Rule breakers and rule makers: disrupting privileged democratic discourses
Date
2014-12-18
Authors
Law, Matthew
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Abstract
This thesis explores the tensions between constitutional forms of democracy and the practice-based understanding of democracy found among ancient Greek and recent post-structural theorists. In drawing from Plato’s discussion of the constitutions of varying political regimes, this thesis hones in on his assertion that the democratic city does not have a single constitution due to the freedom of its citizens. Contemporary understandings of democracy, such as deliberative democratic theory, have largely overlooked the kind of power embodied in democracy by focusing attention on deepening the forms of participation in existing practices of government. By drawing from a practice-based understanding of democracy, this thesis responds to the problems of exclusion produced by statist accounts of democracy. Taking the example of First Nations in Canada, the thesis asks whether new forms of protest, such as Idle No More, embody the spirit of democratic practice outlined by the ancient Greeks.
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Keywords
democratic theory, democracy, constitutionalism, post-structuralism, deliberative democracy