Democracy

1

Democracy
2

• Tony Benn on democracy
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v6KbDNSkSovQ
• Watch the entire film on YouTube

3

• Democracy as a Natural Order
• Democracy is any form of government in which
  the rules of society are decided by the people
  who will be bound by them.
• PEOPLE GOVERNING THEMSELVES
• That was the original system of making decisions
  for society primitive democracy which exists
  for tens of thousands of years before the rise of
  the state
• When the state appears 5,000 years ago, it seeks
  to take the decision-making power away from
  society
• Then, democracy becomes a way of trying to
  restrain state power and put the state under the
  peoples control
• Catherine Kellogg, Democratic Theory, in Janine
  Brodie and Sandra Rein, Critical Concepts An
  Introduction to Politics, 3d edition.

4

• 3 overlapping epochs in the historical
  development of democracy -
• John Keane, The Life and Death of Democracy

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• Phase One
• Assembly Democracy starting around 2,500 BCE,
  in lands now within the territories of Iran, Iraq
  and Syria
• During the first phase of democracy the seeds of
  its basic institution self-government through
  an assembly of equals were scattered across
  many different soils and climes, ranging from the
  Indian subcontinent and the prosperous Phoenician
  empire to the western shores of provincial
  Europe. These popular assemblies took root,
  accompanied by various ancillary institutional
  rules and customs, like written constitutions,
  the payment of jurors and elected officials, the
  freedom to speak in public, voting machines,
  voting by lot and trial before elected or
  selected juries. There were efforts as well to
  stop bossy leaders in their tracks, using such
  methods as the mandatory election of kings (The
  Life and Death of Democracy, p.xvi)
• Best-known example Athens, 5th century BCE

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• Athenian democracy
• Direct democracy citizens participated directly
  in initiating, deliberating, and passing of, the
  legislation. The Assembly, no less than 6,000
  strong (out of 22,000 citizens of Athens),
  convened about every 10 days. Supreme power to
  decide on every issue of state policy
• Citizen juries justice is responsibility of
  citizens (juries composed of 501-1001 citizens)
• Appointment of citizens to political office by
  lot
• Citizen-soldiers every citizen had a duty to
  serve in the army
• Ostracism a bad politician could be kicked out
  of office by the people
• See Patrick Watson and Benjamin Barber, The
  Struggle for Democracy. Toronto Lester and Orpen
  Dennys Ltd., 1988, p.12

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• Phase TwoRepresentative Democracy
• Starts around 10th-12th centuries in Western
  Europe with the invention of parliamentary
  assemblies
• Reaches its classic forms in the 18th century.
  Officially regarded as normative today.
• Marquis dArgenson, Foreign Minister of French
  King Louis XV, 1765
• False democracy soon collapses into anarchy. It
  is government of the multitude such is a people
  in revolt, insolently scorning law and reason.
  Its tyrannical despotism is obvious from the
  violence of its movements and the uncertainty of
  its deliberations. In true democracy, one acts
  through deputies, who are authorized by election
  the mission of those elected by the people and
  the authority that such officials carry
  constitute the public power.
• (Keane, p. xviii)

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• Phase Three Monitory Democracy (term coined by
  John Keane)
• Started after World War II
• Invention of about 100 power-monitoring devices
  which had never existed before
• Increase citizen ability to control the state
  which is organized on the basis of representative
  democracy
• Public integrity commissionsJudicial
  activismLocal courtsWorkplace
  tribunalsCitizens assembliesThink tanksThe
  InternetEtc.

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• The Classical Theory of Democracy
• The triple meaning
• Democracy as source of state authority power
  of the people
• Democracy as the purpose of government the
  common good
• Democracy as a method of choosing political
  leaders by the people
• Abraham Lincoln Government of the people, by
  the people, and for the people (1863)
• Also from Lincoln (1861) This country, with its
  institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit
  it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the
  existing government, they can exercise their
  constitutional right of amending it, or their
  revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

10

• Joseph Schumpeter, 1942
• The classical theory is too broad and vague. It
  is much more practical to narrow the meaning of
  democracy to the method
• The democratic method is
• that institutional arrangement for arriving at
  political decisions
• in which individuals acquire the power to decide
• by means of a competitive struggle for the
  peoples vote.
• Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and
  Democracy. New York Harper, 1947, p.269

