Democratic Legitimacy and Respect for Human Rights: The New Gold Standard

Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy

Joshua Cohen In this essay I explore the ideal of a 'deliberative democracy'.1 By a deliberative democracy I shall mean, roughly, an association whose affairs are governed by the public deliberation of its members. I propose an account of the value of such an association that treats democracy itself as a fundamental political ideal and not simply as a derivative ideal that can be explained in t...

Democratic Consolidation and Human Rights in Brazil

Thirteen years ago the authoritarian regime in Brazil came to an end and the civilian transition government was installed. Three years later the Constitution of 1988 was promulgated with the most comprehensive and specific bill of rights in Brazilian political history. Today, despite the democratic guarantees in effect since then, the country is still ravaged by systemic violence in which the a...

A human rights approach to democratic governance and development1

A human rights approach to development starts from the basic premise that the achievement of human rights is the objective of any process aimed at improving the human condition. It uses the various concepts associated with human rights, understood in their broadest sense as the scaffolding of development policy. It invokes the international apparatus of human rights in support of development ac...

Less than meets the eye: Democratic legitimacy and deliberative theory

Rights, Rules, and Respect for Nature

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