Democracy and the Boundary Problems of Political Legitimacy

This paper draws attention to one aspect that has thus far escaped systematic scrutiny in the theoretical literature on political legitimacy, namely, functions. It does so by exploring the idea that the content and justification of a principle of political legitimacy may be dependent on the function that an entity is supposed to perform (e.g. decision-making, implementation, monitoring). More specifically, the aim is twofold. First, I develop a function-sensitive account of political legitimacy consisting of five regulative principles together constituting a minimalist view of political legitimacy. Second, I demonstrate why these principles incorporate different criteria of inclusion depending on their function in the overall political process. The so-called boundary problem in democratic theory usually refers to the problem of who should be included in the political decision-making. Hence it treats perhaps the most central function in the political process, namely, the decision-making. Two allegedly competing criteria of inclusion predominate in this debate: the so-called ’all-affected interests principle’ and the ’all subjected principle’. However, from a function-sensitive viewpoint, it is argued that these two criteria are compatible since they are justified vis-à-vis different functions. Three criteria of inclusion are incorporated into the defended function-sensitive account: the principle that regulates political decision-making generally takes the form of an all-affected interests principle for deciding who is rightfully included; the principle that regulates law-making specifically takes the form of an all subjected principle; and the principle regulating the exercise of political power generally – hence not only decision-making but also, for example, implementation and enforcement – also takes the form of an all-affected interests principle.