Democracy and Democratization

Processes and Prospects in a Changing World, Third Edition

Georg Sorensen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429974953
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What is democracy? What are the pitfalls and the positive potentials in the growing trend toward democratization? This book examines the prospects for democracy in the world today and frames the central dilemma confronting all states touched by the process of democratization. Georg Sorensen clarifies the concept of democracy, shows its application in different contexts, and questions whether democratic advancement will continue-and if so, at what price. The consequences of democracy for economic development, human rights, and peaceful relations among countries are illuminated in both their positive and negative aspects. This third edition includes an entirely new chapter on the promotion of democracy from the outside which covers current issues of state building in Iraq. Further revisions include updates to the section on the prospects of democracy in today's world, an extended discussion of the economic performance of recently democratized countries, and an evaluation of the possibilities for further democratic consolidation. There are also new case studies, examples, and anecdotes to illustrate historical as well as contemporary instances of democratic transition. Democracy, as Sorensen convincingly portrays it, is a value in itself as well as a potential promoter of peace, prosperity, and human well-being. But democracy is not inevitable, and actions at every level-from the individual to the international-are necessary to ensure that frail or 'frozen' democracies do not flounder and that established democracies flourish.

1

What Is Democracy?

Democracy is a form of government in which the people rule. The concrete way in which democracy should be organized and the conditions and preconditions it requires have been intensely debated for centuries. Indeed, the early contributions to this discussion go back to ancient Greece. I contend that anyone who wants to understand democracy and its present position in the world must have an awareness of the most important debates about the meaning of democracy, a notion of the core features of democracy relevant for today’s world, and an understanding of how economic, social, and cultural conditions affect the quality of democracy. Thus I address each of these elements in this chapter. My aim is to introduce the important issues; references are included that direct the reader to sources with in-depth treatments.

The term “democracy” comes from two Greek words: demos (people) and kratos (rule). The definition “rule by the people” may sound straightforward, but it raises a number of complex issues. The most important ones can be summarized as follows:

• Who is to be considered “the people”?
• What kind of participation is envisaged for the people?
• What conditions are assumed to be conducive to participation? Can the disincentives and incentives, or costs and benefits, of participation be equal?
• How broadly or narrowly is the scope of rule to be construed? What is the appropriate field of democratic activity?
• If “rule” is to cover “the political,” what is meant by this? Does it cover (1) law and order? (2) relations between states? (3) the economy? (4) the domestic or private sphere?
• Must the rules of “the people” be obeyed? What is the place of obligation and dissent?
• What roles are permitted for those who are avowedly and actively “nonparticipants”?
• Under what circumstances, if any, are democracies entitled to resort to coercion against their own people or against those outside the sphere of legitimate rule?¹

Clearly a discussion of democracy must involve not only the theory about possible ways of organizing rule by the people but also the philosophy about what ought to be (i.e., the best ways of constructing government) and an understanding of practical experiences with the ways in which government has been organized in different societies at different times.

Such considerations are often highly interwoven. At the same time, the most significant contributions to deliberations about democracy have one important element in common: They are set against the context of contemporary society as those who have made these contributions perceive it. The debate about democracy therefore has a built-in dynamic: It develops and grows to incorporate new aspects and dimensions when the societal context, or the analyst’s perception of it, changes.

Thus Plato’s critique of democracy in Athens was set against what he saw as the decline of the city, its defeat in the war with Sparta, and the decay of morality and leadership. In Athens, democracy meant the rule by the poor majority. People could do pretty much as they liked; there was no respect for authority in the family, in the schools, or elsewhere. Eventually, Plato reasoned, laws would not be respected but would be seen as attacks on the freedom of the people. This situation would lead to anarchy (the absence of political authority) and chaos, paving the way for tyranny (rule by a single dictator). Plato’s solution was to recommend rule by the wise, trained, and educated—the philosophers.²

Aristotle voiced similar criticisms of democracy, which he also saw as a form of government devoted exclusively to the good of the poor. Developing a position taken by Plato in his later writings, Aristotle argued in favor of room for popular influence, for example, in the making of laws. Such considerations pointed toward a combination of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, a “mixed state” where a separation of powers ensured a balance of forces between the main groups in society.³

With the decline of Rome, the debate about democracy was put on hold. In the feudal system of the Middle Ages, power was not vested in elected bodies; it was based on rank that could be only attained through inheritance or by force. “No popular movement, however enraged, would think that its aims could be achieved by getting the vote. And in the nations and independent city-states of the later Middle Ages also, power was not to be sought in that way.”⁴

A new body of thought about democracy began with the Renaissance and Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), although it did not fully emerge until the nineteenth century. During this time span, ideas about democracy took shape in the context of the development of modern industrial-capitalist society. When liberal democracy began to appear in these countries, new debates opened up about the true content of liberty because liberal values tend to compete. For example, the values of equality and solidarity may compete with the values of individual freedom and autonomy; as Isaiah Berlin famously said, “Total liberty for the wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and less gifted . . . Equality may demand the restraint of the liberty of those who wish to dominate.”⁵ In other words, what is the appropriate liberal democratic balance between competing values? Is such a balance even possible?

In more recent times, the process of democratization is happening in many different places around the world, even as globalization and other forces are bringing countries closer together. These developments have sparked new debates about the economic, cultural, and social conditions under which democracy can develop, and about the consequences of globalization for democracy.

Rather than presenting all these debates in detail, I shall identify concepts of the core features of democracy in the modern sense and point out the main areas where these concepts are still debated.

