The Tribunate as a Realist Democratic Innovation

• Published date: 01 February 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917231191089
• Author: Janosch Prinz,Manon Westphal
• Date: 01 February 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917231191089

Political Theory

2024, Vol. 52(1) 60 –89

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917231191089

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Article

The Tribunate as a

Realist Democratic

Innovation

Janosch Prinz1 and Manon Westphal2

Abstract

We argue that a reinvention of the plebeian tribunate should play a key

role in addressing the challenges stemming from increasing concentrations

of, and inequalities in, social, political, economic, and cultural power in

liberal democracies. Addressing these challenges, which negatively affect

parliamentary representation, requires a form of institutional innovation

that gives voice to non-elites who are ruled but do not rule. We propose

revisions of the composition and tasks of the tribunate that are tailored to

these current challenges. Our fully randomly selected tribunate emerges as a

vehicle not only for contesting concentrated power but also for articulating

lines of conflict, disruptive agenda-setting, and political experimentation. Our

proposal contributes to developing realist democratic theory. We argue that

the reinvented tribunate not only meets realist commitments to avoiding

moralization and idealization but also demonstrates the underexploited

capacity of realism to inform institutional innovation and thus contribute to

substantial political analysis.

Keywords

realism in political theory, tribunate, democratic innovation

1Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Department of Philosophy, Maastricht University,

Maastricht, Netherlands

2Department of Political Science, University of Münster, Münster, Germany

Corresponding Author:

Janosch Prinz, Maastricht University, Grote Gracht 90-92, Maastricht, 6200 MD, Netherlands.

Email: j.prinz@maastrichtuniversity.nl

1191089PTXXXX10.1177/00905917231191089Political TheoryPrinz and Westphal

research-article2023

Prinz and Westphal 61

Introduction

In this article, we propose a reinvention of the plebeian tribunate to strengthen

democracies’ capacity to respond to widespread discontents, which arguably

have to do with the shifts in, and the concentration of, political power (e.g.,

Gilens and Page 2014; Hacker and Pierson 2010), cultural power (e.g.,

Reckwitz 2020), and economic power (e.g., Adkins, Cooper, and Konings

2020) in contemporary European and North American states. The tribunate

would be a supplementary assembly selected by lot from the inhabitants of

the polity, with the function to give the voices of ordinary people, those most

likely to face disadvantage and oppression, a greater weight in public opin-

ion formation and decision-making. The overall goal of this article is to

show how the plebeian tribunate may be turned into a democratic innovation

with considerable potential to help contemporary democracies deal with

concentrated power as a complex phenomenon that permeates political,

social, economic, and cultural dimensions in ways that are not yet fully

transparent. We depart from previous accounts of the tribunate, which have

already shown that the tribunate has a considerable potential to disperse

concentrated power (Arlen and Rossi 2021; Jörke 2016; McCormick 2011),

criticize their limitations, and spell out a reinvention of the tribunate tailored

to contemporary challenges. While the split between ordinary people and the

holders of concentrated power, central to the idea of a tribunate, may at first

glance seem like an abandonment of democratic equality, we seek to show

how it can strengthen not only oppositional and conflictual elements crucial

for democracy (Medearis 2015) but also contribute to fostering solidarity

and collective action.

Our reinvention of the tribunate responds to two shortcomings of prevail-

ing interpretations of the tribunate. First, previous accounts of the plebeian

tribunate rely on a simplistic understanding of the divide between “plebs”

and “elite” and how it affects the problem of concentrated power. By defining

eligibility based on the criteria of income/wealth and education, they inscribe

a too-narrow conflict focus into the political space created by the tribunate. If

contemporary democracies want to use the tribunate as a tool for addressing

potentially new lines of conflict between the “plebs” and the “elite,” which

are not entirely absorbed by traditional class divisions, they should not select

participants on the basis of criteria determined by an income/wealth-based

understanding of class. We argue that random selection from the entire popu-

lation is a more suitable selection technique for the tribunate. A group of

people selected by lot from the whole of society is likely to be inclusive of