The circumstances and context of bounded democracy. Some qualms

Anno LIII, n. 221, gennaio-aprile 2018

This paper considers Bauböck’s view about the connection between democracy and boundaries. Bauböck claims that territorial borders are needed for democracy. The main contention of the paper is that the connection between jurisdictional boundaries, territorial borders and democracy is significantly looser than Bauböck believes. Bauböck’s argument rests on two premises. First, democracy is normatively needed only in conditions of internal and external pluralism. Second, boundaries are needed to guarantee both internal and external pluralism. Against this view, the paper makes two points. First, in historical times many homogeneous polities have been democratic, despite absence of internal diversity. Second, imposing political decisions upon a homogenous citizenry is still undemocratic. As a consequence, boundaries are not necessary conditions for democracy.