Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

Chapter 3 Democracy

We have seen why good government, at least in large-scale, modern societies, requires that we establish and maintain a system of political authority. Hobbes, whose lead we followed in showing why political authority is necessary, thought that it was essential to create an absolute sovereign — an undivided source of authority whose writ would be subject to no earthly limitations (Hobbes believed sovereigns still owed obligations to God). It was not essential that this sovereign body be a single person — a monarch — but Hobbes thought this was preferable, because a monarch’s will would be constant, and not subject to internal divisions, unlike that of an assembly. But Hobbes’s view on this point was challenged from the moment that he wrote by those who thought that to replace the insecurity of the state of nature by an all-powerful monarch able to dispose of his subjects’ lives and possessions however he wished was simply going from bad to worse. As John Locke memorably remarked, it assumes that

Hobbes’s only defence against this criticism was to say that a prudent monarch would wish his subjects to be prosperous, because it was on their prosperity that his own power finally depended. But, looking at the historical record, we might conclude from this that rather few monarchs have been prudent. Political authority is justified because it provides the conditions under which people can live secure and flourishing lives, and we want to be as certain as we can that this is what it does. Trusting everything to an absolute monarch is simply too risky. As an alternative, we might suggest placing authority in the hands of those we know to be wise and virtuous, and to have the interests of the people at heart. This is the argument for aristocracy, which literally means ‘the rule of the best’, and it was the argument that convinced most political philosophers up until at least the mid-19th century. The problem, however, was to determine what exactly goodness in a ruler amounted to, and then to find some way of selecting those who displayed this quality. This proved difficult to do: in practice aristocracy meant the rule of the well-born, the propertied, or the educated class, depending on time and place. Even if one could show that people drawn from these classes had political skills not possessed by the rest of the population, there was still the problem that they had interests of their own separate from those of the majority — and why believe that they would not pursue these interests at the expense of the common good?

So the case for constituting political authority democratically gathered momentum, and it rested on two basic assumptions: first, that no person was naturally superior to another, so any relations of authority between them stood in need of justification — in other words, each person should enjoy equal political rights unless it could be shown that everyone gained from having inequality; second, that the interests of the people were best safeguarded by making them the final repository of political authority — anyone entrusted with special powers must be accountable to the people as a whole. But this still left it open exactly what role the people as a whole should play in government. Should they be directly involved in legislating, as Rousseau argued in his Social Contract, and if so how? Or should they only be involved at one remove, by choosing representatives who would wield authority on their behalf?

_{5. The Goddess of Democracy facing a portrait of Mao in Tianamen Square, Beijing.}

In practice, as we know, those political systems we call democracies give their citizens only a very limited role in government. They are entitled to vote at periodic elections, they are occasionally consulted through a referendum when some major constitutional question has to be decided, and they are allowed to form groups to lobby their representatives on issues that concern them, but that is the extent of their authority. Real power to determine the future of democratic societies rests in the hands of a remarkably small number of people — government ministers, civil servants, and to some extent members of parliament or other legislative assembly — and it is natural to ask why this is so. If democracy is the best way to make political decisions, why not make it a reality by letting the people themselves decide major questions directly?

One answer that is often given at this point is that it is simply impractical for millions of ordinary citizens to be involved in making the huge number of decisions that governments have to make today. If they were to try, not only would government be paralysed, but they would leave themselves no time to do all those other things that most people think are more important than politics. But this answer is not adequate, because it is not difficult to envisage citizens making general policy decisions whose detailed implementation would then be left to ministers and others. The electronic revolution means that it would now be quite easy to ask citizens for their views on a wide range of issues ranging from war and peace through taxation and public expenditure to animal welfare and environmental issues. So why is this done only on those rare occasions when a referendum is called?

The reason is that there is a widespread belief that ordinary people are simply not competent to understand the issues that lie behind political decisions, and so they are happy to hand these decisions over to people they regard as better qualified to deal with them. An uncompromising statement of this point of view can be found in Joseph Schumpeter’s book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1943), where it is argued that the citizen’s job is to choose a team of leaders to represent him or her, not to attempt to decide issues directly. Schumpeter claims that whereas in economic transactions, for instance, people experience the results of their decisions directly — if they buy a defective product, they soon discover their mistake — in the case of political decisions there is no such feedback mechanism, and as a result people lose touch with reality and behave irresponsibly.

