1 Animal Agora: Animal Citizens and the Democratic Challenge 1 Sue Donaldson Abstract: Many theorists of the ‘political turn’ in animal rights theory emphasize the need for animals’ interests to be considered in political decision-making processes, but deny that this requires self-representation and participation by animals themselves. I argue that participation by domesticated animals in co-authoring our shared world is indeed required, and explore two ways to proceed: 1) by enabling animal voice within the existing geography of human-animal relationships; and 2) by freeing animals into a renewed public commons (‘animal agora’) where citizens encounter one another in spontaneous, unpredictable encounters in spaces that they can re-shape together. Key words: animals, democracy, participation, representation, commons, relational agency “[N]obody - from the most fervent animal liberationist to the most unrepentant carnivore - believes that animals are fitted by nature to enjoy civil and political rights” (Barry 2001: 481). Much has changed since Brian Barry wrote these words in 2001, and civil and political rights for nonhuman animals are very much on the agenda as part of the recent ‘political turn’ in animal ethics (Milligan 2015). One dimension of this political turn addresses the place of animals in democratic theory and practice. Some theorists have advocated for political representation of animals by human advocates or trustees who speak on behalf of animals in legislative, deliberative or regulatory bodies (Cochrane 2016; Garner 2016; Parry 2016). Other theorists, however, advance the more radical claim that animals have the right, not just to indirect representation by human trustees, but also to direct political voice and participation through processes of self-representation to the extent this is possible. My aim in this paper is to explore models of how this might work, and the challenges posed to standard ideas about the nature and preconditions of democracy. The idea that animals have a right to political voice and participation – that democracy requires deliberating with, and not just about, animals - has been advanced by several authors (Driessen, 2014; Meijer 2019). Will Kymlicka and I advanced our own version of this argument in our 2011 book Zoopolis. Like other animal rights theories, we argue that all sentient animals are owed 1 In ancient Greece the agora was the political space of informal politics, and the Pnyx – the meeting space of the democratic assembly -- was the space of formal politics. As Müller notes: “every democracy needs both a Pnyx … and an agora (as well as other spaces that might fulfill similar functions)—a place for formal and one for informal politics, one for collective decision making at a fixed point in time (including rules for closure in time) and one for ongoing, largely unregulated exchange of views and the formation of political judgment through more or less random encounters with other members of the demos” (Müller 2019: 205).