Sample material from Political Theory 5th edition

reality through the presentation of a logical extreme. Ideal types are therefore explanatory tools, not approximations of reality; they neither ‘exhaust reality’ nor do they offer an ethical ideal. Concepts such as ‘democracy’, ‘human rights’ and ‘capitalism’ are thus more rounded and coherent than the unshapely realities they seek to describe. Weber himself treated ‘authority’ and ‘bureaucracy’ as ideal types. The importance of recognizing particular concepts as ideal types is that it underlines the fact that concepts are only analytical tools. For this reason, it is better to think of concepts or ideal types not as being ‘true’ or ‘false’, but merely as more or less ‘useful’. Further attempts to emphasize the contingent nature of political concepts have, as noted earlier, been associated with anti-foundationalism. Particularly influential here have been postmodernism and post-structuralism. While there are strong difference within and between these groups, they in general reject the ‘traditional’ search for universal values acceptable to everyone and at all times. Instead, they often take a more contextualist position that there is a plurality of legitimate ethical and political positions, and that our language and political concepts can only be valid (descriptively and normatively) in a specific context. Some extend this claim to argue for an active role for language, where language itself is constitutive of both our normative and descriptive horizons: that how we understand the world and what we think is valid in it is a product of our linguisticcultural systems. For example, in the ‘deconstructive’ writings of Jacques Derrida (see p. 83), it is an illusion to believe that language, and therefore concepts, can ‘fit’ the world. All we can do is recognize how reality is constructed by and for us through our language. As Derrida put it, ‘There is no outside-text’.

POLITICAL THEORY AND ITS PROBLEMS: HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Political theory is, like most academic disciplines, a practice. This means a couple of things. First, political theory is political. It is defined not only by the insights it produces but also by the aims it puts that knowledge to. Second, political theory is something some people do. While it can offer important insights, it is composed of a community of scholars producing and interpreting work. Further, all those scholars are people in particular circumstances.

The influential historian of political thought Quentin Skinner argued that key to the meaning of any political text is its locutionary meaning (what the author argues for) and its illocutionary meaning (what the author was doing in putting this argument to a certain debate). The latter concerns the context of the debate, how it relates to other positions, and what actions and behaviour it prompts. For Skinner, political theory is prompted by and responding to the tensions, problems, conversations and controversies of its time. As noted above, this contextualism is now a major trend, as well as point of contention, within current debates in political theory. This work accepts it though to the extent that it approaches the Western tradition of political thought as arising within a particular history and set of contexts.

In light of this, this book takes a problem-focused, conceptual approach to the task of introducing political theory. This means it presents the modern and contemporary traditions of Western political thought and their key concepts as engaged with and

responding to the political debates of their contexts (and the problems under discussion there) as well as the tradition of political thought generally. Just like any other approaches, this is still a particular way of conceiving political theory, and so is just like others, it is one way of framing the issue. But it is also a good one for conceiving of the diversity of work in political theory, and the contemporary relevance of issues of exclusion and liberal democratic society that are the greatest current challenges we face as theorists and as democratic citizens.

In this way, this book introduces political theory by considering the major concepts and ideas of political debate and argument and how those have evolved towards the present. It reflects on how the terms have been used and the meanings that have been assigned to them, the problems they have been addressed towards, as well as the role they have played in political thought. To elaborate these concepts in this way, each chapter introduces a problem that structures the concepts, ideas and arguments engaged there. Further, the ordering of the chapter conforms to a chronologically unfolding logic that progressively builds the main debates in modern and Western political thought in a way that moves from early modern to modern to contemporary. Such a chronology cannot be perfect, but it gives the sense of the development and shift in the conversation while highlighting how new issues have arisen on top of old ones (that are not necessarily resolved but often return).

Part 1 ‘The Foundations of Modern Western Political Theory’ is composed of three chapters (including this introductory chapter). It analyses concepts and issues that can be thought of as foundational within political theory:

z Chapter 2 reflects on the understandings of political change as one of the grounds of modern political thought. It distils several themes to understanding change, and how they structure theories.

z Chapter 3 examines one of the most controversial grounds of political thought: debates on human nature. Related to conceptions of the individual and society, these debates have been central to modern Western political theory.

Part 2 ‘Modern Political Problems’ sets out the major problems, concepts and conversations that structured modern political thought, all of which continue into the present:

z Chapter 4 examines issues related to how people influence one another, reflecting on whether this is done through the exercise of power or the exercise of authority, and how far each can establish legitimacy.

z Chapter 5 focuses on the question of the state, and how this concept is central to our understanding of politics in political theory. Debates over the state have often set the parameters of ‘the political’, meaning the state is a key locus of conceptual debate.

z Chapter 6 considers the nature and role of law, reflecting on the extent to which law is required to ensure order, as well as the complex issue of the relationship between law and justice.

z Chapter 7 examines debates concerning the proper relationship between the individual and the state (i.e. citizenship), especially as these relate to the interlocking ideas of rights, obligations and freedom.

z Chapter 8 discusses who should rule, looking especially at democracy and the notion of popular rule, together with the related ideas of representation and the common good.

z Chapter 9 reflects on modern political communities, how they are tied up with claims of national identity and the larger international world, and the issues these raise for political theorists.

Part 3 ‘The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Problems of Exclusion’ considers key issues centred on the idea that the dominant ideals of Western modernity, discussed in Part 2, have excluded certain groups. These criticisms are not necessarily new to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, however, they have dominated debates there and continue to set the current agenda:

z Chapter 10 considers the theme of political economy by discussing competing notions of property distribution and the rival merits of the two key forms of economic organization: the market and planning.

z Chapter 11 considers the nature and implications of equality, reflecting on debates about social justice and welfare, and thus on the issue of the proper distribution of wealth in society.

z Chapter 12 considers the problem of exclusion and how debates around recognition in political theory raised issues about the exclusion of sociopolitical minorities. This chapter particularly focuses on culture and gender.

z Chapter 13 continues debates around exclusion by examining issues around race and colonialism, and their impacts on contemporary political theory.

Throughout the book, additional material is provided through boxed features. Each of these has a particular role.

z ‘Focusing on the texts’ boxes

These examine one text that is deeply associated with and historically important for the chapter. Political theory is a textual discipline and these boxes demonstrate the interpretive work of political theory: dealing with difficult texts and arguments.

z ‘Tradition’ boxes

These introduce the major approaches to, or perspectives on, political theory, each offering a distinctive ‘lens’ on the political world. These traditions not only shape our understanding of political concepts but also structure political argument across a range of issues.

z ‘Thinker’ boxes

These provide brief biographical information about major figures in political thought and discuss the significance of their contribution. Shorter overviews of other key theorists are at the end of each tradition box.

z ‘Thinking globally’ boxes

These reflect on where and how key political ideas have been revised in light of globalizing tendencies. They examine how political theory is adapting to the challenge of increased interconnectedness, as well as how far it should adapt.

z ‘Beyond the West’ boxes

These temper the essentially Western approach to political theory adopted in the book by examining selected non-Western approaches to a given topic. Their purpose is to deepen our grasp of Western approaches, while stimulating reflection on what may be learnt from the non-West.

All of these features should guide how you use this text. There is an overall narrative to the book, around the modern conversation of Western political theory and the tensions it encounters in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but each chapter is also standalone. Further, each will contain a series of cross-referencing page suggestions that allow you to see where discussions are taken up in more detail. Use these to narrow in on issues of particular interest as well as forecast later dominant debates. The boxed features should be used selectively as opportunities to examine further details and avenues stemming from the topics at hand. They expand on topics and provide key opportunities to move beyond the text for independent learning, the true task of every political theorist.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

y What might it mean to have a theory about politics?

y Is there a problem with the diversity of political theory?

y What is the significance of the centrality of language to the activity of political theory?

FURTHER READING

Dryzek, J., Honig, b. and Phillips, A. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory (2008). A comprehensive and stimulating collection of essays that review the current state of political theory, and include a consideration of non-Western and postcolonial thought.

Leopold, D. and Stears, M. (eds) Political Theory: Methods and Approaches (2008). A collection of essays that examine the methods and approaches employed in political theory, and reflect on the relationship between political theory and adjacent subjects.

y Why are political concepts so often the subject of intellectual and ideological controversy?

y Is political theory different from other disciplines in terms of the role of contestation?

Ryan, A. On Politics: A History of Political Thought from Herodotus to the Present (2013). An erudite and highly readable account of the full sweep of Western political thought, which reflects on different approaches to human governance.

Wolin, S. Politics and Vision (2004). A pluralistic and comprehensive account of Western political thinking that manages to cover the diverse traditions in political thought while weaving them into a single narrative.

THE PROBLEM OF

INTRODUCTION

The problem of democracy returns this discussion to the question that dominated early modern political thought: who should rule? This is the question of political authority and legitimacy that preoccupied the social contract tradition. However, democracy is a new answer to that question. In this sense, the problem of democracy pushes this book forward to the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries where democracy has been one of the central political ideals and controversies. During these centuries it has generally increased in public and intellectual esteem and now seems to be an almost universally accepted ideal: the people should govern. This is ‘the democratic plateau’: the broad social and theoretical consensus in the West on the desirability of democracy as a means of decision-making. Yet, this universal

endorsement (which may be overemphasized) belies the fundamental disagreement over democracy present in the history of political thought and the very divergent institutional models of democracy.

The pure volume of democratic theories in the Western tradition makes a comprehensive account of these approaches difficult. These have included direct and indirect democracy, political and social democracy, pluralist and totalitarian democracy, agonist and deliberative democracy, elitist and participative democracy, and so on. So instead this chapter engages some of the major problems of democracy. Much of the debate between perspectives has been about the values and outcomes democratic government should include. Two particularly deep problems concern us: representation and the common good.

