Eva Erman on The Boundary Problem

Eva Erman has posted a new paper at SSRN:

"The Boundary Problem: A Discourse-Theoretical Solution" [pdf]

Abstract:
"Democracy presumes a collective who are in a specific sense self governing or selfdetermining. However, the problem of who should be included in this collective and thus take part in the collective democratic decision-making, what is sometimes called the boundary problem in democratic theory, is an increasingly pressing political problem in a globalized world. A basic presumption of this paper is that insofar as we wish to address this problem as part of a normative democratic theory, the defended criterion of justified inclusion must be compatible with a proper criterion of democratic legitimacy. The overall aim is to show that a particular discoursetheoretical approach has resources to achieve this. With reference to what is labelled the "equal influence principle", the thesis defended is that a discourse-theoretical solution to the boundary problem is preferable to solutions drawing on some version of the all affected (interests) principle."

The paper will be presented at the 2011 APSA Annual Meeting in Seattle, September 1-4.

Eva Erman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Uppsala University, Sweden. She is the author of "Human Rights And Democracy: Discourse Theory And Global Rights Institutions" (Ashgate, 2005) and Co-Editor (with Anders Uhlin) of "Legitimacy Beyond the State? Re-examining the Democratic Credentials of Transnational Actors" (Palgrave, 2010). She is Chief Editor of "Ethics and Global Politics".