Theories of democratic self-defence: Exclusion, toleration, integration
Political actors who challenge democratic fundamentals have been around for some time. Yet, democracies are yet to determine which is the right way to deal with them. Should we exclude anti-democrats and thereby contradict our own principles of equal inclusion and pluralism? Or should we include them and let our democracies backslide and gradually erode?
Despite its urgency, this crucial dilemma has not been settled yet. Democratic theorists have hitherto focused on justifying militant democracy, the practice of excluding antidemocrats. They have dismissed strategies of toleration, even though the latter are more widely used. They also overlook so-called social approaches that confront anti-democrats by scrapping the structural injustices that these actors exploit.
The aim of this project is to examine militant democracy alongside less studied theories of democratic self-defence that prioritize toleration and social integration respectively. It sheds light into the ideas and normative arguments that sustain them, identifies their conceptual lines of demarcation, analyses their pros and cons, their links and contrasts. My aim is to offer a concentrated, critical reading of a field that is at present overly dispersed.
Appreciating the variety of possible responses to democracy’s challengers can expand our repertoire of resources for defending democracy. By linking these responses to differing conceptions of democracy, the project will also enrich our knowledge of the concept.
Despite its urgency, this crucial dilemma has not been settled yet. Democratic theorists have hitherto focused on justifying militant democracy, the practice of excluding antidemocrats. They have dismissed strategies of toleration, even though the latter are more widely used. They also overlook so-called social approaches that confront anti-democrats by scrapping the structural injustices that these actors exploit.
The aim of this project is to examine militant democracy alongside less studied theories of democratic self-defence that prioritize toleration and social integration respectively. It sheds light into the ideas and normative arguments that sustain them, identifies their conceptual lines of demarcation, analyses their pros and cons, their links and contrasts. My aim is to offer a concentrated, critical reading of a field that is at present overly dispersed.
Appreciating the variety of possible responses to democracy’s challengers can expand our repertoire of resources for defending democracy. By linking these responses to differing conceptions of democracy, the project will also enrich our knowledge of the concept.
Final report
Final Report on RJ Sabbatical SAB22-0064
‘Theories of democratic self-defence: Exclusion, toleration, integration’
1. The program's most significant results and publications as well as a discussion of the conclusions
The main output of this project was a monograph under contract with Oxford University Press, which was indeed completed and submitted to the press on November 22, 2024. The monograph titled ’Theories of Democratic Self-Defence: Exclusion, Toleration, Integration’ aims to map, clarify and reorient the debate about which responses to antidemocratic political actors are justified to adopt in democratic societies in the name of defending democracy.
Debates surrounding democratic self-defence often focus on how societies should respond to individuals or groups that challenge the core principles of democracy. Rather than advocating for one side of this debate, this book seeks to explore and critically examine various approaches to democratic self-defence, presenting them as ‘ideal types’ grounded in distinct normative principles.
The book aims to provide readers with tools to better understand and differentiate between three primary responses to autocratic or illiberal forces: militant, tolerant, and social. Each approach is distinct in how it identifies threats to democracy, the strategies it employs, and the goals it seeks to achieve. By highlighting these differences, the book sheds light on how these ideal-typical approaches manifest in real-world practices of democratic self-defence, and across a range of contexts, including state and government practices, partisan politics and grassroots efforts.
Through a comprehensive analysis, the book delves into the rich array of normative arguments associated with each ideal type. It also explores the foundational concepts of democracy and democratic threat that shape these approaches. By doing so, the book emphasises that strategies for defending democracy are deeply influenced by the principles they are built upon. These principles, in turn, shape critical decisions, such as defining who counts as an "antidemocratic actor" and clarifying what aspects of democracy require protection.
Ultimately, the book argues that understanding these foundational democratic principles is crucial for crafting effective and thoughtful strategies for democratic self-defence. By clarifying these concepts, it equips readers to engage more deeply with the challenges posed by antidemocratic forces and to consider what democracy truly means and how it can be safeguarded.