While modern democratic theories share with classical views a valuation of popular selfgovernment, they are rarely based on prescribing wholesale direct participation of the citizenry. Rather, they prescribe that democracy will be mainly executed through select individuals who in some way ‘represent’ the people and act on their behalf. However, this has raised fundamental questions about what representation means and how it is accomplished. What, for instance, is being represented: the views of the people, their best interests or the various groups that make up the people? Is representation a necessary feature of democracy or is it fundamentally anti-democratic? Second, one of the central justifications for democracy is that it produces governments that rule in the public interest or common good. However, what is meant by the ‘public good’? And can the people have a single, collective interest? Even if such a collective interest exists, how can it be defined and how is it related to the idea of democracy?

To set the stage for these issues we will begin by asking what democracy is as a problem, and how that has elicited critical and normative debates in political theory. What forms of government can reasonably be described as ‘democratic’, and why? Moreover, why is democracy so widely valued, and can it be regarded as an unqualified good? This will be especially important in establishing the main point of orientation around which most democratic theory revolves: the dominant liberal democratic model.

DEMOCRACY

The term democracy is firmly rooted in the political thought of Ancient Greece. Like other words that end in ‘cracy’ – such as autocracy, aristocracy and bureaucracy –democracy is derived from the Ancient Greek word kratos, meaning ‘power’ or ‘rule’. Democracy therefore means ‘rule by the demos’, demos standing for ‘the many’ or ‘the people’. Originally democracy was a pejorative term, denoting not so much rule by all, as by the propertyless and uneducated masses. It was therefore the enemy of other political goods such as justice, freedom or stability. While some Greek thinkers, such as Aristotle (see p. 101), recognized the virtues of popular participation, they nevertheless feared that unrestrained democracy, untempered by other forms of rule, would degenerate into ‘mob rule’. Indeed, such pejorative implications continued until the twentieth century, and are

still part of the political conversation today. For political theorists, this means that most Western political thought on democracy has been sceptical, if not hostile, to it.

To engage this history of the growing endorsement of democracy in modern Western thought, we begin by engaging one of the most fundamental distinctions in democratic theory between direct and indirect democracy. The former are based on direct popular participation in government, and the latter operate through some kind of representation. These are in fact two contrasting models of democracy. Moreover, the modern understanding of democracy is dominated by the form of electoral democracy that has developed in the industrialized West, liberal democracy. Despite its widespread uptake, liberal democracy is only one of many possible models, and it has been criticized from a range of perspectives. Finally, the near-universal approval that democracy currently elicits should not obscure the fact that the merits of democracy have been fiercely debated and that this debate has intensified since the late twentieth century. In other words, democracy has many arguments for and against it in the tradition of political thought.

Democracy’s essence: Direct or indirect

In the Gettysburg Address, delivered during the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln extolled the virtues of ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people’. In so doing, he exposed one of the central tensions in democratic theory and the ideal of popular sovereignty, and how that tension has resulted in two contrasting approaches to democracy. This is the tension between direct and indirect democracy. The first, ‘government by the people’, is based on the idea that the public participates in government and governs itself: popular self-government. The second, ‘government for the people’, is linked to the notion of the public interest and the idea that government benefits the people, whether they themselves rule or not. The stakes in this division are high, contesting the central norm of democracy: popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty places ultimate political authority and right within the people as a body. However, this can be conceived and operationalized in at least two ways. In direct forms of democracy, the people as a body must in some way make decisions. In the second, their interests, preferences or desires are a constraint and guide for government ensuring that it rules ‘for’ them in some way. The classical conception of democracy, which continues to influence democratic theory, was firmly rooted in the ideal of popular participation and drew heavily on the example of Athenian democracy. The cornerstone of Athenian democracy was the direct and continuous participation of all citizens in the polis. As described in Chapter 5, this amounted to a form of government by mass meeting, where consensus was the aim (though voting mechanisms were often used). Athenian democracy was therefore a system of ‘direct democracy’ or what is sometimes called ‘participatory democracy’. By removing the need for a separate class of professional politicians, the citizens themselves ruled directly. All political offices were open to every citizen and most were selected by lot or rota to ensure they changed hands and spread political power. This obliterated the distinction between government and the governed, between the state and civil society. In the modern and contemporary periods, the ideal of direct democracy has been deeply influential. Its most developed modern articulation is found in Rousseau’s The Social Contract ([1762] 1969), (see p. 210), where he argues that a just distribution of power in society would require all citizens to participate in the formation of a ‘general will’: a collective political

viewpoint achieved through dialogue and active participation. This ideal was broadly appealed to in Marxist and Anarchist though in the nineteenth century, especially in relation to their critique of liberal democracy. However, it receives its fullest examination in ‘participatory democratic theory’ and the work of Carole Pateman, Benjamin Barber and C. B. Macpherson. This trend emerged in the Anglo-American context in the 1970s and 1980s, arguing for the normative and practical use of wide participation. It was a direct criticism of the dominance of liberal democracy and role of representatives therein. For participatory democrats, representatives divide the state from civil society in a way that compromises popular sovereignty. Instead, Pateman (1970) argued for ‘full participation’ where ‘each individual member of a decisionmaking body has equal power to determine the outcome of decisions’. There are a variety of direct democratic mechanisms that do exist in contemporary liberal democracy. The system of ‘town-meeting democracy’ is practised at local or municipal levels in many countries, including some parts of the United States, notably in New England, and in the communal assemblies employed in Switzerland. This includes wide availability for citizens to discuss and, at least, affect outcomes.

TRADITION : Democratic Theory

although the democratic political tradition can be traced back to ancient Greece, the cause of democracy was not widely taken up by political thinkers until the nineteenth century. until then, democracy was generally dismissed as rule by the unenlightened masses. now, however, it seems that we are all democratic. Liberals, conservatives, socialists, communists, anarchists and even fascists are eager to proclaim the virtues of democracy and demonstrate their democratic credentials.

Western democratic theory does not advance an agreed ideal of popular rule, but is rather an arena of debate in which the notion of popular rule is discussed. These debates revolve around three central questions. first, who are the people? as no one would extend political participation to all the people, the question is on what basis should it be limited – in relation to age, education, gender, social background and so on? second, how should the people rule? This relates not only to the choice between direct and indirect democratic forms but also to debates about forms of representation and different electoral systems. Third, to which areas or institutions should democratic decision-making be applied? should democracy be confined just to politics and to key governing bodies, or should the realm of democracy extend to the family, the

classroom, the workplace or the economy as a whole?

Democracy, then, is not a single, unambiguous phenomenon. There are numerous theories or models of democracy, each offering its own version of popular rule. There are not merely several democratic forms but also, more fundamentally, quite different grounds on which democratic rule can be justified. classical democracy, based on the athenian model, is characterized by the direct and continuous participation of citizens in the processes of government. Protective democracy is a limited and indirect form of democratic rule designed to provide individuals with a means of defence against government. it is linked to natural rights theory and utilitarianism (see p. 22). Developmental democracy is associated with attempts to broaden popular participation on the basis that it advances freedom and individual flourishing. such ideas were taken up by new Left thinkers from the 1960s onwards in the form of participatory democracy. Deliberative democracy highlights the importance of public debate and discussion in shaping citizens’ identities and interests, and in strengthening their sense of the common good. finally, radical or agonistic democrats see democracy as the capacity of the people to overturn and recreate democratic institutions.

critics of democracy have adopted various positions. They have warned that democracy fails to recognize that some people’s views are more worthwhile than others’; that democracy upholds majority views at the expense of minority views and interests; that democratic rule threatens individual rights by fuelling government growth; and that democracy is based on the bogus notion of a common good, an idea precluded by the pluralistic nature of modern society.

Key figures

Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950) a Moravian-born us economist and sociologist, schumpeter’s theory of democracy offered an alternative to the ‘classical doctrine’ that portrayed the democratic process as an arena of struggle between power-seeking politicians intent on winning the people’s vote. This view had considerable influence on later democratic elitists. schumpeter’s most important political work is Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy ([1944] 1994).

Robert Dahl (1915–2014) a us political scientist, Dahl was a leading exponent of

pluralist theory. he contrasted modern democratic systems with the classical democracy of ancient Greece, using the term ‘polyarchy’ to refer to rule by the many, as distinct from rule by all citizens. he argued that the system of competitive elections prevents any permanent elite from emerging and ensures wide access to the political process. Dahl’s major works include A Preface to Democratic Theory (1956) and Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy (1982).

Carole Pateman (born 1940) a british feminist and political theorist, Pateman’s Participation and Democratic Theory (1970) helped revive interest in participatory politics. influenced by Rousseau, she argued that classical theories of democracy that place participation at their core are preferable to revisionist theories that minimize its role. in The Disorder of Women (1989), Pateman explored problems surrounding women’s participation and consent.

See also Jean-Jacques Rousseau (p. 205), J. S. Mill (p. 168) and James Madison (p. 197)

Beyond these, there are a variety of mechanisms used to operationalize direct forms of democratic decision-making in contemporary democracies. The most obvious is the plebiscite or referendum, a popular vote on a specific issue that enables electors to make decisions directly. Referendums are widely used at every level in Switzerland, and are employed in many countries to ratify constitutional amendments. The frequency with which referendums have been used in the UK since the 1975 referendum on continued membership of the then European Community has convinced some that there is now a convention that major constitutional reforms should be endorsed through an affirmative vote in a referendum. A form of direct democracy has also survived in modern societies in the practice of selecting juries by lot or rota. Advocates of direct democracy further point out, often in vague terms, that the development of complex digital technology has opened broader possibilities for popular participation in government. The wide distribution of internet access and heavy saturation of smartphones and computers in the population allow for low-cost, and widely distributed decision-making. Critics, on the other hand, have a variety of claims against direct democracy. Some of these are about democracy itself, such as the criticism discussed below that most citizens cannot or do not want to participate adequately. Others stem from the liberal democratic perspective, including the influential idea that participatory democracy does not include enough checks on democratic power to prevent it being used against minorities. Interestingly, even participatory democrats are critical of some direct mechanisms. For example,

Macpherson argued that referendums were abysmal decision-making procedures as it allowed an elite to formulate a question in a way designed to get a specific answer. ‘Somebody,’ as Macpherson (1977) said, ‘must ask the questions’.

