The Demos in Democratic Practice: New Perspectives on the Boundary Problem

The boundaries of the demos – the people entitled to participation within a given political unit – has resurfaced as an important question in recent democratic theory due to political developments (increasing migration, new forms of multi-level governance, developments in international law etc.) that put pressure on existing legal frameworks for citizenship and political rights as well as on traditional understandings of democratic legitimacy. As recent contributions testify, there is little agreement on the basic normative and conceptual criteria for demos membership. While the principles for democratic inclusion remain controversial, there is a growing scholarship that maps the implications of boundary problems for democratic practice. This Section brings together scholars with an interest in both theoretical and empirical aspects of the boundary problem. Panels will address boundary problems in democratic practice with a focus on over-exclusion or over-inclusion in contemporary democracies, exclusion from political rights of vulnerable or otherwise marginal groups such as people with disabilities and criminal offenders and residency requirements for political rights and the challenge of nomadism.