Democratic Legitimacy. Plural Values and Political Power by Frederick M. Barnard (review)

humanities 331 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 xenotransplantation (transplanting organs, tissues, and cells from animals into humans). Marie-Hélène Parizeau=s article (also in French) focuses on the challenges facing research ethics committees, and there is a fascinating article by Michael Geist on Canadian copyright laws in the so-called digital millennium. But the most important paper of the bunch is by Michael McDonald, the first occupant of the Maurice Young Chair of Applied Ethics and founding director of the Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of British Columbia. McDonald=s paper focuses on health research involving humans, and it details the results of a recently published Law Commission of Canada study on this topic that he headed. His incisive commentary on Canadian policy shows that there are serious and systemic defects in the ethical governance of research involving humans. The governance arrangements in Canada are both complex and decentralized, leaving major gaps in regulation, resulting in a system that is >in general inadequate to withstand the major pressures on health research today.= Research institutions and sponsors aren=t sufficiently involved or responsible in the treatment of human subjects (or >human participants,= as McDonald would prefer). And while there is some pressure on individual scientists to behave ethically, McDonald rightly argues that in light of the rapid changes in scientific research today, particularly globalization and commercialization, greater ethical governance needs to be enforced at an institutional level. The Canadian system of governance in health research, as in other areas of scientific research and policy, needs an overhaul, and it is unlike a freemarket economy whose internal dynamic will correct itself. As McDonald claims, >there is no Ainvisible hand@ B whether economic or intellectual B that ensures that effective processes for vigorously conducting research will respect the rights of research subjects.= Hopefully those hands that can effect change will pay attention to this important collection of articles. (KARYN FREEDMAN) Frederick M. Barnard. Democratic Legitimacy. Plural Values and Political Power McGill-Queen=s University Press. xiv, 256. $75.00 By and large, citizens of most liberal democratic regimes tend to obey the laws enacted by their political representatives. And they do so not simply because they know that if push comes to shove men with guns will deprive them of their freedom if they fail to, but rather because they feel that these laws are in some important sense legitimate. When such political systems work well, moreover, this sense of legitimacy will attach even to particular laws with which people might disagree. There is something about the democratic political process as a whole that we tend to think of as commanding our allegiance. 332 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 Figuring out what that something is has been one of political philosophy =s abiding tasks. What alchemy transforms law-making and law enforcement from mere coercion into legitimate governance? The answer to this question has proven frustratingly elusive. Here is an answer that many political philosophers in the liberaldemocratic tradition have been tempted by: when you obey the state, you are not really acquiescing to coercion, for democracy is government by the people, and since you are one of the people, you are really just obeying yourself. Much of F.M. Barnard=s excellent new book is taken up with debunking such tempting but ultimately misleading metaphors. If a single theme runs through the volume, it is that political philosophers through the ages have been tempted time and time again by conceptualizations of the political domain that draw on non-political conceptual resources. Thus, the myth of democracy as self-government stems from the attempt to understand democratic government on the model of individual self-direction and autonomy. Or again, democratic theorists who view more citizen participation in government as the key to increasing legitimacy often draw this conclusion by misleading analogy. To cite a final example, communitarians have mistakenly heaped scorn on the liberal=s traditional emphasis on procedures and rights because they have erroneously modelled their understanding of political society on more intimate forms of human association. Barnard urges us to uncover...