Democracy as a Sphere of Resonance: A Useful Complement to Deliberative Democracy?

Step by step resonance transmutes into an all-encompassing meta category whose meaning changes chameleon-like in shifting contexts: resonance is a metaphor and at the same time a real experience; it is a normative concept as well as a descriptive category. It is a neuroscientific process operating at the level of neurons and also a Romantic idea; finally, it is a social-scientific category, but it shows itself as a utopian flash of otherness […] (2020, p. 356–357.) Sometimes linked to this first criticism, a second one pinpoints the concept's inability to provide clear and solid normative guidelines (Anderson 2023; Vandenberghe 2023). The subjective and culturally situated components of resonance (Rosa 2016, 2019a, 2020) make it difficult to use as a ground for moral judgments. How could one distinguish, on the basis of Resonance Theory, between Trump supporters “resonating” while rallying beyond a somehow charismatic figure and ecological activists “resonating” while occupying a field to impede its replacement by a highway? Hartmut Rosa provides us some answers to that question by arguing that Trump supporters “reject the alterity” of anything different from their perspectives (2019a, 2019b, 2022). Or maybe a different relationship to the otherness of “nature” can justify defending one and not the other. Yet, the normative justification of the distinction between a “false” and a “true” resonance in those cases is not explicitly set out by Rosa. As argued by Vandenberghe (2023), Rosa seems to presuppose what needs to be justified when he uses resonance to make moral judgments. To come back to our example, why would a respect for the “otherness” would be commendable over other forms of relationships to the world? Especially when Rosa rightly argues that viewing “others” as mere instruments may sometimes be necessary—for survival purposes, like in hunting or surgical situations. In addition, the complex dialectics between alienation and resonance (Rosa 2019a, 263–272) render it difficult to grasp when the absence of resonance is problematic. For these reasons, some have concluded that, as for now, Resonance lacks proper justification and merely expresses the ethical perspective of “us,” “liberal academics on the Left who still believe in the rule of law, human rights and multiculturalism and are willing to [demand the good life for all in a just society]” (Vandenberghe 2023, 32). In short, one of the main worries raised against Resonance Theory is that it is unable to provide a normative yardstick that is clear enough to discriminate between real-life cases and solid enough to be acceptable within a pluralist society. My aim in this article is to put that criticism to work. I take it that if the concept of resonance is at risk of being too broad to be useful, we should assess how it fares in specific, well-delineated fields of inquiry instead of trying to assess it as an “all-encompassing” concept. For while the concept may not fulfill all of its intended purposes, it can nevertheless be valuable for specific uses. And since the main weakness of resonance appears to be its lack of normative precision and robustness, I will focus on its ability to provide a normative compass for a specific field. Among all the objects of inquiry possible, democracy comes to the fore as arguably one of the most important areas for Resonance Theory. Indeed, Rosa argues not only that key axes of resonance must be established within a democratic political system but also that without a sphere of democratic resonance, we won't be able to overcome the structural forces of acceleration (Rosa 2019b, 387, 392; 2019a, 2022). The world being shaped by systemic forces we have little control over—like economic growth, “dazzling stagnation,” or the need for “dynamic stabilization” (Rosa 2015, 2024), notably because of mute political institutions, a necessary condition to regain a form of control over it is through a resonating democratic sphere allowing us to shape our collective destiny. We could thus complete Rosa's famous opening (2019a, 16): “If acceleration is the problem, then resonance may well be the solution,” and democracy an essential means to reach it. Given the proclaimed centrality of his conceptualization of democracy,1 an exploration of Resonance Theory's potentials must take a closer look at his take on democracy. When it comes to theorizing and reforming democracy, theories of deliberative democracy (DD) have dominated the (Western) academic scene since the turn of the century. They now rest upon nearly 50 years of theoretical quarrels—notably on the meaning of democratic legitimacy—and 30 years of empirical investigations, especially on democratic innovations. But they are also the democratic theories closest to Rosa's theory of democratic resonance. I will look into their commonalities later; for now, suffice it to say that Rosa has explicitly built his notion of a resonating public sphere on Habermas’ work (Rosa 2022), and that he directly criticized agonistic and aggregative theories of democracy, sometimes in a way similar to deliberative democrats (e.g., by rejecting polls as a proper expression of public opinion 2019a, 2019b, 2022). In addition, DD has a strong “normative component,” that is, it strives for a moral ideal, more so than more “realistic” approaches to democracy.2 This is another feature shared with Resonance Theory. Thus, if we want to evaluate the potential of Resonance Theory as a normative theory of democracy, a sound way of proceeding would be to assess what such theory could to Resonance Theory provide a solid justification of is it more solid than the by it to our political is it to DD I take these to be for normative theory of the ability to the moral work of why we democracy in and the to us some guidelines to our political I as I the with a of its of the of democracy and the democratic it It is important to into some of the of the of DD to be able to evaluate the Resonance Theory could make to the field. I then to out how Resonance Theory would justify democracy. 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As we will Rosa that it is the of of resonance that democracy more than the for collective The resonance is the one when we are able to in collective to shape our world into a when we use our to the of our collective destiny. this Rosa has not a out theory of democracy. 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