Theoretical enrichment of modern democracy by renovated understandings of political representation

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25380143
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Politics
• 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): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 現代デモクラシー / 政治的代表 / 政治的自己決定 / 間接性

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research aimed at designing an enriched theorization of modern democracy by renovated understandings of political representation, which could contribute to re-legitimize and revitalize that type of democracy. As the basic structure of modern politics got scrutinized, it has become clear that to normativize political decision-makers of modern democracy by somehow providing them with a status of political representative is if not impossible but highly difficult, as well as that modern democracy is superior to classical one in terms of its logical consistency, which might be termed 'an equilibrium of indirectness'. One of the main results of this research is a discovery of new logic that can be used to relativize current delegitimizing pressures put strongly on modern democracy by classical one.

Free Research Field

政治学