What Brettschneider Ought to Admit: Democracy Is Substantive

Although Corey Brettschneider presents his value theory of democracy as a third way between pure proceduralism and outcome-based accounts, his framework collapses into substantivism. Despite insisting that democracy cannot be reduced to “procedure-independent evaluations of outcomes,”(2) he explicitly grounds democratic legitimacy in substantive rights that “limit those policy outcomes that would fail to respect citizens as rulers.” (20). Legitimacy therefore hinges not merely on fair participation but on conformity to three independently specified values—equality of interests, political autonomy, and reciprocity. These values operate as external normative standards against which democratic decisions are judged. Brettschneider treats policies such as ex post facto laws or vote buying as democratically illegitimate regardless of procedural authorization, making clear that outcomes remain subject to direct moral assessment. This is not procedural democracy supplemented by rights; it is democracy governed by substantive constraints.

This commitment is most visible in his defense of judicial review. Brettschneider concedes that overturning democratically enacted laws produces a “loss to democracy,” yet nonetheless endorses judicial intervention when outcomes violate core democratic rights ( 137). Judicial review thus functions as a substantive override of procedural legitimacy (138). Even more tellingly, Brettschneider argues that citizens act undemocratically when they undermine the very values—autonomy, equality, and reciprocity—that ground their right to participate (144). Participation rights are therefore conditional on prior adherence to these values rather than sufficient on their own. His rejection of purely outcome-based theories does not rescue him from substantivism: while he disavows welfare maximization or epistemic correctness, he continues to evaluate outcomes according to democratic values. He merely substitutes one set of substantive criteria for another.

Brettschneider thus reframes outcome evaluation rather than abandoning it. Democratic procedures generate legitimacy only insofar as their results preserve citizens’ status as rulers. But yet, procedure is still not foundational, it is subordinate to substance. Despite his attempt to dissolve the traditional tension between democracy and rights, Brettschneider reproduces it by privileging substantively defined democratic outcomes over majoritarian authorization. His theory therefore belongs squarely on the substantive side: democracy is legitimate not because citizens decide, but because their decisions align with independently defined normative standards.