Political Reason and Interest: A Philosophical Legitimation of the Political Order in a Pluralistic Society

This title was first published in 2000: Politics cannot be conceived of as just a subsystem of society, or as a network of particular interests. The concept of interests and their role within the normative political debate is given a new interpretation by this book, which examines how political interest, market mechanisms and rational choice theories exist in the light of democratic freedom and social justice. The book builds on different concepts of procedural justice, from Schumpeter, Buchanan and Habermass conceptions of democracy and the role of political compromise and coalition in the idea of consensus as a condition for political legitimation.