Pragmatism, Populism, and Democratic Theory

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Populism is sometimes depicted as the antithesis of pragmatism. If populism is passionate, democratic, and contentious, then pragmatism is reasonable, elitist, and technocratic. The papers on this panel challenge this understanding by mining the resources of the American pragmatist tradition (William James, John Dewey, G.H. Mead, etc.) for the purpose of theorizing democracy in "populist" times. The papers consider such questions as: How might ideas about democratic “inquiry,” as advanced in the pragmatist tradition, challenge the dichotomy between "elite" and "popular" rule? What critiques of elitism and privilege might we take from specific "populist" movements, and how might these critiques expand our conceptions of what democratic "deliberation" ought to entail? Indeed, is it possible to conceive of a "populist" (or public) political theory that, following pragmatist injunctions, theorizes from the lived experiences of situated actors actually engaged in real-life political struggles? How might such an approach to political theory challenge the familiar dichotomies of reason/feeling, thought/action, state/society, power/persuasion that continue to frame democratic theory today? How might such an approach help political theorists and political scientists to respond in democratically desirable ways to current "populist" movements, while avoiding certain of their "anti-democratic" tendencies?

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 3: Normative Political Theory

Individual Presentations

• Democracy, Experience, and Antifa - John N. Medearis, University of California, Riverside

• “Easily, Flexibly, and Fully:” Designing for Democracy - Jennifer Forestal, Loyola University, Chicago

• Normative Democratic Theory as a Tool for Practical Reasoning - Quinlan Bowman, University of Chicago

• A Pragmatist Reading of Populism - Jeff Jackson, University of Chicago

Chair

• Alexander Livingston Cornell University

Discussant

• Melissa S. Williams University of Toronto