Democracy without Demos: A Prefigurative Approach to Democratic Peoplehood

Abstract

Who or what is the collective entity known to democracy as the demos? Different arguments abound, but radical democrats frequently critique liberal democrats for continuing to reify the demos, thereby stifling its agency. They often conclude that, ontologically, the demos does not exist. But how could an entity that does not exist nonetheless act? It is not always clear what the alternatives would entail. In this paper, I suggest interpreting the demos as a prefigurative category. I argue, in short, that the demos exists only insofar as collective agents act as if they are the demos.