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Essay on Democracy in 100, 300 and 500 Words

• Updated on  
• Jan 15, 2024

The oldest account of democracy can be traced back to 508–507 BCC Athens . Today there are over 50 different types of democracy across the world. But, what is the ideal form of democracy? Why is democracy considered the epitome of freedom and rights around the globe? Let’s explore what self-governance is and how you can write a creative and informative essay on democracy and its significance. 

Today, India is the largest democracy with a population of 1.41 billion and counting. Everyone in India above the age of 18 is given the right to vote and elect their representative. Isn’t it beautiful, when people are given the option to vote for their leader, one that understands their problems and promises to end their miseries? This is just one feature of democracy , for we have a lot of samples for you in the essay on democracy. Stay tuned!

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What is democracy , sample essay on democracy (100 words), sample essay on democracy (250 to 300 words), sample essay on democracy for upsc (500 words).

Democracy is a form of government in which the final authority to deliberate and decide the legislation for the country lies with the people, either directly or through representatives. Within a democracy, the method of decision-making, and the demarcation of citizens vary among countries. However, some fundamental principles of democracy include the rule of law, inclusivity, political deliberations, voting via elections , etc. 

Did you know: On 15th August 1947, India became the world’s largest democracy after adopting the Indian Constitution and granting fundamental rights to its citizens?

Must Explore: Human Rights Courses for Students 

Must Explore: NCERT Notes on Separation of Powers in a Democracy

Democracy where people make decisions for the country is the only known form of governance in the world that promises to inculcate principles of equality, liberty and justice. The deliberations and negotiations to form policies and make decisions for the country are the basis on which the government works, with supreme power to people to choose their representatives, delegate the country’s matters and express their dissent. The democratic system is usually of two types, the presidential system, and the parliamentary system. In India, the three pillars of democracy, namely legislature, executive and judiciary, working independently and still interconnected, along with a free press and media provide a structure for a truly functional democracy. Despite the longest-written constitution incorporating values of sovereignty, socialism, secularism etc. India, like other countries, still faces challenges like corruption, bigotry, and oppression of certain communities and thus, struggles to stay true to its democratic ideals.

Did you know: Some of the richest countries in the world are democracies?

Must Read : Consumer Rights in India

Must Read: Democracy and Diversity Class 10

As Abraham Lincoln once said, “democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people.” There is undeniably no doubt that the core of democracies lies in making people the ultimate decision-makers. With time, the simple definition of democracy has evolved to include other principles like equality, political accountability, rights of the citizens and to an extent, values of liberty and justice. Across the globe, representative democracies are widely prevalent, however, there is a major variation in how democracies are practised. The major two types of representative democracy are presidential and parliamentary forms of democracy. Moreover, not all those who present themselves as a democratic republic follow its values.

Many countries have legally deprived some communities of living with dignity and protecting their liberty, or are practising authoritarian rule through majoritarianism or populist leaders. Despite this, one of the things that are central and basic to all is the practice of elections and voting. However, even in such a case, the principles of universal adult franchise and the practice of free and fair elections are theoretically essential but very limited in practice, for a democracy. Unlike several other nations, India is still, at least constitutionally and principally, a practitioner of an ideal democracy.

With our three organs of the government, namely legislative, executive and judiciary, the constitutional rights to citizens, a multiparty system, laws to curb discrimination and spread the virtues of equality, protection to minorities, and a space for people to discuss, debate and dissent, India has shown a commitment towards democratic values. In recent times, with challenges to freedom of speech, rights of minority groups and a conundrum between the protection of diversity and unification of the country, the debate about the preservation of democracy has become vital to public discussion.

Did you know: In countries like Brazil, Scotland, Switzerland, Argentina, and Austria the minimum voting age is 16 years?

Also Read: Difference Between Democracy and Dictatorship

Democracy originated from the Greek word dēmokratiā , with dēmos ‘people’ and Kratos ‘rule.’ For the first time, the term appeared in the 5th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Classical Athens, to mean “rule of the people.” It now refers to a form of governance where the people have the right to participate in the decision-making of the country. Majorly, it is either a direct democracy where citizens deliberate and make legislation while in a representative democracy, they choose government officials on their behalf, like in a parliamentary or presidential democracy.

The presidential system (like in the USA) has the President as the head of the country and the government, while the parliamentary system (like in the UK and India) has both a Prime Minister who derives its legitimacy from a parliament and even a nominal head like a monarch or a President.

The notions and principle frameworks of democracy have evolved with time. At the core, lies the idea of political discussions and negotiations. In contrast to its alternatives like monarchy, anarchy, oligarchy etc., it is the one with the most liberty to incorporate diversity. The ideas of equality, political representation to all, active public participation, the inclusion of dissent, and most importantly, the authority to the law by all make it an attractive option for citizens to prefer, and countries to follow.

The largest democracy in the world, India with the lengthiest constitution has tried and to an extent, successfully achieved incorporating the framework to be a functional democracy. It is a parliamentary democratic republic where the President is head of the state and the Prime minister is head of the government. It works on the functioning of three bodies, namely legislative, executive, and judiciary. By including the principles of a sovereign, socialist, secular and democratic republic, and undertaking the guidelines to establish equality, liberty and justice, in the preamble itself, India shows true dedication to achieving the ideal.

It has formed a structure that allows people to enjoy their rights, fight against discrimination or any other form of suppression, and protect their rights as well. The ban on all and any form of discrimination, an independent judiciary, governmental accountability to its citizens, freedom of media and press, and secular values are some common values shared by all types of democracies.

Across the world, countries have tried rooting their constitution with the principles of democracy. However, the reality is different. Even though elections are conducted everywhere, mostly, they lack freedom of choice and fairness. Even in the world’s greatest democracies, there are challenges like political instability, suppression of dissent, corruption , and power dynamics polluting the political sphere and making it unjust for the citizens. Despite the consensus on democracy as the best form of government, the journey to achieve true democracy is both painstaking and tiresome. 

Did you know: Countries like Singapore, Peru, and Brazil have compulsory voting?

Must Read: Democracy and Diversity Class 10 Notes

Democracy is a process through which the government of a country is elected by and for the people.

Yes, India is a democratic country and also holds the title of the world’s largest democracy.

Direct and Representative Democracy are the two major types of Democracy.

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Normative democratic theory deals with the moral foundations of democracy and democratic institutions, as well as the moral duties of democratic representatives and citizens. It is distinct from descriptive and explanatory democratic theory, which aim to describe and explain how democracy and democratic institutions function. Normative democracy theory aims to provide an account of when and why democracy is morally desirable as well as moral principles for guiding the design of democratic institutions and the actions of citizens and representatives. Of course, normative democratic theory is inherently interdisciplinary and must draw on the results of political science, sociology, psychology, and economics in order to give concrete moral guidance.

This brief outline of normative democratic theory focuses attention on seven related issues. First, it proposes a definition of democracy. Second, it outlines different approaches to the question of why democracy is morally valuable at all. Third, it discusses the issue of whether and when democratic institutions have authority and different conceptions of the limits of democratic authority. Fourth, it explores the question of what it is reasonable to demand of citizens in large democratic societies. This issue is central to the evaluation of normative democratic theories. A large body of opinion has it that most classical normative democratic theory is incompatible with what we can reasonably expect from citizens. Fifth, it surveys different accounts of the proper characterization of equality in the processes of representation and the moral norms of representation. Sixth, it discusses the relationship between central findings in social choice theory and democracy. Seventh, it discusses the question of who should be included in the group that makes democratic decisions.

1. Democracy Defined

2.1.1.1 the production of relatively good laws and policies: responsiveness theories, 2.1.1.2 the production of relatively good laws and policies: epistemic theories, 2.1.1.3 character-based arguments, 2.1.2 instrumental arguments against democracy, 2.1.3 grounds for instrumentalism, 2.2.1 liberty, 2.2.2 democracy as public justification, 2.2.3 equality, 3.1 instrumentalist conceptions of democratic authority, 3.2.1 democracy as collective self-rule, 3.2.2 freedom and democratic authority, 3.2.3 equality and authority, 3.3.1 internal limits to democratic authority, 3.3.2 the problem of persistent minorities, 3.3.3 external limits to democratic authority, 4.1 the problem of democratic participation, 4.2.1 elite theory of democracy, 4.2.2 interest group pluralism, 4.2.3 neo-liberalism.

• 4.2.4. The self-interest assumption

4.2.5 The Division of Democratic Labor

4.3.1 the duty to vote, 4.3.2 principled disobedience of the law, 4.3.3 accommodate disagreement through compromise and consensus, 5.1 what sort of representative system is best, 5.2 the ethics of representation, 6. social choice and democracy, 7. the boundary problem: constituting the demos, other internet resources, related entries.

The term “democracy”, as we will use it in this entry, refers very generally to a method of collective decision making characterized by a kind of equality among the participants at an essential stage of the decision-making process. Four aspects of this definition should be noted. First, democracy concerns collective decision making, by which we mean decisions that are made for groups and are meant to be binding on all the members of the group. Second, we intend for this definition to cover many different kinds of groups and decision-making procedures that may be called democratic. So there can be democracy in families, voluntary organizations, economic firms, as well as states and transnational and global organizations. The definition is also consistent with different electoral systems, for example first-past-the-post voting and proportional representation. Third, the definition is not intended to carry any normative weight. It is compatible with this definition of democracy that it is not desirable to have democracy in some particular context. So the definition of democracy does not settle any normative questions. Fourth, the equality required by the definition of democracy may be more or less deep. It may be the mere formal equality of one-person one-vote in an election for representatives to a parliament where there is competition among candidates for the position. Or it may be more robust, including substantive equality in the processes of deliberation and coalition building leading up to the vote. “Democracy” may refer to any of these political arrangements. It may involve direct referenda of the members of a society in deciding on the laws and policies of the society or it may involve the participation of those members in selecting representatives to make the decisions.

The function of normative democratic theory is not to settle questions of definition but to determine which, if any, of the forms democracy may take are morally desirable and when and how. To evaluate different moral justifications of democracy, we must decide on the merits of the different principles and conceptions of human beings and society from which they proceed.

2. The Justification of Democracy

In this section, we examine different views concerning the justification of democracy. Proposed justifications of democracy identify values or reasons that support democracy over alternative forms of decision-making, such as oligarchy or dictatorship. It is important to distinguish views concerning the justification of democracy from views concerning the authority of democracy, which we examine in section 3 . Attempts to establish democratic authority identify values or reasons in virtue of which subjects have a duty to obey democratic decisions. Justification and authority can come apart (Simmons 2001: ch. 7)—it is possible to hold that the balance of values or reasons supports democracy over alternative forms of decision-making while denying that subjects have a duty to obey democratic decisions.

We can evaluate the justification of democracy along at least two different dimensions: instrumentally, by reference to the outcomes of using it compared with other methods of political decision; or intrinsically, by reference to values that are inherent in the method.

2.1 Instrumentalism

2.1.1 instrumental arguments in favor of democracy.

Two kinds of in instrumental benefits are commonly attributed to democracy: (1) the production of relatively good laws and policies and (2) improvements in the characters of the participants.

It is often argued that democratic decision-making best protects subjects’ rights or interests because it is more responsive to their judgments or preferences than competing forms of government. John Stuart Mill, for example, argues that since democracy gives each subject a share of political power, democracy forces decision-makers to take into account the rights and interests of a wider range of subjects than are taken into account under aristocracy or monarchy (Mill 1861: ch. 3). There is some evidence that as groups are included in the democratic process, their interests are better advanced by the political system. For example, when African Americans regained the right to vote in the United States in 1965, they were able to secure many more benefits from the state than previously (Wright 2013). Economists argue that democracy promotes economic growth (Acemoglu et al. 2019). Several contemporary authors defend versions of this instrumental argument by pointing to the robust empirical correlation between well-functioning democratic institutions and the strong protection of core liberal rights, such as rights to a fair trial, bodily integrity, freedom of association, and freedom of expression (Gaus 1996: ch. 13; Christiano 2011; Gaus 2011: ch. 22).

A related instrumental argument for democracy is provided by Amartya Sen, who argues that

no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent country with a democratic form of government and a relatively free press. (Sen 1999: 152)

The basis of this argument is that politicians in a multiparty democracy with free elections and a free press have incentives to respond to the expressions of needs of the poor.

Epistemic justifications of democracy argue that, under the right conditions, democracy is generally more reliable than alternative methods at producing political decisions that are correct according to procedure-independent standards. While there are many different explanations for the reliability of democratic decision-making, we outline three of the most prominent explanations here: (1) Condorcet’s Jury Theorem, (2) the effects of cognitive diversity, and (3) information gathering and sharing.

The most prominent explanation for democracy’s epistemic reliability rests on Condorcet’s Jury Theorem (CJT), a mathematical theorem developed by eighteenth-century mathematician the Marquis de Condorcet that builds on the so-called “law of large numbers”. CJT states that, when certain assumptions hold, the probability that a majority of voters support the correct decision increases and approaches one as the number of voters increases. The assumptions are (Condorcet 1785):

• each voter is more likely than not to identify the correct decision (the competence assumption );
• voters vote for what they believe is the correct decision (the sincerity assumption );
• votes are statistically independent of one another (the independence assumption ).

While Condorcet’s original proof was restricted to decisions with only two choices, more recent work argues that CJT can be extended to decisions with three or more choices (List & Goodin 2001). The use of CJT to explain democracy’s reliability is often thought to originate with Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s claim that

[i]f, when a sufficiently informed populace deliberates, the citizens were to have no communication among themselves, the general will would always result from the large number of small differences, and the deliberation would always be good. (Rousseau 1762: Book III, ch. IV)

Contemporary theorists continue to rely on CJT, or variants of it, to justify democracy (Barry 1965; Cohen 1986; Grofman and Feld 1988; Goodin & Spiekermann 2019).

The appeal of CJT for epistemic democrats derives from the fact that, if its underlying assumptions are satisfied, decisions produced by even moderately-sized electorates are almost certain to be correct. For example, if the assumptions of CJT hold for an electorate of 10,000 voters, and if each voter is 51 percent likely to identify the correct decision of two options, then the probability that a majority will select the correct decision is 99.97 percent. The formal mathematics of CJT are not subject to dispute. However, critics of CJT-based arguments for democracy argue that the assumptions underlying CJT are rarely, if ever, satisfied in actual democracies (see Black 1963: 159–65; Ladha 1992; Estlund 1997b; 2008: ch. XII; Anderson 2006). First, many have remarked that voters’ opinions are not independent of each other. Indeed, the democratic process seems to emphasize persuasion and coalition building. Second, the theorem does not seem to apply to cases in which the information that voters have access to, and on the basis of which they make their judgments, is segmented in various ways. Segmentation occurs when some sectors of the society do not have the relevant information while others do have it. Modern societies and politics seem to instantiate this kind of segmentation in terms of class, race, ethnic groupings, religion, occupational position, geographical place and so on. Finally, all voters approach issues they have to make decisions on with strong ideological biases that undermine the claim that each voter is bringing a kind of independent observation on the nature of the common good to the vote.

Advocates of CJT-based justifications of democracy generally respond to these sorts of criticisms by attempting to develop variations of CJT with weaker assumptions. These assumptions are more easily satisfied in democracies and so the revised theorems may show that even moderately-sized electorates are almost certain to produce correct decisions (Grofman & Feld 1988; Austen-Smith 1992; Austen-Smith & Banks 1996).

A second common epistemic justification for democracy—which is often traced to Aristotle ( Politics , Book II, Ch. 11; see Waldron 1995)—argues that democratic procedures are best able to exploit the underlying cognitive diversity of large groups of citizens to solve collective problems. Since democracy brings a lot of people into the process of decision making, it can take advantage of many sources of information and perspectives in assessing proposed laws and policies. More recently, Hélène Landemore (2013) has drawn on the “diversity-trumps-ability” theorem of Scott Page and Lu Hong (Hong & Page 2004; Page 2007)—which states that a random collection of agents drawn from a large set of limited-ability agents typically outperforms a collection of the very best agents from that same set—to argue that democracy can be expected to produce better decisions than rule by experts. Both Page and Hong’s original theorem and Landemore’s use of it to justify democracy are subject to dispute (see Quirk 2014; Brennan 2014; Thompson 2014; Bajaj 2014).

A third common epistemic justification for democracy relies on the idea that democratic decision-making tends to be more informed than other forms of decision-making about the interests of citizens and the causal mechanisms necessary to advance those interests. John Dewey argues that democracy involves “a consultation and a discussion which uncovers social needs and troubles”. Even if experts know how best to solve collective problems, they need input from the masses to correct their biases tell them where the problems lie (Dewey 1927 [2012: 154–155]; see also Anderson 2006; Knight & Johnson 2011).

Many have endorsed democracy on the grounds that democracy has beneficial effects on the characters of subjects. Many agree with Mill and Rousseau that democracy tends to make people stand up for themselves more than other forms of rule do because it makes collective decisions depend on their input more than monarchy or aristocracy do. Hence, in democratic societies individuals are encouraged to be more autonomous. Relatedly, by giving citizens a share of control over political-decision-making, democracy cultivates citizens with active and productive characters rather than passive characters. In addition, it has been argued that democracy tends to get people to think carefully and rationally more than other forms of rule because it makes a difference to political outcomes whether they do or not. Finally, some argue that democracy tends to enhance the moral qualities of citizens. When they participate in making decisions, they have to listen to others, they are called upon to justify themselves to others and they are forced to think in part in terms of the interests of others. Some have argued that when people find themselves in this kind of circumstance, they can be expected genuinely to think in terms of the common good and justice. Hence, some have argued that democratic processes tend to enhance the autonomy, rationality, activity, and morality of participants. Since these beneficial effects are thought to be worthwhile in themselves, they count in favor of democracy and against other forms of rule (Mill 1861 [1991: 74]; Elster 1986 [2003: 152]; Hannon 2020).

