{"id":2021,"date":"2025-12-11T10:14:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T10:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/humanrightsanddemocracyforumblog\/?p=2021"},"modified":"2025-12-11T10:14:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T10:14:05","slug":"democracy-without-human-dignity-illiberalism-and-the-exclusion-of-non-brothers-by-isha-sibi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/humanrightsanddemocracyforumblog\/2025\/12\/11\/democracy-without-human-dignity-illiberalism-and-the-exclusion-of-non-brothers-by-isha-sibi\/","title":{"rendered":"Democracy Without Human Dignity: Illiberalism and the Exclusion of \u201cNon-Brothers\u201d, by Isha Sibi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Democratic structures around the world face a notable decline, driven at least partially by the rise of right-wing populism. While not monolithic, these movements consolidate power by constructing exclusionary narratives that divide societies into \u201creal\u201d citizens and threatening \u201cothers,\u201d using in particular \u201cgendered\u201d politics to legitimise this reshaping of public life.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This blog examines how a renewed, equality-based and reciprocity-centred conception of human dignity is essential to reinforcing the quality of democracy, drawing upon the works of Baer, Rosanvallon and S\u00e9nac, among others to develop this conception. Human dignity, in its legal and human rights sense, rests on the principle that all people possess inherent and equal worth.[2]<\/sup><\/a> This principle underlies autonomy, equality, and democratic participation. Yet dignity\u2019s flexibility of meaning also makes it vulnerable:[3]<\/sup><\/a> governments can narrow its meaning to fit traditionalist, masculinised models of belonging, selectively allocating dignity to those who meet the state-approved template while excluding women, LGBTQ+ people, and others referred to using R\u00e9jane S\u00e9nac\u2019s term as \u201cnon-brothers.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/a> If human dignity can be manipulated to justify exclusion, democracy loses one of its most important protections. To counter this, we need a conception of dignity that acknowledges both its susceptibility to misuse and its role in grounding inclusive political and legal belonging, one capable of supporting the autonomy, equality and reciprocity on which meaningful democracy depends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The democratic triangle: Autonomy, Equality and Reciprocity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, autonomy, equality and reciprocity constitute the democratic conditions (or the democratic triangle) through which human dignity becomes politically meaningful, and through which democracy becomes more than a system of free and fair elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dignity + Autonomy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Kantian understanding of human dignity centres personal autonomy: human worth is tied to the ability to shape one\u2019s own life rather than serve state-defined purposes.[5]<\/sup><\/a> Modern human rights build on this foundation, assuming a protected sphere of individual freedom from unnecessary state interference.[6]<\/sup><\/a> However, an emphasis on abstract autonomy risks overlooking the social and relational structures needed in practice to safeguard autonomy.[7]<\/sup><\/a> While all human beings are born with dignity, they are born only with the potential <\/em>for rational autonomy. This is why paternalistic interventions appear justified in cases involving limited decision-making capacity, such as children or individuals treated under the UK Mental Health Act 1983,[8]<\/sup><\/a> who are often denied the status of autonomous agents. Kleinig\u2019s account of \u201cdignity-based paternalism\u201d[9]<\/sup><\/a> illustrates this tension: dignity is not an unbounded ideal of personal freedom, but something exercised within collective structures. However, paternalism can easily recall human dignity\u2019s hierarchical roots, treating it as something \u201cearned\u201d rather than inherent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Groups historically portrayed as \u201cirrational\u201d are especially vulnerable. For instance, in medical contexts, anorexia has long been pathologised through gendered associations with \u201chysteria,\u201d[10]<\/sup><\/a> disproportionately affecting women and justifying intrusive interventions such as force-feeding. In the recent case of Patricia<\/a><\/em>, the Court of Protection authorised force-feeding on the basis that \u201ctrying to save her life\u201d outweighed her refusal, showing how autonomy disappears once rationality is questioned. When human dignity is ambiguously conferred and tied to rational-capacity tests, paternalism readily becomes a tool of restriction rather than protection, revealing why equality must also be a foundational component of human dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dignity + Equality<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human dignity requires universal recognition and, as Baer highlights, equality ensures that recognition cannot be selectively granted.