The indirect or representative model of democracy is the major alternative to the direct model. In fact, it is the institutionally dominant form of institutionalizing democracy in the world. In this model, democratic government is mediated through professional politicians invested with the responsibility for making decisions on behalf of the people. This is an indirect form of democracy in the sense that popular participation is both infrequent and brief, reduced to the act of voting every few years (and perhaps a few other mechanisms). It is indirect in the sense that the public is removed from government: the public participates only through the choice of who should govern, and only rarely exercises power itself. Representative democracy may nevertheless qualify as a form of democracy because, however limited and ritualized it may appear, voting remains a vital source of popular power and a way for the views, preferences or interests of the people to impact on decisions. Quite simply, the public can express approval (of an existing government) or disapproval (through electing a competitor), a fact that ensures public accountability. Although representative democracy may not fully realize the classical goal of ‘government by the people’, it may nevertheless make possible a form of ‘government for the people’.

One of the most common theoretical and everyday justifications of representative democracy argues that it is the only practical form of democracy in modern conditions. A high level of popular participation is possible within relatively small communities, such as Greek city states or small towns, because face-to-face communication can occur between citizens. However, the idea of government by mass participation being conducted in modern nation states containing millions of citizens presents numerous difficulties. Moreover, advocates of representation argue consulting the public on each and every issue, with wide-ranging debate and discussion, paralyses decision-making. The most fundamental objection to direct democracy is, however, that ordinary people lack the time, maturity and specialist knowledge to rule wisely. In this sense, representative democracy applies the advantages of the division of labour to politics: specialist politicians, devoting all their expertise to the activity of government, can more effectively govern than the general public. Nevertheless, since the 1960s there has been growing disenchantment in many Western liberal democracies with the bureaucratic and unresponsive nature of modern government, as well as declining respect for professional politicians. In addition, the act of voting has become perceived to have little impact. Civic disengagement and declining electoral turnout in many parts of the world are thus viewed as symptoms of representative democracy not meeting the ideals of democracy.

Liberal democracy

For Bernard Crick ([1962] 2000) democracy is the most promiscuous of political terms. No settled model of democracy exists, only competing models. Beyond those already mentioned there are various non-Western democratic forms, such as those found in African political thought (see p. 191). Nevertheless, one theory of democracy has dominated Western democratic theory and institutionalization, to the extent that many

treat it as the only meaningful form. This is liberal democracy. It is found in almost all advanced capitalist societies and now extends into parts of the former communist world and developing worlds. Indeed, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Francis Fukuyama (1992), proclaimed the worldwide triumph of liberal democracy, describing it as the ‘end of history’: the end of the struggle between liberal democracy and its competitors. Such triumphalism, however, should not obscure the fact that liberal democracy is not the only model of democratic government, and, like all concepts of democracy, it has detractors. It should also be noted that since 2016, there has been significant public and intellectual scepticism of liberal democracy in the West and renewed questioning of its longevity.

To understand liberal democracy, we must emphasize that it is an institutional model combining two political ideas: liberal constitutionalism and democracy. The former element emerged historically before such states could be described as democratic. Many Western states developed forms of constitutional government in the nineteenth century, at a time when the franchise was extremely restricted (i.e. to propertied males). A liberal constitutional state (see Chapter 6) is based on the principle of limited government and the rule of law. The supremacy of law is a means of checking state power by laying out its intent, limits and separation amongst different branches of government. This ensures a key liberal value: the need to protect the individual from the state. From the liberal perspective, government is necessary, but a threat to individual liberty if not checked. This leads to support for devices that constrain government, such as bill of rights, an independent judiciary and a network of checks and balances. All of these maintain a clear division between state and civil society, based on respect for civil liberties and property rights. Liberal democratic rule therefore typically coexists with a capitalist economic order.

The ‘democratic’ element in liberal democracy is the idea of popular sovereignty: that power and authority is vested and should flow from the people. However, liberal democratic theory operationalizes it not through the collective decision-making of actual citizens as in direct forms of democracy. Rather, it relies on the notion of popular consent, expressed in practice through voting. Liberal democracy is thus a form of representative, electoral democracy, in that popular election is the source of legitimate political authority. Such elections must respect the principle of political equality; they must be based on universal and equal suffrage. For this reason, any system that restricts voting rights on grounds of gender, race, religion, economic status or whatever, fails the liberal democratic test. Finally, to be fully democratic, elections must be regular, open and, above all, competitive. The core of the liberal democratic process is the capacity of the people to hold politicians accountable. Political pluralism – open competition between political philosophies, movements, parties and so on – is the essence of democracy from the liberal perspective as it allows for this accountability.

Liberal democracy is thus representative at its core. The nature of this representation is contested. For James Madison (p. 197) in Federalist 10, a representative republic constrained by a constitution would ‘refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country’ (Hamilton, Madison and Jay 2008). On the other hand, the tradition of ‘democratic elitism’ justifies liberal democracy based

on its unique capacity to blend elite rule with popular participation. Government is entrusted to professional politicians, but these politicians are forced to respond to popular pressures by electoral necessity. Joseph Schumpeter (see p. 188) summed this up by describing the democratic method as ‘that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote’ ([1944] 1994). Thus, elite rule – government by experts – is balanced against public accountability. For more classically oriented liberals, this implies that in liberal democracies political power is wielded by voters at election time. The voter exercises the same power in politics as the consumer does in economic markets. For liberal pluralists, this accountability is strengthened by the existence of a vigorous civil society, allowing citizens to exert influence on government through pressure groups. Liberal democracies are therefore pluralist: political power is widely dispersed among many competing groups and interests, each of which can access government.

BEYOND THE WEST

DEMOCRACY IN AFRICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT

There are two main traditions of african political thought. The first consists of indigenous african thought, which developed during the so-called golden age of african history and refers to the governance of ancient kingdoms and empires (such as egypt, Kush/nubia, Ghana, Mali and songhay). The second tradition emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, against a backdrop of Western colonialism. it was developed by scholars and statesmen who had, in some way, encountered Western political ideas or structures, but sought to reshape these in the light of the values, traditions and historical circumstances found in africa. The two most influential sub-traditions this produced were african nationalism and african socialism and, although indigenous african thought played a more marginal role, it was still influential. This, for example, enabled Julius nyerere (1964), President of Tanzania, 1964–85, to declare that, ‘We, in africa, have no more need to be “converted” to socialism than we have of being “taught” democracy.’

indigenous african political systems often featured mechanisms of accountability and responsiveness that sustained a broadly democratic culture (Martin 2012). in the first place, they tended to incorporate elaborate systems of checks and balances, with institutions such as the inner or Privy council and the council of elders acting as an effective check on the abuse of power by leaders (chiefs, kings or emperors). second, political succession was carefully institutionalized in such a way that family, clan and ethnic competition for power was minimized and (physically or mentally) unfit would-be leaders were automatically eliminated. Third, the basic political unit was the village assembly, which made most major decisions and allowed ordinary people to participate actively in a decision-making process. fourth, as bodies such as the council of elders tended to make decisions through consensus, minority views had to be considered. finally, women played a key role in traditional african societies. in ancient egypt, for instance, women were masters of their homes and senior to their husbands, and children were named after them.

Liberal democracy has been subject to widespread criticism in Western political thought. Its principal critics have been elitists, Marxists (see p. 249) and radical democrats. Elitists argue that political power is concentrated in the hands of the few, the elite. Whereas classical elitists (early twentieth century) believed this to be a necessary and, in many cases, desirable feature of political life, modern elitists have developed an essentially empirical analysis of political power. So while Schumpeter advanced a form of democratic elitism that justified power being exercised by an elite, if competition among elites persisted, C. Wright Mills’s ([1956] 2000) later elite theory argued that industrialized societies such as the United States are dominated by a ‘power elite’, a small cohesive group that commands ‘the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society’. Such a theory suggests that power is institutional in character and largely vested in the non-elected bodies of the state system, including the military, the bureaucracy, the judiciary and the police. From this perspective, the principle of political equality and the process of electoral competition in liberal democracy are democratically ineffective.

The traditional Marxist critique of liberal democracy has focused on the inherent tension between democracy and capitalism. For liberals, the right to own property is the cornerstone of democratic rule as it provides an essential guarantee of individual liberty. Democracy can exist only when citizens enjoy the economic freedom of private property and a market economy; capitalism is a necessary precondition for democracy. Marx and Engels, in contrast, argued that there is inherent tension between the political equality which liberal democracy proclaims and the social inequality which a capitalist economy generates. Liberal democracies are ‘bourgeois’ democracies, manipulated by the entrenched power of private property. Such an analysis inclined revolutionary Marxists such as Lenin (see p. 250), Ellen Meiksins Wood (1942–2016) and Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) to reject a ‘democratic road’ to socialism. An alternative tradition nevertheless recognizes that electoral democracy gives the working masses a voice and may even be a vehicle for far-reaching socio-economic change. The German socialist leader Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) was an exponent of this view, as were later Euro-communists. However, even when socialists have embraced the ballot box, they have been critical of the narrow conception of political equality as equal voting rights. If political power reflects the distribution of wealth, genuine democracy can only be achieved through social equality, or what early Marxists termed ‘social democracy’.

Finally, in contemporary democratic theory, a broad group of ‘radical democrats’ have criticized liberal democracy claiming it is too limited and constrains the political goods democracy offers. This broad church usually locates its inspiration in Jean-Jacques Rousseau (see p. 205), the Marxist tradition and more recent participatory theory. In this sense, it is often more focused on the non-institutional and bottom-up aspects of democracy, and argues these represent the genuine inclusivity and normative appeal of democracy as a means of decision-making. Chantal Mouffe and William E. Connolly, for example, offer ‘agonist’ conceptions of democracy that emphasize that the value of democracy is its openness and capacity to rewrite politics and political institutions. Jacques Derrida, the French post-structuralist thinker, called this the ‘democracy to come’. In Rogues (2005), he says ‘democracy is the only system, the only constitutional paradigm, in which, in principle, one has or assumes the right to criticize everything publicly, including

the idea of democracy, its concept, its history, and its name’. Democracy’s value is not an institution or balance of accountability but its openness to conflict and contestation. This means no institutional, normative or political issue is ever settled but always subject to a new popular decision.

