Chapter 2 Notes: The Democratic Ideal

The Democratic Ideal

• Winston Churchill: "Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
• Historically, democracy was viewed negatively as rule by the mob.
• Today, democracy is almost universally praised, with few openly opposing it (except fascists, Nazis, and radical Islamists).
• This widespread agreement on democracy exists despite vigorous ideological conflict.
• Possible explanations for the broad appeal of democracy:
  • Hypocritical use of the term: People link their ideologies to democracy because it is popular.
  • Different ideas on achieving democracy: Agreement on the goal, disagreement on the means.
  • Different meanings of democracy: Disagreement on the true definition of democracy leads to conflicting pursuits.
• Democracy is an essentially contested concept, deeply involved in ideological conflict.
• Understanding democracy requires examining its origins and its evolution as a desirable form of government.

The Origins of Democracy

• Democracy originated in ancient Greece. Demokratia is a combination of the Greek noun demos, meaning “people” or “common people,” and the verb kratein, “to rule."
• Demokratia meant “rule or government by the common people”—the uneducated, unsophisticated, and poor.
• Democracy was identified with majority rule, but this majority was primarily the demos (a single class).
• Many Greeks considered democracy a form of class rule, benefiting the lower or working class, in contrast to aristocracy.
• The polis, or city-state, was the center of activity in ancient Greece. Athens is the best example of a democratic city-state.
• During the Golden Age of Athens (5th century BCE), Athens was considered a democracy.
• Pericles, a famous leader of Athenian democracy, stated:
  • Athenian government did not imitate others but served as an example.
  • Administration was in the hands of the many, not the few.
  • Law ensured equal justice, but excellence was recognized, and merit was rewarded with public service.
  • Poverty was not a barrier to serving the polis.
• Tension existed between aristocrats and democrats in Athens.
  • Aristocrats believed only well-established citizens with property and noble ties were fit to govern.
  • Democrats, like Pericles, believed most citizens were capable if they had the time.
• Athenian democracy paid citizens to attend the assembly and serve on juries.
• Political offices were filled by lottery, showing faith in the demos.
• Athenians distinguished between the public-spirited citizen (polites) and the self-interested individual (idiotes).
• Citizenship in Athens required being an adult, free, male Athenian, excluding women, foreigners, and slaves.
• Athenian democracy offered little protection for minority rights.
• The Athenian Assembly (Ekklesia) practiced ostracism, banishing citizens without trial if they were deemed a threat.
• Socrates (469–399 BCE) was a martyr for free thought and speech.
• Socrates was falsely accused of impiety and corrupting youth, tried, convicted, and executed.
• Critics of democracy, like Plato (427–347 BCE), argued it was unstable and dangerous.
• Plato believed democracy puts power in the hands of the ignorant and envious:
  • The people will not use power for the common good.
  • They will focus on self-interest and plunder the wealthy.
  • Demagogues will sway them through flattery and envy.
  • Democracy leads to civil war, anarchy, and tyranny.
• Aristotle (384–322 BCE) shared Plato’s view of democracy as undesirable.
• Aristotle classified regimes based on who holds power (one, few, many) and whether power is used for the common good or the rulers’ benefit.

Aristotle’s classification of regimes.

• Aristotle considered democracy a corrupt form because the demos is short-sighted and selfish.
• The common people recklessly pursue their own interests, harming the polis.
• Aristotle analyzed the connection between democracy and tyranny:
  • A demagogue convinces the people of a grave danger.
  • The demagogue presents himself as their savior.
  • He starts a war on bogus reasons, distracting the people.
  • The tyrant undermines the constitution, enriches cronies, and expands powers.
  • The tyrant distrusts outsiders, lies, uses spies, withholds information, and divides the people.
  • The tyrant implicates people in crimes, subverts justice, uses courts to help friends and harm enemies, distracts with entertainment, enriches loyalists, and maintains the appearance of being good.
  • By these means, Aristotle notes, the tyrant lulls the people into a deep civic sleep.
• Aristotle included polity, a good form of rule by the many, in his classification.
• Polity mixes elements of rule by the few and the many, allowing each group to monitor the other.
• Polity may differ from democracy in its distribution of wealth.
• Aristotle believed that when most people have moderate property, they rule prudently.
• Aristotle considered polity the best achievable regime, while democracy is bad but better than tyranny and oligarchy.
• Democracy allows more citizens to participate.
• The rise of empire, led by Philip of Macedon (382–336 BCE) and Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE), led to the decline of the self-governing city-state and popular rule.

