The Semi-Future Democracy - by Andre Santos Campos

About the Book

Explores whether liberal democracies can govern legitimately for the long term

Book Synopsis

Traditional institutions are often considered inadequate to govern for the long term as their politicians promote short-term thinking which can harm the future. This book proposes a novel theory of social time perception to address the short-term thinking of traditional institutions which threaten to stifle liberal democracies. The semi-future reconfigures liberal democracies' franchises, representative instruments, deliberative practices, accountability mechanisms, and policymaking to include in the demos all citizens, regardless of age, and holders of representable objective interests in the future. The result is not only a way to legitimise long-term governance but also to improve the quality of current democracies.

Review Quotes

How to promote justice, legitimacy and sustainability across generations is one of the most important questions currently facing humanity. Santos Campos' stimulating book provides a rich and sophisticated discussion, together with a set of innovative positive proposals. Required reading.--Stephen Gardiner, University of Washington

This is a rich, innovative and important book on the potential for making democratic institutions more sensitive to the interests of future generations. Taking normative commitments to democratic legitimacy seriously, Santos Campos shows how we can avoid myopic electoral politics on the basis of new democratic understandings of time and political representation.--Ludvig Beckman, Stockholm University

About the Author

Andre Santos Campos is a Research Fellow in Political Theory at the Nova University of Lisbon. His research concentrates on issues that connect contemporary political theory with jurisprudence and intellectual history, especially democratic theory and intergenerational justice. He is the author of Spinoza's Revolutions in Natural Law (2012). He is also the editor of Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy: New Readings (2021), Sovereignty as Value (2021), Spinoza and Law (Routledge, 2016), Spinoza: Basic Concepts (2015), and Challenges to Democratic Participation (2014). In 2019, he was the recipient of the Brian Barry Prize in Political Science, attributed by The British Academy.