Justifying and criticizing democracy

Alongside these debates over the best form of democracy, there are continued conversations in the history of political thought over whether democracy is a desirable form of government. In fact, the longest conversation in political theory is about justifying or criticizing democracy as such. So while democracy in the West does have by the midtwentieth century intense normative appeal, the majority of the tradition has existed in a different conversation. From classical thought to the modern political thought of the English, American and French Revolutions, there was recurrent debate about the merits of democracy. Indeed, during the nineteenth century, when democracy was regarded as a radical and egalitarian creed, no issue polarized intellectual and political opinion so dramatically. The present unanimity about democracy should not disguise the fact that democrats have defended their views in very different ways at different times. While the history of democratic thought contains many arguments supporting democracy, most of the most influential justifications are instrumental: democracy is justified because of its consequences. Here, there are two key approaches, protective and developmental. Protective justifications of democracy focus on how democracy can ensure the protection of individual rights and liberty, especially from government. Perhaps the most basic of democratic sentiments was expressed in the Roman poet Juvenal’s question, ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? [Who will guard the guardians?]’ Seventeenth-century social contract theorists also saw popular sovereignty as a way to check government power. John Locke (see p. 217), for instance, argued the vote was based on natural rights and, in particular, the right to property. If government possessed the power to expropriate property, through taxation, citizens were entitled to protect themselves by controlling the tax-making body. In other words, there should be ‘no taxation without representation’. To limit the franchise to property owners would not, however, qualify as democracy by contemporary standards. Universal suffrage was advanced by utilitarian theorists such as Jeremy Bentham (see p. 22). While, in his early writings Bentham advocated an enlightened despotism, he subsequently supported universal suffrage in the belief that each individual’s interests were of equal value, and that only they could be trusted to protect them.

The developmental argument, often seen as more radical, holds that participation is a good in itself. Rousseau and Mill have usually been the principal exponents of this position. For Rousseau, democracy was a means through which human beings achieved autonomy. Individuals are, according to this view, free only when they obey laws that they themselves have made. Rousseau therefore extolled active participation in the life of the community. This idea, however, moves well beyond the conventional notion of electoral democracy and supports the more radical direct democracy. Rousseau ([1762] 1969), for example, derided elections employed in England, arguing that ‘the people of England are only free when they elect their Member of Parliament; as soon as they are elected, the people are slaves, they are nothing’. Although Mill did not go so far, remaining an

advocate of electoral democracy, he believed that political participation was beneficial to both the individual and society. He proposed votes for women and the extension of the franchise to include all except illiterates, on educational grounds, suggesting that it would foster intellectual development, moral virtue and practical understanding. This, in turn, would create a more balanced society and ‘the general mental advancement of the community’.

Other development arguments for democracy are clearly based on its communal, rather than individual, advantages. Democracy can, for instance, create social solidarity by giving all members a stake in the community. Rousseau expressed this idea in his belief that government should be based on the ‘general will’, or common good, rather than on the private will of each citizen. Political participation increases the feeling amongst individual citizens that they ‘belong’ to their community. Very similar considerations have inclined socialists and Marxists to support democracy, albeit in the form of ‘social democracy’ and not merely political democracy. From this perspective, democracy is an egalitarian force standing in opposition to any privilege or hierarchy. It represents the community rather than the individual, the collective interest rather than the particular.

TRADITION : social Democracy

The term social democracy was originally used by Marxists to distinguish the narrow goal of political democracy from the more fundamental objectives of socialism. however, its modern usage was shaped by the tendency, from the late nineteenth century onwards, of democratic socialist parties to abandon the goal of abolishing capitalism for reforming capitalism. social democracy argues for a balance between the market and the state, between the individual and community. The chief task of social democratic theory has therefore been to establish a compromise between an acceptance of capitalism as the mechanism for generating wealth and a desire to distribute wealth in accordance with moral, rather than market, principles.

The characteristic emphasis of social democratic thought is a concern for the vulnerable in society. This can, in most cases, be seen as a development of the socialist tradition, either being shaped by attempts to revise Marxism (see p. 249) or emerging out of ethical socialism. such developments usually involved the reexamination of capitalism and the rejection of the Marxist belief that the capitalist mode of production is characterized by systematic class

oppression. nevertheless, social democracy lacks the theoretical structure of Marxism and is, arguably, not only rooted in socialism. social democrats have drawn so heavily on modern liberal ideas such as positive freedom and equality of opportunity that it is difficult to distinguish between social democracy and modern liberalism (see p. 280). More recent developments within social democracy have involved an accommodation with principles such as community, social partnership and moral responsibility, reflecting parallels between ‘modernized’ social democracy and communitarianism (see p. 57). in the 1990s in various anglo-american democracies, some ‘new’ social democrats adopted the idea of the ‘third way’ to highlight the need to revise traditional social democracy to take account of the pressures of globalized capitalism.

historically, social democracy represents a revivification of the humanist tradition within socialist thought, contrasting with the structural approach of Marxism. its attempt to achieve a balance between equality and efficiency has been the centre ground towards which politics in most developed societies since the beginning of the twentieth century has tended

to gravitate, even though the balance in recent decades has tended to favour the latter. from a Marxist perspective, however, social democracy amounts to a dilution of socialist principles, an attempt to legitimize a capitalist system in the name of socialist ideals. nevertheless, social democracy’s central weakness is its lack of firm theoretical roots. although social democrats have evinced an enduring commitment to equality and social justice, the kind of equality they support and the specific meaning they have given to social justice have constantly been revised.

Key figures

Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932) a German socialist politician and theorist, bernstein was responsible for the first systematic revision of Marxism. he drew attention to the failure of Marx’s predictions about the collapse of capitalism, pointing out that economic crises were becoming less, not more, acute. bernstein rejected revolution and called for alliances with the liberal middle class and the peasantry, emphasizing the possibility of a gradual transition to socialism. bernstein’s most significant work is Evolutionary Socialism ([1898] 1962).

Richard Henry Tawney (1880–1962) a british social philosopher and historian, Tawney championed a form of socialism rooted in christian social moralism unconnected with Marxist class analysis. The disorders of capitalism derived from the absence of a ‘moral ideal’, leading to widespread material inequality. The project of socialism is therefore to build a ‘common culture’ that will provide the basis for solidarity. Tawney’s major works include The Acquisitive Society (1921), Equality ([1931] 1969) and The Radical Tradition (1964).

Anthony Crosland (1918–77) a british politician and socialist theorist, crosland built on bernstein in attempting to give social democracy a theoretical basis. he argued that capitalism no longer needed to be abolished as the ownership of wealth had become divorced from its control, as economic decisions were made by salaried managers rather than owners. The task of socialism is thus to narrow distributive inequalities, rather than restructure ownership. crosland’s best-known works include The Future of Socialism ([1956] 2006) and Socialism Now (1974).

Critics of democracy also tend take an instrumental approach, arguing that it has undesirable consequences. This focus is interesting as it suggests it is difficult to argue against democracy as a moral ideal (at least in modernity). These instrumental rejections of democracy have, like justifications, taken too many forms to address comprehensively. So this section highlights several of the most influential. First, there are citizenship or subjectivity criticisms that rely on human nature arguments that in some way the majority of citizens lack the intellectual, social or moral features required for democratic citizenship. Plato (see p. 49) offers the earliest, and perhaps most infamous, version of this argument. He believed in a radical form of natural inequality: human beings were born with souls of gold, silver or bronze, and were disposed towards very different stations in life. Each station had different forms of knowledge or good associated with it, and these were not appropriate to the task of ruling, which required knowledge of political and moral virtue. As a result, in Book VI of the Republic, he argued that members of the public are simply not competent to rule wisely in their own interests. He deploys two metaphors commonly described as ‘The Ship of State’ and the ‘People as a Beast’ to argue that the political ignorance of the majority undermines effective and just government. Instead, he advanced the idea of rule by the virtuous, by a class of philosopher-kings, the Guardians.

In the twentieth century classical elite theorists (such as Vilfredo Pareto [1848–1923], Gaetano Mosca [1858–1941] and Robert Michels [1876–1936]) developed this argument from human nature to argue that democracy would not only have bad consequences, but that it was unsustainable. This is a stability criticism focused on whether democracy can be maintained. Democracy is merely a foolish delusion because political power is always exercised by an elite, a privileged minority. In The Ruling Class ([1896] 1939), Mosca proclaimed that in all societies ‘two classes of people appear – a class that rules and a class that is ruled’. In his view, the resources or attributes that are necessary for rule are always unequally distributed and, further, a cohesive minority will always be able to manipulate the masses, even in a parliamentary democracy. Drawing on Machiavelli, Pareto suggested that the qualities needed to rule conform to one of two psychological types: ‘foxes’, who rule by cunning and are able to manipulate the masses’ consent, and ‘lions’, whose domination is typically based on coercion. Michels proposed that elite rule followed from ‘the iron law of oligarchy’: it is in the nature of all organizations, however democratic they may appear, for power to concentrate in the hands of a small group of dominant figures, who can organize and make decisions. Finally, some claim that democracies divide their populations. These are largely majoritarian criticisms, that focus on the consequences of democracies empowering large groups (i.e. majorities) and disempowering small ones (i.e. minorities). This means that democracy is a substantial threat to individual liberty. For many theorists, ‘the people’ is not a single entity but rather a collection of individuals and groups, with differing opinions and interests. The ‘democratic solution’ to conflict or disagreement is a recourse to numbers and majority rule. Alexis de Tocqueville famously argued that this could lead to a ‘tyranny of the majority’ where a democratic majority undermines the interests and rights of individuals or minorities. J. S. Mill broadened this concern to the social-cultural consequences of this majoritarian logic. Mill argued that democratic election would not produce truth – wisdom cannot be determined by a show of hands – and would damage intellectual life by promoting uniformity and dull conformism. A similar view was expressed by James Madison (see p. 197) who argued that the best defence against such tyranny was a network of checks and balances, creating a highly fragmented system of government, often referred to as ‘Madisonian democracy’. Such concerns were developed in the twentieth century with claims that democracy places power in the hands of those least qualified to govern: the uneducated masses, those likely to be ruled by passion and instinct. In The Revolt of the Masses ([1930] 1961), for instance, Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955) warned that the arrival of mass democracy had led to the overthrow of civilized society and the moral order, paving the way for authoritarian rulers to come to power by appealing to the masses. Similarly, J. L. Talmon ([1952] 1970) argued that in the French Revolution the radical democratic theories of Rousseau made possible the brutality of the Terror, a phenomenon Talmon termed ‘totalitarian democracy’. Many have seen similar lessons in the plebiscitary forms of democracy that developed in twentieth-century fascist states, which sought to establish immediate relationships between the leader and the people through rallies, marches and demonstrations. In recent years, this has led to similar concerns around Western populist leaders who have also seemed inclined to circumvent liberal democratic institutions (such as the legislature or judiciary) to claim direct relationships of legitimacy with ‘the people’.

