The Antinomian Framework of Western and Non-Western Democracies – Arguing for a New (and Old) Paradigm of Democracy

The paper presents an innovative theory of Western and non-Western democracy based on a genealogical and comparative perspective on the history of political ideas, which has the potential to highlight the differences and similarities between (liberal) Western and (rather illiberal) non-Western democracies simultaneously. It therefore argues in favour of broadening the classical paradigm of democracy without neglecting the unbroken importance of the idea of liberal democracy, the latter primarily in order to prevent authoritarian and despotic regimes from being dressed up as democracies. Since international democratisation processes are mostly no longer assessed as a simple assimilation to patterns of democracy originating in the Western world, but as the authentic emergence of an autochthonous type of democracy, it is important to reconceptualise the idea of democracy in a way that allows both to retain its universal requirements, such as human rights, and to avoid the blind spots of Eurocentrism. Proceeding from comparative history of political thought, the paper demonstrates democracy as a framework for constant struggles between contradictory principles such as freedom vs. equality, popular sovereignty vs. representation, quality vs. quantity, plurality vs. social unity, individual vs. collective claims and finally universality vs. particularity. In this vein, it is emphasised that the polarity between Western and Non-Western concepts of democracy is a consistent outcome of the historical and contemporary discourse on democracy. Moreover, since any Western or non-Western democratic system that is not just a labelling scam must show high affinities to all the conflicting norms mentioned above, the parallel validity of the following disparate characteristics can be seen as a relevant indicator of an appropriate democratic paradigm: free society and welfare state institutions to guarantee social security; influence of lobby groups and "one person, one vote"; legislative power of parliaments and public debates, elections or referendums; majority rule and rule of law; pluralism of opinions or lifestyles and collective identity of the people; civil rights and the duty of solidarity; finally, the paradox that every democracy is both similar and dissimilar to other democracies because it reflects universal principles as well as the necessarily particular will of the people. Some empirical examples can illustrate that non-Western democracies do not require the translation of democratic principles into a distinctively non-Western template of democracy (Youngs 2015, 143). Instead, the general impression that non-Western societies want less individualism and more traditional social values, economic equality and consensual politics than Western ones is merely interpreted as different priorities within the same antinomian framework. This approach confirms Walter B. Gallie's (1956) assertion that democracy – like justice or the arts – is one of those essentially contested concepts lacking clear standards of both universally accepted definition and consistent discursive practice. On the other hand, democracy is at least identified as a concept with clear contours at its borders. The democratic antinomies approach therefore opposes both a transcultural minimal concept of democracy and Christopher Lord's (2004, 12) notion that the concept of democracy is only "boundary contested".