Political institutions and practices can be judged, justified, and criticized in many more or less specific ways. Are they efficient? Do they provide for the basic needs of society's less fortunate members? Do they imperil the mental health of their inhabitants and their clients? Do they promote freedom or necessitate repression? Are they aesthetically pleasing? Do they provide agreeable spectacles? Do they promote justice, environmental quality, inflation, or national security? Do they allow for meaningful political participation?

The scrutiny and justification of political institutions undertaken in this chapter proceeds in light of their claims to rationality. For though it may require some digging to find them, all political institutions and practices have roots in theories of knowledge and rationality of the sort introduced in Chapter 1. One does not have to be a critical theorist to accept this point; Immanuel Kant, Bertrand Russell, and Karl Popper would concur (Williams, 1989, p. 50). Now, theories of knowledge rarely (if ever) determine institutional structure. More usually, they legitimate and justify or (conversely) criticize and undermine particular practices. Nevertheless, theories of knowledge and rationality can inform political development to the extent they permeate the understanding of political actors. The program for discursive democracy in political development sketched in this chapter finds its theory of knowledge in critical theory, and so its rationality is communicative. This program is central to my constructive project for critical theory.

This pursuit of principles for political organization can expect little sympathy from many critical theorists. For critical theories are most confidently directed against particular repressive or exploitative social relations based on class, gender, race, spatial location, dominant kinds of rationality, and so forth (although a critical theory will also normally specify the broad kind of action necessary to combat oppression). A theory of this sort is therefore tested through action on the part of the audience to whom it is addressed, as they come to realize the character and source of their oppression, throw off its yoke, and decide for themselves what kind of life they shall lead henceforth. Validation of the theory is complete when these individuals agree it gave a correct account of their sufferings and effectively charted the course of their relief.