This is strong stuff, and what it really entails is that the best we can hope for is what is sometimes called ‘elective aristocracy’, where all that can be asked of the ordinary citizen is that she should be able to recognize people who are competent to make decisions on her behalf (and to vote them out of office if they prove not to be). Whatever its other virtues, such a system hardly matches the democratic ideal that political authority must rest in the hands of the people as a whole. So what can we say in response to Schumpeter’s scepticism? Let us look more closely at what is involved in reaching political decisions.

A political decision essentially requires a political judgement about what ought to be done in circumstances where there are several options open and there is disagreement about which option is best. What are the elements that go into such a judgement? First of all there is factual information about what will happen if one or other option is chosen. What effect will a particular tax increase have on the economy, for instance? Second, there is information about what the people who will be affected by the decision actually prefer. Suppose the tax increase is being considered in order to fund new sports facilities, say, how many people actually want these facilities, and how much do they want them? Third, there are questions of moral principle. Is it fair that everyone should be taxed to pay for sports facilities, or should the cost be borne by those who are going to use them?

In most cases, making a political judgement will involve all of these three elements, although the mix will vary from case to case. Some issues are primarily technical, so that once we can agree about the factual questions at stake, the decision will be fairly straightforward. Before we license a new drug, for instance, we will want to know that it has been properly tested and shown to be safe, but once that has been done, it is a routine matter to give the green light. In other cases, questions of moral principle are central. Take the debate about whether the death penalty should be adopted or retained for certain crimes. Factual information is relevant here — how effective a deterrent will the death penalty prove to be for crimes of these kinds, how likely is it that innocent people will be convicted? — but the key issue, for most people, is whether we are morally permitted to take the life of another human being by way of punishment.

The hardest judgements to make are on questions that involve all three elements at once. Consider the current debate in Britain about whether fox-hunting should be permitted or banned. Factual questions are relevant here: how much does fox-hunting contribute to control of the fox population? What would be the effect of an outright ban on the rural economy? So also are questions of preference: how much does it matter to those who now hunt foxes that they should continue to do this rather than, say, chasing hounds along aniseed trails? And do other country-dwellers want hunting to continue, or are they fed up with horses and hounds trampling their fields and damaging their fences? And finally there are the moral issues: does personal liberty include the right to hunt foxes? Or do foxes and other animals have rights that include the right not to be killed? Most people, in reaching a decision, would want to take all of these questions into account, and that is why it is hard to form a rational judgement on the issue. In practice, of course, people do have strong opinions on issues such as this, but perhaps this just shows that Schumpeter’s disparaging remarks about the ordinary citizen’s level of competence on political questions are fully justified.

But now let us ask whether the people who are chosen to represent them can be expected to do any better, taking each element of political judgement in turn. One of the great difficulties that beset political decision-making in contemporary societies is that many judgements require factual information that only those who are really expert on the subject in question can provide. This is obviously true when scientific matters are at stake, but the same applies in the case of many economic and social issues, where the problem is to determine what are the likely effects of a proposed new law or policy. Would legalizing cannabis increase or decrease the number of those who end up taking heroin and other hard drugs, for instance? The answer to such questions is far from obvious, and elected politicians and civil servants in general have no more expertise in answering them than the rest of us. Like us, they have to rely on the opinions of those who do have some expertise, and where those opinions differ, they have to make a judgement about who is more reliable. So far, there is no reason to think that an elective aristocracy will make better judgements than the general public.

The next element is to discover what people’s preferences are, and how strong they are, and here, you may well think, democracy has a decisive advantage. For when decisions are taken democratically everyone has a chance to contribute, and so the views and preferences of people from different social classes, different ethnic and religious backgrounds, and so forth, will all be heard, whereas the political class who govern us today are predominantly white, male, and middle class. Of course members of parliament, and other legislators, are supposed to listen to their constituents’ views, but in reality they enjoy a very high degree of independence — in so far as they are under pressure to vote in one way rather than another, it comes from their party, not from the people who elected them. So if we want political decisions to respect the preferences of those who are going to be subject to them, shouldn’t we listen to the people as a whole rather than to a small, socially unrepresentative minority?

