Dedication to a Process argues that while judicial review is a justified decision-making procedure in a democratic scheme of government on instrumentalist grounds, it will always come at a politico-moral cost. Chapter One surveys Thomas Christiano’s egalitarian conception of democracy to establish a scheme of democracy upon which to ground this analysis. This chapter argues that under Christiano’s account of the normative grounds of democracy, which is rooted in the fundamental social justice principle of public equality, there are necessary limits to democratic authority. When these limits are exceeded, there is a results-based argument available that can justify the use of judicial review from a Razian perspective, however, this manner of decision-making comes at the concession of a significant politico-moral value that is bound up with democratic authority: intrinsic justice. Chapter Two analyzes Ronald Dworkin’s constitutional conception of democracy to determine if there is a way to pay down the cost of judicial review. This chapter will argue that a purely content-based analysis like the one Dworkin is suggesting with his holistic scheme of democratic authority may be able to avoid the loss of intrinsic justice. However, if we are more concerned not with content but with who the authoritative voice is on constitutional matters, as is the case with Christiano’s modular scheme of democratic authority, then we must revert to the conclusion reached in Chapter One. Chapter Three considers Wil Waluchow’s theory of Community Constitutional Morality to rule out the possibility that judges appealing to a community’s positive normative commitments as a kind of customary constitutional law can be grounded in public equality, thereby retaining democratic authority and avoiding the politico-moral cost established in Chapter One. This chapter will argue, however, that despite passing the Public Equality Test mechanically, there is an important value argument to be made that locates intrinsic justice within characteristically democratic institutions such as the legislature and that any compromise of the democratic process must result in a politico-moral loss if we are indeed dedicated to the process. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This thesis develops an account of non-domination as a principle of legitimacy that ought to govern both inter-group and intra-group relations in multicultural states. It applies this principle to the question of how political institutions should respond to claims for the accommodation of controversial minority practices, using the example of the polygamous community in Bountiful, British Columbia. In developing this account, the thesis engages with three bodies of theoretical literature – of multiculturalism, of political legitimacy, and of autonomy. In the dominant normative theories of multiculturalism, answers are centered on what the limits of toleration are, what it means to recognize a collective identity, or what group rights can be claimed and how group rights are balanced with individual rights. While not rejecting the importance of these issues in a pluralistic state, my approach de-centers them by subsuming them under the broader problem of what makes a political authority morally legitimate vis-à-vis particular collective - as well as abstract individual - subjects. I argue that the most promising response to this problem lies with the concept of non-domination, conceived as a foundational principle of political legitimacy for multicultural states. This principle both demands and checks a democratic method for determining specific forms of accommodation. In some cases the advancement of non-domination between groups conflicts with the advancement of non-domination within groups. In political theory this question is often taken up by feminist scholars concerned with the ‘paradox of multicultural vulnerability’ and, more generally, with the dilemma of how to identify and critique internalized oppression while promoting full respect for individual moral agency. Borrowing from these debates, I outline a conception of the relational moral autonomy of the person and argue that it forms a necessary component of a non-domination- based analysis. The conclusion of the thesis with respect to minority social practices is that specific claims should be determined on the basis of a democratic process aimed at uncovering whether and when, all things considered, the accommodation of that particular practice is consistent with non-domination both between and within groups. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-29 11:13:58.516