THINKER JAMES MADISON (1751–1836)

US statesman and political theorist, Madison was a keen advocate of american federal government. he helped to set up the constitutional convention in 1787, and played a major role in writing the constitution. Madison served as Thomas Jefferson’s secretary of state (1801–9) and was the fourth president of the united states (1809–17).

Madison’s best-known political writings are his contributions to The Federalist (1787–8), which campaigned for constitutional ratification and supported a federated united states of america against anti-federalists who supported independent states. he was a leading proponent of pluralism and divided government, believing that ‘ambition must be made to counteract ambition’. he therefore urged the adoption of federalism, bicameralism and the separation of powers. Madisonianism entails a strong emphasis on checks and balances as the principal means of preventing tyranny. his views on democracy, often referred to as ‘Madisonian democracy’, stressed the need to resist majoritarianism by recognizing the existence of diversity or multiplicity in society, and highlighted the need for disinterested elite representation independent from competing individual and sectional interests. Madison’s ideas have influenced liberal, republican and pluralist thought.

REPRESENTATION

The dominance of liberal democracy means that modern and contemporary democratic theories are tied to the idea of representation. When citizens no longer rule directly, democracy is based on the claim that elected politicians serve as the people’s representatives. However, merely having representatives is not democracy. So theories of representation have had to prescribe how political representation can provide the legitimacy and responsiveness that democracy requires. To do so, it asks a difficult question: what does it mean to say that one person ‘represents’ another? In ordinary language, to represent means to portray or make present, as when a picture represents a scene. In politics, representation suggests that an individual or group somehow stands on behalf of a larger group. Hanna Pitkin, in her The Concept of Representation (1967), defined it as to ‘make present again’. Political representation creates a link between two otherwise separate entities – government and the governed – that somehow makes present the people in the exercise of political power. The nature of this link is, nevertheless, deeply contested, as is the capacity of representation to ensure democratic government. What exactly is represented by those who govern: interests, views, desires or identities?

These different senses of representation have spawned many discussions. Below, we focus on three. First, representatives have sometimes been seen as people who ‘know better’ than others, and can act wisely in their interests. This implies that politicians should not be tied like delegates to the views of their constituents, but should use personal judgement. This is the independence theory of representation. Second, representation is tied to elections in liberal democracy. Emphasizing this produces a formalistic view

of representation focused on how representatives receive a mandate from the people. What this mandate means and how it authorizes politicians to act is, however, highly contentious. Finally, the ‘likeness’ theory of representation understands it not as acting on behalf of someone, but one who is characteristic of a group. Politicians are representatives if they resemble their society in terms of age, gender, social class, ethnic background and so forth. Each theory of representation has dramatic consequences for who and how the people are represented.

Representatives and independence

The independence theory of representation broadly holds that representatives should be understood as trustees, who use expertise to determine the democratically just position to hold. In this sense, representation is substantive, it is what is good for the people, but it is virtual (rather than actual) as it can deviate from the preferences, views and even interests of the represented. This position can be justified in a few different ways.

In his famous speech to the electors of Bristol in 1774 Edmund Burke (see p. 28) claimed ‘your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion’ (Burke 1975). For Burke, the essence of representation was to serve one’s constituents by the exercise of ‘mature judgement’ and ‘enlightened conscience’. In short, representation is a moral duty: those who possess understanding should act in the interests of those they represent. In Burke’s view, this position was justified by the fear that if MPs took instructions directly from their constituents, Parliament would become a battleground for contending local interests, leaving no one to speak on behalf of the nation. ‘Parliament’, Burke emphasized, ‘is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole.’ Burke’s point is thus that only a representative can move from the level of individual to national interest.

J. S. Mill, whose ideas constitute the basis of the liberal theory of representation, makes a similar point. Though a firm believer in extending the franchise to working-class men, and an early advocate of female suffrage, Mill nevertheless rejected the idea that all political opinions are of equal value. He believed that the opinions of the educated are of a higher social, intellectual and moral value than those of the uneducated. He proposed a system of plural voting, allocating four or five votes to holders of learned diplomas or degrees, two or three to skilled or managerial workers, a single vote to ordinary workers and none at all to the illiterate. In addition, like Burke, he insisted that, once elected, representatives should use their reasoned discretion. Indeed, he argued that rational voters would wish for candidates with greater understanding than they possess themselves. They will want politicians who can act wisely on their behalf, not ones who merely reflect their own views. The theory of representation as independence, thus, portrays political knowledge and understanding as unequally distributed in society. If politicians act as delegates, who receive instructions without having the capacity to deviate from them, they may be bound by the ill-formed judgements of the masses.

The independence theory of representation has also been subject to significant criticism. First, the basic principles of this theory have anti-democratic implications: if politicians should think for themselves rather than reflect the views of the represented because the public can be ignorant, poorly educated or deluded, it may be a mistake

for them to choose representatives in the first place. Indeed, if education is the basis of representation, it could be argued that government should be entrusted to non-elected experts, selected, like the Mandarins of Imperial China, by some non-electoral means. Mill, in fact, did accept the need for a non-elected executive on such grounds. Second, the link between representation and education is questionable. Whereas education may aid understanding of intricate political and economic issues, it is less clear that it helps politicians to make moral and political judgements about the interests of others. There is little evidence to support Mill’s and Burke’s claim that education gives a broader sense of social responsibility and a greater willingness to act altruistically.

The most serious criticism of the independence theory is that it grants representatives a degree of power that compromises democratic goals. By allowing representatives significant discretion, they will become insulated from popular pressures and end up acting in their own interests. In this way, representation could become a substitute for democracy. This was the focus of democrats such as Thomas Paine (p. 107), who was a keen advocate of popular sovereignty. Unlike Rousseau, he recognized the need for some form of representation. Nevertheless, the theory of representation Paine advocated in Common Sense ([1776] 1987) came close to the ideal of delegation. Paine proposed ‘frequent interchange’ between representatives and their constituents in the form of regular elections designed to ensure that ‘the elected might never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors’. In addition to frequent elections, Paine supported the idea of popular initiatives, a system through which the public can make legislative proposals, and the right of recall, which entitles the electorate to call unsatisfactory elected officials to account and ultimately to remove them. From this point of view, the democratic ideal is realized only if representatives are bound to the views of the represented. Some have argued that representation is only meaningful if representatives are physically ‘close’ to those whom they represent. Such a stance suggests not only that decentralization is a key democratic principle, but that it is deeply unwise to attempt democracy beyond the parameters of the nation, as in ‘cosmopolitan democracy’ (p. 235).

Mandate theory

The mandate theory of representation thinks of representatives as strongly bound by those they represent. In this sense, it sees representatives as delegates who take decisions, views, priorities forward from the represented to larger legislative or other contexts. The role of the representative is to mirror or convey the views collected from constituents, to think and speak as they would if they had the platform. In this sense, the representative is meant, insofar as it is possible, to embody their views. They are actual, rather than virtual, representatives.

Understanding representatives as delegates has not had a significant presence in liberal democratic theory. Rather, most advocates of it have been from republican and socialist conceptions of democracy. Rousseau, for example, argued that ‘the people’s deputies are not, and could not be, its representatives; they are merely its agents; and they cannot decide anything finally’ ([1762] 1969). To give representatives such powers is not popular sovereignty. Similarly, Marxist and socialist thinkers argue that any sort of professional representation will compromise the collective interests democracy pursues and, in the context of class inequality, will always serve the interest of the ruling class. Such

arguments proved very influential in the way union representation and socialist political organization developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

One way the delegate model has been included in more liberal and mainstream democratic theory is through the idea of mandates. This ties representation strongly to elections and the way elections choose representatives with a mandate that constrains them. In this way, the most common way of imposing meaning on an election result is to interpret it as providing a ‘mandate’ for the winning candidate or party. A mandate is an authoritative instruction or command. The doctrine of mandate is based on the willingness of parties to set out policy proposals through speeches and manifestos. These proposals are, in effect, electoral promises, indicating what the party is committed to doing if elected. The act of voting can thus be understood as the expression of a preference from amongst the various policy programmes on offer. Victory in the election is therefore a reflection of the popularity of one set of proposals over its rivals. In this light, it can be argued that the winning party not only enjoys a popular mandate to carry out its manifesto pledges but has a duty to do so. The great merit of the mandate doctrine is that it seems to impose meaning on an election, and offers popular guidance to those who exercise government power.

