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Value Pluralism, Constitutionalism, and Democracy: Waldron and Berlin in Debate
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2018
Abstract
Jeremy Waldron claims that Isaiah Berlin wrongly neglects, and is hostile to, constitutional and democratic institutions. I argue that although Berlin offers no extended discussion of constitutionalism or democracy, he is not hostile to them. Moreover, the logic of Berlin's value pluralism is strongly supportive of these ideas—for example, it fits well with constitutionalist notions such as the separation of powers and checks and balances. On the other hand, Waldron's rejection of judicial review on the ground of democracy is questionable in these same pluralist terms. Here I argue that Berlinian pluralism supports democracy as long as this is inclusive in its outcomes. But contemporary democracy cannot be relied upon to be sufficiently inclusive, in part because of the effects of the war on terror and the rise of populism. Under these conditions it is unwise for pluralists to dispense with judicial review.
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Footnotes
The author would like to thank the following for their helpful comments: Sharyn Roach Anleu, Kim Economides, Elizabeth Handsley, Henry Hardy, Rob Manwaring, Lionel Orchard, Miguel Vatter, the editor, and three anonymous referees.
References
1 Waldron, Jeremy, Political Political Theory: Essays on Institutions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Parenthetical references in the text are to this work.
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3 To consider only those influenced by Berlin's value pluralism (rather than by his conceptions of negative and positive liberty etc.), these include several authors who have written about constitutional structure: Bellamy, Richard, Liberalism and Pluralism: Towards a Politics of Compromise (London: Routledge, 1999)Google Scholar; Bellamy, Richard, “Liberalism and the Challenge of Pluralism,” in Rethinking Liberalism, ed. Bellamy, Richard (London: Pinter, 2000)Google Scholar; Galston, William, Liberal Pluralism: The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Galston, William, “Pluralist Constitutionalism,” Social Philosophy and Policy 28, no. 1 (2011): 228–41Google Scholar; Porat, Iddo, “The Plural Implications of Value Pluralism: A Comment on Maimon Schwarzschild's ‘On This Side of the Law and On That Side of the Law,’” San Diego Law Review 46, no. 4 (2009): 909–24Google Scholar; Schwarzschild, Maimon, “On This Side of the Law and On That Side of the Law,” San Diego Law Review 46, no. 4 (2009): 755–72Google Scholar. Berlinian pluralism has also been applied to issues in public administration: Wagenaar, Hendrik, “Value Pluralism in Public Administration,” Administrative Theory and Praxis 21, no. 4 (1999): 441–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spicer, Michael, “Value Pluralism and Its Implications for American Public Administration,” Administrative Theory and Praxis 23, no. 4 (2001): 507–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spicer, Michael, In Defense of Politics in Public Administration: A Value Pluralist Perspective (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Thacher, David and Rein, Martin, “Managing Value Conflict in Public Policy,” Governance 17, no. 4 (2004): 457–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Another topic for Berlinian pluralism is transitional justice: Allen, Jonathan, “A Liberal-Pluralist Case for Truth Commissions: Lessons from Isaiah Berlin,” in The One and the Many: Reading Isaiah Berlin, ed. Crowder, George and Hardy, Henry (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2007)Google Scholar.
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18 Bernard Williams, introduction to Concepts and Categories, xxxvii.
19 The pluralist norm of value diversity involves considerations not only of multiplicity but also of coordination, since some goods will conflict. The link between diversity thus understood and pluralism is a controversial position that I have defended in several places: see, e.g., Crowder, Liberalism and Value Pluralism, chap. 6; Crowder, Isaiah Berlin, 156–59. For a critical response see Neal, Patrick, “The Path between Value Pluralism and Liberal Political Order,” San Diego Law Review 46, no. 4 (2009): 859–82Google Scholar, to which I reply in Crowder, George, “Value Pluralism, Diversity and Liberalism,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18, no. 3 (2015): 549–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., 238.
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24 Ibid., 238.
25 Galston, Liberal Pluralism, 88.
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27 Bellamy, “Liberalism and the Challenge of Pluralism,” 194.
28 Berlin and Jahanbegloo, Conversations with Isaiah Berlin, 144.
29 Elsewhere Waldron finds Montesquieu more helpful and chides Berlin for not appreciating this: ibid., 276–78.
30 Spicer, “Value Pluralism and Its Implications for American Public Administration,” 522.
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50 Ibid., 920.
51 Ibid., 920–21.
52 Ibid., 921.
53 Ibid., 923.
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55 Ibid., 759.
56 Ibid.
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59 Ibid., 770.
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62 Schwarzschild, “On This Side of the Law and On That Side of the Law,” 761–62.