Spangler Blog Post 8

 

In Chapter 1 of When the State Speaks, What Should It Say?, Brettschneider outlines the two guiding ideals value democracy, these ideals being the principle of public relevance and democratic persuasion. The principle of public relevance claims that “personal beliefs and actions should be in accordance with public values to the extent that private life affects the ability of citizens to function in a society and see others as free and equal citizens,” (29). The reason for rights must be defended through state expression, and the areas in which this expression is legitimate and needed are justified by the principle of public relevance. In addressing this principle, he considers the common special analogy of the public and private ‘spheres.’ He claims that this metaphor is flawed because it claims that there are areas, like the private sphere, in which the state has neither the obligation nor authority to act (27).

This is an important point because it is often claimed that a weakness of democratic ideals, and their necessity to allow for ideas that conflict against these ideas, prevent democratic states from being able to protect their populaces from being radicalized against democratic ideals. An example of this is the interwar Weimar Germany, that elected to power the Nazi party that then revoked the democratic processes that put them in power (16). Brettschneider makes the important distinction that “regardless of the empirical beliefs of the persons that occupy any particular democracy, there exists a core set of values fundamental to the democratic ideal itself,” (49). This core set of values is underpinned by the concept of free and equal citizenship. Withing value democracy, this idea centers around the idea that “all citizens have equal status under the law,” (31). Thus, Brettschneider claims, the state has a responsibility to defend this ideal against others, giving the state solid ground upon which to act under the principle of public relevance. The state's duty one of maintenance, ensuring that these principles remain intact, actively seeking to work out the kinks in the current model, and actively responding to changes in the social climate of the time.

However, when explaining why the free and equal citizen should adopt these rights, he considers the example of “a society in which all the laws are legitimate, but 90% of citizens do not endorse the principles for these rights,” (38). He argues that despite the legislature acting to ensure the rights of citizens, the state that ignores the discriminatory beliefs of its constituents is delegitimizing itself. Democratic congruence is the concept that democratic legitimacy is not only based on state protection of democratic rights but “also on democratic endorsement,” (38). He goes on to claim that this gap can be bridged by means of democratic persuasion. However, when we consider the current state of the US and its failure to address these principles from its foundation, the use of democratic persuasion seems insufficient.

Brettschneider’s maintenance-based approach seems to fall apart when one realizes that there was never anything to maintain. When the populace is fundamentally misguided to begin with, the goal should be to ensure this sort of justified legislation. He claims that you cannot say the state is “governed by the citizens when it is ruled by an elite opinion which is not widely shared,” (38). But if circumstances dictate that the citizens are not free and equal, as they have in the US, then there is already an inherent elite, and, whether they understand they are elite or not, they will likely not vote for legislation that puts them in a lower position that more equal to everyone else. Brettschneider seems almost scared to declare that free and equal citizenship is an inherently elite opinion, justified above others. If those positions of power cater to popular opinion that conflicts with free and equal citizenship, they are simply wasting the opportunity of being in a position of power. Only by ensuring that citizens are free and equal first, regardless of the discriminatory views of the populace, can democratic persuasion have the effect which he claims it will.