Grounding democratic theory: A problem-based approach

Recent attempts in democratic theory avoid recourses to moral (or otherwise metaphysical) foundations and instead turn to real-life democratic practices as sources of normativity face a yet unresolved problem. If one accepts that at least some aspects of current. "real-life" democracies may need to be assessed in light of (more or less) universal principles, this raises the question of how to identify those democratic ‘shortcomings’ in the first place – by way of (universal) norms and principles, or by looking at the practices themselves? I propose that a promising way of dealing with this question is to adopt a problem-oriented approach – which starts from looking at real-life instances where attempts to meet demands for democratic inclusion effectively fail. A case in point are the respective demands made by children, not least in the context of the climate crisis – which, while generally accepted as justified, have arguably not resulted in any meaningful change. Taking a closer look at this example, I will argue that, while proponents of (radical) realism in political theory are right in pointing to existing power structures as potential explanations here, there might be other (additional) explanations, too. Failures to effectively respond to demands for inclusion might, for instance, also point to a limited set of options in terms of institutional design or ways of ‘doing democracy’ more generally.