Odious Debt, Adverse Creditors, and the Democratic Ideal

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margot E. Salomon ◽  
Robert Howse
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Ideal ◽  
Odious Debt

Odious Debt, Adverse Creditors, and the Democratic Ideal

2018 ◽  
pp. 425-445
Author(s):  
Margot E Salomon ◽  
Robert Howse
Keyword(s):  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
The Political ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
Democratic Ideal ◽  
Normative Force ◽  
The People ◽  
Odious Debt

In the context of transitions from authoritarianism to democracy, the odious debt doctrine has often been raised as a claim to adjust or sever sovereign debt obligations, based on the purported odiousness of the previous regime and the notion that the debt it incurred did not benefit, or was used to repress, the people. Ultimately, the normative force of the odious debt doctrine comes from the primacy of the democratic ideal: when the debt was contracted not only was this done by a non-representative government but the debt served the purpose of that government in denying the political freedom of the people. Using Greece as an example, the chapter demonstrates how odious debt applies to debt incurred not only by dictators but by democracies and how, in the latter circumstances, international creditors are implicated in ‘hostile’ acts against the demos. It concludes with suggestions on the remediation of odious debt.

Overdoing Democracy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Talisse
Keyword(s):  
Social Contexts ◽  
Good Thing ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Crowding Out ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Democratic Ideal ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Social Goods

Democracy is an extremely important social political good. Nonetheless, there is such a thing as having too much of a good thing. When we overdo democracy, we allow the categories, allegiances, and struggles of politics to overwhelm our social lives. This has the effect of undermining and crowding out many of the most important correlated social goods that democracy is meant to deliver. What’s more, in overdoing democracy, we spoil certain social goods that democracy needs in order to flourish. Thus overdoing democracy is democracy’s undoing. A thriving democracy needs citizens to reserve space in their shared social lives for collective activities and cooperative projects that are not structured by political allegiances; they must work together in social contexts where political affiliations and party loyalties are not merely suppressed, but utterly beside the point. Combining conceptual analyses of democratic legitimacy and responsible citizenship with empirical results regarding the political infiltration of social spaces and citizens’ vulnerabilities to polarization, this book provides a diagnosis of current democratic ills and a novel prescription for addressing them. Arguing that overdoing democracy is the result of certain tendencies internal to the democratic ideal itself, the book demonstrates that even in a democracy, politics must be put in its place.

scholarly journals The True Democratic Ideal

1904 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-150
Author(s):  
W. Jethro Brown
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Ideal

A Democratic Ideal for High Schools

1930 ◽  
Vol 112 (8) ◽  
pp. 186-188
Author(s):  
Ferdinand Kertes
Keyword(s):  
High Schools ◽  
Secondary Education ◽  
Mental Capacity ◽  
Democratic Ideal

The author enters a strong plea for a secondary education recognizing diverse kinds of ability. He warns against an attempt at stratification of pupils according to imaginary grades of mental capacity. He regards determinism as a mask for aristocracy. This article deserves thoughtful perusal by every educator.

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