Republicanismo e Liberdade de Expressão na BPSR

A última edição da Brazilian Political Science Review traz dois bons artigos de teoria política. O primeiro, de autoria de Ricardo Silva (UFSC), aborda o conceito republicano de não-dominação e sua interpretação nos diferentes modelos de democracia tal com encontrado nas obras de Pettit, Bellamy e McCormick. Já o artigo de Renato Francisquini (UFSC) propõe uma nova dimensão para o princípio de liberdade de expressão. Um uso equitativo das liberdades comunicativas exigiria a avaliação permanente dos meios de comunicação em busca de violações intencionais ou obstruções sistêmicas ao pleno exercício do pluralismo democrático. 

Non-domination and Political Institutions: The Contested Concept of Republican Democracy

Ricardo Barbosa da Silva

Following the republican revival of the last few decades, the ideal of freedom as non-domination has become an important point of convergence among republican theorists, especially among those associated with neo-Roman republicanism. Furthermore, all neo-Roman theorists argue that a legitimate republican polity in contemporary societies must take a democratic form to overcome the aristocratic and elitist features pervasive in classical and modern republicanism. This study argues that the emerging concept of republican democracy remains essentially contested despite the increasing agreement on the ideal of liberty being constitutive of the republican tradition. It posits that the meaning of the concept of republican democracy becomes unstable in the transition from the normative ideal to the institutional level of neo-republican reasoning, which is evidenced by the fact that neo-Roman theorists embrace the ideal of non-domination but disagree on the characteristics of the institutional design capable of realizing that ideal. To substantiate this argument, the study compares three recent models of democracy that are somehow associated with neo-Roman republicanism—the electoral-contestatory model, the political constitutionalism model, and the Machiavellian democracy model, championed by Philip Pettit, Richard Bellamy, and John McCormick, respectively.

On The Limits of Free Speech: Towards the Fair Value of Communicative Liberties

Renato Francisquini

This study addresses, from a theoretically oriented perspective, the relationship between freedom of expression and democracy, trying to assess its implications for the regulation of mass media. Starting with a legal case in which a TV channel and a journalist were prosecuted for hate speech, looking at the reaction of the São Paulo Press Association to the case, I examine three perspectives on the statute and the reach of expressive liberties—the Millian Principle, the collectivist approach, and the participatory view—which connect these liberties to the ideas of moral autonomy and self-determination. For different, but related, reasons, these views present a conception of free speech that would not garner universal agreement in a pluralistic society. Moreover, some of the ideas defended could justify rules (or the absence of them) that might harm the social bases of self-respect. In opposition to these lines of thought, I argue for the fair value of communicative liberties; i.e., the idea that everyone should have access to the same rights and effective conditions to exercise communication. This means a fair distribution of opportunities for occupying the mediated public space and the establishment of rules to discourage the dissemination of ideas that fail to acknowledge the equal respect that we owe to each other as members of the political association. Democracy, I shall contend, comprises both private and public autonomy. A fair system of communicative freedom is to be seen as the outcome of and the upholding force in a democratic society.