[12]<\/sup><\/a> This dignity-equality relationship is incompatible with the \u201cilliberal democracy\u201d practised by contemporary right-wing populist regimes, which maintain formal electoral structures while eroding constitutional limits and rights.[13]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Hungary, human dignity is reconstructed through pro-natalist, Christian-nationalist narratives and policies that frame women as reproducers of the nation, whilst promoting a \u201cmale breadwinner\u201d[14]<\/sup><\/a> model, and LGBTQ+ identities as threats to \u201creal\u201d Hungarian values. The Fundamental Law\u2019s<\/a> definitions of family as exclusively heterosexual,[15]<\/sup><\/a> restrictions on adoption, and the erasure of legal gender recognition institutionalise this hierarchy, enabling the state to withhold equality protection from those who fall outside its preferred model of citizenship and of humanity.[16]<\/sup><\/a> Pronatalism further reinforces this through biopolitics: the tax-benefit system privileges \u201ctraditional middle-class Hungarian families\u201d[17]<\/sup><\/a> while excluding lower-income households and Roma families, labelled the \u201cundeserving poor.\u201d[18]<\/sup><\/a> Women who do not embody the idealised national-mother identity are denied even this restricted dignity and excluded entirely from the \u2018imago Orbanis\u2019<\/em>, the model image of human beings promoted by Prime Minister Orban.[19]<\/sup><\/strong><\/sup><\/a> There, individuals are not valued for who they are, but for what they symbolically represent to the state. Situating human dignity in mutual relation with equality, as reflected in the UDHR<\/a>\u2019s insistence that \u201call human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,\u201d helps brings to light the interconnected struggles of women, LGBTQ+ people and other \u201cnon-brothers.\u201d[20]<\/sup><\/a> It also reveals that democracy cannot be sustained where dignity is distributed on the basis of conditions set by the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dignity + Reciprocity<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A reciprocity-based understanding of human dignity highlights how right-wing populist regimes damage democratic life. Populist \u201cnativism\u201d[21]<\/sup><\/a> draws boundaries between those deemed to belong and those cast as existential threats, sustaining the idea of a morally \u201cpure\u201d[22]<\/sup><\/a> population. The manifesto of the new far-right political group in the EU parliament<\/a>, Europe of Sovereign Nations, typically illustrates how contemporary illiberal movements deploy narratives of gender, nation and \u201ccultural purity\u201d to control who can count as part of a political community. In Hungary, women become symbolic \u201cmothers of the nation,\u201d[23]<\/sup><\/a> tasked with upholding unity through reproduction and caregiving, while LGBTQ+ people and progressive civil society are framed as existential dangers to the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosanvallon\u2019s work on equality, and particularly his idea of \u201creciprocal equality,\u201d can develop a relational conception of human dignity.[24]<\/sup><\/a> His account emphasises mutual recognition, equal standing and shared participation as the conditions that bind democracy together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Participatory human dignity, understood relationally, requires that individuals be treated as responsible agents in shaping collective decisions. This makes human dignity the core of democracy:[25]<\/sup><\/a> democratic resilience depends on pluralism, and pluralism depends on a political community where all are recognised as equal contributors. When regimes like Hungary collapse human dignity into a state-centric nationalist identity, they undermine the deliberative spaces (media, academia, civil society, arts and culture) on which this reciprocity depends. A reciprocity-grounded conception of human dignity therefore links individual autonomy to the collective conditions of self-government. By recognising harms to \u201cnon-brothers\u201d[26]<\/sup><\/a> as collective harms to the democratic community, reciprocal human dignity exposes (and de-legitimises) the authoritarian logic embedded in populist narratives