2023:
[10] “Deliberative constitutionalism through the prism of popular sovereignty”
Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, 2023. Available here.
Abstract: Deliberative theorists and practitioners have increasingly grappled with the concept of deliberative constitutionalism and its distinctiveness from other constitutionalisms. In this article, I advance this discussion by elaborating a typology of normative relational properties and constitutional regimes in two phases. First, I defend my use of popular sovereignty when envisioning deliberative constitutional regimes and provide a positive account of deliberative popular sovereignty’s key features. I restate Chambers’s (2004) argument for “democratized” popular sovereignty and its “process” and “mirror” requirements. Second, I offer a speculative sketch of deliberative constitutional regimes by studying the interactions between weakly and strongly deliberative forms of constituent power and constituted power. I describe, following Loughlin and Walker (2007), four normative relational properties which deliberative constitutional regimes might realize: deliberative containment; deliberative co-articulation; deliberative renewal; deliberative irritant. When realized, each property may be associated with certain institutions and practices. While I reserve for future work a more thorough evaluation of their institutional content and their prospects for deliberative constitutional bootstrapping, this article complexifies and maps the normative and institutional terrain of deliberative constitutionalism and may help scholars better navigate this terrain.
2022:
[9] “Types and Trends in Deliberative Constitution-making: An Analysis of the ConstDelib Country Reports”
The ConstDelib Working Paper Series, n°21, 2022. Available here.
Abstract: Deliberative democrats have not yet offered a comprehensive picture of deliberative constitution-making. I propose a typology of constitutional deliberative events by examining the country reports prepared for the COST Action “Constitution-making and deliberative democracy”. First, I discuss methods and the key variables conditioning how constitutional deliberative events emerge: the actor which convenes the event; the sequencing in the constitution-making time-frame; the anticipated output; the duty of constitution-making actors to respond to the event output. Second, I elaborate eight distinct manifestations of deliberative constitution-making and illustrate with twenty events from eleven countries: inside or outside constitutional convention; inside or outside quality control; inside or outside value mapping; inside or outside institutional experiment. Third, I describe broad trends from the perspectives of event function, provenance, and outcome. I conclude that more cross-country learning is needed and that deliberative democrats should continue exploring the landscape of events before converging on best practices.
2021:
[8] Le concept de concept dans la philosophie de Deleuze : Polymorphisme(s) et pluralisme(s)
[The concept of concept in the philosophy of Deleuze: Polymorphism(s) and pluralism(s)]
“Ouverture philosophique”, Paris: Librairie Éditions L’Harmattan, 2021. Available here.
Abstract: What is philosophy? For Deleuze, it is a matter of creating concepts, each of which answers to a particular problem. On the Deleuzian theory of concepts, philosophical concepts also share a certain form: a multiplicity of components, an absolute volume, intensive variations. That being said, this interpretation of philosophical activity is a concept in its own right: “the concept of concept.” Like any other, this concept answers to a problem – “what is the characteristic feature of philosophy?” – and it contains a multiplicity, volume, variations. Even if the concept of concept grasps that which is vital to philosophical activity, one might be believe that it is of limited scope and destined to be overtaken by other concepts. Otherwise, the concept of concept runs the risk of self-defeat: true on the whole but false in the details. This study asks under which conditions the Deleuzian theory of concepts may escape the fate of self-defeat and puts forward a transcendental reading on which the concept of concept is the condition of philosophical experience and discourse.
[7] “Deliberative constitution-making in Luxembourg” (co-authored with Raphaël Kies)
Constitution-making & deliberative democracy. Available here.
Abstract: The topic of constitution-making has been a constant presence in Luxembourgish politics for more than twenty years – sometimes occupying the foreground, sometimes receding into the background. Though the process of revising the constitution has predominantly been an elite-driven affair, spearheaded by parliament and major political parties, it has included some participatory elements and deliberative moments. In this report, we give an overview of Luxembourg’s formal constitution-making mechanisms, its incremental constitution-making processes and, most importantly, a series of recent constitution-making experiments. Along the way, we will gain a better understanding of the ongoing constitutional revision’s fate, as well as the prospects for deliberative constitution-making in Luxembourg.
2020:
[6] Navigating the narrow circle: Rawls and Stout on justification, discourse and institutions (PhD thesis)
Abstract: Life in political society unfolds within the bounds of a narrow circle, epistemic and moral. A person has only finite faculties and restricted moral motivation. When formulating projects, the person ought to recognize these limits but also to check them. Accordingly, she seeks a deliberative ideal which is sensitive both to good epistemic practice and to respectful relations. How might the person best justify the shape of her society’s institutions, statutes and policies? What reflexive attitudes and dispositions ought she to adopt towards her justificatory resources? The person might work through the sequence of standpoints from John Rawls’s “political liberalism”: a first-person, action-guiding framework of deliberation and reflection. Alternatively, she might model the exploratory discourse and personal virtues characteristic of Jeffrey Stout’s “democratic traditionalism”. This work reconstructs Rawls’s and Stout’s approaches to justification, discourse and institutions and compares their differing methods in search of the most adequate deliberative ideal for democratic society.
2019:
[5] “A gradualist path toward sortition” (co-authored with Raphaël Kies)
In John Gastil and Erik Olin Wright (ed.), Legislature by Lot: Transformative Designs for Deliberative Governance, London: Verso, 2019, pp. 259-277. Available here.
