Demoicracy

Demoicracy (also demoi-cracy) is a polity of multiple distinct people (demoi), polity of polities. The term is derived from demoi (δῆμοι in original Ancient Greek, plural form of δῆμος or demos), meaning "peoples" and kratos (κράτος) meaning "power" (to govern oneself). It is apparently meant to become an alternative to democracy, understood as power of a single demos. The term is used mainly to describe the genus of the European Union (EU) but is also gaining currency in more general theories of democracy above state level.

Philippe van Parijs used the term "demoi-cracy" negatively in 1998 to refer to the existing state of affair in Europe and in contrast to "European demos-cracy". This is not the meaning of the term in mainstream scholarship today. Instead, the term refers to Kalypso Nicolaïdis original statement in 2003 that the EU ought to be understood as a demoicracy in the making, a third way against two alternatives which both equate the possibility of democracy with the existence of a single demos, either national demos (the EU as association of democratic states) or supranational (the EU as a federal state). In contrast, the EU is not and should not be conceived of as any form of state (federal or any other) and does not depend on the existence of a single European demos to be demoicratic. Thus, the concept has both descriptive and normative aspects. It tries to square the circle between the common criticism that the EU is undemocratic (the democratic deficit thesis) and the claim that there is no European demos (the no demos thesis), purporting that a demos is not a sine qua non for democracy and multiple separate demoi can effectively control the government and in that sense exercise popular sovereignty. Later, Nicolaidis refined her definition of demoicracy as "a Union of peoples who govern together but not as one" [4]

Nicolaïdis’s originally advanced the concept as an alternative to the calls of the philosopher Jürgen Habermas and by the former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer that a common European identity must and should be ‘forged’. Instead, she argued in favour of a community which recognises its irreducible internal pluralism and is based on mutual recognition of differences rather than shared values as Habermas would have it. While both sides of the debate premise their argument on some arguable empirical claims (distinct ‘European’ values or celebration of tolerance respectively), neither of these is necessary for the normative plausibility of demoicracy as a theoretical concept. Currently many other commentators maintain that the concept is uniquely adequate for the age of interdependence of states and globalization of governance which should supersede the 'nation-centred' vocabulary. Perhaps that is why the term was latter embraced by some of the major proponents of deliberative democracy like James Bohman and Samantha Besson (even if not by Habermas himself). With the work of the latter authors the concept gained currency beyond the EU-scholarship and especially among the cosmopolitan republicanists as the most promising way for realisation of transnational democracy. Bohman in particular sees demoicracy as an emancipation project. It is meant to avoid domination which can occur across borders (citizens of one state may suffer from decisions of citizens of another which are taken arbitrarily). As domination can occur also internally all oppressed groups may qualify as demoi deserving a voice in governance. Thus, Besson suggests a dynamic concept of demoi, which comprises all those affected by any particular decision (and thus subject to arbitrary domination by the group of the decision-makers).

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