ABSTRACT
This chapter draws from the existing collection of feminist insights in its own preliminary attempt to reconstruct the democratic processes of power and persuasion. It argues that two different sets of insights, deriving from women's experiences with human "connection" and domination, illuminates the two democratic processes of persuasion and power. The chapter's larger point, however, is that any effective theory or practice of democracy needs to encompass both persuasion and power and can be effectively reconstructed only by drawing from the experiences of both connection and domination. The feminist emphasis on "connection" coincided with and undoubtedly stemmed in part from women's historical position of powerlessness. In part because the dichotomy "reason-emotion" has been gender-coded as "male-female", affective, relationship-based, and connection-oriented approaches to understanding democratic ideals and practice have been given short shrift in democratic theory, and cognitive, rights-based, individual-oriented approaches have predominated.