The contents of the book, which is about 88,000 words long, are included here below:
Introduction
1. The Concept of Militant Democracy
2. Militant Democracy’s Norms: Reason, Hegemony, and Harm
3. Tolerant Democracy as an Alternative
4. Rationales for Tolerating Anti-Democrats
5. A Third Approach: Defending Democracy Socially
6. Herman Heller and Contemporary Social Defences of Democracy
7. A Critical Appraisal of Exclusion, Toleration and Integration
Afterword
In addition to the monograph, the project time was used to develop, revise or finalise various articles and book chapters on the same thematic area, for example the refereed article "Responses to Populism: Militant, Tolerant and Social", published in PS: Political Science & Politics in 2025, and the popular reflection paper “Innocence Lost: The Moral Costs of Defending Democracy”, solicited by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung & the Democracy Institute of the Central European University.
The main part of the monograph was written in Sweden during 2023-2024, but I also spent two months in the spring of 2024 at the Catholic University of Chile, in Santiago, invited by Prof. Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser, whose support for the monograph has been pivotal since its inception. In addition to receiving excellent feedback on my monograph at the Higher Research Seminar, and making valuable new contacts, Prof. Rovira and I also started developing a new book proposal on an Oxford Handbook that we are currently co-editing (see below).
2. Outputs aside from the publications
In addition to the monograph and other publications, one new book proposal and several grant applications were produced during the sabbatical.
A new 17-page book proposal concerns an Oxford Handbook on Democratic Self-Defence, edited by myself, Bastiaan Rijpkema and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser. It involves 46 contributors from around the world, and from various disciplines, and we plan to complete it by 2027. The proposal has been positively reviewed, supported by OUP’s senior editor in Politics and currently discussed by the Press Delegates.
In connection to this major editorial project, I have been successful in applying for two small grants for events. The first is a Workshop Grant (60,000 SEK) from the Uppsala Forum on Democracy Peace and Justice, to organise a Workshop in Uppsala in spring 2025. The second is a travel grant from the Borbos Hansson Foundation (12,000 SEK), to travel to the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research in Thessaloniki in fall 2025. In relation to the latter, I have co-organised and will co-chair an entire ECPR conference section, which will include 13 panels. Both events aim to bring together some of the contributors of the Handbook mentioned above.
During this project, I have also produced two project grant proposals, on ‘Responses to secessionist parties in democratic contexts’; and on ‘Academic actors as guardians of democracy?’ (see below). The former will be sent to various funding agencies, whereas the latter is an application for the Grant programme ‘Democracy and Higher Education’ at Uppsala University.
3. New research questions.
These two grant applications and my latest publications are also indicative of the three major new research questions that emerged during the sabbatical project.
The first new question involves moving beyond the study of conceptual and normative perspectives on democratic self-defence to a focus on its ethical perspectives. The new question here is whether containing anti-democrats is comparable to other acute moral dilemmas faced by political actors, and the extent to which rights violations are justifiable in the same way as moral transgressions are justifiable in emergency situations.
The second new direction concerns the special responsibilities of civil society actors for defending democracy, and more specifically academic actors. The new question here is whether and why universities and individual academic actors have a special role in
defending democracy, and how they should navigate possible tensions between this task and
their educational and scientific vocation.
The third new research direction developed in this project is a move from examining responses to antidemocratic parties to examining responses to secessionist parties in democratic contexts. The new question here is whether containing anti-democrats is normatively, conceptually and ethically comparable to containing political parties that peacefully and legitimately campaign for regional independence from a parent state. What practices do state actors engage in to address them, how do they justify their responses and how ethical and normatively acceptable are these responses? To explore this question, I have accepted to write a chapter on ‘The constituent powerlessness of regional majorities’ for a Cambridge Handbook on ‘The Limits of Constituent Power’.