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• 2 major dimensions of the democratic method
• contestation free and fair competition between
  candidates
• participation all adult citizens have the
  right to vote
• The use of this method requires the freedoms of
• expression, to speak publicly and publish ones
  views
• assembly, to gather for political purposes
• association, to form political organizations
• Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy Participation and
  Opposition. New Haven Yale University Press,
  1971 Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave.
  Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century.
  University of Oklahoma Press, 1991

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• In contemporary politics, the term democracy is
  used mostly in the Schumpeterian, rather than
  classical, sense
• Representative democracy
• Electoral democracy
• Formal democracy
• The people elect a government and keep it
  accountable
• Robert Dahl It is more precise to call it
  polyarchy (rule by many, meaning more than 3
  persons) rather than democracy

13

Democracys Century A Survey of Global Political
Change in the 20th Century. NY Freedom House,
2001 http//www.freedomhouse.org/reports/century.h
tml
14

Democracys Century A Survey of Global Political
Change in the 20th Century. NY Freedom House,
2001 http//www.freedomhouse.org/reports/century.h
tml
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• Since 1900, the number of internationally
  recognized independent states has grown
• from 55 to nearly 200
• Today, governments in 120 countries are formed
  by democratic method
• 62.5 of the worlds population live in those
  countries

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• Key events which led to this expansion
• The defeat of fascism in World War 2 (1939-45)
• The fall of Western colonial empires
  (1950s-70s)
• The fall of Western authoritarian regimes in
  Southern Europe and Latin America (1970s-1980s)
• The fall of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe
  and the Soviet Union (1989-91)

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• A 21st Century Democratic Paradox
• Democracy is accepted as the normal and even
  normative - form of government more widely in the
  world than ever before
• And yet, the real scope of democratic practices
  is very limited.
• The sea of democracy has never been wider.
• But it is very shallow
• And it shows signs of drying out

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• Global public opinion on democracy
• http//www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/go
  vernance_bt/482.php?lbbtgovpnt482nidid

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The global democratic deficit, 2008
http//www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/go
vernance_bt/482.php?lbbtgovpnt482nidid
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Americans trusting or distrusting their
government
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• Way to the top (The Onion)
• http//www.theonion.com/articles/ceo-worked-way-up
  -from-son-of-ceo,34331/

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• In the 21st century, formal democracy is regarded
  as a normal method to create a government
• But, governments created by the democratic method
  show their deficiency in a number of important
  areas, including
• Declining ability to manage economies
• Growth of social inequality
• The environmental crisis
• Continuing ethnic and religious conflicts
• Continuing practices of mass violence (wars,
  terrorism, arms races)

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• Liberal Democracy Main Principles

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• Individualism
• Society is composed of individuals.
• The individual is sovereign individual rights
  are privileged over rights of groups and society

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• Equality All individuals have equal rights
• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
  all men are created equal, that they are endowed
  by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
  that among these are Life, Liberty and the
  pursuit of Happiness.
• The American Declaration of Independence

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• Reason
• People are capable of making rational decisions
  about anything
• They can change the institutions of society they
  live in

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• Rights
• Society must recognize certain individual
  liberties and claims as givens
• The list of rights has expanded in the past two
  centuries, especially since the establishment of
  the United Nations Organization
• http//www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Page
  s/CoreInstruments.aspx

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• Protection of private property
• A key duty of the state, as part of its
  obligation to protect individual rights and the
  private sphere

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• Freedom
• Individuals ability to act without interference
  by the state or other citizens

34

• Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• Adopted in 1982 as part of the Constitution Act
• http//laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.h
  tml

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• LD is ambivalent about the role of the state
• The state as the provider of public goods
• vs.
• The state as a source of dangers to private
  interests
• LD seeks to make the state strong and capable by
  making it legitimate through the democratic
  method (democracy makes state power rightful and
  just, enables the state to rule)
• And it seeks to limit state authority over
  society through separation of powers, rule of
  law, constitutionalism

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• Key principle of LD distinction between
• --the private sphere (personal life of
  individuals, the family, civil society autonomous
  from the state, religion, the market economy) and
• --the public sphere (political society, the
  state, government policies)
• LD insists that activities of the state should be
  confined to the public sphere
• The public sphere should not be too large
• The private sphere should be autonomous from the
  state and protected from the states encroachments