Some argue in addition that the above effects on character tend to enhance the quality of legislation as well. A society of autonomous, rational, active, and moral decision-makers is more likely to produce good legislation than a society ruled by a self-centered person or a small group of persons who rule over slavish and unreflective subjects. Of course, the soundness of any of the above arguments depends on the truth of the causal theories of the consequences of different institutions.

Not all instrumental arguments favor democracy. Plato argues that democracy is inferior to various forms of monarchy, aristocracy and even oligarchy on the grounds that democracy tends to undermine the expertise necessary to the proper governance of societies (Plato 1974, Book VI). Most people do not have the kinds of intellectual talents that enable them to think well about the difficult issues that politics involves. But in order to win office or get a piece of legislation passed, politicians must appeal to these people’s sense of what is right or not right. Hence, the state will be guided by very poorly worked out ideas that experts in manipulation and mass appeal use to help themselves win office. Plato argues instead that the state should be ruled by philosopher-kings who have the wisdom and moral character required for good rule. He thus defends a version of what David Estlund calls “epistocracy”, a form of oligarchy that involves rule by experts (Estlund 2003).

Mill defends a form of epistocracy that is sometimes referred to as the “plural voting” scheme (1861: ch. 4). While all rational adults get at least one vote under this scheme, some citizens get a greater number of votes based on satisfying some measure of political expertise. While Mill identifies the relevant measure of expertise in terms of formal education, the plural voting scheme is consistent with other measures. This scheme might be thought to combine the instrumental value of political expertise with the intrinsic value of broad inclusion.

One objection to any form of epistocracy—the demographic objection —holds that any criterion of expertise is likely to select demographically homogeneous individuals who are be biased in ways that undermine their ability to produce political outcomes that promote the general welfare (Estlund 2003).

Hobbes argues that democracy is inferior to monarchy because democracy fosters destabilizing dissension among subjects (Hobbes 1651: chap. XIX). On his view, individual citizens and even politicians are apt not to have a sense of responsibility for the quality of legislation because no one makes a significant difference to the outcomes of decision making. As a consequence, citizens’ concerns are not focused on politics and politicians succeed only by making loud and manipulative appeals to citizens in order to gain more power, but all lack incentives to consider views that are genuinely for the common good. Hence the sense of lack of responsibility for outcomes undermines politicians’ concern for the common good and inclines them to make sectarian and divisive appeals to citizens.

Many contemporary theorists expand on these Platonic and Hobbesian criticisms. A good deal of empirical data shows that citizens of large-scale democracies are ill-informed and apathetic about politics. This makes room for special interests to control the behavior of politicians and use the state for their own limited purposes all the while spreading the costs to everyone. Moreover, there is empirical evidence that democratic citizens often engage in motivated reasoning that unconsciously aims to affirm their existing political identities rather than arrive at correct judgments (Lord, Ross, & Lepper 1979; Bartels 2002; Kahan 2013; Achen & Bartels 2016). Some theorists argue that these considerations justify abandoning democracy altogether, while modest versions of these arguments have been used to justify modification of democratic institutions (Caplan 2007; Somin 2013; Brennan 2016). Relatedly, some theorists argue that rather than having beneficial effects on the characters of subjects as Mill and others argue, democracy actually has deleterious effects on the subjects’ characters and relationships (Brennan 2016: ch. 3).

Pure instrumentalists argue that these instrumental arguments for and against the democratic process are the only bases on which to evaluate the justification of democracy or compare it with other forms of political decision-making. There are a number of different kinds of argument for pure instrumentalism. One kind of argument proceeds from a more general moral theory. For example, classical utilitarianism has no room in its monistic axiology for the intrinsic values of fairness and liberty or the intrinsic importance of an egalitarian distribution of political power. Its sole concern with maximizing utility—understood as pleasure or desire satisfaction—guarantees that it can provide only instrumental arguments for and against democracy.

But one need not be a thoroughgoing utilitarian to argue for instrumentalism in democratic theory. There are arguments in favor of instrumentalism that pertain directly to the question of democracy and collective decision making generally. One argument states that political power involves the exercise of power of some over others. And it argues that the exercise of power of one person over another can only be justified by reference to the protection of the interests or rights of the person over whom power is exercised. Thus no distribution of political power could ever be justified except by reference to the quality of outcomes of the decision making process (Arneson 1993 [2002: 96–97]; 2003; 2004; 2009). Another sort of argument for instrumentalism proceeds negatively, attempting to show that the non-instrumental values most commonly used in attempted justifications for democracy do not actually justify democracy, and that an instrumental justification for democracy is therefore the only available sort of justification (Wall 2007).

Other arguments question the coherence of the idea of intrinsically fair collective decision making processes. For instance, social choice theory questions the idea that there can be a fair decision making function that transforms a set of individual preferences into a rational collective preference. The core objection is that no general rule satisfying reasonable constraints can be devised that can transform any set of individual preferences into a rational social preference. And this is taken to show that democratic procedures cannot be intrinsically fair (Riker 1982: 116). Ronald Dworkin argues that the idea of equality, which is for him at the root of social justice, cannot be given a coherent and plausible interpretation when it comes to the distribution of political power among members of the society. The relation of politicians to citizens inevitably gives rise to inequality; the process of democratic deliberation inevitably gives those with superior argument making abilities and greater willingness to participate more influence and therefore more power, than others, so equality of political power cannot be intrinsically fair or just (Dworkin 2000). In later work, Dworkin has pulled back from this originally thoroughgoing instrumentalism (Dworkin 1996).

2.2 Non-instrumentalism

Few theorists deny that political institutions must be at least in part evaluated in terms of the outcomes of having those institutions. Some argue in addition, that some forms of decision making are morally desirable independent of the consequences of having them. A variety of different approaches have been used to show that democracy has this kind of intrinsic value.

One prominent justification for democracy appeals to the value of liberty. According to one version of the view, democracy is grounded in the idea that each ought to be master of his or her life. Each person’s life is deeply affected by the larger social, legal and cultural environment in which he or she lives. Only when each person has an equal voice and vote in the process of collective decision-making will each have equal control over this larger environment. Thinkers such as Carol Gould conclude that only when some kind of democracy is implemented, will individuals have a chance at self-government (Gould 1988: 45–85). Since individuals have a right of self-government, they have a right to democratic participation. The idea is that the right of self-government gives one a right, within limits, to do wrong. Just as an individual has a right to make some bad decisions for himself or herself, so a group of individuals have a right to make bad or unjust decisions for themselves regarding those activities they share.

One major difficulty with this line of argument is that it appears to require that the basic rule of decision-making be consensus or unanimity. If each person must freely choose the outcomes that bind him or her then those who oppose the decision are not self-governing. They live in an environment imposed on them by others. So only when all agree to a decision are they freely adopting the decision (Wolff 1970: ch. 2). The trouble is that there is rarely agreement on major issues in politics. Indeed, it appears that one of the main reasons for having political decision making procedures is that they can settle matters despite disagreement.

One liberty-based argument that might seem to escape this worry appeals to an irreducibly collective right to self-determination. It is often argued that political communities have a right as a community to organize themselves politically in accordance with their values, principles, or commitments. Some argue that the right to collective self-determination requires democratic institutions that give citizens collective control over their political and legal structure (Cassese 1995). However, many argue democratic institutions are sufficient but not necessary to realize the right to collective self-determination because political communities might exercise this right to implement non-democratic institutions (Altman & Wellman 2009; Stilz 2016).

Another non-instrumental justification of democracy appeals to the ideal of public justification. The idea behind this approach is that laws and policies are legitimate to the extent that they are publicly justified to the citizens of the community. Public justification is justification to each citizen as a result of free and reasoned debate among equals.

Jürgen Habermas’s discourse theory of deliberative democracy has been highly influential in the development of this approach. Habermas analyses the form and function of modern legal systems through the lens of his theory of communicative action. This analysis yields the Democratic Principle:

[O]nly those statutes may claim legitimacy that can meet with the assent of all citizens in a discursive process of legislation that in turn has been legally constituted. (Habermas 1992 [1996: 110])

Habermas advances a conception of democratic legitimacy according to which law is legitimate only if it results from a free and inclusive democratic process of “opinion and will-formation”. What might such a process look like in a complex and differentiated society? Habermas answers by advancing a “two-track” model that understands democratic legitimation in terms of the relationship between institutionalized deliberative bodies (e.g legislatures, agencies, courts) and informal communication in the public sphere, which is “wild”, and not centrally coordinated.

One possible objection to this view is that free and inclusive democratic procedures are insufficient to satisfy the demand for deliberative consensus embodied in the Democratic Principle. This demand is unlikely to be satisfied in diverse societies, since deep disagreements about which laws ought to be enacted is likely to remain after the relevant process of opinion and will-formation. The Democratic Principle might thus be thought to embody an overly idealistic conception of democratic legitimacy (Estlund 2008: ch.10). Another possible worry is that the Discourse Principle is not a genuine moral principle, but a principle that embodies the felicity conditions of practical discourse. As such, the Discourse Principle cannot ground a conception of democratic legitimacy that yields robust moral prescriptions (Forst 2016).

Drawing on Habermas and John Rawls, among others, Joshua Cohen (1996 [2003]) develops a conception of democracy in which citizens justify laws and policies on the basis of mutually acceptable reasons. Democracy, properly understood, is the context in which individuals freely engage in a process of reasoned discussion and deliberation on an equal footing. The ideas of freedom and equality provide guidelines for structuring democratic institutions.

The aim of Cohen’s conception of democracy as public justification is reasoned consensus among citizens. But a serious problem arises when we ask about what happens when disagreement remains. Two possible replies have been suggested. It has been urged that forms of consensus weaker than full consensus are sufficient for public justification and that the weaker varieties are achievable in many societies. For instance, there may be consensus on the list of reasons that are acceptable publicly but disagreement on the weight of the different reasons. Or there may be agreement on general reasons abstractly understood but disagreement about particular interpretations of those reasons. What would have to be shown here is that such weak consensus is achievable in many societies and that the disagreements that remain are not incompatible with the ideal of public justification.

The basic principle seems to be the principle of reasonableness according to which reasonable persons will only offer principles for the regulation of their society that other reasonable persons can reasonably accept. One only offers principles that others, who restrain themselves in the same way, can accept. Such a principle implies a kind of principle of restraint which requires that reasonable persons avoid proposing laws and policies on the basis of controversial moral or philosophical principles. When individuals offer proposals for the regulation of their society, they ought not to appeal to the whole truth as they see it but only to that part of the whole truth that others can reasonably accept. To put the matter in the way Rawls puts it: political society must be regulated by principles on which there is an overlapping consensus (Rawls 2005: Lecture IV). This is meant to obviate the need for a complete consensus on the principles that regulate society.

However, it is hard to see how this approach avoids the need for a complete consensus, which is highly unlikely to occur in any even moderately diverse society. The reason for this is that it is not clear why it is any less of an imposition on me when I propose legislation or policies for the society that I must restrain myself to considerations that other reasonable people accept than it is an imposition on others when I attempt to pass legislation on the basis of reasons they reasonably reject. For if I do restrain myself in this way, then the society I live in will not live up to the standards that I believe are essential to evaluating the society. I must then live in and support a society that does not accord with my conception of how it ought to be organized. It is not clear why this is any less of a loss of control over society than for those who must live in a society that is partly regulated by principles they do not accept. If one is a problem, then so is the other, and complete consensus is the only solution (Christiano 2009).

Many democratic theorists have argued that democracy is a way of treating persons as equals when there is good reason to impose some kind of organization on their shared lives but they disagree about how best to do it. Peter Singer argues that when people insist on different ways of arranging matters properly, each person in a sense claims a right to be dictator over their shared lives (Singer 1973: 30–41). But these claims to dictatorship cannot all hold up. Democracy embodies a kind of peaceful and fair compromise among these conflicting claims to rule. Each compromises equally on what he claims as long as the others do, resulting in each having an equal say over decision making. In effect, democratic decision making respects each person’s point of view on matters of common concern by giving each an equal say about what to do in cases of disagreement (Singer 1973; Waldron 1999: chap. 5).

What if people disagree on the democratic method or on the particular form democracy is to take? Are we to decide these latter questions by means of a higher order procedure? And if there is disagreement on the higher order procedure, must we also democratically decide that question? The view seems to lead to an infinite regress.

An alternative way of justifying democracy on the basis of equality is to ground democracy in public equality. Public equality is a principle of equality which ensures that people can see that they are being treated as equals. This view arises from three ideas. First, there is the basic egalitarian idea that people’s interests ought to be equally advanced, or at least that they ought to have equal opportunities to advance them. Second, human beings generally have highly fallible and biased understandings of their own and other people’s interests. Third, persons have fundamental interests in being able to see that they are being treated as equals. Public equality is an egalitarian principle that can be seen to be realized among persons despite the dramatically incomplete forms of knowledge people have. It is not all of justice, but it is essential that the principle be realized in a pluralistic society.

Democracy is a uniquely publicly egalitarian way to make collective decisions when there is substantial disagreement and conflict of interest among persons about how to shape the society they share. Each can see that the only plausible way of overcoming persistent disagreement over how to shape the society they all live in, while still publicly treating all persons as equals in the face of bias and fallibility, is to give each person an equal say in the process of shaping that society. Thus, democracy is necessary to the realization of public equality in a political society. Within the framework determined by this publicly realized equality, persons are permitted to attempt to bring about their more particular ideas about justice and the common good that they think are right.

The idea of public equality also grounds limits to democratic decision making. The thought is that a society cannot democratically decide to abolish the democratic rights of some of its members. Public equality also requires that basic liberal and civil rights be respected as well, by the democratic process and so serves as a limit to democratic decision making (Christiano 2008; Valentini 2013).

A number of worries attend this kind of view. First, it is generally thought that majority rule is required for treating persons as equals in collective decision making. This is because only majority rule is neutral towards alternatives in decision making. Unanimity tends to favor the status quo as do various forms of supermajority rule. But if this is so, the above view raises the twin dangers of majority tyranny and of persistent minorities, i.e., groups of persons who find themselves always losing in majority decisions. Surely these latter phenomena must be incompatible with public equality. Second, the kind of view defended above is susceptible to the worry that political equality is not a coherent ideal in any modern state with a complex division of labor and the need for representation. This last worry will be discussed in more detail in the next sections on democratic citizenship and legislative representation. The first worry will be discussed more in the discussion on the limits to democratic authority.

A related approach grounds democracy in the ideal of relational equality . A concern with relational equality is a concern for

human relationships that are, in certain crucial respects at least, unstructured by differences of rank, power, or status. (Scheffler 2010: 225)

Niko Kolodny argues that democratic institutions are an essential component of relational equality (Kolodny 2014a,b). One line of Kolodny’s argument holds that political decisions involve the use of coercive force. Inequalities in the power to use force undermine equal social status at least in part because the power to use force is “the power that usually determines the distribution of other powers” (Kolodny 2014b: 307). Individuals who have superior power to use force on others have a superior social status. An egalitarian distribution of political power is thus essential for realizing social equality. And only democratic institutions provide an egalitarian distribution of political power. We will discuss the relationship between relational equality and democracy further when we discuss the authority of democracy in Part 3 below.

3. The Authority of Democracy

Since democracy is a collective decision process, the question naturally arises about whether there is any duty of citizens to obey democratic decisions when they disagree with it.

There are three main concepts of the legitimate authority of the state. First, a state has legitimate authority to the extent that it is morally justified in coercively imposing its rule on the members. Legitimate authority on this account has no direct implications concerning the obligations or duties that citizens may hold toward that state. It simply says that if the state is morally justified in doing what it does, then it has legitimate authority. Second, a state has legitimate authority to the extent that its directives generate duties in citizens to obey. The duties of the citizens need not be owed to the state but they are real duties to obey. The third is that the state has a right to rule that is correlated with the citizens’ duty to it to obey it. This is the strongest notion of authority and it seems to be the core idea behind the legitimacy of the state. The idea is that when citizens disagree about law and policy it is important to be able to answer the question, who has the right to choose?

Instrumental arguments for democracy give some reason for why one ought to respect the democracy when one disagrees with its decisions. There may be many instrumental considerations that play a role in deciding on the question of whether one ought to obey. And these instrumental considerations are pretty much the same whether one is considering obedience to democracy or some other form of rule.

There is one instrumentalist approach which is quite unique to democracy and that seems to ground a strong conception of democratic authority. That is the epistemic approach inspired by the Condorcet Jury Theorem, which we discussed in section 2.1.1.2 above. There, we discussed a number of difficulties with the application of the Condorcet Jury Theorem to the case of voting in elections and referenda in large-scale democracies, including lack of independence, informational segmentation, and the existence of ideological biases.