of gender, nation and belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Re-centring Human Dignity to Defend Democracy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attacks on liberal values by right-wing populist regimes reveal how essential autonomy, equality and reciprocity are to sustaining meaningful democracy. Human dignity, because it grounds these principles, becomes vital to completing and defending democracy. Grounding equality in the reciprocal dimensions of dignity reinforces democracy\u2019s liberal core by linking individual freedom to the pluralistic conditions necessary for genuine participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gendered hierarchies, paternalistic restrictions on autonomy and the selective distribution of rights share a common root: the erosion of human dignity for those cast as outsiders or \u201cnon-brothers.\u201d[27]<\/sup><\/a> When dignity is re-purposed as a state-approved identity, democracy constricts, and the political community fractures. Re-centring human dignity as universal, egalitarian and relational helps reveal how shrinking the circle of recognised persons damages democracy itself. By restoring human dignity as a shared moral and political baseline, we strengthen the inclusive foundations on which genuine, pluralistic democracy depends, and create conditions in which the \u201cnon-brothers\u201d[28]<\/sup><\/a> of today can politically and legally belong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isha Sibi<\/strong> recently completed her LLM at the University of Exeter, where her dissertation examined the role of human dignity in democratic life. This blog draws on the first half of that research to explore how legal concepts shape political belonging, particularly against the backdrop of rising right-wing populism and gendered forms of exclusion.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> A Sledzinska-Simon, \u2018Populists, Gender, and National Identity\u2019 (2020) 18 International Journal<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of Constitutional Law 447.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/sup><\/a> Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/about-us\/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/sup><\/a> S Baer, \u2018Dignity, Liberty, Equality: A Fundamental Rights Triangle of Constitutionalism\u2019 (2009) 59<\/p>\n\n\n\n

University of Toronto Law Journal 417.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/sup><\/a> R S\u00e9nac, \u2018Imagining a New Gender Contract for Democracy\u2019 in Andrea Pet\u0151, Laeticia Thissen and Amandine Clavaud (eds), A New Gender Equality Contract for Europe<\/em> (Springer International Publishing AG 2024) 146.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/sup><\/a> SJ Kerstein, \u2018Kantian Dignity: A Critique\u2019 in D\u00fcwell et al (eds), Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity<\/em> (CUP 2014) 343.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/sup><\/a> S Baer, \u2018Dignity, Liberty, Equality: A Fundamental Rights Triangle of Constitutionalism\u2019 (2009) 59<\/p>\n\n\n\n

University of Toronto Law Journal 417.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/sup><\/a> S Riley, Human Dignity and Law<\/em> (Routledge 2018) 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/sup><\/a> Mental Health Act 1983, https:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/ukpga\/1983\/20<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/sup><\/a> J Kleinig, \u2018Paternalism and Human Dignity\u2019 (2017) 11 Criminal Law and Philosophy<\/em> 19, 32.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/sup><\/a> A Arstein-Kerslake, The Right to Legal Personhood of Marginalised Groups: Achieving Equal<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recognition Before the Law for All (OUP 2024) 109.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/sup><\/a> Patricia\u2019s Father v Patricia <\/em>[2025] EWCOP 30 (T3) [182], https:\/\/www.bailii.org\/ew\/cases\/EWCOP\/2025\/30.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]<\/sup><\/a> S Baer, \u2018Dignity, Liberty, Equality: A Fundamental Rights Triangle of Constitutionalism\u2019 (2009) 59<\/p>\n\n\n\n

