Tuomo Käkelä

Current scholarship examines the normative value, character and internal commitments of solidarity groups but pays less attention to how they remain democratically answerable to those beyond their boundaries and how such encounters reshape solidarity itself. This article asks how partial solidarities can support inclusive and egalitarian relations under conditions of unequal power and profound disagreement. It develops a non-ideal theoretical account of reflexive interchange by engaging with debates on solidarity, democratic equality and intergroup responsiveness, and argues that solidaristic action can trigger social learning across group boundaries through perspective-taking, disagreement and dialogue with outsiders. Historical examples are used to illustrate how this mechanism can operate in practice. Where institutional and material conditions sustain expectations of democratic equality and support the democratic mediation of conflict, this process can revise solidaristic commitments, broaden understandings of democratic equality, and keep the boundaries of the solidaristic ‘we’ open to ongoing negotiation and contestation.

In recent decades, the boundaries of democratic polities have been increasingly contested in the field of democratic theory. The theoretical discussion has focused on the philosophical norms that should demarcate the boundaries of democratic constituencies. This article defends and explores an alternative approach that, instead of focusing solely on theoretical norms, theorizes democratic processes of boundary-making. This alternative approach addresses the multiplicity of intertwined boundaries bounding demos and agents capable of transforming and democratizing these multiple boundaries. I characterize a category of agents who democratize symbolic everyday boundaries as transboundary associations. The democratization of the symbolic boundaries of everyday interactions is a necessary condition for the democratization of formal boundary-making, since in democratic orders and societies, institutions cannot simply impose boundaries on people. Transboundary associations produce sites for incipient democratic politics that transcend current institutional and symbolic boundaries, producing possibilities for reciprocal boundary-making.