O professor de ciência política da Duke University Alexander Kirshner lançou este mês pela Yale Press. "A Theory of Militant Democracy: The Ethics of Combatting Political Extremism". No livro Kirshner enfrenta um problema espinhoso para qualquer defensor da democracia: o que fazer, democraticamente, com elementos políticos antidemocraticos? Kirshner defende a inclusão política desses elementos como forma de mitigar seu extremismo e impedir o acesso a vias extra-institucionais. A exclusão dos direitos políticos pode ser uma política tão extremista (e injusta) quanto a adesão à concepções de bem radicais. Abaixo, segue um working paper de Kirshner sobre o assunto e uma descrição resumida do livro pelo próprio autor.
A Theory of Militant Democracy: The Ethics of Cambatting Political Extremism
Alexander Kirshner
The book considers how pro-democratic forces can safeguard representative government from anti-democratic groups. By granting rights of participation to groups that do not share democratic values, democracies may endanger the very rights they have granted; but denying these rights may also undermine democratic values. New and unstable regimes often confront this difficulty and those regimes frequently end up banning significant political parties and restricting participation.
In the book, I argue that even those who reject democracy, or related values, possess legitimate interests in participation and that respecting their interests poses challenging normative and practical dilemmas for democrats. To come to grips with those dilemmas, I outline a set of principles for determining when one may reasonably refuse rights of participation. Rather than defending an ideological standard (e.g. Is someone a democrat? Are a party’s members adherents of a particular religion?), I argue that interventions in the democratic process, like a party ban, should only be undertaken when individuals violate or endanger the rights of others.
I develop and defend my approach to militant democracy through a number of real-world examples, ranging from the far-right British Nationalist Party to Turkey’s Islamist Welfare Party to America’s Democratic Party during Reconstruction. The book also considers the relationship of militant democracy to theories of democracy, free speech, judicial review, just war, and partisanship, among others topics.