One further worry about the Jury Theorem’s epistemic conceptions of authority is that it would prove too much since it undermines the common practice of the loyal opposition in democracies. If the background conditions of the Jury Theorem are met, a large-scale democracy majority is practically certain to produce the right decisions. On what basis can citizens in a political minority rationally hold on to their competing views? The members of the minority have a powerful reason for shifting their allegiance to the majority position, since each has very good reason to think that the majority is right. The epistemic conception of authority based on the Jury Theorem thus threatens to be objectionably authoritarian, since it looks like it demands not only obedience of action but obedience of thought as well. Even in scientific communities the fact that a majority of scientists favor a particular view does not make the minority scientists think that they are wrong, though it does perhaps give them pause (Goodin 2003: ch. 7).

Some theories of democratic authority combine instrumental and non-instrumental considerations. David Estlund argues that democratic procedures have legitimate authority because they are better than random and epistemically the best of the political systems that are acceptable to all reasonable citizens (Estlund 2008). They must be better than random because, otherwise, why wouldn’t we use a fair random procedure like a lottery or coin flip? Democratic authority must have an epistemic element. And the justification of democratic procedure must be acceptable to all reasonable citizens in order to respect their freedom and equality. Estlund’s conception of democratic authority—which he calls “epistemic proceduralism”— thus combines the ideal of public justification with a concern for the tendency of democracies to produce good decisions.

3.2 Intrinsic Conceptions of Democratic Authority

Some theorists argue that there is a special relation between democracy and legitimate authority grounded in the value of collective self-rule. John Locke argues that when a person consents to the creation of a political society, they necessarily consent to the use of majority rule in deciding how the political society is to be organized (Locke 1690: sec. 96). Locke thinks that majority rule is the natural decision rule when there is disagreement. He argues that a society is a kind of collective body that must move in the direction of the greater force. One way to understand this argument is as follows. If we think of each member of society as an equal and if we think that there is likely to be disagreement beyond the question of whether to join society or not, then we must accept majority rule as the appropriate decision rule. This interpretation of the greater force argument assumes that the expression “greater force” is to be understood in terms of the equal worth of each person’s interests and rights, so the society must go in the direction in which the greater number of persons wants it to go.

Locke thinks that a people, which is formed by individuals who consent to be members, could choose a monarchy by means of majority rule and so this argument by itself does not give us an argument for democracy. But Locke refers back to this argument when he defends the requirement of representative institutions for deciding when property may be regulated and taxes levied. He argues that a person must consent to the regulation or taxation of his property by the state. But he says that this requirement of consent is satisfied when a majority of the representatives of property holders consent to the regulation and taxation of property (Locke, 1690: sec. 140). This does seem to be moving towards a genuinely democratic conception of legitimate authority.

Rousseau argues that when individuals consent to form a political community, they agree to put themselves under the direction of the “general will” (Rousseau 1762). The general will is not a mere aggregation of individuals’ private wills. It is, rather, the will of the political community as a whole. And since the general will can only emerge as the product of a properly organized democratic procedure, individuals consent to put themselves under the direction of a properly organized democratic procedure. On one interpretation of Rousseau, democratic procedures are properly organized only when they (1) define rights that apply equally to all, (2) via a procedure that considers everyone’s interests equally, and (3) everyone who is coerced to obey the laws has a voice in that procedure.

There are at least two ways of understanding the idea of the general will. On what might be called the constitutive interpretation, the general will is constituted by the results of a properly organized democratic procedure. That is, the results of a properly organized democratic procedure are the general will in virtue of the fact that they emerge from a properly organized democratic procedure, and not because they reflect some procedure-independent truth about the common good. On what might be called the epistemic interpretation, the results of a properly organized democratic procedure are the way of tracking the procedure-independent truth about the common good. As we discussed in section 3.1 , Rousseau is often interpreted as appealing to Condorcet’s Jury Theorem to support the epistemic credentials of a properly organized democratic procedure.

Anna Stilz develops an account of democratic authority that appeals to the value of “freedom as independence” (Stilz 2009). Freedom as independence is freedom from being subject to the will of another. In order not to be subject to the will of others, individuals need property rights and a protected sphere of autonomy to pursue one’s plans. Drawing on Kant, Stilz argues that attempts by particular individuals, no matter how conscientious, to define and secure rights to property and autonomy in a state of nature will be inconsistent with freedom as independence. Such attempts unilaterally impose new obligations on others through acts of private will in the face of competing claims. But even if individuals in a state of nature do agree to a resolution of their competing claims, they are dependent on the will of others to honor this agreement. Stilz thus argues that justice must be administered by an authoritative legal system which can coercively impose one set of objective rules—rules we must respect even when we disagree—to adjudicate our conflicting claims. But if such a system is to be consistent with the freedom of subjects, it cannot be imposed by the private wills of rulers. The solution, Stilz argues, lies in Rousseau’s idea of the general will. When subjects obey the general will, they are not obeying the private will of any individual; they are obeying a will that arises from all and applies to all.

One worry with this account is that those who oppose democratically-enacted laws or policies can complain that those laws or policies are imposed against their will. Perhaps they are not subject to the will of a particular individual, but they are subject to the will of a majority. This might be thought to constitute a significant threat to individuals’ freedom as independence. Another worry, which Stilz’s view arguably inherits from Rousseau, is that the conditions for the general will to emerge are so demanding that the view implies that no state that exists or has existed has legitimate political authority. Stilz’s view might thus be thought to entail what A.J. Simmons calls “a posteriori anarchism” (Simmons 2001).

Another approach to democratic authority asserts that failing to obey the decisions of a democratic assembly amounts to treating one’s fellow citizens as inferiors (Christiano 2008: ch. 6). In the face of disagreement about substantive law and policy, democracy realizes a kind of public equality by giving each individual an equal say in determining which laws or policies will be enacted. Citizens who skirt laws made by suitably egalitarian procedures act contrary to the equal right of all citizens to have a say in making laws. Those who refuse to pay taxes or respect property laws on the grounds that they are unjust are affirming a superior right to that of others in determining how the shared aspects of social life ought to be arranged. Thus, they violate the duty to treat others publicly as equals. And there is reason to think this duty must normally have some pre-eminence. Public equality is the most important form of equality and democracy is required by public equality. The other forms of equality in play in substantive disputes about law and policy are ones about which people can have reasonable disagreements (within limits specified by the principle of public equality). Citizens thus have obligations to abide by the democratic process even if their favored conceptions of justice or equality are passed by in the decision making process.

Daniel Viehoff develops an egalitarian conception of democratic authority based on the ideal of relational equality (Viehoff 2014; see section 2.2.3 above for more on relational equality). Viehoff argues that relational equality is threatened by “subjection” in a relationship, which occurs when individuals have significantly different power over how they interact with and relate to one another. According to Viehoff, obeying the outcomes of egalitarian democratic procedures is necessary and sufficient for citizens to achieve coordination on common rules without subjection. It is sufficient because democratic procedures distribute decision-making power equally, which ensures that coordination is not determined by unequal power advantages. It is necessary because parties must set aside the considerations of greater and lesser power to realize non-subjection in their relationship.

Fabienne Peter develops a fairness-based conception of democratic authority that incorporates epistemic considerations (Peter 2008; 2009). Drawing on insights from proceduralist epistemology, Peter’s “pure epistemic proceduralism” holds that suitably egalitarian democratic decisions are binding at least in part because they result from a fair procedure of knowledge-production. This account differs from Estlund’s epistemic proceduralism (see section 5.1 above) because it does not condition the authority of democratic procedures on their ability to produce decisions that track the procedure-independent truth. Rather, the authority of democratic procedures is grounded in their fairness. And it differs from pure procedural accounts because the relevant notion of fairness is fairness in knowledge-production.

3.3 Limits to the Authority of Democracy

What are the limits to democratic authority? A limit to democratic authority is a principle violation of which defeats democratic authority. When the principle is violated by the democratic assembly, the assembly loses its authority in that instance or the moral weight of the authority is overridden. A number of different views have been offered on this issue. We can distinguish between internal and external limits to democratic authority. An internal limit arises from the constitutive requirements of the democratic process or from the principles that ground democracy. An external limit arises from principles that are independent of the values or requirements that ground democracy.

External limits to democratic authority are rebutting limits, which are principles that weigh against—and may sometimes outweigh the principles that ground democracy. So in a particular case, an individual may see that there are reasons to obey the assembly and some reasons against obeying the assembly and in the case at hand the reasons against obedience outweigh the reasons in favor of obedience. Internal limits to democratic authority are undercutting limits. These limits function not by weighing against the considerations in favor of authority, they undercut the considerations in favor of authority altogether; they simply short circuit the authority. When an undercutting limit is in play, it is not as if the principles which ground the limit outweigh the reasons for obeying the democratic assembly, it is rather that the reasons for obeying the democratic assembly are undermined altogether; they cease to exist or at least they are severely weakened.

Some have argued that the democratic process ought to be limited to decisions that are not incompatible with the proper functioning of the democratic process. So they argue that the democratic process may not legitimately take away the political rights of its citizens in good standing. It may not take away rights that are necessary to the democratic process such as freedom of association or freedom of speech. But these limits do not extend beyond the requirements for proper democratic functioning. They do not protect non political artistic speech or freedom of association in the case of non political activities (Ely 1980: chap. 4).

Another kind of internal limit is a limit that arises from the principles that underpin democracy. And the presence of this limit would seem to be necessary to making sense of the first limit because in order for the first limit to be morally important we need to know why a democracy ought to protect the democratic process.

Locke gives an account of the internal limits of democracy in his idea that there are certain things to which a citizen may not consent (Locke 1690: ch. XI). She may not consent to arbitrary rule or the violation of fundamental rights including democratic and liberal rights. Since consent is the basis of democratic authority for Locke, this account provides an explanation of the idea behind the first internal limit, that democracy may not be suspended by democratic means but it goes beyond that limit to suggest that rights that are not essentially connected with the exercise of the franchise may also not be violated because one may not consent to their violation.

More recently, Ronald Dworkin has defended an account of the limits of democratic authority (Dworkin 1996). He argues that democracy is justified by appeal to a principle of self-government. He argues that self-government cannot be realized unless all citizens are treated as full members of the political community, because, otherwise, they are not able to identify as members of the community. Among the conditions of full membership, he argues, are rights to be treated as equals and rights to have one’s moral independence respected. These principles support robust requirements of non-discrimination and of basic liberal rights.

The conception of democratic authority that grounds it in public equality also provides an account of the limits of that authority (Christiano 2008: ch. 6). Since democracy is founded in public equality, it may not violate public equality in any of its decisions. The basic idea is that overt violation of public equality by a democratic assembly undermines the claim that the democratic assembly embodies public equality. Democracy’s embodiment of public equality is conditional on its protecting public equality. To the extent that liberal rights are grounded in public equality and the provision of an economic minimum is also so grounded, this suggests that democratic rights and liberal rights and rights to an economic minimum create a limit to democratic authority. This account also provides a deep grounding for the kinds of limits to democratic authority defended in the first internal limit and it goes beyond these to the extent that protection of rights that are not connected with the exercise of the franchise is also necessary to public equality.

This account of the authority of democracy also provides some help with a vexing problem of democratic theory. This problem is the difficulty of persistent minorities. There is a persistent minority in a democratic society when that minority always loses in the voting. This is always a possibility in democracies because of the use of majority rule. If the society is divided into two or more highly unified voting blocks in which the members of each group votes in the same ways as all the other members of that group, then the group in the minority will find itself always on the losing end of the votes. This problem has plagued some societies, particularly those with indigenous peoples who live within developed societies. Though this problem is often connected with majority tyranny it is distinct from the problem of majority tyranny because it may be the case that the majority attempts to treat the minority well, in accordance with its conception of good treatment. It is just that the minority never agrees with the majority on what constitutes proper treatment. Being a persistent minority can be highly oppressive even if the majority does not try to act oppressively. This can be understood with the help of the very ideas that underpin democracy. Persons have interests in being able to correct for the cognitive biases of others and to be able to make the world in such a way that it makes sense to them. These interests are set back for a persistent minority since they never get their way.

The conception of democracy as grounded in public equality can shed light on this problem. It can say that the existence of a persistent minority violates public equality (Christiano 2008: chap. 7). In effect, a society in which there is a persistent minority is one in which that minority is being treated publicly as an inferior because it is clear that its fundamental interests are being set back. Hence to the extent that violations of public equality undercut the authority of a democratic assembly, the existence of a persistent minority undermines the authority of the democracy at least with respect to the minority. This suggests that certain institutions ought to be constructed so that the minority is not persistent.

One natural kind of limit to democratic authority is the external kind of limit. Here the idea is that there are certain considerations that favor democratic decision making and there are certain values that are independent of democracy that may be at issue in democratic decisions. For example, many theories recognize core liberal rights—such as rights to property, bodily integrity, and freedom of thought and expression—as external limits to democratic authority. Locke is often interpreted as arguing that individuals have natural rights to property in themselves and the external world that democratic laws must respect in order to have legitimate authority (Locke 1690).

Some views may assert that there are only external limits to democratic authority. But it is possible to think that there are both internal and external limits. Such an issue may arise in decisions to go to war, for example. In such decisions, one may have a duty to obey the decision of the democratic assembly on the grounds that this is how one treats one’s fellow citizens as equals but one may also have a duty to oppose the war on the grounds that the war is an unjust aggression against other people. To the extent that this consideration is sufficiently serious it may outweigh the considerations of equality that underpin democratic authority. Thus one may have an overall duty not to obey in this context. Issues of foreign policy in general seem to give rise to possible external limits to democracy.

4. The Demands of Democratic Participation

In this section, we examine the demands of participation in large-scale democracies. We begin by examining a core challenge to the idea that democratic citizens are capable of governing a large and complex society. We then explore different proposed solutions to the core challenge. Finally, we examine the moral duties of democratic citizens in large-scale democracies in light of the core challenge.

A vexing problem of democratic theory has been to determine whether ordinary citizens are up to the task of governing a large and complex society. There are three distinct problems here:

• Plato argued that some people are more intelligent and informed about political matters than others and have a superior moral character, and that those persons ought to rule ( The Republic , Book VI)
• Others have argued that a society must have a division of labor. If everyone were engaged in the complex and difficult task of politics, little time or energy would be left for the other essential tasks of a society. Conversely, if we expect most people to engage in other difficult and complex tasks, how can we expect them to have the time and resources sufficient to devote themselves intelligently to politics?
• Since individuals have so little impact on the outcomes of political decision making in large societies, they have little sense of responsibility for the outcomes. Some have argued that it is not rational to vote since the chances that an individual’s vote will a decide the outcome of an election (i.e., will determine whether a candidate gets elected or not) are nearly indistinguishable from zero. For example, one widely accepted estimate puts the odds of an individual casting the deciding vote in a United States presidential election at 1 in 100 million. Many estimates put the odds much lower. Worse still, Anthony Downs has argued that almost all of those who do vote have little reason to become informed about how best to vote (Downs 1957: ch.13). On the assumption that citizens reason and behave roughly according to the Downsian model, either the society must in fact be run by a relatively small group of people with minimal input from the rest or it will be very poorly run. As we can see these criticisms are echoes of the sorts of criticisms Plato and Hobbes made.

These observations pose challenges for any robustly egalitarian or deliberative conception of democracy. Without the ability to participate intelligently in politics one cannot use one’s votes to advance one’s aims nor can one be said to participate in a process of reasoned deliberation among equals. So, either equality of political power implies a kind of self-defeating equal participation of citizens in politics or a reasonable division of labor seems to undermine equality of power. And either substantial participation of citizens in public deliberation entails the relative neglect of other tasks or the proper functioning of the other sectors of the society requires that most people do not participate intelligently in public deliberation.

4.2 Proposed Solutions to the Problem of Democratic Participation

Some modern theorists of democracy, called elite theorists, have argued against any robustly egalitarian or deliberative forms of democracy in light of the problem of democratic participation. They argue that high levels of citizen participation tend to produce bad legislation designed by demagogues to appeal to poorly informed and overly emotional citizens. They look upon the alleged uninformedness of citizens evidenced in many empirical studies in the 1950s and 1960s as perfectly reasonable and predictable. Indeed they regard the alleged apathy of citizens in modern states as highly desirable social phenomena.

Political leaders are to avoid divisive and emotionally charged issues and make policy and law with little regard for the fickle and diffuse demands made by ordinary citizens. Citizens participate by voting but since they know very little they are not effectively the ruling part of the society. The process of election is usually just a fairly peaceful way of maintaining or changing those who rule (Schumpeter 1942 [1950: 269]).

On Schumpeter’s view, however, citizens do have a role to play in avoiding serious disasters. When politicians act in ways that nearly anyone can see is problematic, the citizens can throw the bums out.

So the elite theory of democracy does seem compatible with some of the instrumentalist arguments given above but it is strongly opposed to the intrinsic arguments from liberty, public justification and equality. To be sure, there can be an elite deliberative democracy wherein elites deliberate, perhaps even out of sight of the population at large, on how to run the society.

A view akin to the elite theory but less pessimistic about citizens’ political agency and competence argues that a well-functioning representative democracy can function as a kind of “defensible epistocracy” (Landa & Pevnick 2020). This view holds that, under the right conditions, elected officials can be expected to exercise political power more responsibly than citizens in a direct democracy because each official is far more likely to cast the deciding vote in legislative assemblies (the “pivotality effect”) and officials have more incentive to exercise power with due regard for the general welfare (the “accountability effect”). Moreover, under the right conditions, representative democracy allows individuals to assess the competence of candidates for office and to select candidates who are best able to help the community pursue its commitments.

