The Semi-Future DemocracyA Liberal Theory of the Long-Term View

Explores whether liberal democracies can govern legitimately for the long term

• Presents an original contribution built on a prize-winning article
• Uniquely connects intergenerational justice studies with normative (i.e., related to legitimacy issues) democratic theory
• Introduces a novel time perception that promotes the long term without falling into the legitimacy traps usually faced by non-overlapping future proposals of democratic inclusion
• Provides the first significant future-oriented development of the so-called constructivist turn in democratic representation
• Makes several new contributions to the literature on futures studies: the notion of objective interests in the future, the temporal franchise, the theorising of accountability in cross-temporal democratic environments, and the Multitemporal Public Consumption Approach for evaluating and guiding liberal democracies’ public spending

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.