Constitutionalism, the Workplace, and the Scope of Democracy

• Autores: Iñigo González Ricoy
• Directores de la Tesis: José Manuel Bermudo (dir. tes.), João Cardoso Rosas (dir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universitat de Barcelona ( España ) en 2012
• Idioma: inglés
• Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Axel Gosseries (presid.), José Luis Martí Mármol (secret.), Joan Vergés Gifra (voc.)
• Materias:
  • Ciencias jurídicas y derecho
    • Teoría jurídica y métodos generales
      • Jurisprudencia
  • Ciencia política
    • Teoría política
  • Ética
    • Ética de grupo
      • Ética económica
  • Filosofía
    • Filosofía social
      • Filosofía política
• Enlaces
  • Tesis en acceso abierto en:  TDX  Dipòsit Digital de la UB 
• Resumen

  • The dissertation analyzes the scope and limits of democracy both historically and normatively. It has two main goals. First, it historically explains how a number of institutional devices that had been traditionally seen as limits on the scope of democracy turned out to be seen not only as consistent with democracy but actually as necessary for any good-working democratic system. Second, it normatively analyzes two outstanding cases in which the scope of democracy is heavily limited—constitutional constraints on legislatures and decision-making within the firm, a domain that is usually taken to be beyond the scope of democracy. Part I historically analyzes a two-fold shift in the concept of democracy in the Early American Republic. First, the increasing acceptance of the idea of democracy— along with the institutional devices traditionally attached to it—due to the acceptance of disagreement as a legitimate feature of the American society and the subsequent crisis of the theory of virtual representation, according to which the society is an organic entity with a shared set of interests that ought to be insulated from democratic struggle and partisanship. Second, the shift in the very concept of democracy, by which many of the institutional devices that had been traditionally seen as constraints on democracy turned out to be seen not only as consistent with democracy but also as necessary for any good-working democratic system. In a nutshell, democracy gained acceptability as long as the scope of democratic decision-making was downsized. The remainder of the dissertation normatively analyzes two outstanding cases in which the scope of democracy is clearly constrained—namely, constitutionalism and decision-making within firms. Part II addresses several normative theories of constitutionalism—and, notably, of constitutional rigidity and judicial review—and shows that they all fail to justify constitutional constraints from a democratic standpoint. Three prominent types of theories are analyzed— pure instrumentalist, precommitment-based, and proceduralist. Even though a number of problems are identified, a common and central problem is that they all fail to address adequately the fact of disagreement and thus fall into new forms of organicism. Finally, Part III analyzes another sphere that is usually taken to be beyond the scope of democracy—namely, the workplace. It addresses the core arguments for and against extending democratic decision-making to the workplace and develops a novel, republican case for workplace democracy based on incomplete (labour) contract theory. Finally, bargaining power asymmetries and moral hazard problems arising from the formal separation of ownership and control rights in democratic firms are analyzed.