Democracy and Republic

• Popular government survived as a republic rather than a democracy.
• “Republic” comes from the Latin res publica, meaning “the public thing” or “public business.”
• Polybius (c. 200–c. 118 BCE) saw Rome’s growth as part of a cycle of the rise and fall of great powers.
• Polybius believed that every powerful empire or country is doomed to decline because no human creation lasts forever.
• Rome’s success was due to its mixed government, which balanced monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.
• The Roman Republic divided power among the people, aristocrats (Senate), and consuls.
• The people exercised control through assemblies, aristocrats through the Senate, and consuls put policies into effect.
• Polybius said no group could pursue its own interest at the expense of the common good.
• A mixed government is more durable than any “pure” form of rule.
• Defenders of the Roman Republic insisted it was not a democracy; it promoted virtue, while democracy promoted vice.
• Republican virtue (virtus) was the ability to prioritize the good of the community over personal or class interest.
• Active citizens exercise this virtue, guarding against power seizure.
• Mixed government encouraged participation and prevented power concentration.
• The Roman Republic gave way to the Roman Empire, with emperors concentrating power.
• Defenders of republicanism, like Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE), resisted the idea of all-powerful rulers.
• The republican ideal was revived in the city-states of northern Italy during the Renaissance.

Christianity and Democracy

• Christianity proclaims equality among people, regardless of gender, nationality, or status.
• Early Christians did not argue for equal voice in government because they were antipolitical.
• Life on Earth was seen as preparation for the kingdom of God, and worldly affairs had no lasting significance.
• Early Christians believed the end of the world was near.
• Christians were obligated to obey human laws and earthly rulers, as stated by St. Paul.
• Christians were to obey those in power as leaders ordained by God.
• Complications arose when Roman emperors persecuted Christians.
• Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century AD.
• After the collapse of the Roman Empire around CE 500, the Christian Church became the dominant institution in Europe.
• The church divided into the Eastern Orthodox Church (led by the Byzantine Emperor) and the Roman Catholic Church (headed by the Pope).
• The rise of Islam led to the loss of much of the Mediterranean world to Christianity.
• The Roman Church saw itself as the one true church and enforced its doctrines.
• The Roman Church provided spiritual unity in Western and Central Europe during the Middle Ages, but there was no political unity.
• Local rule developed around tribal loyalties or old military regions of the fallen empire.
• Duces and comites became the “dukes” and “counts” of the Middle Ages.
• Attempts to revive a universal political bond, like the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne, failed.
• Local ties and loyalties encouraged feudalism, emphasizing status and social rank.
• Society was organized with aristocrats, free people, and serfs, each fulfilling specific duties.
• In this society, there was little room for the democratic ideal.

Renaissance and Republicanism

• The Renaissance (or “rebirth”) was prepared by several developments in the late Middle Ages.
• Renewed contact with the East through the Crusades and Islamic Spain stimulated examination of Western customs and beliefs.
• Rediscovery of ancient scholarship, including Aristotle’s Politics, influenced political thought.
• The revival of the self-governing city-state in Italy provided a new form of government.
• Italian cities, seizing the opportunity presented by the death of Emperor Frederick II in 1250, became self-governing.
• Citizens of these city-states justified their government using ancient republican theories.
• The Renaissance, a flowering of Western culture, began in the Italian city-states.
• Life on Earth was seen as worth living freely and fully, with human beings capable of self-government.
• Renaissance republicans drew on Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero and the example of ancient republics.
• They argued for a revival of civic life with active citizens participating in governance.
• Key concepts in republican discourse were liberty, virtue, and corruption.
• Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) wrote about these concepts in his works.
• Machiavelli was an official in Florence when the Medici family overthrew the republic in 1512.
• Implicated in a plot to restore the republic, Machiavelli was arrested, tortured, and banished.
• Machiavelli wrote The Prince, advising rulers to do whatever it takes to stay in power, which led to his reputation for unscrupulousness.
• In Discourses, Machiavelli analyzes the factors promoting a vital and free republic.
• Machiavelli defined a republic as a mixed government where classes share power, checking each other’s excesses.
• Vigilant citizens guard liberties against tyranny. Liberty is found in public action, not private life.
• Complacent and self-interested citizens are the greatest enemies of free government.
• Corruption is the love of wealth, luxury, and ease, and indifference to public affairs.
• To keep corruption at bay, citizens must possess and exercise civic virtue.
• Citizens must be attentive to public affairs, acting in the best interest of the republic.
• Citizens must be free to assemble, argue, expose corruption, and criticize leaders.
• A republic’s greatest danger is destruction from within by corruption.
• A free republic requires a citizen militia to defend against external threats.
• A free government must be ruled by law, not by the whim of individuals or the majority.
• Machiavelli considered pure democracy bad and a mixed constitutional republic the best achievable form, in line with Aristotle.
• A mixed government, a virtuous citizenry, and the rule of law were the republican ideals of Machiavelli’s Discourses.
• This vision inspired the Atlantic republican tradition.