4. Research dissemination and collaborations
In addition to the monograph and other publications and proposals the project has resulted in invitations to universities, workshops and conferences, including two keynotes. It has also resulted in new contacts and networks that I will draw on in future research, and collaboration with practitioners. I list below the academic invitations I have received on the basis of this project:
Invited keynotes
6/2024 Conference ‘Militant Democracy and Constitutionalism’, University of Nicosia
4/2025 Conference on Forgotten Institutions, University of Vienna (forthcoming)
Invited talks
4/2023 Workshop ‘State of Exception and Democratic Self-Defense’, Department of Law,
Uppsala University
9/2023 Workshop ‘Resisting the Autocratic Turn I’, Université Libre de Bruxelles
12/2023 Workshop ‘Resisting the Autocratic Turn II’, WZB Berlin Social Science Center
3/2024 Higher Seminar, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
5/2024 Symposium on ‘Populism and Democratic Defence’, Roskilde University
9/2024 Democratic Expeditions Workshop #1 at Democracy Institute, CEU Budapest
10/2024 Research Colloquium (Comparative Political Science), LM University Munich
11/2024 Symposium ‘The Future of Liberal Democracy’, Yale-NUS Campus, Singapore
12/2024 Higher Research Seminar (Dept of Political Science), University of Gothenburg
12/2024 Philosophy, Politics and Economics Seminar, Institute For Future Studies,
Stockholm
3/2025 Political Theory seminar, Stockholm University
6/2025 Workshop on the Limits of Constituent Power, Cambridge University
Conferences
7/2023 27th World Congress, International Political Science Association, Catholic
University of Argentina, Buenos Aires
8/2024 Annual meeting, American Political Science Association, Philadelphia
5/2024 Annual Meeting, Swedish Network for Political Theory, Uppsala
8/2025 ECPR General Conference, Thessaloniki (forthcoming)
Link to Homepage
Homepage: https://www.uu.se/en/contact-and-organisation/staff?query=N12-1411
Other URL: https://anthoulamalkopoulou.weebly.com/
‘Theories of democratic self-defence: Exclusion, toleration, integration’
1. The program's most significant results and publications as well as a discussion of the conclusions
The main output of this project was a monograph under contract with Oxford University Press, which was indeed completed and submitted to the press on November 22, 2024. The monograph titled ’Theories of Democratic Self-Defence: Exclusion, Toleration, Integration’ aims to map, clarify and reorient the debate about which responses to antidemocratic political actors are justified to adopt in democratic societies in the name of defending democracy.
Debates surrounding democratic self-defence often focus on how societies should respond to individuals or groups that challenge the core principles of democracy. Rather than advocating for one side of this debate, this book seeks to explore and critically examine various approaches to democratic self-defence, presenting them as ‘ideal types’ grounded in distinct normative principles.
The book aims to provide readers with tools to better understand and differentiate between three primary responses to autocratic or illiberal forces: militant, tolerant, and social. Each approach is distinct in how it identifies threats to democracy, the strategies it employs, and the goals it seeks to achieve. By highlighting these differences, the book sheds light on how these ideal-typical approaches manifest in real-world practices of democratic self-defence, and across a range of contexts, including state and government practices, partisan politics and grassroots efforts.
Through a comprehensive analysis, the book delves into the rich array of normative arguments associated with each ideal type. It also explores the foundational concepts of democracy and democratic threat that shape these approaches. By doing so, the book emphasises that strategies for defending democracy are deeply influenced by the principles they are built upon. These principles, in turn, shape critical decisions, such as defining who counts as an "antidemocratic actor" and clarifying what aspects of democracy require protection.
Ultimately, the book argues that understanding these foundational democratic principles is crucial for crafting effective and thoughtful strategies for democratic self-defence. By clarifying these concepts, it equips readers to engage more deeply with the challenges posed by antidemocratic forces and to consider what democracy truly means and how it can be safeguarded.
The contents of the book, which is about 88,000 words long, are included here below:
Introduction
1. The Concept of Militant Democracy
2. Militant Democracy’s Norms: Reason, Hegemony, and Harm
3. Tolerant Democracy as an Alternative
4. Rationales for Tolerating Anti-Democrats
5. A Third Approach: Defending Democracy Socially
6. Herman Heller and Contemporary Social Defences of Democracy
7. A Critical Appraisal of Exclusion, Toleration and Integration
Afterword
In addition to the monograph, the project time was used to develop, revise or finalise various articles and book chapters on the same thematic area, for example the refereed article "Responses to Populism: Militant, Tolerant and Social", published in PS: Political Science & Politics in 2025, and the popular reflection paper “Innocence Lost: The Moral Costs of Defending Democracy”, solicited by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung & the Democracy Institute of the Central European University.
The main part of the monograph was written in Sweden during 2023-2024, but I also spent two months in the spring of 2024 at the Catholic University of Chile, in Santiago, invited by Prof. Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser, whose support for the monograph has been pivotal since its inception. In addition to receiving excellent feedback on my monograph at the Higher Research Seminar, and making valuable new contacts, Prof. Rovira and I also started developing a new book proposal on an Oxford Handbook that we are currently co-editing (see below).
2. Outputs aside from the publications
In addition to the monograph and other publications, one new book proposal and several grant applications were produced during the sabbatical.
