The contestable peoplehood account of democratically legitimate boundaries

Abstract This article presents a new way to assess whether laws that grant membership of a democratic people are themselves democratically legitimate. It thus offers a new answer to the old question of whether a democracy's boundaries can be democratic. The contestable peoplehood account builds from work that sees boundaries as irresolvable paradoxes that generate legitimacy through contestation. It also shows that boundaries shape identity by implying substantive accounts of peoplehood. Connecting these threads, it argues that boundaries are democratically legitimate when their implied accounts of peoplehood support contestation about what the basis of the people should be. It develops two new criteria to assess this, called contingency and non‐denigration. The contestable peoplehood account offers a more politicized and pluralist way to assess boundaries’ democratic legitimacy than previously available.