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• Liberal concern democracy, understood in the
  broad, classical sense, may easily lead to the
  violation of societys autonomy.
• Majority rule always contains the danger of
  suppression of minorities in the name of
  democracy. Tyranny of the majority Alexis de
  Tocqueville
• Democracy may undermine and even destroy liberty
  
• Liberty is enhanced by democracy but it must
  be protected from democracy
• Illiberal democracy vs liberal democracy

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• This ambivalence is a source of LDs strength
  and durability
• The concern for individual rights
• The emphasis on the autonomy of society from
  the state
• The emphasis on pluralism
• are very important political values

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• But the compromise at the core of LD also makes
  it vulnerable to challenges
• Both from the Right and from the Left
• From the Right LD fragments society and the
  state, it makes for disorder, it weakens the
  state. It is too much democracy
• From the Left LD secures privileges of the
  elites both private elites and state elites.
  This democracy is too limited

40

• In the history of liberal democracy, liberalism
  precedes democracy
• When liberal principles become accepted in the
  practice of more and more Western states
  (18th-19th centuries), the exercise of political
  rights and freedoms is limited
• Classical, laissez-faire liberalism is concerned
  primarily about limiting state power and
  protecting the private sphere the market
  economy in the first place

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• In the 20th century, the extension of political
  rights to all adults was accompanied by the
  expansion of the activities of the state
• The balance between the private and public
  spheres shifted in favour of the public sphere,
  as the liberal-democratic state, under the
  pressure of majorities, widens the scope of its
  activities, recognizes a wider range of rights,
  including labours right of collective bargaining
• Welfare-state liberalism emphasized the role of
  the state as provider of public goods

42

• In the last 40 years movement in the opposite
  direction
• Conservative, or neoliberal, forces gained
  political dominance in the West (led by Prime
  Minister Margaret Thatcher in UK, President
  Ronald Reagan in the US)

43

• The Trilateral Commission and the idea of The
  Crisis of Democracy (1975)
• There is too much democracy in the West
• Democracy is becoming ungovernable

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• Recent years in the Trilateral countries have
  seen the expansion of the demands on government
  from individuals and groups. The expansion takes
  the form of
• ( I ) the involvement of an increasing
  proportion of the population in political
  activity
• (2) the development of new groups and of new
  consciousness on the part of old groups,
  including youth, regional groups, and ethnic
  minorities
• (3) the diversification of the political means
  and tactics which groups use to secure their
  ends
• (4) an increasing expectation on the part of
  groups that government has the responsibility to
  meet their needs and
• (5) an escalation in what they conceive those
  needs to be.
• (Continued on next page) 

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• The result is an "overload" on government and
  the expansion of the role of government in the
  economy and society. During the 1960s
  governmental expenditures, as a proportion of
  GNP, increased significantly in all the principal
  Trilateral countries, except for Japan. This
  expansion of governmental activity was attributed
  not so much to the strength of government as to
  its weakness and the inability and unwillingness
  of central political leaders to reject the
  demands made upon them by numerically and
  functionally important groups in their society.
• (Continued on the next page)

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• The impetus to respond to the demands which
  groups made on government is deeply rooted in
  both the attitudinal and structural features of a
  democratic society. The democratic idea that
  government should be responsive to the people
  creates the expectation that government should
  meet the needs and correct the evils affecting
  particular groups in society. Confronted with the
  structural imperative of competitive elections
  every few years, political leaders can hardly do
  anything else. 
• Michel Crozier, Samuel Huntington, Joji
  Watanuki. The Crisis of Democracy. Report on the
  Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral
  Commission. New York New York University Press,
  1975, pp.163-164

47

• The conservative revolution, launched by
  Thatcher and Reagan, began to dismantle the
  welfare state in the name of individual freedom
  and market autonomy.
• As electoral democracy marched forward, expanding
  territorially around the globe,
• the ability and willingness of the democratic
  states to satisfy social demands declined.

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• Liberal democracy is tailored to the needs of
  capitalism
• But at the same time, there is a conflict between
  the logic of democracy and the logic of
  capitalism
• In the market economy, people are formally equal
  free agents, each after his/her own interests
• But in reality, they have vastly different
  amounts of social power
• The market system, in and by itself, does not
  reduce those differences. On the contrary, it
  increases existing inequalities both within
  societies and between societies.

