Reading Group Democracy in Europe

In this iteration of the interdisciplinary reading group, we will discuss a text by Richard Bellamy and Sandra Kröger: Lies, Truthfulness and the Crisis of Representative Democracy. If you are interested in joining, please reach out to Sandra Kröger to receive the draft paper.

The session will be online only, at this link:

https://Universityofexeter.zoom.us/j/97586370316?pwd=MjB3R1VjbWNyVkprMVgza205UW1KUT09

Abstract:

Given the growing salience of lying and deception by politicians, it is surprising that general theories of democratic representation have paid little attention to it. Little attention has been paid to the ethics of democratic representation, and specifically the virtues of elected representatives. This article addresses this gap by considering how far truthfulness should be a virtue of political representatives, and whether its absence contributes to undermining democratic representation. Truthfulness is a necessary quality of democratic politics within pluralist societies and the reasonable disagreements to which pluralism gives rise. We argue that the three virtues of a good representative identified by Suzanne Dovi: namely, fair-mindedness, critical trust, and good-gate keeping – all rely on truthfulness. We then contend that the crisis of representation associated with technocracy and populism results from the rejection of pluralism and with it the need for truthfulness.