The mandate theory highlights the strong connection in liberal democracy between representation and electoral mechanisms. This does not, however, explain how elections should exactly serve as a representative mechanism, or how they link the elected to electors. An election is a device for filling public offices by measuring popular preferences. That said, electoral systems widely diverge, some being seen as more democratic or representative than others. There are significant differences among competitive electoral systems. In countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States and India, plurality systems exist, based on the ‘first-past-the-post’ rule – the victorious candidate needs only to acquire more votes than any single rival. Such systems do not seek to equate the overall number of seats won by each party with the number of votes it gains in the election. Typically, plurality systems ‘over-represent’ large parties and ‘under-represent’ smaller ones. By contrast, proportional electoral systems, used throughout continental Europe, employ devices to ensure a closer relationship between the votes cast for each party and the seats eventually won. Both systems present issues for the mandate theory. In countries with plurality electoral systems governments can be formed based on a plurality of votes rather than an overall majority. When more voters oppose the elected government or administration than support it, it seems frankly absurd to claim that it enjoys a mandate. On the other hand, proportional systems, which tend to lead to coalition governments, also go awry for mandate democracy. Government policies are often hammered out through post-election deals negotiated by coalition partners. In the process, the policies with strong support may be altered through negotiation. There is, therefore, no basis to assume those who voted for one of the coalition parties will be satisfied by the compromise. Indeed, it may have no mandate because no set of voters endorsed it. How elections can produce a mandate is not the only issue with mandate theory. For example, if strictly applied, it acts as a straightjacket, limiting government policies to those positions and proposals the party adopted during the previous election, leaving little capacity to adjust policies in the light of ever-changing circumstances. The doctrine is therefore limited in relation to events such as international and economic crises that

crop up unexpectedly. As a result, the more flexible notion of a ‘mandate to rule’ has sometimes been advanced in place of the conventional ‘policy mandate’. The idea of a mandate to rule is, however, hopelessly vague and comes close to investing politicians with unrestricted authority simply because they won an election.

Second, some critics argue mandate theory is based on a questionable model of electoral behaviour. It portrays voters as rational creatures, whose political preferences are determined by issues and policy. There is abundant evidence that many voters are poorly

THINKING GLOBALLY COSMOPOLITAN DEMOCRACY

The idea of cosmopolitan democracy has attracted growing attention in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries due to the advance of globalization and the ‘hollowing out’ of democratic processes at the level of the nation state. if policy-making has expanded from national governments to international organizations, surely democracy should be extended to the global level?

Rival models of cosmopolitan democracy have been advanced. The first model involves the construction of a world parliament, a body that would introduce greater scrutiny and openness to the process of global decisionmaking by calling established international organizations (such as the united nations, the WTo, the iMf and the World bank) to account. Very few advocates of this idea advocate a fully fledged world government or global state; most favour a multi-level system of post-sovereign governance in which supra-state bodies, state-level bodies and sub-state bodies would interact without any final authority. David held (1995) thus proposed the establishment of a ‘global parliament’, reformed and more accountable regional and global political bodies, and the ‘permanent shift of a growing proportion of a nation state’s coercive capacity to regional and global institutions’. The second model of cosmopolitan democracy is less ambitious; it looks to reform existing international bodies, rather than construct new ones. This could be

done by boosting the role within international organizations of non-governmental organizations (nGos) and other citizens’ bodies, helping to counterbalance the influence of transnational corporations and global markets. such ‘globalization from below’ would be effective to the extent that these groups can introduce public scrutiny and accountability to the working of international bodies, providing a channel of communication between the individual and global institutions.

The idea of cosmopolitan democracy has been deeply criticized. any global institution, however structured, tasked with ensuring public accountability may be doomed to failure. The inevitable gulf (geographical and political) between popularly elected global political institutions and ordinary citizens around the world means that any claim that such institutions are representative or democratic would be problematic. in this light, democracy is only meaningful if it is local or national in character; any international body, whether regional or global, will suffer from a ‘democratic deficit’. Moreover, the democratic credentials of nGos and social movements have been challenged. for instance, how can nGos be in the forefront of democratization when they are entirely non-elected bodies? nGos and social movements cannot, thus, be said to exercise democratic authority, especially as there is no way of testing the weight of their views against the global population’s.

informed about manifestos. Voters are also influenced, perhaps to a significant extent, by ‘irrational’ factors such as the personality, party image or habitual allegiances formed through social conditioning. Indeed, electoral campaigns fought largely on television and the internet have strengthened such tendencies by focusing on personalities rather than policies, and on images rather than issues. It is thus questionable to assume a vote for a party is an endorsement of its manifesto’s contents. Moreover, even if voters are influenced by policies, it is likely that they will be attracted by certain manifesto commitments, and not others. A vote for a party cannot be taken to indicate approval of its entire manifesto. Elections are inherently vague and provide no reliable guide about which policies led one party to victory and others to defeat.

Representation as likeness

The likeness theory of representation is based less on how representatives are selected than whether they resemble those represented. This notion of representation is embodied in the idea of a ‘representative cross-section’. To be ‘representative’ in this sense is a descriptive relation that one is drawn from a group and shares its characteristics. A representative government would therefore be a microcosm of the larger society, containing proportional members drawn from all groups in terms of social class, gender, religion, ethnicity, age and so on.

This theory of representation has enjoyed support amongst a broad range of theorists. It has, for instance, been accepted by many socialists, who have long argued that a key obstacle to democracy exists in the fact that the political elite – ministers, senior civil servants, judges, etc. – are drawn disproportionately from the ruling class. Because the working classes are ‘under-represented’ in government, their interests are marginalized. Feminist theorists (see p. 308) similarly suggest that patriarchy, the dominance of the male sex, operates in part through the exclusion of women from public life. Anti-racist and multiculturalist campaigners argue that disadvantage is perpetuated by the ‘underrepresentation’ of ethno-cultural minorities in government and elsewhere. Indigenous political thinkers have, finally, argued that the forms of symbolic and legal representation of First Nations are either non-existent or inadequate to their status as original inhabitants. Likeness representation is based on the belief that representation requires representatives be drawn from the group they represent. This claim can be made on substantive lines, that this ensures the representation of that groups’ interests. To represent means to speak for, or on behalf of, others, which is impossible if representatives do not have personal knowledge of those they represent. In its crudest form, this argument suggests that people are conditioned by their backgrounds and are incapable of understanding the views of different people. In its more sophisticated form it draws a distinction between empathizing and directly experiencing what other people go through, something that engages a deeper emotional response. This implies, for example, that although a man may sympathize with women’s interests and support the principle of sexual equality, his experience precludes a full understanding of women’s problems that is required to represent them. In the same way, white liberals may be concerned by racial inequality but, never having experienced racism, will not understand it in a way that can represent those interests. Beyond the issue of interests, the likeness argument can also be symbolic. There is a symbolic value to having political institutions mirror back the diversity of the political community.

This theory of representation is, in some ways, the most controversial for at least two reasons. First, it seems to rely on a simplistic account of social identity that believes we can narrowly select one feature of a potential representative and isolate it from other social identities they might have. In selecting any candidate as a representative of this gender, race, culture or religion we ignore that they belong to a series of other social groups that may pit their interests or views against the one represented. Second, some critics regard it as a positive threat to democracy rather than a necessary precondition. This theory sees representation in narrow terms as only about identity. Only a woman can represent women; only a Black person can represent other Black people; only a member of the working class can represent the working classes, and so on. If all representatives are concerned to advance the interests of sectional groups they belong to, who is prepared to defend the common good, a key democratic ideal? Indeed, this form of representation may simply foment social conflict.

THE PUBLIC GOOD

One of the fundamental normative values of and justifications for democracy is that it benefits people. Its appeal is wrapped up in modernity with its unique ability to claim value for every member of a political community. In this sense, democracy’s wide inclusion capacity is the source of its strength. Importantly, this has flow-on effects for how political justification occurs within democratic dialogue and the public sphere where, generally, it is important to justify decisions, policies or institutions by reference to the idea that they serve the people. This is especially important in a representative system, where the opportunity for direct popular participation is limited. Ideas of the ‘common good’ or ‘public interest’, as the aim of some decision, support the claim to rule democratically and the idea that government serves the people. While appeals to the common good and public interest in everyday politics are often banal, this notion has played a vital role in political theory, and constitutes a major plank of the democratic ideal. It has, however, been subjected to stern scrutiny, especially since the late twentieth century. First, many scholars, especially in the liberal tradition, have argued that it is difficult to distinguish between the private interests of each citizen and their collective or public interests. For some, the concept is misleading or simply incoherent. Second, there has been considerable debate over how the public interest can be defined. Finally, this has precipitated debate about measuring the public good, and led to the suggestion that, though democracy may be desirable, there may be no constitutional or electoral mechanism adequate to gauge it.

Private and public interests

In liberal theory, the idea of the public good has often been framed through interests and the distinction between private and public. As discussed in Chapter 4, in political theory ‘interest’ is usually defined as a benefit or advantage; something someone wants or is good for them. The public interest is what is ‘good’ for the people as a group. However, several issues emerge here. First, defining interest requires more detail. What does this ‘good’ consist of, and who can define it? Are interests simply desires, defined subjectively by everyone. If so, interests must be consciously acknowledged or manifest in

behaviour. Liberal thought, for example, tends to identify interests as ‘stated preferences’. However, an interest can be thought of as a need, requirement or even necessity, of which the individual may be entirely unconscious. This suggests a distinction between ‘felt’ or subjective interests, and genuine or ‘objective’ interests. Second, the idea of a public good or interest raises a deeper problem of definition: what is the nature of an interest that is held collectively? Assuming even moderate diversity within a group, is a public good simply what most individuals want or need? Or is there a distinct level of interest in a democratic society, a level of collective being, that goes beyond individuals and constitutes the common good?

The theoretical problem of defining interests stands behind any discussion of the public interest. Those who insist that all interests are ‘felt’ interests, or revealed preferences, hold that individuals are the only, or best, judges of what is good for them. By contrast, theorists who favour ‘real’ interests may argue that the concept of interest is critical only if they are taken to be something objective that individuals can be mistaken or systematically manipulated around. However, Brian Barry (2011) attempted to bridge the gap between these two concepts by defining a person’s interests as ‘that which increases his or her opportunities to get what he or she wants’. This accepts that interests are ‘wants’ that can only be defined subjectively by the individual, but suggests that those individuals who fail to select rational means of achieving their ends do not recognize their own best interests.

