John Rawls ir Chantal Mouffe demokratijos projektų palyginimas /

Democratic theories face a difficult paradox: on one side, they are interested in providing sufficient basis for democratic institutions and ensure civil trust in them. However, is it possible to gain trust from civil society if the society itself is full of unavoidable political conflicts that reduces any chances of wide and inclusive consensus towards basic democratic principles? One of the main liberal theorists of XX century, John Rawls, has suggested seeking social unity by raising an idea of an overlapping consensus not on moral principles, but on political ones. Providing fair equal circumstances for initial position, Rawls ensured that rational participants of initial position would come up to the most rational and fair principles of justices. These principles would suit every different reasonable person as it would in no way interfere with moral, religious or philosophical views. However, consensus on political principles of justice received provocative critique from radical democratic theorists who suggested an alternative to political liberalism – agonistic democratic theory. Most known author of such a theory, Chantal Mouffe, based her suggestion on Carl Schmitt works on the political. Agonism makes a distinction on the politics and the political, suggesting that political liberalism seeks to eliminate the political dimension. Agonism is based suggest a democracy which would not seek a consensus and would be based on clear political conflicts instead. In such a democracy, adversaries would compete against each other, all trying to win the right to hegemony – right to set their ideological rules to the public. In such a case, conflicts would be clear ant visible instead of being hidden as in political liberalism. However, it was noticed, that both democratic theorists, John Rawls and Chantal Mouffe, base their theories on certain kind of liberal assumptions, therefore they do not avoid internal disagreements. John Rawls, despite all his attempts to offer neutral and minimal democratic theory, cannot avoid liberal assumptions, therefore he cannot expect consensus on his principles. Mouffe, on the other hand, does not question Rawls liberal principles and sets liberal limitations in the conflict between adversaries.

Grantor dc:publisher

Institutional Repository of Vilnius University

Year dc:date

2016

Author dc:creator

• Gardauskaitė, Milda,

Contributors dc:contributor

• Karalius, Gintas

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language

lit

Repository record dc:identifier

https://repository.vu.lt/VU:ELABAETD35558517&prefLang=en_US

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vu.lt:elaba:35558517