Self-Determination, Boundary-Making Practices, and the Procedural Conditions for the Legitimacy of Democratic Boundaries

Abstract

Scholars engaged in the democratic boundary problem debate (BP) often disagree on how BP should be addressed. Most scholars understand BP in substantive terms, maintaining that BP solutions should determine who should approve which decision for it to count as democratic. Others support a procedural approach, according to which BP solutions should determine how boundary-making processes should occur. This paper offers a defense of a self-determination-based conception of BP that is, at once, substantive and procedural. What I argue is that rules of inclusion interfere with both insiders’ and outsiders’ capacity for self-determination, and that this entitles them to democratically discuss democratic boundaries. The model offers the innovative view that the reasons to support procedural approaches to BP have in themselves a substantive core, and then that, despite being often considered alternative to each other, substantive and procedural approaches can turn out to be integrative.