Baume Sandrine
Axes de recherche
Histoire des idées politiques
Isaiah Berlin
Hans Kelsen
Hermann Heller
Rudolf Smend
Carl Schmitt
Erich Kaufmann
Heinrich Triepel
Théorie politique
Compromis et décisions collectives
Exigence de transparence
Légitimité de la juridiction constitutionnelle
Equilibre des pouvoirs
Projets
Projets FNS
Mapping objections to political compromises and their counterarguments
2020 - 2023 (36 mois)
Requérant·e: Sandrine Baume
My research project begins with the following observation: compromise is considered an indispensable source of stability in democratic government and is inevitable in collective action (Carens 1979: 126) but the critical place of compromise has not been recognized in our democracies (Manin 1997: 217-21). In its first part, the research intends to provide an unprecedented and systematic mapping of the objections against political compromises developed by 20th and 21st century scholars within the field of political theory. A preliminary survey of the literature allowed me to identify six main arguments against compromise. The first two objections both appeal to the respect for values. The anti-relativist objection asserts that compromises are made at the expense of universal moral principles (Menkel-Meadow 2016: 3), whereas concerns about integrity are animated by fears that compromise solutions may infringe on principles for which we must demonstrate consistency (Dworkin 1986). The third and fourth objections worry about inequality, either because the outcome of a compromise may disadvantage less-privileged groups due to the unequal power resources of the compromising parties (Ruser and Machin 2017: 12-28), or because it may be detrimental to less audible claims and hence reduce the diversity of political debates (Ruser and Machin 2017: 44). The fifth objection concerns the incompatibility between compromise and a specific understanding of politics, as marked by its irreducible conflictual dimension (Mouffe 1998). Finally, the sixth objection comes from a particular understanding of political unity and underlines the risk that compromises, above all among parties, are struck at the cost of the interests of the state as a whole (Schmitt 2015 [1931]: 143). In the second part of the research, I intend to explore possible rebuttals to the aforementioned objections with existing arguments. At a preliminary stage, three angles of attacks have emerged: First, counterarguments underline wrong assumptions in the objection
Evénements et manifestations
Colloques
Co-organisation du colloque : "La séparation des pouvoirs : réflexion sur une exigence politico-juridique", 24-25 mars 2006
