People, Territory, and Legitimacy in Democratic States

Abstract

Who are the people who should govern themselves in a democracy? This is the famous boundary problem to which this article offers a new approach. Most democrats, even nationalists and cosmopolitans, delimit the demos by relying on territorial jurisdictions. However, territory is not explicit in their arguments. This article urges democrats to recognize territory's normative importance rather than overlook the role it already plays in their theories. Acknowledging territory is a risky, yet promising, strategy. Risky, because it may lead to a vicious circle: one needs well‐defined territorial borders to delimit the people, yet one needs a well‐defined people to establish legitimate territorial borders. Promising, because it forces democrats to scrutinize implicit assumptions and find new resources for dealing with the vicious circle. The article describes four possible tacks by which theorists could navigate the waters of people, territory, and legitimacy in democracies: asserting, circumventing, solving, and dissolving the circle.