Two years ago, at the end of a democratic theory seminar, I read Alexander Kirshner’s book
A Theory of Militant Democracy (2014) and decided to continue his discussion about the paradox of democracy. The paradox asks: can a democratic society, in a non-contradictory way, restrict political participation if said participation is a threat to democracy?[2] For the purposes of my essay, “antidemocrat” is taken to mean a political actor that wishes to exclude a socially salient group of participants from the demos.
Kirshner’s book is illuminating, though not the first to bring the concern to the table. Karl Loewenstein, writing in the time of Nazi Germany, coined the term “militant democracy” to argue that it is permissible to violate “fundamental principles” of democracy such as the right to participate as an electoral candidate.[3] Loewenstein argued that antidemocrats – like the Nazi party – can exploit the tolerance of democracies and thus, must be met with int