One approach that is in part motivated by the problem of democratic citizenship but which attempts to preserve some elements of equality against the elitist criticism is the interest group pluralist account of politics. Robert Dahl’s early statement of the view is very powerful.

In a rough sense, the essence of all competitive politics is bribery of the electorate by politicians… The farmer… supports a candidate committed to high price supports, the businessman…supports an advocate of low corporation taxes… the consumer…votes for candidates opposed to a sales tax. (Dahl 1959: 69)

In this conception of the democratic process, each citizen is a member of an interest group with narrowly defined interests that are closely connected to their everyday lives. On these subjects citizens are supposed to be quite well informed and interested in having an influence. Or at least, elites from each of the interest groups that are relatively close in perspective to the ordinary members are the principal agents in the process. On this account, democracy is not rule by the majority but rather rule by coalitions of minorities. Policy and law in a democratic society are decided by means of bargaining among the different groups.

This approach is conceivably compatible with the more egalitarian approach to democracy. This is because it attempts to reconcile equality with collective decision making by limiting the tasks of citizens to ones which they are able to perform reasonably well. It is not particularly compatible with the deliberative public justification approach because it takes the democratic process to be concerned essentially with bargaining among the different interest groups where the preferences are not subject to further debate in the society as a whole.

A third approach inspired by the problem of participation may be called the neo-liberal approach to politics favored by public choice theorists such as James Buchanan & Gordon Tullock (1962). Against elite theories, they contend that elites and their allies will tend to expand the powers of government and bureaucracy for their own interests and that this expansion will occur at the expense of a largely inattentive public. For this reason, they argue for severe restrictions on the powers of elites. They argue against the interest group pluralist theorists that the problem of participation occurs within interest groups more or less as much as among the citizenry at large. Only powerful economic interests are likely to succeed in organizing to influence the government and they will do so largely for their own benefit. Since economic elites will advance their own interests in politics while spreading the costs to others, policies will tend to be more costly (because imposed on everyone in society) than they are beneficial (because they benefit only the elites in the interest group.)

Neo-liberals infer that one ought to transfer many of the current functions of the state to the market and limit the state to the enforcement of basic property rights and liberties. These can be more easily understood and brought under the control of ordinary citizens.

But the neo-liberal account of democracy must answer to two large worries. First, citizens in modern societies have more ambitious conceptions of social justice and the common good than are realizable by the minimal state. The neo-liberal account thus implies a very serious curtailment of democracy of its own. More evidence is needed to support the contention that these aspirations cannot be achieved by the modern state. Second, the neo-liberal approach ignores the problem of large private concentrations of wealth and power that are capable of pushing small states around for their own benefit and imposing their wills on populations without their consent.

Somin (2013) also argues that government be significantly reduced in size so that citizens have a lesser knowledge burden to carry. But he calls for government decentralization so that citizens can vote with their feet in favor of or against competing units of government, in effect creating a kind of market in governments among which citizens can choose.

4.2.4 The self-interest assumption

A considerable amount of the literature in political science and the economic theory of the state are grounded in the assumption that individuals act primarily and perhaps even exclusively in their self-interest narrowly construed. The problem of participation and the accounts of the democratic process described above are in large part dependent on this assumption. When the preferences of voters are not assumed to be self-interested the calculations of the value of participation change. For example, if a person is a motivated utilitarian, the small chance of making a difference is coupled with a huge accumulated return to many people if there is a significant difference between alternatives. It may be worth it in this case to become reasonably well informed (Parfit 1984: 74). Even more weakly altruistic moral preferences could make a big difference to the rationality of becoming informed, for example if one had a preference to comply with perceived civic duty to vote responsibly (see section 4.3.1 for discussion of the duty to vote). Any moral preference can be formulated in consistent utility functions.

Moreover, defenders of deliberative democracy often claim that concerns for the common good and justice are not merely given prior to politics but that they can evolve and improve through the process of discussion and debate in politics (Elster 1986 [2003]; Gutmann & Thompson 2004; Cohen 1989 [2009]). They assert that much debate and discussion in politics would not be intelligible were it not for the fact that citizens are willing to engage in open minded discussion with those who have distinct morally informed points of view. Empirical evidence suggests that individuals are motivated by moral considerations in politics in addition to their interests (Mansbridge 1990).

Public deliberation in any large-scale democracy will occur within a complex and differentiated “deliberative system”, a

wide variety of institutions, associations, and sites of contestation accomplish political work. (Mansbridge et. al. 2012)

Moreover, the deliberative system of a complex democracy will be characterized by a division of democratic labor , with different parts of the system making different contributions to the overall system. The question arises: what is the appropriate role for a citizen in this division of labor? Philosophically, we should ask two questions. What ought citizens have knowledge about in order to fulfill their role? What standards ought citizens’ beliefs live up to in order to be adequately supported? One promising view is that citizens must think about what ends the society ought to aim at and leave the question of how to achieve those aims to experts (Christiano 1996: ch 5). The rationale for this division of labor is that expertise is not as fundamental to the choice of aims as it is to the development of legislation and policy. Citizens are capable in their everyday lives of understanding and cultivating deep understandings of values and of their interests. And if citizens genuinely do choose the aims and others faithfully pursue the means to achieving those aims, then citizens are in the driver’s seat in society and they can play this role as equals.

To be sure, citizens need to know who to vote for and whether those they vote for are genuinely advancing their aims. This would appear to require some basic knowledge of about how best to achieve their political aims. How is this possible without extensive knowledge? In addition, there is empirical evidence that those who are better informed have more influence on representatives (Erikson 2015). So, if this task requires some kind of knowledge to do well, how can this be compatible with equality?

One promising response is that ordinary citizens do not need individually to have a lot of knowledge of social science and particular facts in order to make political decisions based on such knowledge. Recent research in cognitive science indicates the individuals use “cognitive shortcuts” to save on time in acquiring information about the world they live in (Lupia & McCubbins 1998). This use of shortcuts is common and essential throughout economic and political life. In political life, we see part of the rationale for the many intermediate institutions between government and citizens (Downs 1957: 221–229). Citizens save time by making use of institutions such as the press, unions and other interest group associations, political parties, and opinion leaders to get information about politics. They also rely on interactions in the workplace as well as conversations with friends and families. Political parties can connect ordinary citizens in various ways to expertise because each one contains a division of labor within them that mirrors that in the state. Experts in parties have incentives to make their expertise intelligible to other members (Christiano 2012). In addition, under favorable conditions, political parties stimulate the development of citizens’ normative perspectives and facilitate a healthy public competition of political justifications based on those perspectives (White & Ypi 2016).

People are dependent on social networks in other ways in a democracy. People receive “free” information (which they do not deliberately seek out) about politics and law in school, through their jobs, in discussion with friends, colleagues and family and incidentally through the media. And this can form a better or worse basis on which to pursue other information. Institutions can make a difference to the stream of free information individuals receive. Education can be distributed in a more or less egalitarian way. The circumstances of work can provide more or less free information about politics and law. People who have jobs with a significant amount of power such as lawyers, business persons, government officials will be beneficiaries of very high quality free information. They need to know about law and politics to do their jobs properly. Those who hold low skilled and non-unionized jobs will receive much less free information about politics at work. To the extent that we can alter the economic division of labor by for example giving more place to unions or having greater worker participation, we might be able to reduce inequalities of information among citizens.

4.3 The Moral Duties of Democratic Citizens

What are the moral duties of democratic citizens in complex democracies? In this section, we discuss three important democratic duties: (1) the duty to vote, (2) the duty to promote justice through principled disobedience of the law, and (3) duties to accommodate disagreement through compromise and consensus.

It is often thought that democratic citizens have a moral duty to vote in elections. But this is not obvious. Individual votes are a causally insignificant contribution to the democratic process. In large-scale democracies, the chance that any particular citizen’s vote will decide the outcome of an election is minuscule. What moral reason do democratic citizens have to participate in politics even though they’re almost certain not to make the difference to who gets elected? Why shouldn’t they seek to promote the good or justice in other ways?

Parfit develops an act-utilitarian answer to this question (Parfit 1984: 73–75). Act-utilitarians hold that morally right actions maximize the total expected sum of the utilities of all persons in the society. Parfit argues that voting might nonetheless maximize expected utility if one candidate is significantly superior to the other(s). If we add the benefits to each member of the society of having the superior candidate win, we get a very large difference in value. So when we multiply that value by the probability of casting the deciding vote, which is often thought to be about 1/100,000,000 in a United States presidential election, we might still get a reasonably high expected value. When we subtract the cost to the voter and others of voting, which is often quite low, from this number, we may still have a good reason to vote.

One worry with Parfit’s view is that it faces a version of what Jason Brennan calls “the particularity problem” (Brennan 2011). This is the problem of explaining why citizens ought to promote value through political participation as opposed to through non-political acts. Voting is just one way of promoting overall utility; we need to know the expected utility of the different acts they might perform instead. Even if the argument above is correct, it might be the case that many individuals maximize expected utility by not voting and doing something even more beneficial with their time.

Alex Guerrero argues that citizens have moral reasons to vote because candidates who win by a larger proportion of votes can claim a greater “normative mandate” to govern (Guerrero 2010). Still each individual vote makes only a tiny contribution to the proportion of votes a candidate receives. So, we might doubt the strength of the reason to vote that Guerrero identifies.

Some theorists argue that individuals have a moral duty to vote in order to absolve themselves of complicity in state injustices (Beerbohm 2012; Zakaras 2018). All states commit injustices—they make and enforce unjust laws, wage unjust wars, and much else. And citizens of large-scale democracies have a kind of standing responsibility, by paying taxes and obeying laws, for their state’s injustices of which they must actively absolve themselves The complicity account argues that citizens avoid shared responsibility for their state’s injustices if they oppose those injustices through voting and of public advocacy (Beerbohm 2012).

One worry is that it is unclear why voting and publicly advocating against injustice should be thought to absolve responsibility that is established by paying taxes and obeying laws. Another worry is that one’s concern to oppose injustice should derive from a more direct concern for the wrongs suffered by victims of injustice rather than a concern with keeping one’s hands clean.

One sort of account that avoids this worry grounds the moral duty to vote in the importance of doing one’s fair share of the demands of political justice consistent with public equality. The demands of creating and sustaining just institutions distribute fairly among all citizens (Maskivker 2019). If one fails to do one’s fair share of these demands, then one fails to show due regard for the eventual victims of injustice. Furthermore, voting provides citizens with a mechanism for doing their fair shares of the demands of making their institutions just in a way that is consistent with respecting the public equality of fellow citizens. By showing up and casting a vote, citizens can contribute to the collective achievement of justice while maintaining equal decision-making power with fellow citizens.

Civil disobedience has long been recognized as a central mechanism through which democratic citizens may legitimately promote political justice in their society. According to the standard view, civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law that aims to change laws or government policies. People who engage in civil disobedience are willing to accept the legal consequences of their actions in order to show fidelity to the law (Bedau 1961; Rawls 1971: ch. 55). The standard definition of civil disobedience has been subjected to challenge. For example, some argue that the private acts in which the disobedient seeks to evade legal consequences can count as instances of civil disobedience (Raz 1979; Brownlee 2004, 2007, 2012).

Perhaps the most common way of justifying civil disobedience argues that the same considerations that ground the pro tanto duty to obey the law sometimes make it appropriate to engage in civil disobedience of the law (see, e.g., Rawls 1971: ch. 57; Sabl 2001; Markovits 2005; Smith 2011). For example, Rawls argues that while citizens of a “nearly just” society have a pro tanto duty to obey its laws in virtue of it being nearly just, civil disobedience can be justified as a way of making the relevant society more just (Rawls 1971: ch. 57). Similarly, Daniel Markovits argues that members of a society with suitably egalitarian and inclusive democratic procedures have a general duty to obey its laws because they are produced by procedures that are suitably egalitarian and inclusive, but that civil disobedience can be justified as a way of making the relevant procedures more egalitarian or inclusive (Markovits 2005).

It is easy to see why this constitutes an attractive way of justifying civil disobedience, since it justifies it by appeal to the same values that ground the pro tanto duty to obey the law. On the other hand, as Simmons notes, if there is no general duty to obey the law, there would seem to be no presumption in favor of obedience and thus no special need for a justification of civil disobedience; obedience and disobedience would stand equally in need of justification (Simmons 2007: ch 4).

Advocates of the standard approach generally assume that only civil disobedience can be justified in this way. However, some argue civil disobedience does not enjoy a special normative presumption over uncivil disobedience. The core idea that insofar as the values that ground a pro tanto duty to obey the law—for example, justice or democratic equality—are sometimes best served by civil disobedience of the law, they are sometimes best served by covert, evasive, anonymous, or even violent disobedience of the law (Delmas 2018; Lai 2019; Pasternak 2018).

Disagreement about what laws, policies, or principles ought to be implemented is a persistent feature of democratic societies. It is often argued that citizens and officials have duties to moderate their political activity in order to accommodate the competing views of fellow citizens or officials. Two duties of accommodation are widely discussed in the literature: duties of compromise and duties of public justification.

A compromise can be understood as an agreement between parties to advance laws or policies that all regard as suboptimal because they disagree about which laws or policies are optimal (May 2005). While it is widely accepted that there are sometimes compelling instrumental reasons to compromise, whether there are intrinsic moral reasons to compromise is more controversial. Some defend intrinsic reasons to compromise based on democratic values like inclusion, mutual respect, and reciprocity (Gutmann and Thompson 2014; Wendt 2016; Weinstock 2013). However, Simon May argues that such arguments fail and that all reasons to compromise are pragmatic (May 2005).

Advocates of the public justification approach to democracy (see section 2.2.2 ) often argue that democratic citizens and officials have individual moral duties of public justification. John Rawls argues for a “duty of civility” that requires citizens and officials to be prepared to give mutually acceptable justifications for important laws when voting and engaged in public advocacy. Given the inevitability of disagreement about comprehensive moral and philosophical truth in free democracies, the duty of civility requires citizens to appeal to a reasonable “political” conception of justice that can be the object of an “overlapping consensus” between different comprehensive doctrines. While different theorists motivate duties of public justification in different ways, many appeal to the need for exercises of coercive political authority to respect citizens’ freedom and equality.

5. Democratic Representation

Representation is an essential part of the division of labor of large-scale democracies. In this section, we examine two moral questions concerning representation. First, what sort of representative system is best? Second, by what moral principles are representatives bound?

A number of debates have centered on the question of what kinds of representative systems are best for a democratic society. What choice we make here will depend heavily on our underlying moral justification of democracy, our conception of citizenship as well as on our empirical understanding of political institutions and how they function. The most basic types of formal political representation available are single member district representation, proportional representation and group representation. In addition, many societies have opted for multicameral legislative institutions. In some cases, combinations of the above forms have been tried.

Single member district representation returns single representatives of geographically defined areas containing roughly equal populations to the legislature and is prominent in the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, among other places. The most common form of proportional representation is party list proportional representation. In a simple form of such a scheme, a number of parties compete for election to a legislature that is not divided into geographical districts. Parties acquire seats in the legislature as a proportion of the total number of votes they receive in the voting population as a whole. Group representation occurs when the society is divided into non-geographically defined groups such as ethnic or linguistic groups or even functional groups such as workers, farmers and capitalists and returns representatives to a legislature from each of them.

Many have argued in favor of single member district legislation on the grounds that it has appeared to them to lead to more stable government than other forms of representation. The thought is that proportional representation tends to fragment the citizenry into opposing homogeneous camps that rigidly adhere to their party lines and that are continually vying for control over the government. Since there are many parties and they are unwilling to compromise with each other, governments formed from coalitions of parties tend to fall apart rather quickly. The post war experience of governments in Italy appears to confirm this hypothesis. Single member district representation, in contrast, is said to enhance the stability of governments by virtue of its favoring a two party system of government. Each election cycle then determines which party is to stay in power for some length of time.

Charles Beitz argues that single member district representation encourages moderation in party programs offered for citizens to consider (Beitz 1989: ch. 7). This results from the tendency of this kind of representation towards two party systems. In a two party system with majority rule, it is argued, each party must appeal to the median voter in the political spectrum. Hence, they must moderate their programs to appeal to the median voter. Furthermore, they encourage compromise among groups since they must try to appeal to a lot of other groups in order to become part of one of the two leading parties. These tendencies encourage moderation and compromise in citizens to the extent that political parties, and interest groups, hold these qualities up as necessary to functioning well in a democracy.

In criticism, advocates of proportional and group representation have argued that single member district representation tends to muffle the voices and ignore the interests of minority groups in the society (Mill 1861; Christiano 1996). Minority interests and views tend to be articulated in background negotiations and in ways that muffle their distinctiveness. Furthermore, representatives of minority interests and views often have a difficult time getting elected at all in single member district systems so it has been charged that minority views and interests are often systematically underrepresented. Sometimes these problems are dealt with by redrawing the boundaries of districts in a way that ensures greater minority representation. The efforts are invariably quite controversial since there is considerable disagreement about the criteria for apportionment.

In proportional representation, by contrast, representatives of different groups are seated in the legislature in proportion to citizens’ choices. Minorities need not make their demands conform to the basic dichotomy of views and interests that characterize single member district systems so their views are more articulated and distinctive as well as better represented.