‘Private’ interests are normally thought to be self-regarding, and usually materialistic, interests of individuals or groups. This idea is based on long-established liberal beliefs about human nature, in which individuals are separate and independent agents, each advancing his or her perceived interests. In short, individuals are egoistical and selfinterested. This notion of private interests is inevitably linked to conflict, or at least competition. If private individuals act rationally, they will prefer their own interests to others’. Socialists, however, have typically rejected this image. Rather than being narrowly self-interested, socialists believe human beings to be sociable and cooperative, bound to one another by a common humanity. The belief that human nature is essentially social has profound implications for any notion of private interests. To the extent that individuals are concerned about the ‘good’ of their fellow human beings, their private interests become indistinguishable from the collective interests of all. In other words, socialists challenge the very distinction between private and public interests, a position that inclines them to natural social harmony (see Chapter 6), rather than conflict and competition.

Despite these extremes, most debates in political theory operate with a distinction between private and public interest. The difficulty this causes tends to be on the public end. Because of the dominance of liberal political thought in modernity, it has often been the conception of public or common good that has been treated sceptically, and the onus of justification has, as a result, fallen there. Any concept of the public interest must, in the first place, be based on a clear understanding of what ‘public’ means. ‘The public’ stands for all members of a community, not merely the largest number or even the overall majority. Whereas private interests are multiple and competing, the public interest is single and indivisible; it is that which benefits every member of the public.

However, there are two, rather different, conceptions of what might constitute the public interest. The first is based on the idea of shared or common interests. In this view, individuals share an interest if they perceive that the same action or policy will benefit them, in the sense that their interests overlap. The public interest therefore constitutes those private interests that all members of the community hold in common. For example, defence against external aggression, a goal that all citizens could be expected to share, is a prime example. The more radical notion of the public interest is not based on shared private interests but the interests of the public as a collective body. Instead of seeing the public as a collection of individuals, whose interests may or may not overlap, this view portrays the public as a collective entity possessed of distinct common interests. The classic proponent of this idea was Rousseau, who conceptualized it as the ‘general will’. In The Social Contract, Rousseau defined the general will as that ‘which tends always to the preservation and welfare of the whole’ ([1762] 1969). The general will represents the collective interests of society; it will benefit all citizens, rather than merely private individuals. Rousseau thus drew a clear distinction between the general will and the selfish, private will of each citizen. The general will is what the people pursue when they think from the perspective of the political community. The difficulty with this notion of the public interest is that, so long as they persist in being selfish, it cannot be constructed based on the felt preferences of individuals. It is possible, in other words, that citizens may not recognize the general will as their own, even though Rousseau clearly believed that it reflected the collective interests of the political community. As a result, Rousseau argues that public interest can only be pursued dialogically through the active participation of every citizen.

THINKER JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU (1712–78)

Geneva-born French moral and political philosopher. Rousseau moved to Paris in 1742, and became an intimate of leading members of the french enlightenment, especially Diderot. his autobiography, Confessions (1770), examines his life and his often difficult personal and social relations.

Rousseau was perhaps the principal intellectual influence on the french Revolution. his writings, which ranged over education, the arts, science, literature and philosophy, reflected a deep belief in the potential of ‘natural man’ and corruption of ‘social man’. Rousseau’s political teaching, summarized in Émile ([1762] 1978) and developed in The Social Contract ([1762] 1969), advocates a radical form of democracy that has influenced liberal, socialist, anarchist and, some would argue, fascist thought. he departed from earlier social contract theories in being unwilling to separate free individuals from the process of government. his aim was to devise a form of authority to which the people can be subject without losing their freedom. in this light, he proposed that government be based on the ‘general will’, reflecting the collective good of the community as opposed to the ‘particular’, and selfish, will of each citizen. Rousseau believed that freedom consists in political participation, obedience to the general will, meaning that he was prepared to argue that individuals can be ‘forced to be free’. he envisaged such a political system operating in small, relatively egalitarian communities united by a shared civil religion.

Justifying the public good

Despite the centrality of the common good to modern and contemporary political theory, the concept has often been subject to a variety of criticisms. The most dramatic version is the argument that it is nonsensical: the public cannot have an interest. This position is often associated with the classical liberal tradition. For example, Jeremy Bentham developed a moral and political philosophy on the basis that individuals sought to maximize what he called ‘utility’, calculated in terms of the quantity of pleasure over pain experienced by each individual. In other words, only individuals have interests, and they alone can define their interest. From this perspective, any notion of a public interest is a fallacy; the interests of the community are at best what Bentham called ‘the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it’ (1948). The notion of a public interest as shared private interests therefore makes little sense simply because each member of the community will strive for something different: a collection of private interests does not add up to a coherent ‘public interest’.

Critics of the common good attack both major conceptions of the public interest. On the one hand, in terms of the understanding of public good as overlapping interests, they often argue that the issues over which all citizens would agree (e.g. the need for public order or defence) are limited. Even when there is general agreement about a broad goal, there will be profound differences about how to realize it. For instance, is order more likely to be promoted by social equality and respect for civil liberty, or by stiff penalties and strict policing? On the other hand, Bentham’s views contrast even more starkly with the notion of the collective interests of the community. Rousseau’s idea of the general will is problematic, on this account, because collective entities such as ‘society’, the ‘community’ and the ‘public’ do not exist as entities that can have an interest. The nearest Bentham came to acknowledging a collectivity was his notion of general utility, defined as ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number’. However, this formula merely accepts that public policy should be designed to satisfy the ‘greatest number’ of private interests, not that it can serve the interests of all members of the public. In fact, its very logic of calculating where most interests lie assumes this is impossible. Similar debates and criticisms have operated in political science. Modern pluralist theorists, such as Robert Dahl (p. 188) and rational choice or ‘public choice’ theorists, agree in viewing politics in terms of competition between various private groups or interests. The emergence of organized groups is explained in terms of rational, selfinterested behaviour. Individuals who are powerless when they act separately can exert influence by acting collectively with others who share similar interests. For example, this can explain the emergence of trade unionism: the threat of strike action by a single worker can be disregarded, but an all-out strike by the entire workforce cannot. This interpretation acknowledges the existence of shared interests and the importance of collective action. However, it challenges the collective idea of a public interest. Interest groups are ‘sectional’ pressure groups, representing a part of society (e.g. ethnic or religious groups, trade unions, professional associations, employer’s groups). Each sectional group has a distinctive interest, which it seeks to advance through a process of influence. This leaves no room, however, for a public interest: each group places its interest before those of the whole society. Indeed, the pluralist view of society as a collection of competing interests does not allow for society itself to have collective interests.

Despite these criticisms, the concept of a public interest has been defended by many theorists. Its defence usually takes one of two forms. The first rejects the philosophical assumptions on which the individualist attack is based, questioning the image of human beings as essentially self-interested. It is clear, for example, that Rousseau regarded selfishness not as a natural impulse but as evidence of social corruption; human beings are plastic and historical creatures deeply affected by the norms of their communities, and subject to development across time. He argued their communal nature was key to social development and genuine autonomy and so he was anti-individualist in this sense. Socialists uphold the idea of the common good on the same grounds. Individuals are not isolated creatures vying against one another, but social animals who share a genuine concern about fellow human beings and are bound together by common human needs.

The second form defends the concept of the public interest from the perspective of overlapping interests, without relying on overt claims about human nature. This can be done through reference to what economists call ‘public goods’: goods or services from which all individuals derive benefit but that none has an incentive to produce. Environmental concerns such as energy conservation and pollution are strong examples of a public interest. The avoidance of pollution and the conservation of finite energy resources are undoubtedly public goods in that they are vital for both human health and the long-term survival of the human species. These can therefore be said to constitute the ‘real’ interest of individuals. However, following Barry, this can perhaps be a case of individuals and groups demonstrating that they do not recognize their own best interests. All people acknowledge the need for a healthy environment, but acting only on their own interests, they may not act to secure one. In economics, this has been called ‘the Tragedy of the Commons’. In such circumstances, the public interest can only be safeguarded by government intervention, designed to curb the pursuit of private interests for the collective benefit of the whole society.

Measuring the public good

The concept of the public good raises a problem for the representative and electoral focus of contemporary liberal democracies. As discussed above, in liberal democracy representatives have a key role in connecting the people to government; in a sense, they are the conduits through which the government accesses public interests to, ideally, act on them. These democracies operationalize the public good in terms of the conceiving of it as the overall balance of interests in the political community. However, this claim relies on elections being reliable mechanisms for measuring voter preferences. Only in this way can governments hope to be selected who have proposed what most citizens want. So, this model requires that the electoral process ensures government in the public interest. One of the most influential arguments for this has actually come from outside political theory in Anthony Downs’s An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957). Downs explained the democratic process through an economic model of behaviour. He believed that electoral competition creates, in effect, a political market, in which politicians act as entrepreneurs bent on achieving government power, and individual voters behave like consumers, voting for the party whose policies most closely reflect their preferences. Downs believed that a system of open, competitive elections guarantees democratic rule because it places government in the hands of the party whose values and policies

most closely correspond to the preferences of the largest group. Moreover, democratic competition incentivizes policy consensus, as parties are encouraged to shift their policies towards the ‘centre ground’, to appeal to the largest number. Although the ‘economic theory of democracy’ does not contain an explicit concept of the public interest, it attempts to explain how electoral competition ensures that government pays regular attention to the preferences of most of the enfranchised population. This is a rough approximation of the public interest.

Downs’s model of democratic politics has its limits. In the first place, it assumes a relatively homogeneous society, forcing parties to develop moderate policies that will have broad appeal. In deeply divided societies, party competition may ensure government in the interests of the largest sectional group. Second, it could be argued that party competition shifts politics away from the public interest since it encourages parties to frame policies which appeal to the immediate private or sectional interests of voters rather than more abstract, shared interests. For example, parties are noticeably reluctant to propose policies to limit the use of finite fossil fuels, or to tackle problems such as climate change, because such policies, though in the long-term public interest, bear significant short-term costs that may cost votes.