_{6. One way to invigorate democracy: politicians beware!}

But before jumping to that conclusion, there is a complication we need to consider. Suppose that we have an issue where the majority favours one policy, but the minority, which favours a different policy, cares much more strongly about it than the majority. Cases of this kind occur quite often. The fox-hunting debate may be a good example. Most people hold fairly negative views about fox-hunting, even if they do not hold strong moral views about the rights of animals. They see it as an archaic, snobbish, and generally distasteful spectacle; given the chance, they would vote to ban it. The fox-hunters themselves are a small minority, but they mostly feel very strongly that they should be allowed to continue hunting. It is an important social event in many rural communities, and people’s livelihoods depend on it. A political judgement about fox-hunting ought to consider not only the number of preferences on either side, but also the strength of those preferences. It does not seem right that a lukewarm majority should in all cases override a passionate minority.

Why might elected representatives be likely to make a better judgement than the general public on issues like this? One reason is that they are more likely to be lobbied by members of the minority who feel strongly about the issue. They may be persuaded when they see the strength of feeling on that side of the argument, or they may just be concerned not to lose votes at the next election. Moreover minorities can join forces, agreeing to support one another’s demands, so that taking several issues together a majority coalition can emerge. This picture of representative democracy is sometimes called pluralism, and it rests on the assumption that people will be moved to form groups to defend their strongly felt interests and preferences, and that decision-makers will respond to the activities of such groups, which besides lobbying might involve demonstrating or even perhaps engaging in illegal forms of protest.

There is certainly some truth in the pluralist picture, but political scientists have tended to be sceptical. For group pressure depends not only the number of people who care about an issue, and how much they care, but also how well organized and resourced the group is. And that gives a built-in advantage to certain interests, most notably business interests, who can hire persuasive advocates to lobby on their behalf — possibly even enlist elected representatives directly — and also plausibly threaten dire consequences if their demands are not met. Under a representative system, then, minorities are indeed listened to, but by no means all minorities to the same extent.

Compare now what might happen if the whole public had to vote on some issue where the majority and the minority had different preferences. There would be no central point at which lobbying activities could be directed, so any group would have to rely on direct contact between its members and as many of the public as they were able to reach. Groups with plenty of resources might be able to use these to run media campaigns — though this could be limited in the same way as election expenditures are limited in many democracies today. They would have much less influence in this direct version of democracy than they do under a representative system. So in general we can say that minority groups would have to rely more on persuasion and less on power and influence under a system of this kind. How they fared would depend primarily on whether members of the majority were willing to listen to their concerns and respond by changing their own views, perhaps by finding a compromise. I shall say more shortly about the crucial role that discussion has to play in democratic decision-making. But before that we need to consider the third element in political judgement, the moral element.

Moral principles are involved in almost all political decisions, not only those involving so-called ‘moral issues’ such as abortion or the legalization of homosexuality. Typically the question is whether a proposed piece of legislation treats all individuals or all groups fairly, or whether it infringes any of their rights. Do members of the political class have any deeper knowledge of the relevant principles than ordinary citizens? It is difficult to argue that they do: there are no moral experts, it is often said. In fact, there is likely to be a large measure of agreement on the basic principles that should govern political life in a democratic society. So there is no reason to think that if citizens were asked to decide issues directly, they would make a worse job of it on moral grounds than the people they currently choose to represent them.

But can we really separate these three elements of political judgement, or is political expertise precisely a matter of being able to combine relevant factual information, knowledge of citizens’ interests and preferences, and moral principle, to find the best solution to a political dilemma? There is certainly something in this challenge. Political decisions are often hard to make: they may require mastering some complex information, or weighing up two finely balanced moral arguments. People who have to make them frequently get better at doing so. But this is not because they have some special inborn capacity denied to the rest of us. There is no reason to think that ordinary members of the public, given the time and the information that they need to think carefully about a problem, would not perform as well. There is some evidence to bear this out: citizens’ juries are small committees whose members are randomly selected from the general public, formed in order to discuss and make recommendations on issues such as health policy and transport strategy. They call expert witnesses to provide information, listen to advocates representing different points of view, and debate the issues among themselves before coming to a verdict. Observers have been struck by how serious and thoughtful their discussions are, and how reasonable their conclusions.