Advocates of group representation, like Iris Marion Young, have argued that some historically disenfranchised groups may still not do very well under proportional representation (Young 1990: ch. 6). They may not be able to organize and articulate their views as easily as other groups. Also, minority groups can still be systematically defeated in the legislature and their interests may be consistently set back even if they do have some representation. For these groups, some have argued that the only way to protect their interests is legally to ensure that they have adequate and even disproportionate representation.

One worry about group representation is that it tends to freeze some aspects of the agenda that might be better left to the choice of citizens. For instance, consider a population that is divided into linguistic groups for a long time. And suppose that only some citizens continue to think of linguistic conflict as important. In the circumstances a group representation scheme may tend to be biased in an arbitrary way that favors the views or interests of those who do think of linguistic conflict as important.

What moral norms apply to representatives carrying out their official duties? We can get a better handle on possible answers by introducing Hannah Pitkin’s famous distinction between trustees and delegates (Pitkin 1967). Representatives who act as trustees rely on their own independent judgments in carrying out their duties. Norms of trusteeship are supported in recognition that, given a natural division of democratic labor, officials are in a much better position to make well-reasoned and well-informed political decisions than ordinary citizens.

Representatives who act as delegates defer to the judgments of their citizens. These norms might be thought to reflect the value of democratic accountability. Because the people authorize representatives to govern, it is natural to think that representatives are accountable to the people to enact their judgments. If representatives are not accountable in this way, citizens lose democratic control over their representatives’ actions.

Which norms should win out when they conflict? Pitkin argues that the answer varies by context. This seems plausible. For example, if we take the view that citizens primarily have the role of determining the aims of the society, we might think that representatives ought to be delegates with regard to the aims, but trustees with regard to the ways of realizing the aims (Christiano 1996). See Suzanne Dovi’s discussion of representation for a deeper and more nuanced discussion of these issues.

Kenneth Arrow’s impossibility theorem is thought by some to provide a major set of difficulties for democratic theory (Arrow 1951). William Riker, Russell Hardin, and others have thought that the impossibility theorem shows that there are deep problems with democratic ideals (Riker 1982; Hardin 1999). Neither of these thinkers are opposed to democracy itself, they both think that there are good instrumental reasons for having democracy.

The basic results of social choice theory are laid out in detail elsewhere in the encyclopedia (List 2013). Here we will simply articulate the basic result and an illustration. The question of Arrowian social choice theory is: how do we determine a social preference for a society overall on the basis of the set of the individual preferences of the members? Arrow shows that a social choice function that satisfies a number of plausible constraints cannot be defined when there are three or more alternatives to be chosen by the group. He lays out a number of conditions to be imposed on a social choice function. Unlimited domain : The social choice function must be able to give us a social preference no matter what the preferences of the individuals over alternatives are. Non dictatorship : the social choice function must not select the preference of one particular member regardless of others’ preferences. Transitivity and completeness : The individual preferences orderings must be transitive and complete orderings and the social preference derived from them must be transitive and complete. Independence of irrelevant alternatives : the social preference between two alternatives must be the result only of the individual orderings between those two alternatives. Pareto condition : if all the members prefer an alternative x over y , then x must be ranked above y in the social preference. The theorem says that no social choice function over more than two alternatives can satisfy all of these conditions.

A useful illustration of this idea involves an extension of majority rule to cases of more than two alternatives. The Condorcet rule says that an alternative x wins when, for every other alternative, a majority prefers x over that alternative. For example, suppose we have three persons A , B and C and three alternatives x , y and z . A prefers x over y , y over z ; B prefers y over z and z over x ; C prefers x over z and z over y . In this case, x is the Condorcet winner since it beats y , and it beats z . The problem with this plausible sounding rule is the case of a majority cycle. Suppose you have three persons A , B and C , and three alternatives, x , y and z . In the case in which A prefers x over y and y over z , while B prefers y over z and z over x , and C prefers z over x and x over y , the Condorcet rule will yield a social preference of x over y , y over z and z over x . One can see here that the Condorcet rule satisfies all the conditions except transitivity of social preference. One way to avoid intransitivity is to restrict the domain of preferences from which the social preference arises. Another is to introduce cardinal information that compares the how much people prefer alternatives (violating independence). Another might be to make one person a dictator. So, this case nicely illustrates that one cannot satisfy all of the constraints simultaneously.

Riker argues that the theorem shows that the idea that the popular will can be the governing element in a society is false. If an existence condition for a popular will is a restricted set of preferences the question naturally arises as to whether such a condition is always or normally met in a moderately complex society. We might wonder whether a highly pluralistic society with a very complex division of labor is likely to satisfy the restricted preference set condition necessary to avoid cycles or other pathologies of social choice. Some have argued that we have empirical evidence to the effect that modern societies do normally satisfy such conditions (Mackie 2003). Others have argued that this seems unlikely (Riker 1982; Ingham 2019). This is not merely a defense of unlimited domain. It is a defense of the thesis that normally the collections of preferences in modern societies are not likely to have the properties that enable them to avoid cycles.

The fairness critique from social choice theory is based on the idea that when a voting process meets requirements of fairness, the fairness of the process and the preferences may not generate determinate outcomes. If cycles are pervasive, the outcomes of democratic processes may be determined by clever strategies and not by the fairness of the procedures (Riker 1982). Three remarks are in order here. First, it is compatible with the process being completely fair that the outcomes of the process are indeterminate. After all, coin flips are fair. Second, there is some question as to how prominent the cycles are. Third, one might think that if the conditions which enable opposing sides to strategize effectively are themselves roughly equal, then the concerns for fairness are fully met. If resources for persuasion and organization are distributed in an egalitarian way, perhaps the fairness account is vindicated after all. This point can be made more compelling when we consider Sean Ingham’s account of political equality. He includes intensity of preference in his account of fairness. This is a departure from the Arrowian approach, but it is in many ways a realistic one. The idea is that majorities have equal control over policy areas when they are able to get what they want with the same amount of intensity of preferences. And equality holds generally when all groups of the same size have the same control (Ingham 2019). There remains an extreme case in which all majorities have equal intensity of preference and are caught in a majority cycle. But the chances of this happening are very slim, even if the chances of majority cycles more generally are not as small. Even if there are a lot of majority cycles, if the issues are resolved in such a way that those majorities that have most at stake in the conflict are the ones that get their way, then we can have fairness in a quite robust sense even while having pervasive majority cycles.

If democratic societies allow members to participate as equals in collective decision making, a natural question arises: who has the right to participate in making collective decisions? We can ask this question within a particular jurisdiction (ought all adults have the right to participation? Ought children have the right to participation? Ought all residents have such rights?). But we can also ask what the extent of the jurisdiction ought to be. How many of the people in the world ought to be included in the collective decision-making? An easy, though slightly misleading, way of asking this question is, what ought the physical boundaries of a particular institution of collective decision-making be? We see partially democratic societies within the confines of the modern nation-state. But we might ask, why should we restrict the set of persons who participate in making decisions of the modern state just to those who happen to be the physical inhabitants of those states? Surely there are many other persons affected by decisions made by democratic states aside from those persons. For example, activities in one society A can pollute another society B . Why shouldn’t the members of B have a say in the decisions regarding the polluting activities in A ? And there can be many other effects that activities in A can have on B .

Some have suggested that the boundaries of a state ought to be determined through a principle of national self-determination. We identify a nation as an ongoing group of persons who share certain cultural, historical and political norms and who identify with each other and with a piece of land. Then we determine the boundaries of the territory by appeal to the size of the group of people and the land they cherish (Miller 1995; Song 2012). This is an appealing idea in many ways: shared nationality breeds a willingness to share the sacrifices that arise from collective decision making; it generates a sense of at-homeness for people. But it is hard to use as a general principle for dividing land among persons when one of the central facts for many societies is that a diversity of nations, ethnic groups and cultures co-mingle on the very same land.

Is there a democratic solution to the boundary problem? A number of ideas have been suggested. The first idea is that the people ought to decide what the boundaries are. But this suggestion, while it may be a pragmatic resolution to the problem, seems to beg the question about who the members are and who are not (Whelan 1983).

A second theoretical solution that has some democratic credentials is to invoke the principle that all who are subjected to decision making, in the sense of who are coerced or have duties imposed upon them, ought to have a say in the decision making (Abizadeh 2008). This principle is plausible enough, but it doesn’t get at enough cases. The pollution case above is not a case of subjection.

A third proposed theoretical solution is the all-affected principle. One formulation is “all affected persons ought to have a say in the decisions that affect them”. This does suggest that when the activities in one state affect those of another state, the people of the other state ought to have a say in those activities. Some have thought that this principle tends to lead to a kind of politically cosmopolitan principle in support of world government (Goodin 2007).

But the all-affected principle is conceptually quite uncertain and morally deeply problematic, and it provides very little, if anything, in the way of a solution to the boundary problem.

First, “having a say” is not clear. Does it require having a vote in collective decision-making? Or is it also satisfied by a person’s being able to modify another’s action by negotiating with them, as we see when there is bargaining over an externality? This latter version would undermine the idea that the all-affected principle has direct implications for the boundary problem. When the United States permits activities that produce acid rain in Canada, Canada can negotiate with the United States to lessen the production of acid rain and/or to compensate Canada for the harm. As long as there is a fair and effective system of negotiation, this would seem to satisfy the all-affected principle without giving Canadians a vote in American politics or Americans a vote in Canadian politics.

Second, it is not clear what “being affected” means. One, does a person being affected just mean that there is a change in the person’s situation or must the effect involve the setting back of one’s preferences, or interests, or legitimate interests, or exercise of one’s capacities or one’s good? Two, are one’s interests affected by a decision only when they are advanced or set back relative to some baseline (either the present state of affairs or some morally defined baseline like what you have promised me), or am I affected by decisions that could be to my advantage or disadvantage but end up making no difference? For example, if I am drowning in a pool and you are deciding whether to save me or go buy yourself a candy bar, am I affected by your buying the candy bar? If I am not affected when no change occurs, then who is affected by a decision often depends on who participates in the decision and we have no solution to the problem of inclusion. If I am affected, then the principle has some quite extraordinary implications. Now it turns out that impoverished persons in South Asia are affected by my buying a candy bar, since I could have sent the money to them (Goodin 2007).

The all-affected principle is a merely suggestive and rhetorically effective phrase. It is a conversation starter and a list of topics to be discussed, not a genuine principle. For example, if I must include everyone possibly affected by my decision for every decision I make, I will not be able to make many decisions and my decision making will no longer enable me to give a shape to my own life and my relations with others. My life becomes fragmented and lacks integrity (Williams 1973). An analog of this problem would arise for political societies, presumably. Each society would have to include a variety of different persons in each decision. It is hard to see how any society could take on any particular character if this is the case.

A more plausible principle that encompasses some of the suggestions of the all-affected principle is that a framework of institutions should be set up so that people have power to advance and protect their legitimate interests in life.

But if we understand the principle in this way, it is not clear that it helps us much with the boundary problem. First of all, there are different ways in which people can be said to possess power over their lives. One kind of power is the power to participate as an equal in a collective decision-making process. Another kind is to be able to advance one’s interests in a decentralized process like a market or a system of agreement making like international law. Recalling our pollution problem above, we could give the state of which they are members power to negotiate with the polluting state terms that are mutually agreeable. Only the power to participate as an equal in collective decision-making involves the boundaries of collective decision-making.

Another solution to the boundary problem is a conservative one. The basic idea is to keep the boundaries of states roughly as they are except if there is a pressing need to change them. Trying to alter the boundaries of political societies is a recipe for serious conflict because there is no institution that has the legitimacy or power actually to resolve problems at an international level and there is likely to be a lot of disagreement on how to do it. States as we know them, are by far the most powerful political entities in the international system. They have developed more effective practices of accountability of power than any other entity in the system. They have created unified societies with highly interdependent populations. Finally, states and the individuals in them can be made accountable to some degree to other individuals and states through the process of negotiation and international law making. The origin of these boundaries may be arbitrary, but it is not, for all that, irrelevant. To be sure, there are clear cases where borders can be changed. One source of pressing need is serious injustice within a country. Another might be the existence of permanent minorities that are sectionally defined. Here, we ask only how to revise boundaries and the basis of such revision is that it is a remedy for serious injustice (Buchanan 1991).

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authority | citizenship | civil disobedience | constitutionalism | egalitarianism | equality | Hobbes, Thomas | justice | justification, political: public | legitimacy, political | liberty: positive and negative | Locke, John | Mill, John Stuart | Plato | -->pluralism --> | political obligation | publicity | public reason | Rawls, John | representation, political | rights | Rousseau, Jean Jacques | rule of law and procedural fairness | voting

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19 Social Democracy

Dr Ben Jackson, University College, Professor Archie Brown, St. Antony’s College Oxford

• Published: 16 December 2013
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Social democracy has often been seen as a pragmatic compromise between capitalism and socialism. This chapter shows that social democracy is in fact a distinctive body of political thought: an ideology which prescribes the use of democratic collective action to extend the principles of freedom and equality valued by democrats in the political sphere to the organization of the economy and society, chiefly by opposing the inequality and oppression created by laissez-faire capitalism. The chapter makes this case by examining three distinct eras in the development of social democratic ideas: the emergence of social democracy in the decades before the Second World War; the so-called ‘golden age’ of social democracy between 1945 and 1970; and the period of social democratic retreat from 1970 until the present.

Introduction

Born in an era of sharp ideological polarities and intense social conflicts, social democracy has often been seen as a pragmatic compromise between capitalism and socialism. 1 As Leszek Kołakowski has put it: ‘The trouble with the social-democratic idea is that it does not stock or sell any of the exciting ideological commodities which totalitarian movements—communist, fascist, or leftist—offer dream-hungry youth’. Instead of an ‘ultimate solution for all human misfortune’ or a ‘prescription for the total salvation of mankind’, said Kołakowski, social democracy offers merely ‘an obstinate will to erode by inches the conditions which produce avoidable suffering, oppression, hunger, wars, racial and national hatred, insatiable greed and vindictive envy’ ( Kołakowski 1982 : 11). These evocative words give us some initial orientation in understanding social democratic ideology, but they leave indeterminate the source of the suffering and oppression that social democrats have sought to erode. Historically, they have given a relatively precise account of this: social democrats have opposed the power of unregulated market forces to sweep away community bonds, create inequality, and entrench economic tyranny. Social democracy has been above all an effort to constrain, and assert democratic control over, the commodifying power of markets. As Karl Polanyi put it: ‘Socialism is, essentially, the tendency inherent in an industrial civilisation to transcend the self-regulating market by consciously subordinating it to a democratic society’ ( Polanyi 2001 [1944] : 242). Provisionally, therefore, social democracy can be defined as an ideology which prescribes the use of democratic collective action to extend the principles of freedom and equality valued by democrats in the political sphere to the organization of the economy and society, chiefly by opposing the inequality and oppression created by laissez-faire capitalism.

What would later be called ‘social democracy’ first emerged in the late nineteenth century in the labour movements of north-west Europe. Early non-European outposts were also established in Australia and New Zealand around the same time. In nations such as Britain, France, Germany, and Sweden, advocates of the interests of the working class inhabited polities that were characterized by rapid industrialization and the slow, inconsistent emergence of liberal constitutionalism and democratic citizenship. These circumstances created a complex structure of constraints and opportunities for labour movements that differed from those in southern or eastern Europe. In this relatively liberal environment, the politicized elements of the working class could build powerful political parties and trade unions to represent and protect their interests. Ultimately, it was hoped that such democratic collective action would lead to the abolition of the profound poverty and social oppression that working-class leaders saw as the ineluctable consequences of industrialization. The leaders and theorists of these movements, figures such as Keir Hardie, Jean Jaurès, Eduard Bernstein, and Hjalmar Branting, were influenced by a variety of ideological traditions, most obviously Marxism, but also progressive liberalism, republicanism, and ‘utopian’ socialism. They drew on all of these intellectual currents as they began to sketch the outlines of a social democratic political theory.

While important first approximations of this ‘revisionist’ socialism were articulated in the late nineteenth century by the Fabian Society and the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in Britain, and by the republican socialists led by Jaurès in France ( Tanner 1997 ; Berman 2006 : 28–35), the frankest and most influential theoretical case for social democracy in this period was made by Bernstein, who explicitly confronted the forces of Marxist orthodoxy led by Karl Kautsky within the German Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD). Bernstein’s ideas, most fully expressed in his 1899 book, The Preconditions of Socialism , laid the foundations for subsequent social democratic thinking by directly contesting the core doctrines of second international-era Marxism. The revisionist departure from this Marxism was in part epistemological. Bernstein was influenced by Kantian socialism, particularly the positivistic reading of Kant offered by the philosopher F. A. Lange, which limited scientific knowledge to empirically observable regularities rather than the sweeping predictive claims made by Marxists indebted to Hegel. Kantian socialism also prescribed a clearer distinction between fact and value than such Marxists were prepared to acknowledge, opening space for socialism as an ethical rather than a purely scientific project ( Kloppenberg 1986 : 224–38; Steger 1997 : 75–6, 98–119). Styling his revisionism an empiricist, anti-dogmatic stance, Bernstein invoked ‘Kant against cant’:

Social Democracy needs a Kant to judge the received judgment and subject it to the most trenchant criticism, to show where its apparent materialism is the highest and therefore most easily misleading ideology, and to show that contempt for the ideal and the magnifying of material factors until they become omnipotent forces of evolution is a self-deception which has been, and will be, exposed as such by the very actions of those who proclaim it ( Bernstein 1993 [1899] : 209).

