Epistemic fallacies in democratic theory

Abstract

An extensive quantity of literature highlights democracies' contested nature and stresses the need to find novel solutions and democratic innovation. Research in this field has proliferated thematically and geographically, with scholars exploring various conceptualizations of democracy and research methodologies. However, a political theory approach to democracy may lead to reproducing established knowledge and marginalising other meanings of democracy found in non- or less-recognised sources. This does not apply solely to studies dealing with liberal democracy but also includes studies that go beyond the liberal model. Mainstreaming certain versions of knowledge, overgeneralization, and selective generalization are three key issues that reduce our perspective on democratic theory. Such issues hamper our ability to conceive of democracy in new and inventive ways within democratic theory. In general, we can assert that knowledge production is flawed, restricts our understanding of reality, and constrains our horizons. Therefore, we need a recursive assessment of existing notions of democracy. To address this issue, this panel seeks papers that analyse and discuss how epistemic fallacies influence the creation of knowledge in democratic theory and potentially limit the ways we understand and observe instances of democracy. There is a need to look at specific epistemic mechanisms and practices that lead to these errors. Beyond mainstreaming, overgeneralization, and selective generalization, there may be other issues that require attention if we want to observe and describe democracy in more inclusive ways. We encourage contributions that focus on, but are not limited to the following topics:  critique of knowledge production in democratic theory;  critique of existing/established notions of democracy, as exclusive constructs;  patterns of generalisation/mainstreaming in democratic theory;  countermeasures for epistemic fallacies;  how epistemic limitations (fallacies) influence the way we makes sense and observe democracy.

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