Three Models of Democratic Self-Defence: Militant Democracy and Its Alternatives
| Published date | 01 May 2018 |
| Author | Ludvig Norman,Anthoula Malkopoulou |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321717723504 |
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717723504
Political Studies
2018, Vol. 66(2) 442 –458
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321717723504
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Three Models of Democratic
Self-Defence: Militant
Democracy and Its
Alternatives
Anthoula Malkopoulou and Ludvig Norman
Abstract
Militant democracy relies on the idea that democracies ought to defend themselves from anti-
democratic forces by constitutionalising repressive measures. We offer a criticism of this view by
highlighting the exclusionary elitism on which militant democracy is built. In doing this, we consider
two competing models of democratic self-defence: the procedural and the social. We suggest that
the procedural model, while avoiding the exclusionary and other pitfalls of militant democracy,
is detached from socio-political realities and fails to offer a comprehensive vision of democratic
stability. The largely neglected social model of democratic self defence avoids this problem; it
combines proceduralism’s commitment to dissensus with a social-democratic logic in the design of
democratic constitutions. We argue in favour of such a social democratic self-defence and further
develop this model around the guiding principle of political and social non-domination.
Keywords
militant democracy, Kelsen, Heller, non-domination, social democracy
Accepted: 18 April 2017
Democratic self-defence refers to the idea that democracy cannot survive without a well-
articulated line of defence against those who seek its demise. When threatened at its core
by political movements aimed to dismantle democratic institutions, democracy may need
to assert itself through various defensive measures. Recently, this notion has gained
renewed salience in light of political developments across Europe and the US, where
extremist political movements are on the rise. Yet, the method for responding to such
popular threats takes a variety of forms, which rely on different conceptual and normative
assumptions, for example regarding the role of the people or that of the rule of law in
Department of Government, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
*Authors contributed equally
Corresponding author:
Anthoula Malkopoulou, Department of Government, Uppsala University, Box 514, Uppsala 751 05, Sweden.
Email: anthoula.malkopoulou@statsvet.uu.se
723504PSX0010.1177/0032321717723504Political StudiesMalkopoulou and Norman
research-article2017
Article
Malkopoulou and Norman 443
creating and accommodating such movements. While these differences are widely
acknowledged, insufficient scholarly attention has been devoted to how they are tied to
broader conceptions of democratic politics and contrasting conceptions of freedom. Our
aim is to disentangle these assumptions and highlight how they lead to different variants
of democratic self-defence. In addition to offering a conceptual critique of existing per-
spectives, we provide the basis for shifting the contemporary debate on democratic self-
defence, which is currently centred on various degrees of repression, to a more nuanced
discussion on how to make democratic polities more resilient.
We distinguish three over-arching approaches to democratic self-defence: militant,
procedural and social. First, we turn to critically discussing the concept of ‘militant
democracy’ (Loewenstein, 1937a). Developed in response to the rise of totalitarian
ideologies in Europe in the 1930s, it has received new traction among many who see
analogies with this period in the resurgence of contemporary political extremism.
While not without its critics, the idea of militant democracy has come to serve as a
dominant point of departure in recent public and scholarly discussions on democratic
self-defence (Capoccia, 2013; Kirshner, 2014; Müller, 2012a; Sajó, 2004).1 Despite
the broadly liberal outlook of many ‘neo-militant’ theorists, the discourse on militant
democracy reproduces a largely exclusionary elitist notion of democratic government
built on a deep-rooted mistrust in the people to govern themselves. As such, it is a
model of democratic self-defence that, rather than being delimited to the specific
problem of extremism, has negative implications for democratic politics more gener-
ally. Our critique highlights these ideological aspects of militant democracy and
aims, thus, at unlocking the debate on democratic self-defence from the focus on
militancy and repression.
To move the discussion further in this direction, the article engages with two main
competitors to the militant model, both of which have received less attention in recent
debates. The ‘procedural’ approach, mainly associated with Hans Kelsen’s ideas (1955,
2013 [1929]), is often treated as the polar opposite of militancy. It rejects the constitution-
alisation of repressive and exclusionary measures and stresses openness and pluralism as
democracy’s unconditional principles. The third variant, which we call the ‘social’ model
of democratic self-defence, has garnered even less attention in recent scholarly debates.
Developed by thinkers, such as Alf Ross (1952) and Hermann Heller (2000), it posits that
fascism emerges due to social disintegration and that any attempt to counter it should
include efforts to rehabilitate social justice and to strengthen the democratic ethos. We
argue that, while the social model is also in part based on questionable assumptions, it
identifies new conceptual and operational dimensions of democratic self-defence.
Specifically, we demonstrate how basing such a model on a principle of political and
social non-domination helps alleviate its most problematic aspects and serves to further
highlight the shortcomings of competing models.
In the following, we first provide a critical overview of Karl Loewenstein’s under-
standing of militant democracy, as well as the ideas of ‘neo-militant’ democratic theo-
rists who draw on his work. Next, we proceed by discussing militant democracy’s main
competing school, that of Hans Kelsen and contemporary adherents of his paradigm of
inclusive proceduralism. Third, we turn to the hitherto largely neglected ‘social’ model
of democratic self-defence and provide a critical presentation of the ideas developed by
Ross and Heller. Finally, we offer a brief synthesis of these three paradigms pointing to
their similarities and differences, and explain our preference for an updated variant of
the social model.
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