informal social phenomena affect individuals’ democratic citizenship. Those with such significance, I call matters of democratic informal politics.

Normative democratic theory must generate ideals to guide our judgments about the informal sphere. I pursue this project in part I by articulating an understanding of the informal sphere that differs from communitarian theories and theories reliant upon civic virtue. In part II, I develop democratic ideals for the informal sphere by engaging with the deliberative democratic theories of John Rawls, Philip Pettit, and Jürgen Habermas. I argue that all three theories should incorporate a commitment to broad forms of participation in the informal sphere. Next, I explore which social institutions and processes can help realize adequate democratic informal politics. Drawing on feminist discussions of deliberative democracy, I develop what I call a reciprocal approach to democratic informal politics. This approach contrasts with that of theorists who believe formal institutions are sufficient to produce the kind of informal sphere democracy requires. I argue that Rawlsians should adopt a reciprocal approach and that Habermas’s version of it can escape his critics’ objections. I then defend Habermasian constitutional patriotic solidarity as an attractive democratic ideal for the informal sphere, demonstrating how it fills a gap in Pettit’s theory. Constitutional patriotism seeks to develop solidarity through shared allegiance to a constitutional project. It allows for diverse forms of life in the informal sphere, while supporting a common constitutional project that joins them in a loose social union. To prevent problems in the informal sphere from undermining democracy, formal and informal processes must work together reciprocally to enable constitutional patriotism.