ABSTRACT
The language of personal autonomy occupies a central position in the discourse of liberal democracy and indeed in western thought the two concepts are integrally related. Democratic governments presuppose and depend on, to some extent, an autonomous citizenry capable of exercising independent and informed political choices; and it is a feature of democratic states that they are governed by laws and constitutions designed to prevent them from overweening interference in the exercise of such individual autonomy. More strongly, ‘developmental’ arguments in support of, in particular, participatory democracy suggest that democratic procedures provide the conditions under which personal autonomy will be cultivated and developed (cf. Mill 1971; Parry 1972).
