Chapter 2 in Democracy in Captivity: Prisoners, Patients, and the Limits of Self-Government (University of California Press, 2023)

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Chapter overview

This chapter challenges a central assumption in democratic theory: that prisoners, psychiatric patients, and children are naturally excluded from the demos because they lack the competence for self-government. Drawing on canonical statements by Robert Dahl, Jane Mansbridge, and Benjamin Barber, the chapter argues that the “exclusion thesis” is not a single claim but a bundle of propositions about democratic provenance, procedure, and principle. When treated as a conceptual limit on participation, the exclusion thesis collapses. The boundaries of competence—madness and sanity, youth and adulthood, criminal and lawful—are historically contingent, institutionally mediated, and necessarily porous.

Reframing the issue through the democratic “boundary problem,” the chapter shows that custodial exclusions resemble debates over territorial borders: before “the people” can rule, someone must decide who counts as the people. Competence, the chapter argues, is not a prepolitical fact but a provisional social settlement sustained by professional knowledge and cultural scripts. The upshot is a shift in focus—from determining who is competent enough to participate to examining how custodial institutions
shape, stymie, and transform political agency over time.

Core contributions

  • Disaggregates the “exclusion thesis” into multiple claims (provenance, procedure, principle) that are often treated as a self-evident justification for civic disqualification.
  • Links custody to the boundary problem in democratic theory, showing why competence-based exclusions are structurally unstable and open to contestation.
  • Argues that competence is a social settlement, anchored by professional knowledge (psychiatry, criminology, developmental psychology) and cultural scripts rather than “natural” facts.
  • Highlights the porosity of custodial categories (mad/sane, child/adult, criminal/lawful) and the political stakes of small definitional shifts.
  • Flips the guiding question: from who “belongs” in the demos to how institutions shape the capacity to represent one’s interests in public.

Where this chapter fits

The chapter intervenes in democratic theory debates about inclusion, membership, and legitimacy, connecting classic competence-based exclusions to contemporary work on the “boundary problem” and the constitution of the demos. It also speaks to socio-legal scholarship on civil disabilities, guardianship, and the institutional production of political personhood, clarifying why the conventional inside/outside map of citizenship obscures how political struggle moves through custodial walls.

Keywords

democratic exclusions; boundary problem; constituting the demos; competence; civic disability; civil death; prisoners; psychiatric patients; children; guardianship; parens patriae; disenfranchisement; DSM classification; criminology; developmental psychology; institutional legitimacy

How to cite

Chicago (author-date)

Berk, Christopher D. 2023. “Patients, Prisoners, Children, and Travelers.” In Democracy in Captivity: Prisoners, Patients, and the Limits of Self-Government. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.