---
bibtex: @article{goodin2007,
title={Enfranchising all affected interests, and its alternatives},
author={Goodin, R.E.},
journal={Philosophy \& public affairs},
volume={35},
number={1},
pages={40--68},
year={2007},
publisher={Wiley Online Library}
}
---
Goodin defines the boundary problem as "How do we specify the group making those decisions?" but prefers to call it the problem of “constituting the demos.” p40
His position is that the "democratic ideal ought ideally be to enfranchise “all affected interests.” Understood in a suitably expansive “possibilistic” way, that would mean giving virtually everyone everywhere a vote on virtually everything decided anywhere." p68
Bob argument is:
- procedures can still be democratic if they realise democratic ideals
- the all potentially affected interest principle realises democratic ideals of equality
- an expansive interpretation entails a global democracy
- a restrictive interpretation entails trans-border compensation for externalities
Democracy can be defined semi-circularly as "groups of people making collective decisions in a democratic way." p40
"“Constituting the demos” is therefore a problem that finds no ready solution, either within democratic theory or in any of the seemingly cognate areas of political philosophy." p42
"The natural place to look for a solution is indeed in the vicinity of democratic theory itself, and I shall argue that we can indeed find one there — but not without some surprises along the way." p42
"Until we have an electorate we cannot have an election. That is not just a temporal observation; it is a logical truth......like saying the winning lottery ticket will be pulled out of the hat by the winner of that selfsame lottery" p43
"The need to appeal to some principle outside democracy to constitute the demos does not render democratic theory incoherent, merely incomplete." p44
Empiric answers are difficult: "More generally, unless we know what the right way to constitute the demos is in the first place, we have no way to know whether any given empirical tendencies within democratic politics will, as this argument asserts, lead them to (re)constitute the demos in precisely the right way." p45
"Constituting a demos on the basis of shared territory or history or nationality is thus only an approximation to constituting it on the basis of what really matters, which is interlinked interests" p49
"The “all affected interests” principle is the standard by which the adequacy of those other approximations is invariably assessed." 49
"Protecting people’s interests is thus the most plausible candidate principle for bringing the “who” and the “how” of democratic politics into alignment." p50
"the “all affected interests” principle is fundamentally egalitarian, counting all interests equally; and equal political power is arguably the cornerstone of democracy....What matters is that constituting the demos in that way is consonant with our settled views about what it is to “make collective decisions in a democratic way” at the procedural level." p50
On acutal affected interests: "which interests are “actually affected” depends on who gets to vote. Hence it is incoherent to try to deter- mine who should get to vote by asking whose interests are actually affected by the course of action actually decided upon." p53
"More generally, you are rightly said to be “affected,” not merely by the “course of action actually decided upon,” but also by the range of alternative courses of action from which that course was chosen. Further- more, you are rightly said to be “affected,” not merely by what the consequences of that decision actually turn out to be, but also by what the consequences might have turned out to be" p54
"By embracing all possible worlds, politically, this expansive conception of “all possibly affected interests” causes the franchise to balloon dramatically and the scope for legitimate exclusions to shrink accordingly." p55
"Even if, per the “all affected interests” principle, we give a vote to everyone who is affected, that does not necessarily imply that the demos is empowered to decide by voting upon everything that affects its members." p62
So we can restrict the scope of democratic action on only those affected - "The “all affected interests” standard can thus be satisfied in either of two ways. One is by expanding the franchise, giving a say to all those who would be affected. Another is by restricting the power of the demos, so it is only allowed to make decisions that affect only those who do have a say." p63
The constraining version could be realised with a "not “no spillovers” but, rather, “no uncompensated spillovers.” p66
"Purely as a matter of democratic third best, the price of not enfranchising everyone we ideally should is that we would have to pay them off for any harms we inflict upon them and accede to their demands for fair recompense for any benefits we derive from the wrongfully disenfranchised." p68