Abstract
Theodore Lowi's proposal for juridical democracy is inspired by a "crisis in authority" that has been generated under "interest-group liberalism," his designation for con temporary pluralist theory. Lowi suggests that the roots of the crisis lie in the pluralists' misreading of the Madisonian model. Juridical democracy is an alternative analytical and programmatic format which is designed to reintroduce the now lost benefits of the Madisonian model. Lowi's approach demonstrates, in contrast to interest-group liberal ism, that government coercion is essential and advantages some groups over others, and it provides a vehicle for testing whether consensus about public values exists. Both approaches accept "interests" as the basic unit of analysis, but neither affords criteria for assessing them. Interests make claims which are undemocratic, inegalitarian, and the like. Lacking evaluative criteria, both positions resort to social and institutional regularities and procedures as the essence of democracy.
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