Third, Downs’s model may have questionable assumptions about the rationality of the electorate and the pragmatic nature of electoral politics. As discussed previously, voters may be poorly informed about political issues and their electoral preferences may be shaped by a range of ‘irrational’ factors such as habit, social conditioning, the image of the party and the personality of its leader. Similarly, parties are not always prepared to construct policies simply based on their electoral appeal; to some extent, they attempt to shape the political agenda and influence the values of voters. Finally, the responsiveness of the political market to voters’ preferences may also be affected by the level of party competition, or lack of it. In countries such as Japan and Sweden where single parties have enjoyed long periods of uninterrupted power, the political market is distorted by monopolistic tendencies. Two-party systems, such as in the United States, can be described as duopolistic. Even the multiparty systems of continental Europe can be seen as oligopolistic, since coalition partners operate like cartels restricting competition and blocking entry into the market.

On a more theoretical level, there is a more fundamental problem that there may be no constitutional or elective mechanism that can reliably measure public interest. Downs’s ‘economic’ theory assumes voters only have a single preference because traditional electoral systems offer a single vote. However, in any issue-area a wide range of policy options are available. In the face of many options, voters will have a scale of preferences that could be indicated through a preferential voting system. The significance of such preferences was first highlighted in welfare economics by Kenneth Arrow, whose Social Choice and Individual Values ([1951] 2013) discussed the problem of ‘transitivity’. This suggests that when voters can express a number of preferences it may be impossible to establish which option genuinely enjoys public support. Take, for instance, the example of an election in which candidate A gains 40 per cent of the vote, candidate B receives 34 per cent, and candidate C gets 26 per cent. In such a situation it is clearly possible to argue that no party represents the public interest because none receives an overall majority of votes – though candidate A could obviously make the strongest claim to do so on the

grounds of achieving a plurality, more votes than any other single candidate. However, from another perspective, each candidate had a majority voting against it. The situation becomes more confused when second preferences are considered. Let us assume that the second preferences of all candidate A supporters go to candidate C, the second preferences of candidate B favour candidate A, and the second preferences of candidate C go to candidate B. This creates a situation in which each candidate could claim to be preferred by most voters. The combined first and second preferences for candidate A add up to 74 per cent (40 per cent plus B’s 34 per cent); candidate B could claim 60 per cent support from the electorate (34 per cent plus C’s 26 per cent); and candidate C could claim 66 per cent support (26 per cent plus A’s 40 per cent). In other words, an examination of the second (or more) preferences of voters can lead to the problem of ‘cyclical majorities’ in which it is difficult to arrive at a collective choice that could reasonably be described as being in the public interest. Although A’s claim to office may still be the strongest, it is severely compromised by the majorities that B and C also enjoy. Arrow described this as the ‘impossibility theorem’. It suggests that even if the concept of a public interest is meaningful, it may be impossible to define that interest in practice through any existing electoral arrangements. The implications of Arrow’s work for democratic theory are profound.

The challenges of connecting electoral mechanisms to the public good motivated what, arguably, has become the dominant theory of democracy in the contemporary literature: deliberative democratic theory. Associated with figures such as Jürgen Habermas, Joshua Cohen, James Fishkin and John Dryzek, deliberative theory is a theory of democracy focused on improving the quality and legitimacy of democratic mechanisms. They reject both the economic conception of democracy in Downs and social choice theory, as well as the fixation on elections generally in liberal theory. Instead, they argue the legitimacy of democracy as a decision-making system is not about its relation to the actual will of voters, but its relation to the formation of ‘reasonable’ political judgement. For deliberationists, democracy is a process of reasoning, of giving and asking for reasons in dialogue with others. The point is not to measure fixed preferences but to engage people in processes that encourage them to reflect on and challenge those preferences. As Cohen notes (1997), ‘The notion of a deliberative democracy is rooted in the intuitive ideal of a democratic association in which the justification of the terms and conditions of association proceeds through public argument and reasoning among equal citizens.’ When people deliberate under appropriate conditions, they produce legitimate outcomes because they are forced to discuss considering the common good. Much of deliberative theory has been about how to establish these deliberative exercises to achieve these ends. As such, for a normative theory it has been remarkably applied, producing deliberative ‘experiments’ and ‘exercises’ in a variety of national contexts on contentious issues such as climate change policy, Indigenous recognition and transitional justice. Finally, radical democratic theory questions both the standards of measurement and rational deliberation as measures of the public good. As discussed above, radical democratic theory is a broad church of critical positions on democracy. Most often it is associated with the agonist theories of democracy that have entered the mainstream of Anglo-American democratic theory since the 1980s. While there are many positions, it is broadly radically pluralist, arguing that notions of the common good homogenize

complex political societies structured by deep power differences and contending identities. It is critical of all the major theories of democracy: liberal, social choice, deliberative (and beyond). While normatively valuing democracy and inclusion, it also sees deep tensions, what Chantal Mouffe called ‘The Democratic Paradox’ in democracy. For example, in Democracy and Political Theory (1988) Claude Lefort, characterized democracy as ultimately based on the authority of an ‘empty space’. Since sovereignty and legitimacy flow from the people, a broad and inchoate body that does not have substance, it ‘appears to belong to no one, except to the people in the abstract’. Radical democrats have thus employed critical approaches to expose the constitutive tensions and ongoing exclusions of liberal democracies, and have been substantive critical interlocutors for deliberative theory.

CONCLUSION

The concerns around representation and the possibility of a public good in democracy have led to a unique scholarly field in contemporary democratic theory. In one sense, this is a deeply rich field of enquiry, with live theoretic debates and many connections to empirical work in political science and beyond. The most recent decades have been consumed by the debates within deliberative theory, undoubtedly, as well as, to a lesser extent, radical democratic criticisms thereof. Further, liberal democracy remains a substantial discussion, especially around concepts of representation, the public good and, increasingly, non-Western democratic theory.

Unsurprisingly, recent instability in Western liberal democracies has become a substantial focus. Populism is a live area of theoretical debate as there is substantial debate over what the term even refers to. Similarly, forms of ‘democratic scepticism’ and critique are alive again, often repeating classical criticisms of democracies problematic assumptions about voter competence and willingness. This trend is demonstrative. Debates in democratic theory in the Western tradition from the long view are cyclical between advocates of more and direct participating and sceptics seeking to limit the involvement of the masses in favour of elite, expert government. This cycle, at present, seems unlikely to end soon.

FOCUSING ON THE TEXTS

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU’S THE SOCIAL CONTRACT ([1762] 1969), BK 1, CHS 6-7; BK 3, CHS 1 AND 4

The Social Contract occupies at least two important junctures in the history of modern political thought. on the one hand, it represents the linking of the social contract tradition (p. 47) with modern democratic theory (p. 187). Rousseau uses the social contract to argue for a model of political community that places legislative authority firmly in the broad populace. on the other hand, this model has not only been deeply influential on both liberal and republican thought but also represented a reconciliation between the two. Rousseau argues for a form of collective political community he thinks would protect and provide for the development of individuals.

The assigned sections represent his key reflections on the social contract, the nature of sovereignty and the viability of democracy. he argues for a totalizing contract that prescribes the full wedding of the individual with their political community and a model of absolute popular

sovereignty. This represents one of the clearest endorsements of democracy in the modern Western tradition. however, this is not total democracy, as Rousseau argues that the people are solely legislative in their political role.

Demonstrative quotations

1. ‘These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one —the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others.’

2. ‘each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has’.

3. ‘but the body politic or the sovereign, drawing its being wholly from the sanctity of the contract, can never bind itself, even to an outsider, to do anything derogatory to the original act, for instance, to alienate any part of itself, or to submit to another sovereign.’

4. ‘We have seen that the legislative power belongs to the people, and can belong to it alone. it may, on the other hand, readily be seen, from the principles laid down above, that the executive power cannot belong to the generality as legislature or sovereign, because it consists wholly of particular acts which fall outside the competency of the law, and consequently of the sovereign, whose acts must always be laws.’

5. ‘besides, how many conditions that are difficult to unite does such a government presuppose! first, a very small state, where the people can readily be got together and where each citizen can with ease know all the rest; secondly, great simplicity of manners, to prevent business from multiplying and raising thorny problems; next, a large measure of equality in rank and fortune, without which equality of rights and authority cannot long subsist.’

Reading questions

1. What model of social contract does Rousseau argue for?

2. how does Rousseau try to reconcile freedom and authority?

3. What is Rousseau’s understanding of sovereignty?

4. What role must the people as a body play in political life?

5. What are the conditions of successful democracies?

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

y What is the difference between direct and indirect democracy?

y What is liberal democracy and what tensions appear to be fundamental to it?

y is representation a precondition for democracy, or a substitute for democracy?

y What different rationales can representation take? What is the strength of these different theories?

y can a meaningful distinction be drawn between private interest and the public interest?

y Why has the notion of the public good been in tension with liberalism?

FURTHUR READING

Dunleavey, P. and Dryzek, J. Theories of the Democratic State (2009). a very clear overview of classical and contemporary theories of democracy, and the various assumptions they make about politics, people and equality.

held, D. Models of Democracy (2006). a lucid and cogent introduction to central accounts of democracy from classical Greece to the present, which also contains a wide-ranging discussion of what democracy should mean today.

Vieira, M. b. and Runciman, D. Representation (2007). a very clear account of the concept of representation, which considers its history, different analytical approaches to it, and related contemporary issues including representation beyond the state. Weale, a. Democracy (2007). a comprehensive text that identifies and assesses the main conceptions of democracy from participatory to elitist, and, in this context, examines key issues in democratic theory.

y Why is it difficult to establish the public interest by electoral means?

y how do deliberative and radical democratic theory challenge liberal democracy?