Ackerman’s Dualist Democracy and the Machiavellian Moment.

This paper attempts to evaluate Bruce Ackerman?s theory of dualist democracy. He distinguishes two different decisions that may be made in a democracy. The first is a decision by the people themselves, which is designated as higher lawmaking that embodies the general will of the people; the second is a decision by government, which is designated as normal politics. The objective of Ackerman?s two-track theory of democracy is to resolve the tension between self-government and the rule law in American constitutionalism. I attempt to demonstrate that Ackerman?s idea of dualist democracy is a virtue-centric, populist, republicanism. His synthesis relies on the premise of the priority of self-government over the rule of law. It constitutes a solid alternative to the recent neo-Roman republicanism of Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, which emphasizes law-centric republican constitutionalism. The relevance of dualist democracy is explored via a contextualized analysis of the virtue-centric republicanism from Hannah Arendt to J. G. A. Pocock and Hanna Pitkin. Ackerman?s interpretation of the Federalist Paper as the main intellectual resource of his project is also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]