Abstract: Sortition reforms warrant a gradualist approach for three reasons, as we argue in the body of this chapter. First, a strong but unaccountable deliberative device like sortition may delegitimize both existing and prospective forms of citizen deliberation, including sortition bodies them- selves. Second, a weaker deliberative device like citizens’ consultation can be effective, though unstable institutional footing often causes such efforts to fail. Third, once it is proven to be effective and normalized, citizens’ consultation will open a clearer path toward enhanced deliberative innovations like the sortition chamber. To prove these points, we draw on examples principally from the European Union, but we believe our argument applies equally well at local, regional, national, and trans- national levels. If institutionalizing consultative minipublics is desirable and feasible at the EU level, it will be all the more so at all others.
2018:
[4] “Rigor or rhetoric: Philosopher and public in dialogue”
In Perspectives: International Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 8, Iss. 1, 2018, pp. 4-13. Available here.
Abstract: Leiter (2016) charges public philosophy with being “neoliberal”. To understand that charge better, I define, in §1, three versions of public philosophy which might be concerned and two pictures of its practice targeted by Leiter. I also compare two deliberative sites wherein those pictures may play out. In §2, I sketch how Leiter’s two paradoxes for “neoliberal” public philosophy lead to a revised public philosophy. §3 questions the paradoxes’ empirical grounding and scope. Lastly, in §4, I assume Leiter’s picture and illustrate how philosophical dialogue, through appeal to personal self-image and “moral perceptions”, may still influence public discourse. I conclude that Leiter both over- and understates his case and that his conclusions require greater scrutiny.
[3] Are we post-justification? Stout’s case for self-knowledge, political justification and public philosophy”
In Ethics, Politics & Society, Vol. 1, 2018, pp. 175-202. Available here.
Abstract: Must the participant to public discourse have knowledge of her beliefs, attitudes and reasons as well as belief-formation processes to have justified political belief? In this paper, we test this question with reference to Jeffrey Stout’s (2004) approach to public discourse and public philosophy. After defining self- knowledge and justification along the lines of James Pryor (2004), we map thereon Stout’s view of public discourse and public philosophy as democratic piety, earnest storytelling and Brandomian expressive rationality. We then lay out Brian Leiter’s (2016) naturalistic critique of public philosophy as “discursive hygiene” to see whether Stoutian public philosophy survives the former’s emotivist-tribalist gauntlet. Lastly, we find that Leiter’s critique proves less radical than it may appear and requires the moderating influence of a public philosophy like Stout’s. All in all, Stoutian public discourse and public philosophy powerfully illustrates a strong, necessary connection between self-knowledge and political justification. Post-truth is not post-justification.
2017:
[2] « “Une impossibilité en or” – La lecture émersonienne de Kant » (tr. Elisabeth Lefort)
[“ ‘A golden impossibility’ – The Emersonian reading of Kant”]
In Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan and Lukas Sosoe (eds.), Kant et les penseurs de langue anglaise [Kant and English-language thinkers], Paris: Librairie philosophique Vrin, 2017, pp. 145-162. Available here.
Abstract: A connection between Kant and Ralph Waldo Emerson may surprise philosophers. Yet Emerson’s work has undergone rehabilitation since 1950. Of importance are Emerson’s contributions in ethics and epistemology, notably the struggle between skepticism and idealism. Commentators such as David Van Leer have found an “essentially Kantian orientation” whereas others see engagement with broader idealist and Romantic themes. This lack of consensus owes to Emerson’s argumentative brushwork and few explicit references to Kant, complicating the attempt to measure precisely the latter’s influence. Such complications do not prevent Van Leer from laying out a hypothetical, despiritualized, Kantian rereading of Emerson. If, by Van Leer’s own lights, his hypothesis’ validity stands or falls with Emerson’s understanding of Kantian concepts, one must first identify that understanding on two key issues: transcendental idealism and the faculties. If this study judges Emerson’s understanding of idealism at several removes from Kant’s transcendental idealism, notably on the status of objective reality, it finds his understanding of the faculties more closely aligned on the function of understanding, reason and intuition, albeit with an important amendment to the latter. Accordingly, this study holds, with Winkler, Van Leer’s hypothetical account to be both interpretively incomplete and constitutively unverifiable.
[1] « Usage public, normalisé ou anormal ? Kant et les Lumières face à Jeffrey Stout »
[“Public, normalized or abnormal use: Kant and the Enlightenment vs. Jeffrey Stout]
In Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan and Margit Ruffing (eds.), L’année 1784 : Droit et philosophie de l’histoire [The Year 1784: Law and Philosophy of History], Paris: Librairie philosophique Vrin, 2017, pp. 423-432. Available here.
Abstract: In Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?”, the stakes are clear: only the public use of reason promotes personal autonomy. To that end, he envisages substantial changes in the set of discursive practices supporting modern society. This leads to this study’s central question: is this set of practices capable of promoting autonomy and free reason or does it end up limiting them? The study answer this question in four steps. It first sketches the set of discursive practices laid out in “What is Enlightenment?”. Next, it takes up a critique from Stout who opposes the distinction between public and private uses of reason on two grounds. On the one hand, Kantian autonomy follows from a particular understanding of the person. On the other hand, a public discourse whose limits are determined in advance and independently of its interlocutors cannot be autonomous. Then, to Stout’s critique, this study opposes O’Neill’s attempt to locate Kantian autonomy in modal principles which would avoid both the understanding of the person and the rigidity of public discourse. From the confrontation between Stout and O’Neill emerges lastly a synthesis which lays at the base of public discourse a normalizing principle which favors both a new conception of autonomy and a mixed discourse.
Deven Burks 