Liberal Democracy, Law and the Citizen Speaker

1. Damaging Democracy? 'Fake News' and Moral Panics
Introduction
Issues of Principle - How Open Should the Channels of Political Communication be in a Liberal Democracy?
Tensions between Liberalism and Democracy
Popular Sovereignty in Liberal Constitutionalist Thinking
The Popular Sovereignty Challenge to Liberal Constitutionalism and Two Anxieties
Mapping Liberalism's Ochlophobia - Current Restrictions on Freedom of Political Expression and a Republican Argument for Keeping the Channels of Political Change Open

2. Closing Off the Agon: Legal Norms, Deliberative Democracy and 'Improved' European Public Discourse
Introduction
The Liberal and the Democratic Polity
Privileging 'Responsible' Media - The Council of Europe's Narrowed Conception of Political Pluralism
Threats to Political Pluralism from Liberal Elitist, Deliberative (Civic Republican), Epistemic Accounts of Democracy
Containing Majoritarian Passions - Pettit's Aristocratic Republic of Reason and Critics
Conclusion - Ongoing Ineliminable Conflict: Truly Plural, Participatory Politics

3. Enlightenment Rationality vs Machiavellian Pluralism
Introduction
Enlightenment Roots of Deliberative Democracy and Some Counter-Enlightenment Objections
Public Reason and the Reasonable Citizen in Deliberative Democracy Scholarship
Conclusion

4. Populism and Ochlophobia: The Denouncements of Popular Participation in Liberal Democracy
Introduction
Anti-populist Themes in Mainstream Culture and Politics
Populism in Political Theory - A Response to Modern Representative Democracy and Redemptive Possibilities
Defending Oligarchical Rule Down the Ages - From Thucydides
and Plato via Madison and Tocqueville to the Twentieth-century Critics of Mass Culture
Denying Isonomia Today - Ochlophobia in Liberal and Republican Political Theory
Countering Ochlophobia - Popular (Arendtian) Participation and the Value of Roman Discord
Conclusion

5. Popular Participation and Political Dissent in Post-Revolutionary America: A Case Study of the Democratic Republicans
Introduction
Federalist and Patrician Republican Accounts of the Political Citizen
Arendt, Human Action and the Mediated (Oligarchic) Political Life - The Failure of the US Founders to Preserve the Revolutionary Spirit
Jefferson's Ward-republic: Preserving the Revolutionary Spirit
The Counter-Publics of Democratic Republican Clubs
Conclusion

6. Official and Corporate Gatekeeping of Online Expression with Special Reference to False Statements on Public Affairs
Introduction
Protecting False Statements in Political Discourse - Some Principled Arguments
The Long Reach of UK Criminal Law into Online Political Discourse and Selected Comparisons Across Western Liberal Democracies
State Regulation of Contentious Expression - OFCOM and the Coronavirus Disinformation Unit
The State as a Producer of False Statements
Conclusion

7. Restoring the Agon: Re-opening the Channels of Political Change
Introduction - Swimming against the Liberal Tide
Dealing with the Problem of the 'Ins' and the Role of Plural Political Expression in Preserving Open and Fractious Republican Liberty
Common Carriers Not Editors - Public Forums and Banning Viewpoint Discrimination by Social Media Platforms
Final Thoughts: The Threat to Self-government