Democratic legitimacy and acts of dissent

The aim of this paper is to study the role that dissent may have in public political deliberation in democratic societies. Out of argumentative settings, dissent would seem to have a disruptive effect. In my view, dissension effectively puts into question the political authority’s hypothetical legitimacy. To the extent that this is so, acts of dissent have illocutionary force and give rise to certain changes in the dialectical duties and rights of the participants.