Democracy and Proportionality

D EMOCRACY is commonly conceived of in political theory in terms of equality of power among the relevant population. 1 This conception of democracy is, however, known to be plagued with difficulties.In particular, democratic equality is typically associated with some use of the majority rule, and is thereby linked to the related conundrums: unleashed majorities may oppress minorities and crush basic liberal rights; majority cycles may lead to chaotic decisions.Such likely unfairness and inconsistency of majoritarian decisions question the status of democracy as a normative ideal and complicate the relationship between democracy and liberal theories of social justice.It is often considered that there is a tension between democracy and justice, in spite of the central role played by the value of equality in both. 2 In this article we propose to replace the principle of equality by a principle of proportionality.In a nutshell, the basic principle of democracy that is examined here states that power should be distributed in proportion to people's stakes in the decision under consideration.Stakes, here, measure how people's interests are affected by the options available in the decision, and are understood in terms of human flourishing rather than in narrow financial terms-we will defend the thesis that interests should be evaluated in connection with a conception of social *This version has benefited from comments on an earlier draft (entitled "On the fair allocation of power") by the Editor and three referees, as well as presentations at workshops in Louvain-la-Neuve,