So how are we to explain the low levels of political knowledge and political interest that most citizens in democratic societies show when interviewed or surveyed? Typically they cannot name leading politicians, cannot explain how the main parties differ on policy issues, and so on. One explanation is that democracy as currently practised gives people very little incentive to acquire political knowledge or skill. All they are asked to do is to make a party choice once every four or five years, and you do not need to know much about politics in order to make a decision of that kind. Understanding the finer details of policy is usually irrelevant. So we face a chicken and egg problem. It would be risky to ask the general public to make major policy decisions unless they have the skills and information to make good judgements, but they have no incentive to acquire these unless they are given significant decisions to make.

Should we worry about the fact that our democracy remains incomplete so long as the political role of ordinary citizens is largely confined to voting at elections, plus intermittent activity when some particular interest of theirs is at stake (such as responding to a planning proposal to put a new road or housing development in their back yard)? I think we should. Our word ‘idiot’ comes from the Greek idiotes which was the term used to describe someone who lived an entirely private existence and took no part in the public life of the city. Most of us today are idiots, then, inasmuch as we fail to exercise our political intelligence. Rousseau thought that handing over political authority entirely to elected representatives was a pernicious modern practice:

Even if we think Rousseau exaggerates here, we ought to be concerned that most citizens in contemporary democracies are too apathetic even to keep an effective watch over the activities of their elected leaders. We need to develop forms of participation, either at local level, or through selecting members of the public at random to sit on citizens’ juries and other such bodies, that give everyone the experience of active citizenship. Experience that is gained in this way raises people’s competence generally and makes them more likely to take a continuing interest in political affairs. Democracy, we discover, is not an all-or-nothing matter, but a continuing struggle to give the people as a whole final authority over the affairs of the state.

But now we must return to the unresolved issue of the majority and the minority. For although in a shorthand way we think of democracy as ‘government by the people’, in reality when decisions have to be made it is usually the majority which decides them (indeed elections are often won by parties who are supported by less than a majority of voters). Since it is very unlikely that there will be unanimous agreement on the best policy to be adopted, majority voting seems unavoidable as a way of making decisions, but what are we to say about those who end up on the losing side?

_{7. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher of democracy.}

It might at first seem as though they have no legitimate complaint to make: after all their votes were counted equally with those of the majority, and to give them any greater weight would violate the idea of political equality that as we saw lies behind democracy itself. But that is not the end of the matter. There are two circumstances in particular in which a minority may feel that majority rule violates political equality. One we have already encountered: the case where those who vote with the majority are affected much less by the decision, or have fewer interests at stake, than those who form the minority. Although heads have been counted equally, it appears as though preferences or interests have not. The second circumstance is one where one group finds itself in a minority repeatedly when votes are taken. Imagine a rackets club which has a larger number of keen tennis players and a smaller number of equally keen squash players, and imagine that every time a vote is taken on whether to spend money upgrading the tennis or the squash courts, the squash players lose. We might think that this arrangement does not treat each member equally, and is therefore less democratic than one where the squash players get their way from time to time. In other words, we have the problem of the intense minority and the problem of the persistent minority.

How might these problems be addressed in a democracy? There are broadly two approaches that we can take. The first is to design a constitution that limits the scope of majority rule in such a way as to protect minorities. For instance, the constitution may contain a list of rights that every citizen must enjoy: a proposed law or policy decision that would infringe one of these rights will be thrown out as unconstitutional — there has therefore to be a special authority, usually a constitutional court, that is given the power to decide whether a measure that is being considered, or has been provisionally adopted, is in breach of the constitution. Any minority then has the assurance that whatever the majority decides cannot violate one of their basic rights as laid down in the constitution.

Arrangements such as this are often criticized as undemocratic, because they give a small committee of judges, for instance, the right to block the expressed will of the majority of citizens. But it is not difficult to envisage the constitution itself being adopted by a democratic procedure, and most real-world constitutions make provision for amendment, usually requiring more than just a simple majority of voters to support an amendment if it is to pass. Why would people vote for a constitution that restricted their power to make majority decisions in future? They might well do so because they wanted certain of their rights protected, and could not be sure that they might not find themselves as part of an unpopular minority. Take religious freedom as an example. Anyone with religious beliefs wants to be sure that she can practise her religion safely, even if the majority in her society is strongly opposed to the particular religion she believes in. It is not easy to predict which religions might incur the wrath of the majority in future, so by having a right to freedom of worship included in the constitution, she can get that security.

