Citizen solidarity in diverse societies: a case for deliberative democracy

[摘要] ENGLISH SUMMARY: This thesis seeks to answer the Question: What is the most appropriate basis for solidarity among citizens of diverse societies? Members of such societies do not only have different belief systems and different individual and collective commitments, but may also command different resources and occupy different positions in the social world. What, then, are the necessary conditions for citizens such as these to care for each other and act together in order to solve collective problems? The answer to this question is developed in four steps. I begin by establishing the most appropriate conception of personhood for the project of citizen solidarity. After examining and rejecting both comprehensive liberal and communitarian conceptions of personhood, I defend a political conception of personhood which distinguishes between our public and private identities, and which could form a basis of citizen solidarity regardless of our private conceptions of Personhood. In light of this political conception of personhood, I go on to argue that any notion of a common national identity, whether 'thick or 'thin, fail to provide a basis for solidarity precisely because it comes at an unreasonable cost to individual citizens' autonomy. Next, I turn to equal rights as a possible basis for solidarity. Here I show that, while equal rights are an important conditionfor citizen solidarity in so far as they promote and protect the equal dignity necessary for citizens to trust and cooperate with one another, formal equal rights are not sufficient for addressing power imbalances between different social groups. In the fourth and final step, I demonstrate that political participation in the form of deliberative democracy can provide a basis for solidarity in diverse societies in so far as it is inclusive of diversity, purposefully orientates citizens to mutual understanding and viable even in expansive political communities.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University