Relegitimation of Modern Democracy: New Understanding of Its Election-centric Structure

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K01432
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 06010:Politics-related
• Research Institution: Hokkaido University
• Principal Investigator: SORAI Mamoru 北海道大学, 公共政策学連携研究部, 教授 (10242067)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 現代デモクラシー / 古典デモクラシー / 選挙中心的理解 / レファレンダム中心的理解 / 政策決定理由

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In the field of comparative politics, democracy is understood usually as a type of political regime. Being a theoretical inquiry in that field, this research aimed at bolstering the legitimacy of modern democracy, which is a subtype of democracy.
This research has corroborated the logical coherency of modern democracy in terms of its election-centric structure. It has also verified that as far as we understand a basic structure of modern politics correctly and realistically, it is not well-grounded to think that modern democracy doesn’t deserve a default status of democracy because of its inferiority to the other subtype of democracy, that is classical democracy having referendum-centric structure as its characteristic.

Free Research Field

政治学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

選挙された政策決定者による政策決定を特徴とする現代デモクラシーについては，欠如態的な理解，いわば「キズモノ」的な理解が，学界と一般社会とを問わず広く行われている。それが政治体制型として十分な論理的一貫性を備え，かつレファレンダムによる政策決定を特徴とする古典デモクラシーに対して劣位に置かれるべきものではないことを論証した本研究は，現代デモクラシー型と認定される政治体制（＝現代民主体制）の存在意義に疑念が広がりつつある今日，その疑念を一定程度払拭し，現代民主体制の正統性を補強するものとして，学術的と社会的の両方の意義を併せ持つ。