Politics, Identity, and Domination

Abstract Politics against Domination by Ian Shapiro considers important features of a politics of nondomination and argues against the idea that these features are best secured, not by majority rule, but by constitutions, courts, checks and balances, and other republican institutions. This paper examines these arguments but also asks whether majority rule can prevent political domination in the United States where political affiliations are forms of social identity and where social identities play the role they currently play in American public life.