Our book intends to focus on the specific link between compromise and democracy. If political compromises have played a significant role in our representative democracies, the nature of the relationship between compromise and democracy, generally, has raised tricky theoretical questions and generated ambiguous evaluations. Existing studies have tackled the ambivalent relationship between compromise and democracy from different angles.
On the one hand, there is a multitude of contributions (from various and sometimes divergent inspirations) pleading against political compromises in democracies (Baume and Papadopoulos 2019). First, compromises might be struck at the expense of essential (even universal) values. For this reason, compromise is sometimes deemed nihilist in essence (Hallowell 1944). Second, compromises might impact the consistency of values that political actors have to align with. A prominent representative of that line of thought, Dworkin, considers checkerboard laws a violation of principled coherence (1986: 184) because they regulate political differences by treating similar situations differently without a justification in principle (Dworkin 1986: 179). Third, compromises would generate, reveal or exacerbate inequalities (Ruser and Machin 2017) because compromisers would have different and unequal negotiation powers. Fourth, a widespread practice of compromise can diminish the quality of political debates because the number of political voices that are heard diminishes. Indeed, compromise solutions tend to rule out original and less consensual perspectives (Ruser and Machin 2017). Fifth, compromise would erase the conflictual dimension of politics, considered, notably by Mouffe, as paramount (1998: 13).
On the other hand and by contrast with the preceding, there is a body of literature dedicated to the defence of compromise. These contributions are part of a movement in favour of the revalorisation of the practice of compromise in our democracies. Such a position is being pioneered by Kelsen, who considers that, in the face of the profound social divisions of class society in a democratic context, compromise constitutes a desirable issue (1927). To him, compromises play a crucial role in the moderation process between the majority and the minority, and although they do not fully meet the preferences of the minority, neither are they completely contrary to their wishes (Kelsen 2007: 288). In a word, compromise would best incarnate the principle of self-determination that is at the core of his democratic theory (Kelsen 2007: 288). In the same vein, Rostbøll affirms that “the reasons for compromise are inherent in the democratic ideal” (2017: 620) because compromise “respects the parties as joint participants in collective self-legislation, or, in short, as co-rulers” (2017: 629). By the same token, Bellamy (2018) asserts that in democratic systems and above all in culturally heterogeneous states, majority decisions are much more exclusive than compromises that are able to integrate minoritarian groups that would otherwise be eclipsed. A defence of compromise is also presented by Gutmann and Thompson (2014: 204), who state that, “If politics is the art of the possible, then compromise is the artistry of democracy”. Those contributions indeed play a crucial role in the revaluation of compromise in the face of a dynamic political polarisation in our democracies, as Gutmann and Thompson (2010: 1125) point out (while they focus on the American context, it is not unreasonable to understand polarisation as a widespread phenomenon in our contemporary age).1 Another kind of rehabilitation of the concept of compromise comes from defending the possibility of a non-strategic but principled compromise, notably when citizens “have principled reasons to compromise that are […] supererogatory” (Weinstock 2013: 552). Weinstock provides here an example of political communities, inclined to compromise in order to avoid the “winner-take-all” paradigm, which can be deleterious for minorities (Weinstock 2013: 552). Such a claim opposes May’s argument according to which political compromises are necessarily strategic (2005).
Moreover, and from a different perspective from the preceding, other contributions attempt to clarify a map on good and bad—or just and unjust—compromises and to draw a line between them. Such evaluations appear notably by Margalit (2010), who raises the question of when a compromise should be morally prohibited, or, to put it differently, which compromises must be called “rotten compromises”, either because they support an “inhumane regime” (Margalit: 2010: 6) or because they deal with evil persons, such as Adolf Hitler (Margalit 2010: 22–23). Margalit rests his argument on examples that mostly relate to international relations, such as the Munich Agreement, the Yalta Conference or the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. In the same vein, van Parijs (2012) contributes to the elaboration of distinctive criteria of a “good compromise”, while discussing three “conjectures”: a good compromise would, first, be “honourable”2; second, “contribute to the progress of justice”; and third, be “Pareto-improving”. Even if Margalit’s and van Parijs’ explorations do not apply, in original intention, to democracies, we consider them pertinent in such a context. In fact, they are often discussed in studies of democratic decision-making (Bellamy 2012; Overeem 2017; Rostbøll 2017). In such a debate on the “fairness of compromise”, Wendt (2019) distances himself from Margalit (2010), notably challenging the perspective according to which achieving a compromise with “evil parties” is necessarily morally wrong.3
Political compromise in democracy generates paradoxes or strong ambiguities, according to us, for at least four reasons: first, because, as mentioned previously, compromise “carries opposing evaluating forces” (Margalit 2010: 6). Though compromise is sometimes considered “fundamental in democracy” (Gutmann and Thompson 2010), it is also perceived as a betrayal of principles. Tillyris exposes this paradox eloquently: “The claim that democratic politics is the art of compromise is a platitude but we seem allergic to compromise in politics when it happens” (2017: 476). To put it differently, though compromise is considered an indispensable source of stability in a democratic government4 and is inevitable in collective action (Carens 1979: 126), the idea of compromise struggles to find a place in political values. Second, such an evaluative or normative ambivalence related to compromise has to be linked to what Luban calls the “paradox of compromise” (1985: 414), showing that every compromise implies a partial realisation of the values or interests of the compromisers.5 Consequently, compromises can be paradoxically defended or rejected for the same reason: the partial realisation of the principle defended by the compromisers (see Baume and Novak, in this volume). Third, compromise generates another type of ambiguity, well described by Carens (1979: 123): on the one hand, compromise can be characterised as “a technique for settling conflicts” (1979: 123), and on the other hand, it is loaded with subjective evaluations and, in the common sense, most often deemed derogatory. The...