After undertaking an analysis of the most recent empirical data, Bernstein argued that capitalism was not doomed to collapse of its own accord, as a result of inevitable internal crises and the immiseration of the mass of the population. On the contrary, he thought that capitalism had shown itself to be a flexible and adaptable economic system, capable of sustaining itself for the foreseeable future. While there was therefore no inevitability to the collapse of capitalism, continued Bernstein, it was certainly possible for significant modifications to be made to its structure through political action. Socialism, which Bernstein understood as ‘a movement towards, or the state of, a cooperative order of society’, could be advanced democratically, through the evolutionary enactment of legislative reforms ( Bernstein 1993 [1899] : 99). In this sense, Bernstein provocatively argued, ‘what is usually termed “the final goal of socialism”…is nothing to me, the movement is everything’ ( Bernstein 1898 : 168–9).

Bernstein was also sceptical of the doctrine of class struggle. In contrast to the traditional Marxist assumption that socialism required the working class to monopolize political power, he stressed that cross-class alliances would be necessary for socialists to enter government, and that socialism was in any case best seen as addressed to the people as a whole rather than as an ideology tethered to only one social group. In these senses, Bernstein presented social democracy as the ‘legitimate heir’ of liberalism, with its aim being ‘the development and protection of the free personality’. Whereas liberalism had historically fought against the legal constraints on individual freedom, social democracy sought to complete the struggle for liberty by releasing the individual ‘from any economic compulsion in his actions and choice of vocation’ ( Bernstein 1993 [1899] : 147, 150). Bernstein argued that in an advanced constitutional system, this could only be accomplished democratically, rather than through revolutionary violence. He defined democracy as ‘the absence of class government’: majority rule constrained by the need to protect the equal rights of each member of the community. Once the political rights of a propertied minority had given way to a broader franchise, Bernstein argued, it was the mass of the people themselves who had to be won over to socialism through positive political achievements. ‘You can overthrow a government, a privileged minority, but not a people’. It followed that ‘democracy is both means and end. It is a weapon in the struggle for socialism, and it is the form in which socialism will be realized’ ( Bernstein 1993 [1899] : 140–1, 204–5, 142). While it had been necessary to sweep away with force the rigid political institutions of feudalism, a flexible liberal constitutionalism could be deepened and expanded by the socialist movement without resorting to a revolutionary dictatorship ( Bernstein 1993 [1899] : 158).

Bernstein was not very precise about the policies and institutions that could advance a more cooperative society. But the ideas he did offer were characteristic of the emergent social democracy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was enthusiastic about the possibilities latent in co-operatives, municipal socialism, industrial organization by trade unions, and state regulation of the labour market (particularly the shortening of the working day). Although Bernstein was scathing about the claims of Marxists to predict the future demise of capitalism, he did in fact indulge in some future-gazing of his own. Like many revisionist socialists of this period, Bernstein believed that capitalism was slowly evolving towards a more social model of ownership as a result of the growing separation between ownership and control at the heart of the capitalist firm: companies, he noted, were increasingly run by salaried managers while the owners were dispersed shareholders. This would facilitate a gradual expansion of social ownership of the economy, as passive shareholders could be bought out by the state, though Bernstein was ambiguous about how extensive the socialized sector of the economy should eventually be ( Kloppenberg 1986 : 255–6). Bernstein was also cautious about the use of social spending to ameliorate capitalism; he ranked what would later be called the ‘welfare state’ as a helpful intervention, but ultimately secondary to more decisive policies intended to attack the source of poverty and inequality. He expressed scepticism about state aid to the unemployed, for example, which he feared might merely sanction a new form of pauperism ( Bernstein 1993 [1899] : 161).

Although Bernstein was very influential, his revisionism was initially unpopular and controversial among socialist intellectuals. But he gave theoretical expression to the practical orientation of many social democratic politicians and activists, who were less interested in theoretical debate about the character of socialism and more focused on the achievement of practical gains for their working class followers. Bernstein-style revisionism had greater currency within the labour movement after the First World War, as socialist parties began to mobilize considerable political support and found themselves on the cusp of power in many nations. The Russian revolution had established a clear distinction between two different forms of socialist struggle, the reformist and the revolutionary. In response, the socialist parties of north-west Europe (and of Australia and New Zealand) were increasingly drawn towards reformism in practice, if not always in theory. Before the Second World War, however, the experience of such parties in government was for the most part short-lived and ineffective. In Britain, France, and Germany, notionally socialist parties endured traumatic periods in government. Faced by economic crisis and ultimately depression, these parties had few intellectual resources to draw upon as they found themselves fighting capitalist crises armed only with socialist rhetoric. But more encouraging news came from Sweden, as has often been the case in the history of social democracy. The Swedish Socialdemokratiska Arbetarepartiet (SAP) was in office more or less continuously from 1932. Under their leader Per Albin Hansson and innovative finance minister Ernst Wigforss, the SAP built a durable cross-class political coalition that pioneered counter-cyclical economic policies and introduced a range of social welfare measures ( Tilton 1990 : 39–69; Sassoon 1996 : 42–6; Berman 2006 : 152–76). Sweden was a harbinger of the form that a successful social democratic politics might take given the right social conditions and sufficient political imagination.

By the outbreak of the Second World War, then, the parameters of social democratic ideology had been established. First, social democrats were committed to parliamentary democracy rather than violent insurrection or direct democracy. This not only meant that social democrats saw peaceful, constitutional methods as the best means of reforming capitalism, but also that they saw a system of parliamentary representation as the most plausible form of democratic government and the mass party as the best vehicle for aggregating and advancing their political objectives. These democratic commitments meant that in the early twentieth century social democrats often led the struggle to expand the franchise to all men and women. Second, social democrats tailored their electoral appeals to the ‘people’ as a whole and not simply to one social class. From its inception, social democracy has been understood by its advocates as aiming at the construction of cross-class coalitions. A form of ‘social patriotism’ has dominated social democratic political discourse, which presented economic redistribution as synonymous with the national interest. As Per Albin Hansson famously argued in 1928, the Swedish social democrats sought to establish Sweden as a ‘people’s home’ ( folkhemmet ) where ‘no one looks down upon anyone else…and the stronger do not suppress and plunder the weaker’ (quoted in Tilton 1990 : 127). Third, social democrats believed that it was primarily through legislation and government policy that this vision of an egalitarian society would be realized (for further discussion of these three points, see Esping-Andersen 1985 : 4–11; Przeworski 1985 ).

Animating all three of these basic social democratic assumptions was a political theory that affirmed core liberal ideals of liberty, equality, and community, but emphasized that these goals remained purely formal without radical reform to a capitalist system that concentrated ownership and economic power in the hands of a few; created massive disparities in the distribution of resources and opportunities; and permitted the interests of employers to dominate the sphere of production ( Kloppenberg 1986 : 277–97; Jackson 2007 : 17–90). Ideologically, social democracy married the classical democratic ideals of liberals and republicans to new insights into the social interdependence of individuals and the capacity of collective action to protect individuals from the consequences of unhindered market forces ( Freeden 2003 : 10–20). As a result, social democratic thinking was close to, or even overlapped with, the most advanced liberal political theory of the early twentieth century ( Clarke 1978 ; Freeden 1986 : 177–328; Kloppenberg 1986 ). Strategically, social democracy drew on the mobilizing energies of new social movements such as trade unions and co-operatives, but harnessed them to an emphasis on electoral politics as the arena in which democratic principles and the market could be reconciled.

The most effective policies to advance social democratic ideals remained an open question in 1939. Many social democrats remained convinced that some form of social ownership of capital, and ultimately a fully socialized economy, was the only sure way of taming the market. The policy instruments that would later become synonymous with social democracy, and had been pioneered in Sweden in the 1930s, had yet to be firmly established in the minds and hearts of many social democratic politicians, intellectuals, and activists.

The three decades following the Second World War are often seen as a ‘golden age’ for social democracy. This label is contestable—for one thing it overestimates how electorally successful social democratic parties were in this period—but it nonetheless captures an important change in the terms of political trade in the industrialized democracies as they recovered from the trauma of six years of unprecedented violence and destruction. The radical social patriotism engendered by total war against fascism proved extremely influential on decisions about the character of postwar reconstruction. Anxious memories of the unregulated capitalism of the 1930s—and the hardship and political extremism that it fostered—cemented a widespread desire to build a more stable and just social settlement. The importance of the state in coordinating the war effort demonstrated that the capacity existed to exercise greater control over the market. And new economic thinking provided policy-makers with the technical tools needed to guide state power.

The sources of this new thinking were not uniformly social democratic: liberal and Christian Democratic ideas were also important in shaping the new ideological context. William Beveridge and John Maynard Keynes, probably the most famous architects of postwar reconstruction, saw themselves as progressive liberals. But while social democracy was only one important ideological current among others after the War, the terrain over which political battles were now fought was much more congenial for the democratic left. Basic social democratic aspirations, such as full employment, fair shares, and labour market regulation, had been installed as the lexicon of high political debate. With the ascent of Keynesian economics, redistribution, public spending, and progressive taxation all acquired greater economic credibility. As Przeworski has pointed out, Keynesianism was ‘a theory that suddenly granted a universalistic status to the interests of workers’: measures that benefited the working class could now be portrayed as beneficial to society as a whole, because they would lead to greater consumption and hence higher economic growth ( Przeworski 1985 : 37). And the issue agenda that unfurled from the writings of Beveridge and Keynes modified and sharpened those strands of social democratic thought that had been reliant on imprecise socialist rhetoric before the War.

The first item on this agenda evident after 1945 was the creation of ‘social citizenship’ through what would become known as the ‘welfare state’. As the British sociologist T. H. Marshall observed, the postwar welfare state gave citizens new rights to material resources and social services that complemented and reinforced the civil and political rights acquired in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Marshall argued that in Britain and other industrialized democracies, universal access to health care, housing, education, and social insurance had now become regarded as an integral part of a citizen’s package of rights. Marshall concluded that the key break-through achieved by the welfare state was that citizens now possessed rights to material resources irrespective of their success or otherwise in the labour market ( Marshall 1950 ). The status of equal citizenship—and the needs of the citizen—trumped the class inequalities thrown up by the market. This notion of allocation on the basis of need, or decommodification ( Esping-Andersen 1990 : 21–3), was a familiar one in social democratic thinking, and it shaped how the welfare state was assimilated into postwar social democratic ideology. While the welfare state was also nurtured by Christian Democrats, conservatives, and liberals, the distinctive social democratic vision of welfare was universal in scope and egalitarian in its distributive objectives. Rather than providing a residual safety net only for the poorest, social democrats sought to provide services and income that encompassed all sections of society. As later became apparent, this aspect of the social democratic welfare state, when considered in isolation, could be in tension with the egalitarian distributive objectives the welfare state was said to advance. Greater progressivity in the tax system was therefore critical to ensuring that public spending on a universal welfare state could be maintained and that the overall distributive impact of taxation and spending was to narrow market-generated inequalities.

As Gøsta Esping-Andersen has observed, social democrats had in practice turned from the socialization of capital to the socialization of income flows as the primary focus of social democratic policy-making ( Esping-Andersen forthcoming) . The most advanced welfare states of the immediate postwar years—Britain and Sweden—were indeed built by social democratic governments: Labour from 1945 to 1951 and the SAP in the 1950s introduced institutions such as the British National Health Service or the Swedish earnings-related pension scheme, the ATP, which bound together a cross-class alliance in favour of collective social spending.

The shift of focus from socializing capital to socializing income flows was grounded on a second important change in social democratic thought after 1945: the reduced salience of the social ownership of capital to the attainment of social democratic objectives. While the public ownership of ‘natural’ monopolies or basic industrial infrastructure was supported by most social democrats in this period, party leaders and their allies now doubted that more expansive measures of nationalization were sufficient or even necessary ingredients of a social democracy. The success of the welfare state and progressive taxation appeared to show that egalitarian distributive goals could be advanced without recourse to such measures. Meanwhile the post-war economic boom, apparently nurtured by Keynesian economics, was taken as evidence that full (male) employment and economic stability could be maintained under a broadly market-based system, provided that the private sector was embedded within a framework of government regulation, and where necessary subject to state intervention. Expansionary fiscal policy, some social democrats now believed, could sustain economic demand during a downturn and prevent a return to the mass unemployment of the 1930s. It is doubtful whether the discretionary government policies conventionally labelled as ‘Keynesian’ in fact played an important role in stoking the postwar boom, but the rise of the welfare state and the associated growth of public spending probably did make a significant contribution to boosting aggregate demand and stabilizing the business cycle ( Glyn 1995 : 42).

Earlier generations of socialists had supported public ownership for one further reason: as a means of placing the democratic control of industry in the hands of the workers rather than the owners. Social democrats had always been uneasy about the most radical versions of this argument advanced by syndicalists or guild socialists. But they nonetheless agreed that the workplace should not be the privileged fiefdom of managers and owners, and hoped that the culture of the workplace might be reformed so that it was based on bargaining and negotiation rather than autocracy. The new capitalism that emerged in the 1940s and 1950s was believed by some social democrats to demonstrate that such reforms would be possible without resorting to outright public ownership. Indeed, it was argued by certain social democrats that ownership had actually become irrelevant to who controlled the workplace, on the grounds that there was a growing split in capitalist enterprises between ownership and control: firms were now run by a salaried management class while the owners were passive shareholders. This was not a new empirical insight—we have seen that Bernstein had already made a similar observation. But the conclusion that mid-twentieth-century revisionists drew from this sociological finding was quite different from their predecessors. Earlier revisionists had believed that the rise of the passive shareholder and the large corporation would make it relatively painless to buy out shareholders and substitute public for private ownership. But for later revisionists, the split between ownership and control signified that the real issue was not who owned a company—since this in fact seemed to be irrelevant to who controlled it—but rather how to secure greater democratic accountability within both private and public industrial organizations ( Brooke 1991 ; Sassoon 1996 : 246–7). Enhanced collective bargaining rights for trade unions, and the representation of workers in both industrial and political decision-making, could therefore be presented as an advance towards economic democracy, regardless of who actually owned the means of production.

In the wake of the Second World War, this corporatist style of economic management became embedded within the policy-making apparatus of the industrialized democracies, and it became a commonplace of social democratic rhetoric that organized labour helped to promote a stable democratic political culture. The introduction of constitutional government in industry through collective bargaining and other forms of workplace representation was said to act as a check on the accretion of totalitarian concentrations of power ( Clegg 1960 ; Jackson 2012 ).

But since this formula of ‘the welfare state plus Keynes plus corporatism’ had apparently made such remarkable progress in reducing economic hardship, narrowing class inequality, promoting full employment, and amplifying the democratic voice of workers, then the need to promote the public ownership of industry seemed correspondingly less urgent. Thinking through the implications of these developments led to a new bout of revisionism in social democratic circles in the 1950s and 1960s. The catalyst for this rethinking was often electoral—successive defeats for the SPD and the Labour Party in the 1950s meant that doctrinal iconoclasm was particularly feverish in West Germany and Britain—but the underlying issues were of real ideological substance. Confronted by the threat of the communist bloc, social democrats ostentatiously settled their accounts with Marxism, distancing themselves from a classical socialist outlook that prioritized collective ownership as the definitive socialist end goal. We have seen that Bernstein famously distinguished between socialist ends and means, suggesting that the means—by which he meant gradual reforms to capitalism—were of greater significance to him than the traditional socialist end goal, the ultimate attainment of a qualitatively different form of society. But in another sense Bernstein had also seen socialist means and ends as intertwined: the gradual reforms enacted through democratic procedures advanced the ethical objectives of socialism. This style of thinking about the relationship between means and ends became an important feature of the new social democratic revisionism of the 1950s. Socialist ends were portrayed as ethical ideals—such as ‘freedom, justice and solidarity’ in the SPD’s famous 1959 Bad Godesberg programme—which could then be advanced through a variety of different means, with the precise selection of policies that could best advance these ends left as a pragmatic matter, dependent on political conditions ( SPD 1959 : 7). What were once seen as short-term objectives on the road to a qualitatively different form of society—a more equal distribution of wealth, stable economic growth, full employment—were now said to be exhaustive of the ambitions of social democracy.

