Three faces of the legitimacy crisis of liberal democracy : identity, rationality and universality
Author
Barkçin, Savaş Ş.
Advisor
Keyman, E. Fuat
Date
2001Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
The thesis investigates the question of legitimacy crisis of liberal democracy as
manifested by the processes, debates, concepts, popular demands and emerging
new identities and forms of politics along the globalization phenomenon. It argues
that this crisis is situated in three principal sites of the liberal theoretical and
normative conceptualization: identity, rationality and universality.
Then a dialogical and thematic reading is carried out among various theoretical
positions in order to find out whether the current legitimacy crisis is an ephemeral
or conjunctural development or rather it is a crisis which is exacerbated by the
basic assumptions, modalities and configurations provided by the liberal
democratic discourse. These positions are classical liberalism, the Rawlsian
perspective and the communitarians, Habermas and the theory of deliberative
democracy, and finally radical democracy and agonistic democracy approach
within it. All these theoretical positions are critically presented and evaluated on
the basis of their capacity to offer alternatives for the legitimacy crisis and for the
reconstruction of the democratic legitimacy.
In the final chapter, general findings, problems and prospects are introduced and
certain strategies and modalities of theorization for political science are suggested
which would both strengthen democratic participation and reconstitute the
democratic legitimacy based on the intrinsic relationship between politics and
ethics which has been largely ignored in the liberal democratic thought.