UC Riverside

My dissertation makes the case that learning from and critically engaging with lay political thinking should be an integral part of democratic theory. Specifically, I explore how democratic theory can engage critically with lay Ukrainian and Russian beliefs about democracy that feature a strong emphasis on economic demands, which is unusual from the standpoint of leading scholarly conceptions. I suggest that such lay expectations are about gaining what T.H. Marshall called social citizenship and autonomy. These economic demands are democratic because they encompass attempts to gain power and collective control over crucial social institutions and forces in the economy that affect people's lives. I highlight several aspects of democratic theory that point to the need to take seriously lay people's own ideas about politics. Democratic theorists should take the rational and deliberative capacity of lay actors seriously because democracy involves collective popular control over crucial social institutions and forces, inclusion, full citizenship, the free exchange of ideas, and equality among listeners and speakers. In a democracy, rights and laws should not be an imposition but rather authorized by the people themselves. As a form of government that rests on popular power, democracy broadly encompasses a principle of participation of constituents in the direction of political life. One way to understand participation, I argue, is by thinking about it as an opportunity for individual and collective self-expression, where lay actors contribute to interpreting their social world by stating their grievances, demands, hopes, or aspirations. Moreover, historically democracy has been contested and redefined not only by experts and elites, but often by lay actors themselves through social movements.