The most famous—and intellectually sophisticated—statement of this case was set out by the British Labour politician Anthony Crosland in his 1956 book, The Future of Socialism . Like Bernstein, Crosland aroused considerable opposition within his own party, but in the longer run his vision of social democracy proved to be highly influential in Britain, and accurate in its assessment of the future path of social democratic ideology in all of the industrialized democracies. Crosland set out to define a viable modern democratic socialism by distilling the aspirations that he thought had underpinned the most important intellectual currents on the British left over the previous 150 years or so. In Crosland’s view, British socialism was the legatee of an eclectic group of doctrines: the philosophy of natural law; Owenism; the labour theory of value (or Ricardian socialism); Christian socialism; Marxism; the theory of rent as unearned increment (J. S. Mill and Henry George); William Morris and anti-commercialism; Fabianism; the ethical socialism of the ILP; the welfare state or paternalist tradition; syndicalism and guild socialism; and the doctrine of planning (which included Keynes-style criticisms of free market capitalism). Reflecting on this legacy, Crosland concluded that the quintessential socialist aspirations should be seen as: first, a passion for liberty and democracy; second, a protest against the material poverty produced by capitalism; third, a concern for the interests of those in need or oppressed or just unlucky; fourth, a belief in equality and the classless society; fifth, a rejection of competition and an endorsement of ‘fraternal’ (his word) cooperation; and sixth, a protest against the inefficiencies caused by capitalism, particularly mass unemployment. From the sanguine perspective of the mid-1950s, Crosland concluded that the first of these objectives was shared across all parties in Britain, while the second and sixth had been rendered less relevant by the achievements of the 1945–51 Labour government. He was therefore left to claim the third (the promotion of the welfare of those in need); the fourth (equality), and the fifth (‘the cooperative ideal’) as the distinctive objectives of a modern democratic socialism. But Crosland was uncertain about the plausibility of cooperation as an ideal, for a mixture of practical and libertarian reasons, and focused instead on the promotion of equality and welfare as the core objectives of a revisionist socialism that could meet the challenges of the 1960s and 1970s ( Crosland 1964 [1956]: 43–80; Jackson 2007 : 169-76, 184-96).

Given these ‘ends’, Crosland argued that revisionists should be open to using a variety of different ‘means’ to advance them. Although sometimes portrayed as the arch-proponent of a ‘Keynesian welfare state’ route to social democracy, Crosland in fact supported a diverse and radical set of policies. He certainly favoured a strengthened welfare state and Keynesian demand management, but also emphasized the need for greater progressive taxation of wealth and further social ownership of capital, in the form of state investment funds holding shares in private industry rather than the wholesale public ownership of companies or industrial sectors ( Crosland 1964 [1956]: 224–46, 335–40; Jackson 2005 ). As Crosland argued:

State ownership of all industrial capital is not now a condition of creating a socialist society, establishing social equality, increasing social welfare, or eliminating class distinctions. What is unjust in our present arrangements is the distribution of private wealth; and that can as well be cured in a pluralist as in a wholly state-owned economy, with much better results for social contentment and the fragmentation of power ( Crosland 1964 [1956]: 340).

Although the twenty years or so after 1945 saw social democrats retreat yet further from classical socialist orthodoxy, they remained sharply critical of unfettered markets. They aimed to push forward from the institutional beachhead of the postwar welfare state to enhance redistributive spending on social welfare; reform schooling to reduce class inequalities in educational attainment; narrow wealth inequality through taxation; and strengthen the voice of workers in industry to dilute the control exercised by capitalists over economic life. Above all, social democracy offered a confidence that its gradual path towards helping the needy, advancing equality, and fostering solidarity was reaping irreversible social dividends that could only grow larger in the future. This confidence was not to last.

From Crisis to Crisis

In the 1970s, social democracy was engulfed by an ideological crisis, from which it has yet to recover fully. Social democratic ideas were placed on the defensive, and in some countries forced into an undignified retreat. The source of this crisis was in part sociological—shifts in economic and social structures undermined formerly fixed social democratic assumptions—but it was also political and intellectual: the post-1945 social democratic synthesis began to fray when subjected to testing scrutiny by a new and ingenious body of market liberal thinkers.

The sociological context for the late twentieth-century ordeal of social democracy was the maturation of the economies of the advanced industrialized nations, which brought with it a decline in the proportion of workers employed in manufacturing industries; an increase in employment in the service sector; a rise in female employment, particularly in service industries; and an increase in levels of material affluence and education. Alongside these quantifiable changes in social life came a more intangible cultural shift towards a widespread desire for greater individual freedom and self-expression, whether articulated via growing consumer purchasing power in the market, or in rebellion against social norms and institutions felt to constrain the individual ( Eley 2002 : 341–428; Kitschelt 1994 ). In such a context, the traditional outlook of social democracy appeared to be a doctrine oriented around manufacturing industry, a male breadwinner model of family life, hostility to the acquisition of consumer goods, and the defence of the impersonal bureaucratic institutions of the welfare state and trade unions.

The initial response to these challenges among many prominent social democrats was an enthusiasm for deepening the institutions of postwar social democracy. Influenced by the rise of a ‘New Left’ focused on economic democracy, gender equality, and ecological politics, social democracy was radicalized in the 1970s and early 1980s, adopting a renewed emphasis on the democratization of industry and the social ownership of capital ( Sassoon 1996 : 647–729). The global economic downturn of the early 1970s, and the accompanying distributive conflict and industrial unrest, persuaded some social democrats that this period of capitalist crisis could only be resolved by the application of more decisively socialist measures. The most striking example of this development came in Sweden, where the SAP sought to counteract industrial conflict by introducing greater workplace democracy and by socializing the ownership of capital ( Tilton 1990 : 223–35). This latter objective was rendered more concrete by the influential trade union economist Rudolf Meidner, who proposed that companies should set aside a proportion of their profits to be issued in new shares to collective social funds administered by the trade unions, on behalf of employees ( Meidner 1978 ). The Meidner plan (as it became known) was intended to compensate employees for the wage restraint imposed on workers by the Swedish model of full employment (and to redistribute the high corporate profits that resulted from this), but it also had broader implications: it sought to shift social democracy beyond the socialization of income flows towards the socialization of capital and democratic scrutiny of investment decisions. Meidner was in essence challenging the mid-century revisionist assumption that social ownership was less important for social democrats than social control exercised through the state. As Meidner put it:

We want to deprive the capitalists of the power that they exercise by virtue of ownership. All experience shows that it is not enough to have influence and control. Ownership plays a decisive role. I refer to Marx and Wigforss: we cannot fundamentally change society without changing its ownership structure (Meidner (1975), quoted in Pontusson 1987 : 14).

The Meidner plan proved too radical to put into practice. Although it was championed by the Swedish trade unions, it was defeated by a concerted counter-offensive by employers and a palpable lack of enthusiasm on the part of some of the SAP’s leadership. In this respect the Swedish case was emblematic of wider trends in social democratic thinking and policy-making. Across a number of nations, the New Left-inspired move towards industrial democracy and socialism ran out of steam in the early 1980s in the face of a capitalist backlash ( Glyn 2006 : 15–23). It became clear that the political blame for the sluggish growth, rising inflation, and obstreperous industrial relations of the 1970s would in fact be pinned on social democracy rather than capitalism. A ‘new right’ emerged, which deftly portrayed the crisis of the 1970s as the product of clumsy Keynesian intervention in the economy, over-mighty trade unions, and wasteful and efficiency-inhibiting levels of public expenditure. Although chiefly based in the English-speaking nations, this neoliberalism set the political agenda for the three decades after the 1980s across the globe: retrenchment, deregulation, and privatization became the hegemonic language of policy-making. This style of policy-making was advanced and rendered more powerful by its association with a set of deeper theories about the economy and the state. Neoliberal thinkers such as F. A. Hayek and Milton Friedman offered a critique of social democracy that sought to reinstate the market rather than politics as the primary arbiter of human fate: on their view, it was the free exchange between individuals promoted by markets that best realized liberty and self-expression, whereas the progressive expansion of the domain of democratic collective action had achieved only uniformity and coercion. Economic dynamism and growth, neoliberals argued, could only be restored by pushing back the intrusions of the state into the workings of the price mechanism and lessening the ‘burden’ of taxation that held back individuals from creating wealth. The persuasive power of neoliberalism was greatly strengthened by the growth in capital mobility during the 1980s and 1990s, which set new constraints on the policy-making autonomy of national governments, and enabled the financial markets to discipline governments thought to be pursuing policies disadvantageous to the owners of capital.

Although social democrats opposed much of this agenda, it nonetheless reshaped the terms of political debate and demanded a serious response. Neoliberalism had in effect triumphed as the most socially compelling set of ideas to respond to the social change and individualism of the late twentieth century. A new form of social democracy emerged, which sought to find an accommodation with neoliberalism and to harness the resurgent capitalism of the 1980s and 1990s to social democratic objectives. Although it seemed heretical at first, this new revisionism was not as novel as it initially appeared. Shaped as it was by the specialized intellectual culture of the late twentieth century, it lacked an authoritative theoretical statement of the sort provided in earlier generations by Bernstein or Crosland (there was a gulf between the closest analogue, Giddens 1998 , and the intellectual innovation, political influence, and durability of the books written by Bernstein and Crosland). Articulated largely amid the exigencies of day-to-day political warfare by politicians, journalists, and policy advisors, the new social democracy was viewed by many keepers of the social democratic faith as nothing more than an unprincipled abandonment of the social democratic tradition. But matters were more complex than this first impression suggested.

At the heart of the new revisionism lay an old social democratic theme: the relationship between economic efficiency and equality. As we have seen, in the ‘golden age’ an important part of the social democratic prospectus was that an economy organized around full employment, a strong welfare state, and a more egalitarian distribution of income would significantly improve on the productive efficiency of unregulated capitalism. Such a social democratic economy, it was argued, would increase economic growth by bringing idle productive resources into play, stabilizing the business cycle, and providing a skilled, healthy, and dynamic workforce for employers ( Andersson 2007 : 15–44; Pontusson 2011 : 91–8). The SAP famously crystallized this confluence between social democratic welfarism and capitalist entrepreneurship with the slogan ‘secure people dare’ ( Kielos 2009 : 63). A fresh attempt to find complementarities between social democratic and capitalist objectives underpinned the revisionism of the 1980s and 1990s, albeit in the face of a more self-confident and uncompromising capitalist elite. Two strands of social democratic statecraft were particularly prominent in this quest.

First, an acceptance of new constraints on what politics could achieve. The ruling neoliberal mentality—which stipulated that certain economic ‘laws’ ruled out intervention in the market—was absorbed in a diluted form into the social democratic bloodstream. Social democrats came to believe that economic credibility—in the eyes of both the electorate and the global financial markets—ruled out significant increases in progressive taxation, or the use of deficit financing, to pay for social benefits, while the pursuit of a rigorous anti-inflationary policy would have to be prioritized ahead of full employment. This was alternately presented as an immutable result of global economic integration, or a matter of political strategy to win the support of sceptical centrist voters and powerful economic elites. Either way, it represented a concession to the primacy of the market over democratic politics: the space for political action was believed to have narrowed when compared with the halcyon days of the ‘golden age’.

But the corollary of this was that the political space for social democracy had not been completely effaced: the scope of social democratic politics had been squeezed, but not destroyed, by the victories of neoliberalism. A second strand of social democratic thought offered a more familiar treatment of the ways in which greater equality might advance economic prosperity. Since Keynesian demand management in one country had apparently been ruled out, social democrats appropriated the neoliberal emphasis on reforming the supply-side of the economy. But social democrats sought to harness this discourse to traditional social democratic objectives: their aim was to increase employment and productivity through the investment of public resources in education, training, active labour market programmes, infrastructure, and research and development. This would create what Giddens termed ‘the social investment state’: a state that used public resources to foster a dynamic economy ( Giddens 1998 : 99–100). As we have seen, this was not a new idea—in Sweden at any rate something like this philosophy had informed the policy architecture of Swedish social democracy during the ‘golden age’—but it served a useful political purpose by challenging the stark antagonism between public spending and economic growth diagnosed by neoliberals.

In addition to this form of supply-side social democracy, the reduction of economic inequality and poverty through the welfare state and labour market regulation remained a social democratic priority. But these objectives were also recast in response to the late twentieth-century social landscape: the emphasis shifted to the provision of in-work benefits to help reduce unemployment and provide incentives for low-paid workers to stay in the labour market, while supporting female participation in the workforce became a much higher priority for social democratic policy-makers ( Vandenbroucke 2001 : 161–3). Significant progress on this latter objective had been made in Scandinavia from the 1970s onwards. Other social democratic movements were slower to absorb the fundamental feminist insight that each individual should be free to combine both paid and care work. But it slowly percolated into the mainstream of social democratic political thought over the course of the 1980s and 1990s. Social democracy shifted away from the classical ‘golden age’ model of full male employment towards an ideal of gender equality that would be advanced through new welfare institutions that socialized the provision of childcare and created career structures for men and women that were more hospitable to participation in family life.

This neo-revisionism carved out some space for a recognizably social democratic accommodation with neoliberalism: an acceptance of the deregulated markets that constituted late twentieth-century capitalism coupled with the use of the state to equalize access to those markets and to ameliorate their inequalities. But the traditional language of social democracy was undoubtedly attenuated in the process. A narrower understanding of economic efficiency as synonymous with private economic gain supplanted an earlier social democratic vocabulary of the public good ( Judt 2009 ). Meanwhile, social democratic egalitarianism drew to a greater extent than earlier on ideas about personal responsibility and equality of opportunity, although the social democratic deployment of these ideas was intended to subvert the market-based understandings of liability and merit articulated by neoliberals ( Franklin 1997 ; Vandenbroucke 2001 : 170–2). And as with earlier social democratic accommodations to capitalism, this neo-revisionist programme was premised on capitalism itself delivering economic growth and tax revenues which could be directed towards social democratic (but also efficiency-enhancing) ends. The financial crisis of 2008 was therefore as much a blow to this vision of social democracy as it was to the neoliberal architects of resurgent late twentieth-century capitalism. As a market crisis mutated into a crisis of the state, the discourse of fiscal retrenchment once more gained the political ascendancy. The slow, testing work of building a fresh social democratic revisionism suitable for new times had to commence once again.

‘I have often compared socialism to the heart’, wrote Jean Jaurès in 1907. ‘It has, like the heart, pulsations, rhythm, alternate movements of expansion and contraction’ (quoted in Kloppenberg 1986 : 296). As we have seen, Jaurès’s powerful image resonates with the subsequent history of social democratic ideology—its heroic moments of political creativity, its grubby compromises in the face of implacable circumstances, its outright defeats. Social democratic political thought has offered what Ernst Wigforss described as a ‘provisional utopia’: ‘visions of social conditions different from those that surround us’ but ‘developed with sufficient concreteness that they can stand out as conceivable alternatives to the given reality or to other models of the future’ (quoted in Tilton 1990 : 44). Such provisional utopianism connects the more mundane day-to-day political battles to a larger vision and set of ideals, yet remains open to revising that vision in the light of future experience. As Kołakowski has observed, this mix of idealism and empiricism ‘has invented no miraculous devices to bring about the perfect unity of men or universal brotherhood’ ( Kołakowski 1982 : 11). But it has influenced the political trajectory of many nations, and in doing so transformed the life chances of many millions of people. By inserting and protecting egalitarian and communitarian domains within broadly capitalist economies, and representing the interests of the disadvantaged in political systems formerly monopolized by the rich, social democracy has gone some way towards making the rhetoric of democratic liberty and equality a lived, and attractive, reality.

I am grateful to Zofia Stemplowska for helpful comments on this essay. Parts of the introduction and the first section of this essay were previously published in Ben Jackson 2008 . ‘Social Democracy’. Pp. 606–13 in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics , 2nd edn, eds. S. Durlauf and L. Blume. Basingstoke: Palgrave. This text is reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan.

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Is There a Future for Social Democracy in an Era of Globalisation?

Debating whether or not there is a future for social democracy in an ‘era of globalisation’ assumes that globalisation, as a process or an endpoint at which we have already arrived, is an accurate description of the current inter-national economic order. This essay hopes to prove that in considering the impact of ‘globalisation’, the literature on the future of social democracy is failing to grasp the actual pressures on social democracy. These pressures stem more clearly from processes of economic regionalisation, as well as other demographic and ideational factors. Moreover, despite these pressures, not only is there a future for social democracy in the changing political economy, but as Europe’s economies face its worst economic crisis for several decades it seems that social democracy is needed.

Too often have misconceived or caricatured definitions of social democracy been invoked in order to prove its demise, and so this essay will seek to define the terms of social democracy in relation to a set of ethical imperatives. Defining social democracy in relation to historical mechanisms, or any culturally or nationally specific features of social democracy, has led to rigid conceptualisations which are unfavourable in the contemporary European political economy. The case study ofSwedenwill be looked at in detail also, asSwedenhas long been cited as evidence that not even the bastions of traditional social democracy can exist in ‘an era of globalisation’. However, as will be exposed, the Swedish case only serves to provide evidence that globalisation bears no relation to Swedish social democracy.

The future of social democracy in the United Kingdom, a country noted for its lack of encompassing labour market institutions, and its liberal market economy, will then briefly be considered. What becomes clear is that there are constraints on social democracy, but the nature of these constraints needs to be reconsidered. Too readily has globalisation been accepted as an almost complete process, and in accepting it so easily globalisation has become a ‘convenient alibi’ (Hay and Watson 1999: 424) for the challenges posed to social democracy, undermining any potential of social democratic politics to survive.

Definitions                                  

The terms on which social democratic politics are defined has an unerring impact on the outcome of debate over the future of social democracy, with many misconceived or unimaginative definitions of the concept serving to undermine its continuing relevance and importance. In clarifying what should be understood as social democratic politics, this essay is not attempting to conjure a radical departure from previous conceptions of the term, but show a relevant and modern use of the term.

