Addressing Injustices in Democratic Politics: Institutional and Non-Ideal Perspectives

Abstract

The relationship between democracy and justice has been a hotly debated topic especially at the ideal-theoretical philosophical level. In the more applied and empirically-oriented parts of political theory, however, whether democracy reliably promotes justice has either been an axiomatic assumption or considered beside the point. In this panel, we therefore turn around the question: under realistic assumptions, what would a democratic procedure have to be able to do in order to reliably address and remove injustices in society, and are there any possible institutional configurations that do fulfil these functionalities? Can institutional provisions be sufficient, or is something like a shared ethos necessary for democratic politics effectively to uncover and target injustices? For instance, we may assume that an injustice-removal procedure would have to reliably bring minority concerns onto the political agenda, to develop solutions and build support to address the concern, and effectively monitor further developments of the issue. It is clear that pure majority rule does not necessarily fulfil these functions. Can democratic justice-promotion even work in polarized societies? In contrast to approaches starting out from a specific theory of justice, this perspective can potentially enable us to find criteria to compare different institutional instantiations and practices of democracy according to common standards. We can also draw from historical episodes of injustice-removal within democratic systems (e.g. the abolition of slavery, the introduction of a welfare state, etc.) and try to draw out which, if any conditions were present that made democracy work for justice.