Chapter 4: Normative Proceduralism and Its Limitations in “Post-metaphysical” Political Theory

Understandings of democratic legitimacy that refer to extra-procedural, epistemic standards tend to build on vague notions of “political truth” or “correctness” and run at risk of facilitating “expertocratic” or “paternalistic” models of political decision-making – or so I argued in Section 2.2. At the heart of this book's approach is the quest for a radical proceduralist alternative that conceptualizes “legitimacy” solely in terms of inclusive and fair democratic procedures. My theoretical starting point was the philosophical “proceduralism-versus-epistemic democracy” debate. In Chapter 2, I outlined the conceptual options to respond to this book's guiding question and provided a typology of legitimacy-conceptions that range from instrumentalist accounts (referring solely to extra-procedural legitimacy criteria) to pure/radical proceduralism (referring only to procedural criteria).