This chapter begins by discussing the problem of political passivity. Passivity presents a dilemma for democratic theory. If we understand passivity as a result of a knowingly made choice, then one can be held responsible for the negative consequences of one’s own inaction, which can end up blaming marginalized groups for their own marginalization. On the other hand, painting politically passive people and groups as victims of a structural determinism denies them agency of their own, a similarly undesirable outcome. This book is an attempt to show how the problem is in the idea of understanding freedom as a matter of choice. I then discuss the problem with understanding political marginalization through the language of exclusion. I then present James Bohman’s capability approach to political poverty as a precursor to my own conception and discuss its limits, giving me a way forward. I finish by discussing the ways that complicity with one’s political domination through understandable abstention from politics appears to be a feature of political poverty as an injustice.

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Political Passivity and Political Poverty

  • Joonas S. Martikainen

摘要

This chapter begins by discussing the problem of political passivity. Passivity presents a dilemma for democratic theory. If we understand passivity as a result of a knowingly made choice, then one can be held responsible for the negative consequences of one’s own inaction, which can end up blaming marginalized groups for their own marginalization. On the other hand, painting politically passive people and groups as victims of a structural determinism denies them agency of their own, a similarly undesirable outcome. This book is an attempt to show how the problem is in the idea of understanding freedom as a matter of choice. I then discuss the problem with understanding political marginalization through the language of exclusion. I then present James Bohman’s capability approach to political poverty as a precursor to my own conception and discuss its limits, giving me a way forward. I finish by discussing the ways that complicity with one’s political domination through understandable abstention from politics appears to be a feature of political poverty as an injustice.