Liberal Democracy and its Critics

Liberalism developed in opposition to medieval hierarchical institutions, the despotic monarchies whose claim to all-powerful rule rested on an assertion of divine support. Liberalism attacked the old system on two fronts. First, the liberalists fought for a rollback of state power and the creation of a sphere of civil society where social relations, including private business, nonstate institutions, family, and personal life, could evolve without state interference. “Gradually, liberalism became associated with the doctrine that individuals should be free to pursue their own preferences in religious, economic and political affairs—in fact, in most matters that affected daily life.”⁶ An important element in this regard was the support of a market economy based on respect for private property.

The second element of early liberalism was the claim that state power was based not on natural or supernatural rights but on the will of the sovereign people. Ultimately this claim would lead to demands for democracy—the creation of mechanisms of representation that ensured that those who held state power enjoyed popular support. Yet the creation of such mechanisms was not a primary concern of early liberalism. The tradition that became liberal democracy was liberal first (aimed at restricting state power over civil society) and democratic later (aimed at creating structures that would secure a popular mandate for holders of state power). Yet liberals had reservations about democracy, fearing that it would impede the establishment of a liberal society.⁷ In a sense the development of liberal democratic thinking evolved toward settling the complex relationship between these two elements.

The unfolding thought on liberal democracy has been instructively summarized by C. B. Macpherson in three different models.⁸ Instead of presenting these models in detail, I include elements from them in a discussion of more recent debates and critiques with the aim of identifying some of the important issues that have been raised in the different stages of thinking about democracy.

The earliest model of liberal democracy, derived around 1820, builds on contributions from Jeremy Bentham and James Mill. Macpherson called it protective democracy because of the model’s preoccupation with protecting citizens from government and ensuring that governors would pursue policies in accordance with the interests of citizens as a whole. Such protection would be secured through universal franchise, since rulers could be removed by voters.

In practice, however, Bentham and Mill accepted severe restrictions on the right to vote, excluding women and large sections of the working classes.⁹ Their cause was more liberal than democratic, as they aimed to restrict the political sphere, especially governmental activity and institutions. Civil society should be left to itself, meaning that such issues as “the organization of the economy or violence against women in marriage (rape) are typically thought of as non-political, an outcome of ‘free’ private contracts in civil society, not a public issue or a matter for the state.”¹⁰

This concern with negative freedom—citizens’ freedom from pervasive political authority—was echoed some 150 years later by the socalled New Right or neoliberals. They focused on rolling back regulatory and redistributive activities pursued by the state in the name of general welfare and social justice.

The leading figure of the New Right, Friedrich von Hayek, distinguishes between liberalism and democracy. He calls the former a doctrine about what the law ought to be and the latter a doctrine about the manner of determining what will be the law.¹¹ For Hayek democracy is of secondary importance. The highest political end is liberty, which can be achieved only if there are strict limits on government activities. Government intervention in civil society must aim at protecting life, liberty, and estate, which basically means creating the best possible framework for the operation of the free market. There is no room, for example, for redistributive measures because they would jeopardize the free choice of individuals in the free market.¹²

In this view democracy is desirable as a mechanism for ensuring that the majority will decide what the law should be. It is vital, however, that democratic majorities respect limitations on government activity. If they do not, democracy will be in conflict with liberty, and if that happens, Hayek is “not a democrat.”¹³

In summary, the liberal democratic tradition is primarily concerned with restricting political authority over citizens. Liberty is individual freedom in the realm of civil society. Democracy can be a means of achieving this end but is not the end itself. If there is a democratic core in this way of thinking, it is the principle of the political equality of citizens. We will see that this principle can lead in a different direction from the one taken by the proponents of protective democracy and can result in a more central and positive role for democracy.

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), the son of James Mill, was more enthusiastic about democracy than his father was. The younger Mill saw democracy as an important element in free human development. Participation in political life could lead toward the “highest and harmonious expansion of individual capacities.”¹⁴ At the same time, J. S. Mill shared one of the basic assumptions of the protective democrats: The maximum freedom of citizens requires limitations on the scope of the state’s activity. He envisioned representative government in combination with a free market economy.

Thus J. S. Mill followed familiar liberal views concerning restrictions on the scope of government and governmental activity. With regard to enfranchisement, his father had argued for universal franchise, at least in principle. J. S. Mill, however, recommended a system of plural voting (which gives some members of the electorate more votes than others) in order to give the “wiser and more talented” more votes than the “ignorant and less able.”¹⁵ In two other respects the younger Mill was more democratic than his father. First, in the moral dimension, he saw participation in the political process as a way to liberty and self-development. Second, he directly confronted inequalities in mid-nineteenth-century English society that he considered obstacles to the democratic process. He severely criticized the subjugation of women and pointed to the need for complete equality between the sexes as a precondition for human development and democracy. He was highly critical of extreme inequalities of income, wealth, and power that hindered the human development of the lower classes. Mill’s ideas of participation and equality are hard to reconcile with his position concerning a restricted government committed to laissez-faire (which can be interpreted as doing nothing about inequality) and a plural voting system in favor of the well-educated (which is hardly a radical commitment to equality).¹⁶

Several other thinkers have shared Mill’s preoccupation with participat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acronyms
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 What Is Democracy?
• 2 Processes of Regime Change
• 3 From Transition to Standstill: Democracy in the New Millennium
• 4 The Promotion of Democracy from the Outside
• 5 Domestic Consequences of Democracy: Growth and Welfare?
• 6 Internal Consequences of Democracy: Peace and Cooperation?
• Conclusion: The Future of Democracy and Democratization
• Discussion Questions
• Notes
• Suggested Readings
• Glossary
• About the Book and Author
• Index