Book Review: Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship
| Published date | 01 April 2017 |
| Author | Matteo Bonotti |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663917704734a |
| Date | 01 April 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
6. The authors attribute the formation of this project to the work of the ‘Law and Public Admin-
istration’ study group, which is a part of the wider ‘European Group of Public Administration’
which meets at least annually.
7. From the UK literature, for instance, the following studies could have helped spark a discussion
as to how empirical research can inform and test theoretical and top down analyses made in
favour of the ADR sector: Gilad, 2008; Thomas, 2013; Gulland, 2009.
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ERIC HEINZE, Hate Speech and Democratic Citizenship. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2016, p. 248. ISBN: 9780198759027, £60 (hbk).
Hate speech is increasingly pervading the public sphere of western liberal democra-
cies. This book is therefore timely and provides an important addition to a body of
literature which, apart from Waldron’s (2012) and Brown’s (2015) recent works, has
not witnessed the appearance of a significant number of dedicated monographs in
recent years.
Heinze’s central claim is that the hate speech laws currently in place in most liberal
democracies are unwarranted, as freedom of speech is a central attribute (in fact, the
most central attribute) of democratic citizenship, and its regulation through hate speech
laws undermines both democracy and the political legitimacy that results from it. Liberal
democracies, Heinze argues, possess many tools, other than censorship, for protecting
members of vulnerable groups from violence and discrimination.
After a short introductory chapter, which sets out the central argument and offers an
overview of the book, Chapter 2 offers a critical analysis of the conceptual map that
characterizes liberal discussions of free speech, including such concepts as ‘freedom’,
‘liberty’ and ‘legitimacy’. Central to the Heinze’s analysis is the claim that while the
liberal, rights-based approach to free speech has been challenged by communitarian,
civic republican and critical theorists, the idea of democracy, with its ‘legitimating
expressive conditions’ (p. 17, original emphasis), enjoys widespread support (pp. 14–17).
Those conditions, Heinze claims, are grounded in ‘the citizen’s prerogative of
non-viewpoint-punitive expression within public discourse’ (p. 22, original emphasis),
276 Social & Legal Studies 26(2)
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