Enhanced Political Agency: Citizen Power Against Economically based Political Inequality

Abstract

In this research, I investigate to what extent can the institutional enhancement of citizens’ political agency fully counteract economically based political inequality. I start by arguing that there are three mechanisms through which affluent citizens are endowed with oversized political power (I call this phenomenon the translation problem). These mechanisms explain why economic inequality is pro tanto antidemocratic. I explore how liberal theorists (i. e., Christiano and Green) look at the translation problem and conclude that the liberal framework is incapable of countering it because of its normative commitments with individual freedoms, property rights, and their understanding of democracy within the limits of a division of political labor. Then, I explain how the translation problem can be understood as a problem of domination – following the republican framework – and describe two proposals of institutional reform (i. e., the People’s Tribunate and the democratization of regulatory processes) that aim at tackling the translation problem by enhancing citizens’ political agency. Finally, I explain why this framework also fails to deal with the translation problem thoroughly.