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It is widely agreed that the increased polarization many countries experience is bad for democracy. However, existing assessments of how polarization affects democracy operate with simplified understandings of both polarization and democracy. Bringing empirical studies and democratic theory into dialogue, I argue that polarization cannot be understood as a single phenomenon that can be evaluated in one way. Moreover, its different kinds affect different parts of the democratic system in distinct ways. First, we must distinguish between the degree of polarization in a given context and the different kinds of polarization at play. Second, we must consider whether people have good reasons for their polarizing behavior or whether it is entirely irrational. If people have good reasons for their polarizing behavior, the problem lies elsewhere than in polarization itself. Third, we must distinguish between the content of polarized opinions and the process of opinion formation. Both can be assessed with democratic criteria, but they raise different questions. Finally, for democratic evaluation it matters where polarization occurs and thus, we must differentiate between different sites of polarization: civil society, election campaigns, and legislatures. I recommend a systemic approach to assessing the democratic implication of polarization, which analyzes both the effects of polarization at different sites and on democracy as a composite whole.

It is common to ask whether populism is a threat or a corrective to democracy. In the empirical literature, the conclusion tends to be that it is both. Some normative accounts promote populism because of its alleged ability to deepen democracy. The shortcoming of these approaches is that they take an observer attitude to the question. This article instead takes a participant attitude and asks whether you as fellow participants in democracy can endorse and promote populism because it has positive effects on a non-populist understanding of democracy. Applying the publicity condition first suggested by Kant and latter expounded by Rawls, it argues that you cannot. You cannot publicly both endorse populism and say you do so because it improves democracy understood in non-populist terms. The publicity condition rules out the possibility of promoting one set of ideas (populism) for the sake of another set of ideas (non-populist democracy). The argument for promoting populism for the sake of non-populist ends cannot be made in public without frustrating that very end. ; It is common to ask whether populism is a threat or a corrective to democracy. In the empirical literature, the conclusion tends to be that it is both. Some normative accounts promote populism because of its alleged ability to deepen democracy. The shortcoming of these approaches is that they take an observer attitude to the question. This article instead takes a participant attitude and asks whether you as fellow participants in democracy can endorse and promote populism because it has positive effects on a non-populist understanding of democracy. Applying the publicity condition first suggested by Kant and latter expounded by Rawls, it argues that you cannot. You cannot publicly both endorse populism and say you do so because it improves democracy understood in non-populist terms. The publicity condition rules out the possibility of promoting one set of ideas (populism) for the sake of another set of ideas (non-populist democracy). The argument for promoting populism for the sake of non-populist ends cannot be made in public without frustrating that very end.

The literature often mentions that populism is in conflict with the politics of compromise. However, the opposition remains vague and undertheorized. This article confronts populism and compromise in a novel way by analyzing them as types of second-order political thinking and ideologies of democracy. Second-order political thinking provides a set of ideas and concepts that frames and regulates how we relate to others in politics, and how we make political decisions for, with, or against them. By contrasting populism and compromise as types of second-order political thinking, we will better be able to understand each and normatively compare them. Thus, we see that (1) compromise is inherently most attractive as second-order political thinking, and (2) populism fails as an ideology of democracy, because it cannot explain the meaning and value of the democratic system as a set of authoritative institutions and procedures. ; The literature often mentions that populism is in conflict with the politics of compromise. However, the opposition remains vague and undertheorized. This article confronts populism and compromise in a novel way by analyzing them as types of second-order political thinking and ideologies of democracy. Second-order political thinking provides a set of ideas and concepts that frames and regulates how we relate to others in politics, and how we make political decisions for, with, or against them. By contrasting populism and compromise as types of second-order political thinking, we will better be able to understand each and normatively compare them. Thus, we see that (1) compromise is inherently most attractive as second-order political thinking, and (2) populism fails as an ideology of democracy, because it cannot explain the meaning and value of the democratic system as a set of authoritative institutions and procedures.

The literature often mentions that populism is in conflict with the politics of compromise. However, the opposition remains vague and undertheorized. This article confronts populism and compromise in a novel way by analyzing them as types of second-order political thinking and ideologies of democracy. Second-order political thinking provides a set of ideas and concepts that frames and regulates how we relate to others in politics, and how we make political decisions for, with, or against them. By contrasting populism and compromise as types of second-order political thinking, we will better be able to understand each and normatively compare them. Thus, we see that (1) compromise is inherently most attractive as second-order political thinking, and (2) populism fails as an ideology of democracy, because it cannot explain the meaning and value of the democratic system as a set of authoritative institutions and procedures.

It is common to ask whether populism is a threat or a corrective to democracy. In the empirical literature, the conclusion tends to be that it is both. Some normative accounts, most notably those of Laclau and Mouffe, promote populism because of its alleged ability to deepen and recover democracy. Both of these strands of the literature are inhibited by an observer perspective, which means that they evaluate populism as a phenomenon that affects democracy from the outside rather than as an alternative set of ideas about democracy. This paper proposes an alternative approach to populism, which uses the publicity condition first suggested by Kant and later expounded by Rawls. The publicity condition entails taking a participant perspective, where you regard yourself as involved with plural others in a common enterprise of deliberation, choice, and action. While the observer considers the causes and effects of different doctrines in order to explain, manipulate and/or exploit political practice, the participant asks whether we could make a doctrine our own, as something we would want to promote for others and ourselves, as well as use to assess the health of our democracy.

While the influence of Kant's practical philosophy on contemporary political theory has been profound, it has its source in Kant's autonomy-based moral philosophy rather than in his freedom-based philosophy of Right. Kant scholars have increasingly turned their attention to Kant's Rechtslehre, but they have largely ignored its potential contribution to discussions of democracy. However, Kant's approach to political philosophy can supply unique insights to the latter. His notion that freedom and the public legal order are co-constitutive can be developed into a freedom argument for constitutional democracy. This freedom argument goes beyond freedom as moral autonomy and a libertarian idea of freedom as non-interference to a notion of freedom as a form of standing constituted by the public legal order. The trouble with other attempts to connect freedom and democracy is that they have operated with a moral ideal that is independent of a public legal order.

A current debate in democratic theory concerns whether we can explain democratic legitimacy purely with reference to the intrinsic value of the public affirmation of equality, or whether we must invoke extra-democratic epistemic standards to do so. The freedom side of democracy is ignored or even rejected in this debate. But in order to understand the intrinsic value of democracy, we cannot ignore the relationship between freedom and democracy. Moreover, the freedom argument can better respond to the epistemic challenge to intrinsic accounts than can the equality argument. However, the freedom argument for democracy must be refined to avoid important objections to the idea that democracy can make citizens self-governing. The proposed freedom argument is based on notions of autonomy and freedom that have their root in the relational norm of not having another person as a master.