The Atlantic Republican Tradition

• In Britain, the turmoil of the 1600s sparked interest in republicanism and democracy.
• The English Civil War (1642) ended with Parliament victorious and King Charles I beheaded (1649).
• An attempt to establish a republic failed, and Oliver Cromwell assumed power.
• After Cromwell’s death (1658), another attempt to establish a republic also failed.
• James Harrington (1611–1677) published Oceana (1656), hoping to persuade Cromwell to create a republic with a mixed government.
• Harrington’s “balance” included distributing land more equally and advocated regular elections and a system of representation with term limits.
• Republican ideas were aborted in England by the Restoration of 1660 when Charles II was recalled to the throne.
• Republican ideas exercised great influence in British North America.
• Other influences, including those speaking favorably of democracy, were at work.

The Return of Democracy

• During the English Civil War, some supporters of Parliament advocated democracy.
• Their religious convictions influenced this position.
• The Protestant Reformation emphasized a direct relationship between the individual and God.
• Martin Luther (1517) emphasized faith over strict church doctrine.
• The true Christian Church was the congregation of the faithful, “the priesthood of all believers.”
• Roger Williams (1604–1683), a Protestant minister, advocated democracy.
• Williams was banished from Massachusetts for his views and established Rhode Island in 1636.
• Rhode Island became known for religious liberty, and its government was a “Democratical or Popular Government."
• The Levellers in England advanced similar ideas during the Civil War.
• They claimed political authority could be founded only on the consent of the people.
• They advocated extending the right to vote to all adult males, except criminals and those dependent on others.
• Colonel Thomas Rainsborough: “the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he."
• The democratic doctrine of that day became the conventional view of later times, though the Levellers failed to convince those in power.
• Despite this, the efforts of the Levellers and the example of Rhode Island marked the beginning of a gradual shift toward democracy.

The United States as Democratic Republic

• Democratic ideas played a part in the American War of Independence, but there were few favorable references to democracy during the drafting of the Constitution.
• “Democracy” continued to stand for class rule by the poor/mob rule.
• The good form of popular government was the republic.
• The colonists couched their arguments in republican terms, viewing the British government as republican with a balance of power.
• John Adams’s Thoughts on Government (1776) reflected republicanism.
• The favored form of government in the United States was republican, and the U.S. Constitution makes no mention of democracy.
• It guarantees each state “a Republican Form of Government."
• The separation of powers into legislative, executive, and judicial branches reflected a fear of corruption.
• Checks and balances were necessary because men are not angels.
• Republican features appeared in the Bill of Rights (1791), including freedom of speech and assembly and the right to bear arms.
• The Constitution created a government where the popular element was checked by the Senate, courts, and president.
• Alexander Hamilton thought the Constitution too democratic.
• Patrick Henry opposed it as not democratic enough, objecting to the power taken from state governments.
• James Madison noted in Federalist #10 that pure democracies are turbulent and incompatible with personal property rights.
• The term “democracy” came to play a prominent part in political disputes. Federalists attacked their opponents as reckless democrats. The Antifederalists criticized the “aristocratic” bias of the Federalists.
• In 1800, the Democratic-Republican Party led by Thomas Jefferson won a great victory.
• Upon Jackson’s election in 1828, the United States entered “the age of the common man.”
• Many states abolished property qualifications for voting, extending voting rights to almost all adult white males.
• Americans celebrated liberty and equality, though some were alarmed by the new emphasis on democracy.

Tocqueville on Democracy

• Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), a French aristocrat, analyzed democracy in the United States in Democracy in America.
• Tocqueville saw democracy as an irresistible force, freeing the common people.
• He warned that democracy could produce mediocrity or despotism.
• Democracy promotes mediocrity through pressure to conform.
• Tocqueville called this pressure “the tyranny of the majority.”
• Democracy presents the threat of despotism.
• Tocqueville warned that the common people are easily swayed by demagogues.
• Civic virtue could be promoted through participation in public affairs.
• Tocqueville was impressed by New England town meetings and shared jury duty, seeing that shared responsibility of jury duty cultivated widespread and deeply rooted devotion to the common good.