A new 17-page book proposal concerns an Oxford Handbook on Democratic Self-Defence, edited by myself, Bastiaan Rijpkema and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser. It involves 46 contributors from around the world, and from various disciplines, and we plan to complete it by 2027. The proposal has been positively reviewed, supported by OUP’s senior editor in Politics and currently discussed by the Press Delegates.
In connection to this major editorial project, I have been successful in applying for two small grants for events. The first is a Workshop Grant (60,000 SEK) from the Uppsala Forum on Democracy Peace and Justice, to organise a Workshop in Uppsala in spring 2025. The second is a travel grant from the Borbos Hansson Foundation (12,000 SEK), to travel to the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research in Thessaloniki in fall 2025. In relation to the latter, I have co-organised and will co-chair an entire ECPR conference section, which will include 13 panels. Both events aim to bring together some of the contributors of the Handbook mentioned above.
During this project, I have also produced two project grant proposals, on ‘Responses to secessionist parties in democratic contexts’; and on ‘Academic actors as guardians of democracy?’ (see below). The former will be sent to various funding agencies, whereas the latter is an application for the Grant programme ‘Democracy and Higher Education’ at Uppsala University.
3. New research questions.
These two grant applications and my latest publications are also indicative of the three major new research questions that emerged during the sabbatical project.
The first new question involves moving beyond the study of conceptual and normative perspectives on democratic self-defence to a focus on its ethical perspectives. The new question here is whether containing anti-democrats is comparable to other acute moral dilemmas faced by political actors, and the extent to which rights violations are justifiable in the same way as moral transgressions are justifiable in emergency situations.
The second new direction concerns the special responsibilities of civil society actors for defending democracy, and more specifically academic actors. The new question here is whether and why universities and individual academic actors have a special role in
defending democracy, and how they should navigate possible tensions between this task and
their educational and scientific vocation.
The third new research direction developed in this project is a move from examining responses to antidemocratic parties to examining responses to secessionist parties in democratic contexts. The new question here is whether containing anti-democrats is normatively, conceptually and ethically comparable to containing political parties that peacefully and legitimately campaign for regional independence from a parent state. What practices do state actors engage in to address them, how do they justify their responses and how ethical and normatively acceptable are these responses? To explore this question, I have accepted to write a chapter on ‘The constituent powerlessness of regional majorities’ for a Cambridge Handbook on ‘The Limits of Constituent Power’.
4. Research dissemination and collaborations
In addition to the monograph and other publications and proposals the project has resulted in invitations to universities, workshops and conferences, including two keynotes. It has also resulted in new contacts and networks that I will draw on in future research, and collaboration with practitioners. I list below the academic invitations I have received on the basis of this project:
Invited keynotes
6/2024 Conference ‘Militant Democracy and Constitutionalism’, University of Nicosia
4/2025 Conference on Forgotten Institutions, University of Vienna (forthcoming)
Invited talks
4/2023 Workshop ‘State of Exception and Democratic Self-Defense’, Department of Law,
Uppsala University
9/2023 Workshop ‘Resisting the Autocratic Turn I’, Université Libre de Bruxelles
12/2023 Workshop ‘Resisting the Autocratic Turn II’, WZB Berlin Social Science Center
3/2024 Higher Seminar, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
5/2024 Symposium on ‘Populism and Democratic Defence’, Roskilde University
9/2024 Democratic Expeditions Workshop #1 at Democracy Institute, CEU Budapest
10/2024 Research Colloquium (Comparative Political Science), LM University Munich
11/2024 Symposium ‘The Future of Liberal Democracy’, Yale-NUS Campus, Singapore
12/2024 Higher Research Seminar (Dept of Political Science), University of Gothenburg
12/2024 Philosophy, Politics and Economics Seminar, Institute For Future Studies,
Stockholm
3/2025 Political Theory seminar, Stockholm University
6/2025 Workshop on the Limits of Constituent Power, Cambridge University
Conferences
7/2023 27th World Congress, International Political Science Association, Catholic
University of Argentina, Buenos Aires
8/2024 Annual meeting, American Political Science Association, Philadelphia
5/2024 Annual Meeting, Swedish Network for Political Theory, Uppsala
8/2025 ECPR General Conference, Thessaloniki (forthcoming)
Link to Homepage
Homepage: https://www.uu.se/en/contact-and-organisation/staff?query=N12-1411
Other URL: https://anthoulamalkopoulou.weebly.com/