samoqalaqo sazogadoeba - Center for Social Sciences

Democratic societies, according to Toquevillle, place higher value on equality, while freedom is
less important for them, that’s why equality can easily produce tyranny of majority. This can
become especially dangerous, if everybody are equally deprived of political rights. American
democracy does avoid tyranny of majority not only because everybody participate in elections, but
also because Americans constantly participate in governance, create associations and form public
opinion, which governs. Participation in governance which is not confined to voting – this is a
Toquevillian receipt for liberal democracy, which is important for post-totalitarian societies.
Literature:
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America pp.158-159, 177-178, 190-203, 222-228, 322-324,
371-388
Gellner Ernest, 1996 Conditions of liberty: civil society and its rivals. New York, N.Y.: Penguin
Books (selections, about 30 pages)
LECTURE 5. MODERN THEORIES OF CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE STATE. (REPUBLICAN VS.
LIBERAL CIVIL SOCIETY)
Civil society historically developed in frames of two political traditions – republican and liberal.
These two traditions both distinguish between public and private realms, but attach different values
on them. Norberto Bobbio describes public in terms of relations among parts and a whole, and
private – as relations among parts. Adam Seligman links this distinction to republican and liberal
approaches to the creation of public sphere, as distinguished from the private one. Civic virtue is
more ancient tradition, reflected in writings of such authors as Rousseau, while civil society is more
recent, Anglo-Saxon, and is more adequate to Adam Smith writings.
This approach by Seligman in this lecture is deepen by the analyses of two authors: Rousseau,
representing republican version of civil society, and Gellner, representing liberal version. Despite
that Rousseau do not represent modern thought, but is classical writer, is presented in this lecture
because of importance of his thought for the current debates on the issues. Hanna Arendt is
mentioned in brief, but not considered in details in this lecture, and is offered for students as an
additional reading.
Three notions of “the political” by John Elster are introduced in this lecture, because they serve as
an appropriate starting point for continuation of the theme, highlighted later through the whole
following discussions: three concepts of political will then be linked to the three components of
liberal constitutional democracy: democracy, liberalism and republicanism. Accordingly, three basic
rules of legitimation are identified in following lectures, as a correspondent discursive ethics of
political discourse.
Literature:
Gellner Ernest, 1996 Conditions of liberty : civil society and its rivals. New York, N.Y. : Penguin
Books chapters 10, 11,12,29
A.B. Seligman. 1997 The Problem of Trust. Princeton University Press, chapter 4: Public and
private in political thought: Rousseau, Smith and some contemporaries. pp.103-123
Jan-Jak ruso, sazogadoebrivi kontraqti, Tbilisi, 1997, SerCeva wigni 1, wigni 2-dan, 10 gv.
Adam Smith. The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Ханна Арендт Vita Activa или о деятельной жизни. «Алетейя», С-Пб, 2000
Elster John, 1997 The Market and the Forum: Three Varieties of Political Theory. in: Deliberative
democracy: essays on reason and politics ed.Bohman Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press
116