The Growth of Democracy

• Democracy became more popular due to industrialization in the late 18th and 19th centuries.
• Growth of cities, spread of public education, and improvements in communication contributed to faith in the common people’s ability to participate knowledgeably in public affairs.
• In 19th-century England, arguments for democracy centered on self-protection and civic development.
• Utilitarians believed government should promote “the greatest happiness of the greatest number."
• John Stuart Mill argued for women's suffrage (The Subjection of Women, 1869).
• Mill believed political participation is valuable for self-development.
• Political participation strengthens civic virtue by teaching discipline, sharpening intelligence, and shaping morality.
• Such arguments have helped bring about a gradual extension of the franchise.
• Voting rights were extended to all adult males, then to male ex-slaves, and finally to women.
• Every extension of the franchise was resisted, with warnings issued by defenders of the status quo.
• Switzerland did not grant full voting rights to women until 1971.
• Some critics contend that women, people of color, and minority groups are still denied full membership in Western democracies.
• Almost everyone in Western democracies accepts democracy as the best form of government.

Democracy as an Ideal—and in Practice

• Democracy is now so popular that most political ideologies claim to favor it, yet these ideologies are in constant competition and occasional conflict with one another.
• Different ideologies promote democracy in different ways because they disagree about what democracy is.
• Democracy is not a single thing but an ideal that inspires people to search or strive for it but none is easy to find or even define.
• Democracy is government or rule by the people, but exactly what that means is subject to sharp disagreement.
• Who are “the people” supposed to rule?
• How are “the people” to rule? Direct vote or representatives?
• Should we follow majority rule? How can we protect the rights and interests of minorities?
• If we limit the power of the majority, are we retreating from democracy?
• The debate over term limits poses this problem in a particularly acute form.

Fundamental Questions

• Recurring question: How far should majority rule extend? What limits should be placed on it?
• Should voters be able to decide almost any and every issue by majority vote?
• The American Founders thought not, and Abraham Lincoln agreed with them.
• Lincoln asked how some men should be able to decide, democratically, to enslave others.
• Lincoln believed some issues should not be decided by majority vote.
• Before 1967, 30 states had statutes outlawing marriages between Black and white individuals, and Loving v. Virginia declared all such “anti-miscegenation” laws unconstitutional.
• Before 2003, 13 states had laws making engaging in same-sex relations a criminal act; and Lawrence v. Texas overturned them.
• The Court and the Constitution thwart the will of the majority in these instances. Thus, there is a continuing and oft-times troubling tension between majority will and minority rights.
• Indirect election
• Indirect election of the president: American voters elect electors who are pledged to vote for particular candidates.
• This system effectively disenfranchises many Americans. For example, Democratic voters in a “red” state will be heavily outnumbered by Republican voters who often “vote” for nothing.
• The candidate with more popular votes can lose to the one with more electoral votes like in the election of 2000 and 2016.
• Minority Rights and the Role of Money
• Another controversial question concerns the limits of the legitimate power of majorities to restrict the alleged rights of minorities.
• Particularly pointed instances of such majority power can be seen in recent elections in which majorities have voted to amend state constitutions so as to outlaw same-sex marriage, but in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed, in the landmark decision discussed in Chapter 8.
• In modern representative democracies, money is a major factor in electoral politics, and those who run for higher office must either be wealthy or rely heavily/exclusively on financial donors.
• These donors typically expect something in return for their largesse, access to the office holder, and the office holders are expected to “return the favor."
• Critics contend that present-day American democracy deserves to be called “Democracy, Incorporated.”
• The wealthy are able to make these campaign contributions because of the Citizens United case (2010).

Voter Suppression

• Beginning in 2011, Republican-controlled state legislatures passed laws requiring photo I.D., outlawing early voting, and other legislation to restrict the right to vote based on claims to curtail voting fraud.
• Critics responded by noting that such fraud is very rare and that the intended effect of these laws is to discourage or even disenfranchise voters who are poor and tend to vote Democratic.
• Such moves by state legislatures were made easier by the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
• A federal court reviewing one such state law from North Carolina said that it targeted African Americans “with almost surgical precision.”
• President Trump said that if voting is made easier, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
• Another long-standing barrier to Black people voting is the number of state laws that permanently bar convicted felons from voting, even after serving their sentences.
• For example, by 2018 in Florida more than one in five African Americans could not vote due to felon disenfranchisement.
• Will these developments be benign, beneficial, or harmful to American democracy?
• Some voters, especially in poorer precincts, stood in long lines for up to eight hours. In 2012 nearly $6 billion$ was spent.
• How does big money affect American politics?

