Can democracy defend itself from internal anti-democratic threats without resorting to militant measures that compromise respect for procedures? And, can proceduralism offer more than blind faith that the strict observance of processes will keep the anti-democratic barbarians from gate? In other words, to what extent can procedures produce substantive defence from the enemies of democracy? The answer to all these questions is a cautious ‘yes’. I propose a new, predominantly procedural, yet highly muscular approach –– ‘Hyper-inclusive Procedural Democracy’ (HiPD) –– that is not only able to activate the full, defensive potential of proceduralism but is capable of addressing some of the root causes of anti-democracy. It does so, partly by inadvertently producing the substantive protective benefits of social democracy but without falling back on value assertion. Further, rather than side-stepping ‘the people’, as per militant approaches, HiPD hyper-activates and hyper-includes them as alert and enlightened caretakers of their democracy.
