Liberal Democracy, Law and the Citizen Speaker

Ian Cram is Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at Leeds University, UK.

Cram's view on regulating and promoting online speech is a vital discussion on the requirements for a pure democracy.

• 1. Damaging Democracy? ‘Fake News’ and Moral Panics Introduction Issues of Principle – How Open Should the Channels of Political Communication be in a Liberal Democracy?Tensions between Liberalism and Democracy Popular Sovereignty in Liberal Constitutionalist Thinking The Popular Sovereignty Challenge to Liberal Constitutionalism and Two Anxieties Mapping Liberalism’s Ochlophobia – Current Restrictions on Freedom of Political Expression and a Republican Argument for Keeping the Channels of Political Change Open 2. Closing Off the Agon: Legal Norms, Deliberative Democracy and ‘Improved’ European Public Discourse Introduction The Liberal and the Democratic Polity Privileging ‘Responsible’ Media – The Council of Europe’s Narrowed Conception of Political Pluralism Threats to Political Pluralism from Liberal Elitist, Deliberative (Civic Republican), Epistemic Accounts of Democracy Containing Majoritarian Passions – Pettit’s Aristocratic Republic of Reason and Critics Conclusion – Ongoing Ineliminable Conflict: Truly Plural, Participatory Politics 3. Enlightenment Rationality vs Machiavellian Pluralism Introduction Enlightenment Roots of Deliberative Democracy and Some Counter-Enlightenment Objections Public Reason and the Reasonable Citizen in Deliberative Democracy Scholarship Conclusion 4. Populism and Ochlophobia: The Denouncements of Popular Participation in Liberal Democracy Introduction Anti-populist Themes in Mainstream Culture and Politics Populism in Political Theory – A Response to Modern Representative Democracy and Redemptive Possibilities Defending Oligarchical Rule Down the Ages – From Thucydidesand Plato via Madison and Tocqueville to the Twentieth-century Critics of Mass Culture Denying Isonomia Today – Ochlophobia in Liberal and Republican Political Theory Countering Ochlophobia – Popular (Arendtian) Participation and the Value of Roman Discord Conclusion 5. Popular Participation and Political Dissent in Post-Revolutionary America: A Case Study of the Democratic Republicans Introduction Federalist and Patrician Republican Accounts of the Political Citizen Arendt, Human Action and the Mediated (Oligarchic) Political Life – The Failure of the US Founders to Preserve the Revolutionary Spirit Jefferson’s Ward-republic: Preserving the Revolutionary Spirit The Counter-Publics of Democratic Republican Clubs Conclusion 6. Official and Corporate Gatekeeping of Online Expression with Special Reference to False Statements on Public Affairs Introduction Protecting False Statements in Political Discourse – Some Principled Arguments The Long Reach of UK Criminal Law into Online Political Discourse and Selected Comparisons Across Western Liberal DemocraciesState Regulation of Contentious Expression – OFCOM and the Coronavirus Disinformation Unit The State as a Producer of False Statements Conclusion 7. Restoring the Agon: Re-opening the Channels of Political Change Introduction – Swimming against the Liberal Tide Dealing with the Problem of the ‘Ins’ and the Role of Plural Political Expression in Preserving Open and Fractious Republican Liberty Common Carriers Not Editors – Public Forums and Banning Viewpoint Discrimination by Social Media PlatformsFinal Thoughts: The Threat to Self-government