Cultures of Democracy and Citizen Efficacy
Cultures of Democracy and Citizen Efficacy
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民主文化和公民效能
DOI：
10.1215/08992363-2006-027
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发表时间：
2007
期刊：
影响因子：
1.5
通讯作者：
Charles Taylor
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Charles Taylor
20世纪见证了民主的巨大进步：当然，这一点也不均衡;这始终是一个前进两步，后退一步的问题。但长期趋势是明确无误的。我相信这种趋势在二十一世纪还会继续下去。这不是因为我是一个头脑简单的乐观主义者（尽管我的一些朋友指责我这样做），也不是因为我相信进步是必然的。而是因为民主正成为唯一能够长期宣称合法性的政权。人类历史上充满了早期的等级制度，这些制度之所以稳定，是因为它们依赖于对有序宇宙的某种信仰，统治者可以从天堂获得授权;依赖于某个王朝的神权;或者依赖于某个阶级或部落的自然优越性。但是，我们所谓的现代性的进步，以不同的形式，破坏了所有这些传统观念，并最终使它们变得难以置信。最后，我们可以依靠的稳定合法性的唯一基础是，我们应该服从我们的统治者，因为这样做我们实际上是在服从自己。这并不是说民主国家是稳定的。他们可能无法交付货物并变得信誉扫地，他们可能无法在阶级或种族群体之间的紧张局势面前团结在一起，他们可能会以各种方式分崩离析。但在我们这个时代，一旦新奇的第一波热潮消退，那些经常通过政变取代他们的政权就变得更不合法了。他们缺乏这一点，因为随着时间的推移，他们没有足够的理由来保持我们的忠诚。他们不得不以超效率作为推翻民主制度的借口，而从长远来看，这种说法看起来不可能不令人信服。换句话说，民主国家可能并不稳定，但其他政权更不稳定;它们最终不得不依靠越来越赤裸裸的武力来维持自己，就像伊拉克的萨达姆·侯赛因一样。这就是为什么我们时代的政变将军开始通常是
The twentieth century saw a great advance of democracy: not at all even, of course; it was always a question of two steps forward, one step back. But the long-term trend is unmistakable. I believe that this trend will continue in the twenty-first century. This is not because I am a simple-minded optimist (although some of my friends accuse me of this) or because I believe in the inevitability of progress. It is rather because democracy is becoming the only regime that can claim legitimacy over the long term. Human history is full of earlier, hierarchical regimes that were stable because they reposed on some belief in an ordered cosmos, where a ruler might draw his mandate from heaven; on the divine right of some dynasty; or on the natural superiority of some class or tribe. But the progress of what we call modernity, in its different forms, undermines all these traditional ideas and eventually makes them incredible. In the end, the only basis for stable legitimacy we can fall back on turns out to be that we should obey our rulers because in doing so we are really obeying ourselves. This is not to say that democracies are stable. They may fail to deliver the goods and become discredited, they may fail to hold together in face of tensions between classes or ethic groups, and they may fall apart in a host of ways. But in our day, the regimes that displace them, often through coups, turn out to have even less legitimacy once the first flush of the novelty wears off. And they lack this because they have no good grounds to hold our allegiance over time. They have to claim superefficacy as their excuse for overturning democratic institutions, and this claim cannot fail to look unconvincing over the long term. In other words, democracies may not be stable, but other regimes are even less so; and they end up having to sustain themselves by more and more naked force, like Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That is why putschist generals in our day usually begin by