Another constitutional device to protect minorities is to create separate constituencies to decide different sets of issues. This happens, for example, in federal systems, where regions or provinces are given the power to legislate on issues that are particularly relevant to their inhabitants, with other decisions being reserved for the central government. But the separate constituencies need not be territorially based. Let us go back again to the example of the rackets club whose squash players get a raw deal. An obvious solution to the problem is to create two subcommittees, one to look after the tennis courts and the other the squash facilities, and to give part of the club’s annual budget to each. Minorities are protected here by being turned into majorities on the issues that matter most to them.

It would be naïve, however, to think that all minority problems can be solved by one or other of these constitutional devices. The issue of fox-hunting reveals this only too clearly. Those who want to hunt foxes cannot defend themselves simply by appealing to their constitutional rights, because it is very unlikely that any constitution will incorporate an unlimited right to hunt animals. In the next chapter I shall be looking in more detail at how we might try to establish a realm of personal freedom that governments have no right to infringe, but it is fairly easy to see that hunting rights are not going to be included in that story. The hunting of animals is surely a legitimate matter for majority decision, because both animal welfare and the protection of endangered species are issues that potentially concern everyone. Nor can the strongly held views of the fox-hunters be addressed by saying that fox-hunting is an issue over which they and they alone should have the power to decide. There are obviously far too many conflicting interests at stake for the decentralized solution that worked in the rackets club case to work fairly here.

So although constitutional devices are an important way of ensuring that minorities do not suffer at the hands of the majority, a democratic system that aims to treat every citizen equally has to go further. It has to try to ensure that the majority takes the concerns of the minority properly into account before reaching a final decision, even in cases where basic rights are not at issue. The key to this is public discussion, where both sides listen to the other’s point of view, and try to find a solution that as far as possible is acceptable to both. In other words, the people who form the majority do not simply vote for the solution that they most preferred prior to the debate. Instead they try to form a judgement after listening to the arguments made on the other side. Sometimes they can find a general principle that both sides can agree to and that provides a way forward.

But why should the majority behave like this? Usually the eventual solution involves the people on that side of the debate giving up part of what they had originally wanted — for instance, people who started off wishing to ban fox-hunting entirely might accept, after hearing the arguments, that hunting should be allowed to continue provided it is properly regulated. But if you have numbers on your side, why retreat in that way? There are two reasons. One is simply respect for your fellow-citizens. You may disagree with them deeply on the particular issue that is on the table, but their voices are supposed to count equally, in a democracy, and so you must listen to them before you decide — and if possible find a solution that takes account of what they say (there are some issues over which no accommodation is possible, but these are actually quite rare: even in a case like abortion, for instance, there are other possibilities besides an outright ban and making abortions freely available on demand). The other reason is that next time round you may find yourself in a minority, and then you will want those on the other side to take your concerns into account. In other words you have an interest in promoting a democratic culture in which majorities do not simply ride roughshod over minorities, but try to consider their interests fairly when reaching decisions.

Democracy, it turns out, is a demanding business. It requires people to take an interest in political issues that are often complex and seemingly remote from their daily lives, and it requires them to exercise self-restraint when deciding these issues — in particular by not trampling on minority groups even when they have the power to do so. It can be hard to resist the siren voices that tell us that we are better off leaving political decisions to those we have chosen to represent us. But unless we resist — unless we hold fast to the idea that political authority must finally rest with the whole body of citizens — we will end up, as Locke warned, being devoured by the lions who rule us.

This discussion of democracy has also raised three further issues that will occupy us in the chapters that follow. One is whether there is a sphere of personal freedom that should be protected against the intrusion even of democratic government. Another is whether some minority groups should be given special rights, over and above the constitutional rights that all citizens should enjoy, to ensure that they are treated fairly. And the third is about the conditions under which democracy is possible at all — specifically about when people will trust one another sufficiently for them to respect a democratic constitution, and be willing to discuss and decide issues in an atmosphere of mutual respect. In the next chapter I deal with the first of these questions.