The democratic underlabourer: From the domestic to the international level

Much of political theory today is informed, explicitly or implicitly, by the model of the democratic underlabourer. This model combines a claim to know-how in the normative problems of politics with a commitment to political modesty. Democratic underlabourers seek to empower the public, not impose their own ‘wisdom’ on them. This self-understanding is difficult to maintain at the international level, given the lack of a democratic framework, inequalities among states, and the various forms of contestation the liberal international order is facing. At the same time, the field of international political theory (IPT) is increasingly turning to questions with immediate practical implications and seeks to provide normative guidance for international politics. This special issue examines to what extent the model of the democratic underlabourer can and should be reformulated to provide IPT with a plausible and coherent methodological self-understanding.