The Limitations of Nationalist Democracy

The Treatment of Marginal Groups as a Measure of State Legitimacy

תקציר

This paper advances the argument that the capacity of any state to apply democratic principles is seriously constrained by the competing demands of nationalism as the formative ideology of the contemporary geo-political order. To build this argument, the paper begins with a brief examination of notions of democracy and issues of neutrality. In demonstrating that democratic systems are not neutral, emphasis is placed on the ways in which the prevailing privacy of nation-states intrinsically imposes limits on the application of democratic principles. More specifically, I draw on the experiences of Native People in Canada, to show how the entrenched need to promote a singular nation allows hegemonic views and practices to become embedded in purportedly democratic policies and systems in ways which reduce the capacity to apply democratic principles. In contrast a brief overview of the development of the Territory of Nunavut in the Canadian North shows how active acknowledgement of pluralism at a more systemic level can at least temper some of the intrinsic limitations of democracies based on nation-states. This peripheral experience clearly suggests that the quality of a democracy, rather than the existence of a singular nation, may be the best means of evaluating claims to power in the form of a state.