Bulletin n. 2/2011
October 2011
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Christiano Thomas
    An Instrumental Argument for a Human Right to Democracy
    in Philosophy and Public Affairs , Volume 39, Issue 2, Spring 2011 ,  2011 ,  142–176
    The full text is free: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1088-4963.2011.01204.x/full Despite its increasing importance in contemporary political philosophy and its central role in international human rights law, there has been significant resistance among political theorists and philosophers to the idea that there is a moral human right to democracy. In John Rawls's late political philosophy of international justice and in the views of many who are sympathetic to his position, the idea that there is a moral human right to democracy is vigorously rejected. Other major recent treatments of human rights have either rejected the human right to democracy or shied away from making arguments one way or the other. One key concern animating the opposition to a moral human right to democracy is that the assertion of such a right in international society conflicts with the rights of peoples to collective self-determination. Some peoples, it is asserted, reject democracy or the equality on which it is founded, and because of this rejection, the recognition of a human right to democracy imposes on them a set of norms alien to their political cultures. Another concern, articulated in popular writings, is that new democracies often violate the basic moral rights of citizens. This worry about a tyranny of the majority suggests a strong conflict between democracy and other basic rights...
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