Civic Education

• Democracy is the most demanding form of government. It requires an educated, informed, vigilant, and active citizenry, but such citizens seem to be in short supply.
• Critics say that what can rectify the shortage of these citizens is to bring “civics” or civic education back into the public school curriculum.
• Fewer than half of American states require the teaching of civics.
• Fewer than one-quarter of eighth graders could adequately answer questions about the Constitution.

Conceptions of Democracy

Four Conceptions of Democracy

• There are four principal versions of democracy in the modern world. All share several features, but their differences are sharp enough to make them distinctive and competing conceptions of democracy.
  • Liberal Democracy: Stresses the rights and liberty of the individual; most Western democracies. The right to speak and worship freely, the right to run for public office, the right to own property.
  • Social Democracy: Linked to the ideology of socialism. Argues that liberal democracy puts poor and working-class people at the mercy of the rich. Calls for the redistribution of wealth to promote equality, public rather than private control of natural resources and major industries, and workers’ control of the workplace.
  • People’s Democracy: In communist countries. From a communist perspective, the common people are the proletariat, or the working class, and democracy will not be achieved until government rules in their interest.
  • Illiberal Democracy: Rejects the idea of inviolable individual rights and the rule of law in favor of a majority-take-all view of democracy examples include Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary and President Donald Trump. Populists tend to distrust institutions and those who defend them.

How Democracies Die

• Democracies depend not only on constitutions and the rule of law but also on informal but widely accepted norms.
• Liberal-democratic governments that embrace free trade and welcome (or at least tolerate) non-white immigrants are fast becoming an endangered species, politically speaking.
• Once in office, members of the majority party too often tend to ride roughshod over the rights and interests of the minority as seen in Egypt and Iraq.
• Some contemporary commentators have wondered whether democracy in America might be undermined by ideologically polarized digital medial, talk radio.

Conclusion

• Liberal democracy, social democracy, people’s democracy, and illiberal democracy are the main visions of the democratic ideal in the modern world.
• In this democratic age, it is important to understand these visions and how they relate to various political ideologies.
• Modern political scientists and democratic theorists argue that democracy cannot be transplanted easily, if at all, in culturally alien or barren soil. Liberal and social democracy require a history of tolerance; of live-and-let-live; of fair play, trust, mutual respect, and a willingness to compromise, disagreements aired openly defeats borne gracefully by the losers and generously by the winners.
• Where these preconditions are absent, neither liberal nor social democracy can flourish or perhaps even survive for very long. We see this truism being played out particularly in the new democracies of the Middle East and elsewhere. Once in office, members of the majority party too often tend to ride roughshod over the rights and interests of the minority. Case in point: in elections in Egypt, after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood won the presidency and a plurality of seats in the parliament. The new president, Mohamed Morsi, saw the election results as a mandate to impose the Brotherhood’s vision of an Islamist state in Egypt. His high- handedness frightened and offended many Egyptians, who took to the streets in protest. To restore “order,” the military declared a state of emergency, during which President Morsi and his fellow Islamists were forcibly removed from office, put on trial, convicted of treason, and sentenced to death. The commander of the military, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, became president in 2014 and has since ruled with an iron fist.

Discussion Questions

• Why were the ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle convinced that democracy is a bad form of government? Do you find their arguments persuasive? Explain why you do or do not.
• What have Machiavelli and other political theorists meant by the term “republic”? How, if at all, is a republic different from a democracy?
• Is the United States best described as a democracy, a republic, or a hybrid democratic republic? Explain and defend your position.
• What are the four principal conceptions of democracy in the twenty-first century? How do they differ from one another, and which, in your view, is the best way of thinking about—and practicing—democracy? Why?
• The authors of this chapter maintain that democracy is not an ideology but an ideal. Why do they say this? Hint: in answering, ask yourself how or whether democracy can perform the four functions that every ideology must perform.
• Are there some issues that should not be decided by majority rule? Why or why not? If you believe there are, cite two examples and why you think they should not be decided democratically.
• How would you rate the sort of civic education you have received? If you had to give it a grade, what would that grade be, and why? For Further Reading