Book Review: Protecting Democracy in Europe,by Theuns,Tom

An ongoing crisis of democracy in the European Union unites many of the most urgent themes in recent democratic theory. The emergence of illiberal, populist parties with wide social support has led to democratic backsliding in several EU member states, provoking many democratic theorists to investigate the possibilities of (so-called) militant democracy and other techniques of institutional consolidation and self-defense. ¹ Crisis-driven democratic theory is becoming pervasive and is leading to a shift in focus. Across the field, democratic theorists have reoriented their efforts from comparing ideal models of democracy to the more fundamental task of evaluating and justifying democracy itself. ²

Disenchantment with democracy is not new, and in many ways democracy can be said to exist in a state of ongoing crisis, an uneasy compromise among multiple, conflicting visions of the good life. Pluralism with regard to values is often argued to require democracy, because it is claimed to be the unique mechanism that can equally advance the interests of all under conditions of disagreement. ³ These democratic pluralists typically view democracy, liberalism, and constitutionalism as interdependent and inseparable, locating popular sovereignty in the aggregation of dispersed institutional and deliberative bodies, with a particular emphasis on the public sphere. ⁴

In an important contribution to applied democratic theory, Tom Theuns claims that it is this vision of democratic pluralism that underlies the European Union’s commitment to democracy, and which ought to motivate its response to democratic backsliding. Theuns argues that the deep integration of the EU requires its institutions and member states to cultivate pluralist democracy in backsliding members through the direct support of opposition parties. Accordingly, Theuns urges the European Commission to adopt a more political, less technocratic conception of democracy, which aims to “re-politicize the violation of fundamental values such as democracy and the rule of law, with the ideal of pluralist democracy in mind” (96).

In an intriguing omission, the EU’s founding treaties fail to define the “democracy” to which member states are formally committed. Theuns observes that the Commission has taken a “depoliticized” and “legalistic” interpretation of democracy in its interactions with member states, and claims that this restricted vision of democracy makes EU institutions “complicit” in democratic backsliding (49). Theuns thinks that this depoliticized vision is unduly focused on the rule of law, and neglects structural damage done to the public spheres of backsliding states, as well as techniques of regime entrenchment like restrictions on political speech or systematic disadvantages imposed on opposition parties (60). To address these concerns, Theuns urges the European Commission and other EU institutions to adopt a more openly “political” conception of democracy, emphasizing robust public dialogue, the inclusion of diverse perspectives, and the vibrancy of civil society (63).

Theuns contends that the EU has an obligation to contain and reverse democratic backsliding in member states by using all the tools at its disposal, except where action would undermine the EU’s own fundamental values or the normative goals that it seeks to further. This means that while the outright disenfranchisement of autocratic member states is ruled out because it would violate the EU’s commitment to democratic representation, certain technical measures such as restrictions on officeholding and the partial denial of structural funds may be permissible (141f). Theuns argues that EU integration has proceeded too far to permit backsliding among member states, because “the democratic character of each and every member state is affected by the democratic character of each and every member state” (9). A supranational legal and political union with autocratic states would therefore be “incompatible with domestic democratic government” (7). Because the EU treaties lack a formal expulsion mechanism, if all else fails, Theuns proposes that existing (democratic) member states leave the EU en masse and re-found it without its autocratic members (179ff).

The book adopts the methodology of practice-dependent political theory, claiming to derive its evaluative standards from political practice “rather than from universal presuppositions about what is valuable in politics” (9). Theuns is concerned to avoid ideal theory’s commitment to “normative universalism” and wishes to avoid the need to seek agreement on “foundational moral claims” (10). Accordingly, Theuns pledges to ignore “ideal” or “unrealistic” proposals for institutional reform (131), evaluating the democratic credentials of EU member states by reference to a model of pluralist democracy that emphasizes procedural fairness as a means of “peacefully and equitably” settling disagreements (155ff.).

This model of pluralist democracy combines aspects of ideal and nonideal theory. Theuns explains that “the ideal of pluralist democracy” is “non-ideal” because it appeals to “a normativity focused on addressing injustices incrementally” rather than an “ideal end state” (155, 157). In other words, democratic pluralism serves as a regulative ideal for organizing political life, even as it attempts to be resolutely non-ideal about the substantive content of political disagreement. This understanding of democratic pluralism amounts to pluralism within democracy but not pluralism about democracy. Pluralism is presented as a set of procedural conditions for “fair democratic contestation,” but Theuns is clear that attempts to alter these fair procedures are fundamentally different from the assertion of distinct political values, and ought to be vigorously resisted (96). Because democracy “demands majoritarian and iterative democratic procedures,” Theuns argues that states which frustrate these demands may become the legitimate targets of outside interventions to “correct democratic distortions” (153).

This tension between substance and procedure is one of the most pressing and provocative issues in recent democratic theory. If these categories are the subject of widespread agreement, then the firewall that Theuns proposes between our democratic procedures and the substantive content of democratic deliberation can be sustained. But if the categories of procedure and substance are themselves widely contested, then the Rawlsian move of taking certain political subjects “off the political agenda” will appear partisan and unjustified. ⁵ In particular, the tacit incorporation of liberal values into the model of democratic pluralism complicates a purely procedural framing in contexts, such as the EU, where liberalism is itself the subject of widespread substantive dispute.

There are striking parallels to the so-called due process revolution in the United States, where jurists across the political spectrum discovered that they could reinterpret their own substantive policy preferences as the procedural conditions of constitutional democracy, thereby qualifying them for protection under the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause. This tactic appears likely to undermine loyal opposition, because those who cannot accept the value of some substantive commitment are bound to object to the further claim that this apparently substantive commitment is actually an essential element of democratic procedures, and thus beyond the scope of ordinary political contestation.

At times, Theuns seems sympathetic to this view, writing that values like democracy and the rule of law should be treated as “urgent sites of political contestation” (43). However, it does not seem as though Theuns wants pluralist democracy itself to be the subject of very much political contestation. Despite admitting that “the values of democracy and equality are notably hard to pin down,” Theuns nevertheless thinks that violations of the pluralist ideal of democracy by EU member states ought to be subject to various enforcement actions (82, 96). Although Theuns accepts that an overemphasis on political truth can result in depoliticization and that contestation over fundamental values is central to politics, these concerns seem not to apply to the values that support democratic pluralism. On this view, it is violations of the pluralist ideal which ought to be repoliticized, not the pluralist ideal itself.

This important and timely book identifies a deep ambiguity at the heart of contemporary democratic theory, with significant implications for the urgent task of defending democracy in the European Union. The crucial distinction between contested substance and uncontested procedure is increasingly difficult to sustain in diverse, modern societies. As Theuns rightly suggests, the only sensible response to this evaluative diversity is pluralism, and a commitment to the nonviolent resolution of disputes. This sounds something like democracy. But attempts to further ramify the democratic ideal necessarily foreclose certain perspectives about what democracy is for or why it is valuable. As our democratic ideals become thicker, the scope for legitimate political contestation and institutional variation is correspondingly reduced. These thick conceptions of democracy face diminishing returns in a world characterized by deep and persistent disagreement regarding fundamental values, including the fundamental values that justify or underwrite democratic procedures. Under these conditions, democracy is politics all the way down. It is perhaps no coincidence that workable political arrangements, such as the EU treaties, often omit a precise specification of democracy.