Democratic Inclusion Through Caring Together with Others

Abstract

The current political ways of organizing human living together are wrought with a democracy deficit and a care deficit. As a result, many, if not most, people are excluded from the deliberations and responsibility-setting processes that most severely affect how well they will be able to live and participate in their polity. This chapter takes up Joan Tronto’s suggestion to solve this grievance by dovetailing care and democracy in democratic ‘caring with’. Democratic ‘caring with’ is first situated within the broader debates about participatory and deliberative democracy to contextualize Tronto’s claim. After identifying the elements of democratic ‘caring with’, the shifts in focus that it brings to the democratic table are sounded out. It is argued that democratic ‘caring with’ brings the political back in and epistemology to the table, tackles in_equality and the care paradox and renegotiates relationships of dissociation. With this, democratic ‘caring with’ is better equipped to address and redress the care paradox that keeps citizens from fully participating democratically than deliberative and participatory democracy are.