University of Toronto Law Journal 417.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[13]<\/sup><\/a> W Grzebalska and A Pet\u0151, \u2018The Gendered Modus Operandi of the Illiberal Transformation in<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hungary and Poland\u2019 (2018) 68 Women\u2019s Studies International Forum 164.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[14]<\/sup><\/a> LJ Cook, ER Iarskaia-Smirnova and VA Kozlov, \u2018Trying to Reverse Demographic Decline: Pro<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natalist and Family Policies in Russia, Poland and Hungary\u2019 (2023) 22 Social Policy and Society: A<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journal of the Social Policy Association 355, 365.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[15]<\/sup><\/a> W Grzebalska and A Pet\u0151, \u2018The Gendered Modus Operandi of the Illiberal Transformation in<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hungary and Poland\u2019 (2018) 68 Women\u2019s Studies International Forum 164, 167.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[16]<\/sup><\/a> C Agius, AB Rosamond and C Kinnvall, \u2018Populism, Ontological Insecurity\u2026\u2019 (2020) 21 Politics, Religion & Ideology 432.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[17]<\/sup><\/a> LJ Cook, ER Iarskaia-Smirnova and VA Kozlov, \u2018Trying to Reverse Demographic Decline: Pro<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natalist and Family Policies in Russia, Poland and Hungary\u2019 (2023) 22 Social Policy and Society: A<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journal of the Social Policy Association 355, 364.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[18]<\/sup><\/a> ibid, 364.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[19]<\/sup><\/a> C Dupr\u00e9, \u2018Hungary\u2019s Attacks on Human Dignity\u2019 (2024) 30 European Law Journal 260.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[20]<\/sup><\/a> R S\u00e9nac, \u2018Imagining a New Gender Contract for Democracy\u2019 in Andrea Pet\u0151, Laeticia Thissen and Amandine Clavaud (eds), A New Gender Equality Contract for Europe<\/em> (Springer International Publishing AG 2024) 146.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[21]<\/sup><\/a> C Agius, AB Rosamond and C Kinnvall, \u2018Populism, Ontological Insecurity and Gendered<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationalism: Masculinity, Climate Denial and Covid-19\u2019 (2020) 21 Politics, Religion & Ideology 432.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[22]<\/sup><\/a> C Thorleifsson, \u2018In Pursuit of Purity: Populist Nationalism and the Racialization of Difference\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2021) 28 Identities (Yverdon, Switzerland) 186, 187.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[23]<\/sup><\/a> C Agius, AB Rosamond and C Kinnvall, \u2018Populism, Ontological Insecurity and Gendered<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationalism: Masculinity, Climate Denial and Covid-19\u2019 (2020) 21 Politics, Religion & Ideology 432,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

436.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[24]<\/sup><\/a> P Rosanvallon, The Society of Equals <\/em>(Harvard University Press 2013).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[25]<\/sup><\/a> D Bedford and others, Human Dignity and Democracy in Europe: Synergies, Tensions and Crises<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1st edn, Edward Elgar Publishing 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[26]<\/sup><\/a> R S\u00e9nac, \u2018Imagining a New Gender Contract for Democracy\u2019 in Andrea Pet\u0151, Laeticia Thissen and Amandine Clavaud (eds), A New Gender Equality Contract for Europe<\/em> (Springer International Publishing AG 2024) 146.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[27]<\/sup><\/a> ibid, 146.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[28]<\/sup><\/a> ibid, 146.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democratic structures around the world face a notable decline, driven at least partially by the rise of right-wing populism. While not monolithic, these movements consolidate power by constructing exclusionary narratives that divide societies into \u201creal\u201d citizens and threatening \u201cothers,\u201d using in particular \u201cgendered\u201d politics to legitimise this reshaping of public life.[1] This blog examines how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":973,"featured_media":2025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDemocracy Without Human Dignity: Illiberalism and the Exclusion of \u201cNon-Brothers\u201d, by Isha Sibi - Dignity & Democracy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/humanrightsanddemocracyforumblog\/2025\/12\/11\/democracy-without-human-dignity-illiberalism-and-the-exclusion-of-non-brothers-by-isha-sibi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Democracy Without Human Dignity: Illiberalism and the Exclusion of \u201cNon-Brothers\u201d, by Isha Sibi - Dignity & Democracy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Democratic structures around the world face a notable decline, driven at least partially by the rise of right-wing populism. 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