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• Democracy, on the other hand, is rooted in the
  idea of equality. Vigorous practice of democracy
  in society does lead to lessening of social
  inequalities.
• Another contradiction in a democracy, citizens
  work together to achieve common goals
• In a market economy, people compete, trying to
  gain advantage over each other survival of the
  fittest (Herbert Spencer)
• Can the contradictions between
• socioeconomic inequality and political equality,
  and
• between cooperation and competition
• be kept under control?

50

• Explosive growth of income inequality in America
  http//www.youtube.com/watch?vQPKKQnijnsM

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Growth of pay gap between top managers and
workers, USA http//www.theatlantic.com/business/
archive/2013/04/whats-behind-the-huge-and-growing-
ceo-worker-pay-gap/275435/
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• Income inequality has grown in Canada, too
• https//www.policyalternatives.ca/ceo
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vzBkBiv5ZD7sfeatur
  eyoutu.be

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• And worldwide
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vuWSxzjyMNpU

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• UN Human Development Report 2002
• Economically, politically and technologically,
  the world has never seemed more free or more
  unjust
• Advancing human development requires governance
  that is democratic both in form and in
  substance 

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• Why democracy is key to development
• 1/ Participating in decision-making is a
  fundamental human right
• 2/ Democracy protects people from political and
  economic catastrophes famines, wars
  (governments are more circumspect, attentive to
  public needs)
•   -Since 1995, 10 of population of North Korea
  died of famine
• -In 1958-61, 30 mln. died of famine in China
• -In India, there has not been a single famine
  since 1947, despite crop failures 
• 3/Democratic governance can trigger a virtuous
  cycle of development as political freedom
  empowers people to press for policies that expand
  social and economic opportunities, and as open
  debates help communities shape their priorities

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• BUT
• The links between democracy and human
  development are not automatic when a small elite
  dominates economic and political decisions, the
  link between democracy and equity can be broken
  (p.4)
• At issue
• WHO CONTROLS THE STATE?
• WHOSE INTERESTS DOES THE STATE SERVE?
• Can an egalitarian political system coexist long
• with massive and growing socioeconomic
  inequality?
• Can concentration of economic power in the hands
  of a few be reconciled with political pluralism?

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• Globalization vs. democracy
• Eberhard Kienle, research professor at CNRS in
  Paris and Grenoble
• Today one of the major challenges to liberal
  democracy arises out of the turn taken by liberal
  economies since the late 1970s. Defined as a form
  of government that combines the election of the
  rulers by the ruled with effective guarantees for
  the liberties of all, liberal democracy is eroded
  by transformations changing the very type of
  economy that is frequently considered its natural
  counterpart or historic birthplace.
• http//www.opendemocracy.net/global-competitivenes
  s-erosion-of-checks-and-balances-and-demise-of-lib
  eral-democracy

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• What is the main purpose of liberal democracy?
• Can it be reduced to serving the interests of
  capital?
• Can it be made to serve the public interest?
• Can it combine both of these and thus survive?

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• How these contradictions can be resolved
• 1. At democracys expense
• --limit democracy by manipulating its workings
• --limit democracy by strengthening coercive
  powers of the state
• --mobilize the nation to unite, despite the
  inequalities to defend itself against an
  external enemy, or to conquer other nations
• --foster racial and ethnic divisions, mobilize
  majorities against minorities
• --opt for full-fledged fascism

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• 2. In favour of democracy
• --Widen the channels through which citizens can
  effectively participate in politics
• --Use new information technologies, network-type
  forms of political organizing
• --Extend democracy into the workplace (employee
  ownership)
• --Reduce the influence of big money on political
  systems
• --Increase the states ability to control
  economic elites
• --Create new forms of regulation of market
  economies both at the national and the global
  scale
• --Develop effective social policies

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• Global public support for increased government
  spending and regulation
• http//www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/bt
  globalizationtradera/637.php?lbbrglmpnt637nid
  id
• Americans reject use of military force to promote
  democracy http//www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/
  articles/brunitedstatescanadara/77.php?lbbruscpn
  t77nidid