Justifications of Militant Democracy

Abstract

This chapter focuses on how militant democracy is justified. It identifies and analyses three central justificatory principles: hegemony, reason, and protection from harm. The first set of theories posits that democracy is a hegemonic regime and can therefore rightly act to eliminate its existential opponents. In Carl Schmitt’s view, this hegemony rests on the constitution’s substantive core, which may be preserved through the suspension of its procedural elements. The second set of justifications centres either on democratic rationality or on public reason, which must be defended against the emotionalist techniques and the unreasonableness of antidemocratic actors, respectively. The third grounds militancy in the need to prevent the major harm that a future authoritarian regime may inflict on individuals’ rights or their livelihoods. The chapter concludes by pointing out the differences between these accounts regarding the entity they seek to defend, but also their similarity in conceptualising democracy as substantive and value-based.