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Rousseau on Agenda-Setting and Majority Rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2003

ETHAN PUTTERMAN
ETHAN PUTTERMAN
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, National University of Singapore, AS1, Level 4, 11 Arts Link, Singapore 117570 (poleap@nus.edu.sg).
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Abstract

This essay examines the tension between agenda-setting and majority rule in the writings of one of the earliest and most original theorists of participatory democracy, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Exploring Rousseau's views on lawmaking and the complexities associated with legislative initiation, specifically, this essay challenges the notion that representatives or legislative experts in a democracy inevitably reduce popular participation to acclamation. Contrary to authors who believe that Rousseau surreptitiously devolves political power to an elected elite who predecide a legislative agenda for a passive majority to vote upon later, I argue that the philosopher delegates authority to initiate the laws to representatives without undermining either the sovereignty or the robustness of citizen self-rule. This argument reveals, in part, why contemporary participatory democracy is not inherently “immobile” owing to the self-reinforcing benefits of democratic participation within a well-balanced constitution.The author wishes to thank Mads Qvortrup, Benjamin Wong, and APSR's Reviewers.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 97 , Issue 3 , August 2003 , pp. 459 - 469
Copyright
© 2003 by the American Political Science Association

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