Democratie: Compromis, consensus en confrontatie

In The Democratic Paradox, Chantal Mouffe explains the global rise of populism today in terms of the hegemony of liberal democratic philosophy and practice until the turn of the millennium. The democratic paradox consists of a tension between, on the one hand, the principles of popular sovereignty and equality and, on the other hand, individual freedoms and human rights. This contradiction goes back to what Benjamin Constant characterised as the contradiction between the ‘freedom of the Ancients’ and the ‘freedom of the Moderns’. The first concept of freedom can be recognised primarily in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the second mainly in that of John Locke. In this article, I offer an overview of how different models explain, understand, and assess this contradiction at the heart of liberal democracy. In addition to the classical doctrine of democracy, I describe the aggregative, deliberative, and agonistic models of democracy.