Democratic Legitimacy and Decisions for the Future

Abstract This paper engages two claims defended by Axel Gosseries in What is intergenerational justice. The first is that the demands of democratic legitimacy cannot be met in the political relations between present and future people because future people cannot authorize decisions made today. In response, I cast doubt on the necessity of authorization for democratic legitimacy. Representative claims can, in some cases, be legitimate by democratic standards even if they are not authorized. The second claim advanced by Gosseries is that democratic legitimacy applies to the relations between present and future people since future people are governed by the decisions made today. Contrary to Gosseries, I argue that the imposition of burdens is neither sufficient nor necessary for decisions to govern others. Instead, the paper argues that de facto authority is the more relevant condition and that intergenerational relations of de facto authority are unlikely ever to obtain.