It is of course true that for the past three decades social democracy has faced a challenge to redefine itself, or repackage itself as something electorally viable. As Andrew Gamble and Tony Wright note, ‘social democratic thought has to renew itself in every generation if it is to remain relevant and practical’ (Gamble and Wright 1999: 5-6). The relevance of social democracy was questioned by Anthony Giddens, and led to the emergence of his Third Way (Giddens 1998), which, especially in Britain under New Labour, has only served to support neo-liberal assumptions regarding changes to the political economy. Furthermore, Giddens’ conceptualisation of social democracy was, purposefully or not, dismissive. Giddens’ rhetoric lends itself to the criticism of social democracy.  Giddens’ suggests that ‘the welfare state has two objectives: to create a more equal society, but also to protect individuals across the life cycle’ (Giddens 1998:10),  and whilst undeniably the case, this essay suggests that social democratic politics and the welfare state can offer more. Giddens’ feelings, however, are summarised by his assessment that the welfare state ‘today creates almost as many problems as it resolves’ (Giddens 1998:16). The Third Way conceives of social democracy as no longer relevant, but it builds itself around a fallen straw-man of post-War statist social democracy.

Giddens’ narrow conceptualisation of the welfare state, the engine of social democracy, refuses to acknowledge any possible utility of the system in relation to capital. As Paul Hirst notes, this ‘caricatures’ social democracy as statist and bureaucratic. Yet, if this caricature is stripped away we can view social democracy as the original third way between laissez-faire capitalism and state socialism (Hirst 1999: 86-7). This is the point at which this essay will derive its conceptualisation of social democracy. However, this does not mean that social democracy has to be seen as ‘a series of compromises’ (Moene and Wallerstein 1995: 185), but rather as a remedy to market failings. Social democracy should be able to comprehend the improvements that markets can bring to society, without forgetting the protections needed to make those improvements worthwhile for the majority. Importantly, however, social democracy must not be defined in purely institutional terms. It seems both proponents and opponents of social democracy have been guilty of confining social democratic politics to the practises of a bygone era. Using this definition has allowed for some, such as Andrew Glyn, to point incorrectly to ‘the inherent difficulties of the social democratic project’ (Glyn 1998: 1). Even proponents of social democratic politics have unwittingly justified fears surrounding economic change by underlining the need for encompassing labour-market institutions (see Garrett 1998; and Hay’s commentary 2000). Their definitions serve only to undermine social democracy’s future.

Instead, what is necessary, and what will inform the discussion in this essay, is a view social democracy as a series of ethical imperatives. These imperatives, such as defending welfare provision, and regulating markets, help preserve the legacy of social democratic politics, whilst freeing it from the weight of historical mechanisms, and allows for the concept to redefine itself in a changing political-economy.

Globalisation

The ‘orthodox’ view surrounding social democracy’s future in an ‘era of globalisation’ comes from what Hay describes as the ‘airport lounge/business school’ globalisation literature (Hay 2004: 233). Pauline Kurzer’s ideas are representative of this view; Kurzer asserts that an understanding between labour, government and business has broken down because ‘business and capital have outgrown the institutional boundaries of the nation-state and national working-class organizations’ (Kurzer 1993: 251). Increasing levels of financial integration globally, Kurzer argues, has ‘made every high-spending government vulnerable to financial asset holders’, as they will invest in other, more stable, currencies if the government proposes increases in budget spending or lower interest rates due to expectations of increased inflation. The greater mobility of these financial asset holders in a globalised world, ‘constrains expansionary policy action, which hurts social democratic governments more than conservative ones’ (Kurzer 1993: 252).

The prevalence of this understanding of globalisation within the literature is clear, yet it is a concept which does not lend itself favourably to social democracy’s future, and so it is important to question the compliant nature of the acceptance of this globalisation thesis. In much of the literature on social democracy and its future, there is often a tacit acceptance of globalisation, and an acceptance that the state is ‘structurally dependent on capital’, as Adam Przeworski and Michael Wallerstein (1988) map out in their influential work. For example, Moses believes since the collapse of the Bretton Woods order, ‘and the rapid development of international short-term capital movements, the environment has changed in such a way that traditional social democratic instruments are no longer effective’ (Moses 1994: 133). Similarly, others point out that the global freedom of capital causes a greater threat of capital exit, which undermines the economic foundations of social democracy (Gray 1997: 23; Huber and Stephens 1998: 389). Capital is understood as ‘globalised’ and ‘disconnected’, which weakens the nation-state and its ability to implement economic policies such as Keynesianism (Giddens 1998: 30-31), prompting Giddens to ask what social democracy’s orientation can be, ‘in a world where there are no alternatives to capitalism?’ (Giddens 1998: 24). Absolute confidence in the globalisation thesis, therefore, clearly has the effect of condemning social democracy’s future.

Geoffrey Garrett ( 1998) achieved a considerable amount in proving that social democracy could not only survive, but flourish, under conditions of economic globalisation. Garrett’s empirical analysis highlights a bipolar convergence trend, suggesting that international capital markets tend to favour economies that were at either end of the social market or liberal market spectrum, as opposed to ‘incoherent economies’ (Garrett 1998) .   Garrett’s model, whilst an important contributor to the conclusion of this essay, that social democracy has a future in a changing inter-national economy, does not, however, challenge the orthodox view that globalisation is incontrovertibly occurring, and as Hay notes, ‘only marginally modifies the narrow economistic logic of more orthodox “globaloney”’ (Hay 2000: 138).

Simply accepting globalisation often produces a paradox within the literature. For example, David Coates’ firstly suggests that the UK’s New Labour government in 1997 inherited a low-wage economy surrounded by prosperous neighbours, which made ‘foreign direct investors keen to build in the United Kingdom and sell into Europe’ , so long as the economy ‘remained in its existing place in the international order of things’ (Coates 2001: 303, emphasis added). Yet, within the same breath he asserts that ‘New Labour also inherited an increasingly globalised economy’ and that globalisation was to blame for squeezing the space for social reform (Coates 2001: 303, emphasis added). The confusion between higher levels of trade between nations in specific regional patterns and ‘globalisation’ is profuse in the literature, with Giddens’ even trying to reinforce the notion that globalisation ‘is misunderstood if it is only applied to connections that are literally world-wide’ (Giddens 1998: 30). However, whilst globalisation might not necessarily involve trade between every city around the globe, the empirical data actually reinforces an observation of ‘de-globalisation’.

On almost every front the arguments suggesting a trend towards a more global economy can be refuted. For example, domestic capital markets still provide some 90 per cent of national investment (Hirst 1999: 88), and whilst international capital mobility has increased dramatically during the last three decades years, ‘its present level is comparable to the situation before the Great Depression’ (Notermans 1997: 203). Trade openness too shows clearly that there has been no real trend towards globalisation. As a ratio of trade to GDP, the UK, the Netherlandsand Japanare all less open than they were before 1914, whilstFrance andGermany are only fractionally more open (Hirst and Thompson 1999: 27). Moreover, using more recent data, Hay’s ‘gravity model’ shows that out of eleven cases considered only Finland shows signs of ‘globalising’, with the rest showing ‘clear and consistent de-globalization’ (Hay 2004: 249). Even when levels of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) are taken into account, the picture is still not one of a globalising world, but of investment ‘highly concentrated among the advanced industrial economies’ (Hirst and Thompson 1999: 2). Indeed, a growing majority ofEurope’s FDI is both sourced and invested within the European Union (Hay 2004: 251-2). It is important to remember also, that capital ‘is not blessed with perfect information’ (Hay 2004: 235), and that the cost of capital flight can never be zero when costs of relocation, building and training are considered.

The significance of this definitional point is, as Hay asserts, that ‘one would be hard pressed to suggest that globalisation explains the constraints beleaguered social democrats have come to internalise’ (Hay 2002: 459). Rather it is important to look to different patterns of trade to explain the pressures on social democracy, such as a trend towards ‘Europeanisation’, or more generally ‘Triadisation’, as Hirst and Thompson name it (Hirst and Thompson 1999). The contention that globalisation is not inevitable, and indeed, not actually occurring, is of fundamental importance with regards to the question of the future of social democracy in an ‘era of globalisation’; the continuing focus on globalisation in debates over the future of social democracy serves only to mislead those attempting to rehabilitate social democratic politics.

The Swedish Model

Sweden, a traditional bastion of social democratic politics, has often been cited as a model on which to analyse the processes of globalisation’s effects. The fall ofSweden’s Social Democratic Party, it has been argued, constitutes evidence that the power the international currency and bond markets have ‘is now sufficient to interdict any such expansionist policies that might be embarked upon by any sovereign nation-state’ (Gray 1997: 23).Swedennow, apparently, needs to maintain confidence in the financial markets and international investors ‘leery of public sector growth’ (Gamble and Wright 1999: 2; Moses 1994: 139). The country’s social democratic institutions ‘were designed for an environment which no longer exists’ (Moses 1994: 126). Given the significance of social democracy to Sweden’s political economy, John Gray argues, it’s downfall has implications ‘for social market economies everywhere’ (Gray 1999: 92).

The position of the Swedish Social Democrats continues to be plagued by fears over their economic record, a significant factor in keeping the liberal conservative Moderate Party in power (The Economist 2011). However, to break from the conventional understanding of the Swedish model, upon analysis it becomes clear that globalisation does not feature in the demise of the Swedish Social Democrats. Sweden is not a paradigmatic case of social democratic failure, as distinctive internal macroeconomic failings, including a ‘credit-fuelled and inflationary consumer boom that followed the precipitate loosening of credit controls in the mid-1980s’, were far more significant than changes in the global economy. [1] Sweden’s large public sector could not have been the reason for its poor economic performance and subsequent demise of the Social Democrats, either; for, if public expenditure did lead to poor economic performance and capital flight, then Denmark, with public expenditure at 63.8 per cent in 1993 and taxes at 51.6 per cent of GDP in 1995, ‘ought to be finished’ (Hirst 1999: 91).

The foundations of the Swedish collapse can, rather, be attributed to the Scandinavian dependency on the German economy. Deflation was ‘effectively transposed’ from Germany to the Scandinavian economies as a result of a drop in demand for exports and a rise in unemployment as a result, a process compounded by German  interest rate rises being transmitted onto the fixed-rate economies of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in Scandinavia (Hay 2004: 256). The openness and high trade integration levels of Scandinavian economies compounded this problem, allowing these pressures to be exerted onto the Swedish economy. As Hay notes, the Swedish economy ‘would have proved far less prone to the contagious deflation associated with both German reunification and the Maastricht convergence criteria’ had it been more global in its trade and investment interdependencies (Hay 2004: 255).

The deflationary trend which undermined social democratic politics to a large extent in Swedenwas therefore a consequence of ‘high levels of regional and sub-regional economic interdependence’ (Hay 2004: 256), and not, as the orthodox view suggests, globalisation. Rather than being the inevitable consequence of the process of globalisation, this period in Sweden’s history is marked by macroeconomic policy failings; yet, the economic credibility of the Social Democrats remains fragile (The Economist 2011) whilst the electorate continue to understand their economy to be competing globally. As Hay notes, ideational factors pose very real constraints on social democratic parties, and this is precisely what we witness in the Swedish case. [2]

The Swedish economy has undoubtedly become more restrictive since the early 1990s; however, even today the prowess of social democratic policies can be witnessed (Callaghan and Tunney 2000: 71). As Pontusson details, the Swedish economy’s ‘liberalisation’ has been a much more ‘targeted or “asymmetric”’, distinct from the across-the-board liberalisation of Thatcher’s Britain, and has been largely successful due to the safeguards social democratic policies have given the Swedish population (Pontusson 2011: 107). A high level of public investment in families and educations since the 1970s has ‘contributed to the strong performance of the Nordic economies in the 1990s and 2000s’, through a shift into knowledge-intensive industries, with the World Economic Forum rating Sweden as the second most “networked economy” globally (Pontusson 2011: 107). Social democracy has afforded Swedena diverse and strong infrastructure that has helped it to recover from a deflationary slump in the 1990s and reorganise itself as a strong economy today. Yet, the widely held belief that social democracy has faltered asSweden moved into a ‘globalised era’ has kept the Social Democrats unelectable.

Two clear lessons can be taken from the previous analysis. Firstly, it is clear that the premise of globalisation, on which much of the debate surrounding social democracy is based, must be reconsidered. Secondly, drawing on the Swedish experience, there are clear advantages offered by social democratic policies, even in an era which is falsely described as ‘globalised’. It is important here to show just how these policies could be utilised to a greater extent. By looking briefly at the United Kingdom, and drawing upon the previously established definition of social democracy, it is possible to show how social democracy can work even in an economy with ‘no tradition of encompassing labour market institutions’ (Hay 2000:145).

Social democrats in theUKface an uphill battle to vie electorally, the result of a host of ideational, as well as demographic and historical factors. Arguably social democracy has become politically weaker inBritain, ‘precisely because most of its opponents have accepted its most basic precepts: the need for universal education, socialised health care and tax-funded welfare’ (Kellner 2010). Yet, with the Global Financial Crisis gripping theUKeconomy, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government’s austerity measures contrast with the current Swedish government’s fiscal policies, which have proven successful in shielding their economy from such pressures (see OECD 2011).

As Sheri Berman highlights, the economic results generated by markets bring dramatic material improvements to living standards, yet, without social protections and regulation, ‘capitalism’s benefits would have been infinitely more difficult to achieve’ (Berman 2011: 46). Berman argues that the Swedish case shows social welfare and economic dynamism ‘are not enemies but natural allies’ (Berman 2011: 47). Indeed, the shift into more a more knowledge-intensive economy that high levels of public spending made possible in Sweden, is not only being called upon by business leaders in the UK, but there are examples of potential capital flight occurring precisely because the British workforce is not highly educated enough (Siburn 2011; Paton 2012) – contrary to the globalisation thesis’ view of a ‘race to the bottom’. Moreover, the value of the welfare system needs to be refocused, in contrast to Giddens’ narrow view that it ‘creates almost as many problems as it resolves’. For example, the public provision of benefits can ‘facilitate labor mobility across firms and across sectors of the economy and thereby provide for a more efficient labour force’ (Pontusson 2011: 92). This shows that social democratic policies are relevant to modern business structures, and that social democracy need not only benefit ‘patient capital’, but can even meet the demands of ‘footloose’ investment (Pontusson 2011: 90).

Accepting the globalisation thesis as it has been presented is to accept the diminished power of sovereign governments. For neo-liberals this has been welcomed as an inevitability, whilst for social democrats and the Left more generally, there is a ‘grudging acceptance of what is considered undesirable but inevitable’ (Notermans 1997: 232). However, empirical data has proven that it is the process of economic regional integration, and not globalisation, which is shaping inter-national economies, and therefore impacting upon social democracy.

Even considering this fact, the danger of accepting the need for restrictive policies as an effect of international capital flows is that it ‘deflects attention from the real problem and perpetuates a restrictive regime even at times when the labor market situation does not require it’ (Notermans 1997: 232). The Swedish model proves this to be the case. For the past two decades or more, a consensus surrounding the fall of the Swedish Social Democrats has been self-perpetuating. Their economic credibility has been undermined, whilst the reality is that the Swedish economy has been largely shielded from economic crisis by the Keynesian principles of social democracy. The Swedish model also highlights how high levels of welfare provision and investment in education can have both positive long term and short-term effects for business and capital, and it is from this perspective that an economy such as theUKcould utilise social democratic policies successfully.

This analysis, hopefully, goes some way to proving that the restraints supposedly placed on social democracy by ‘globalisation’ are misconceived and can be damaging. Moreover, that defining social democracy in purely institutional terms condemns social democracy to a bleak future. As the Swedish case proves, there needs to be a reconsideration of the nature of the pressures on social democracy, because then it becomes clearer just how social democracy can benefit economies. It is apparent that social democracy can have a significant future in the changing inter-national economy, but first, importantly, the terms on which the debate is formed must be reconsidered.

Bibliography

Berman, S. (2011) ‘Social Democracy’s Past and Potential Future’, in J. Cronin, G. Ross and J. Shoch (eds.) What’s Left of the Left? ,Durham,NC: Duke University Press, pp.29-49.

Callaghan, J. and Tunney, S. (2000) ‘Prospects for Social Democracy: A Critical Review of the Arguments and Evidence’, Contemporary Politics 6 (1), pp.55-75.

Coates, D. (2001) ‘Capitalist models and Social Democracy: The Case of New Labour’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 3 (3), pp.284-307.

Gamble, A. and Wright, A. (1999) ‘Introduction: The New Social Democracy’, in A. Gamble and A. Wright (eds.) The New Social Democracy ,Oxford: Blackwell, pp.1-9.

Garrett, G. (1998) Partisan Politics in the Global Economy .Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.

Giddens, A. (1998) The Third Way .Cambridge: Polity.

Glyn, A. (1998) ‘The Assessment: Economic Policy and Social Democracy’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 14 (1), pp.1-18.

Gray, J. (1997) Endgames .Cambridge: Polity.

Gray, J. (1999) False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism ,London: Granta.

Hay, C. (2000) ‘Globalisation, Social Democracy and the Persistence of Partisan Politics: A Commentary on Garrett’ , Review of International Political Economy 7 (1), pp.138-152.

Hay, C. (2002) ‘Globalisation, ‘EU-isation’ and the Space for Social Democratic Alternatives: Pessimism of the Intellect: A Reply to Coates’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 4 (3), pp.452-464.

Hay, C. (2004) ‘Common Trajectories, Variable Paces, Divergent Outcomes? Models of European Capitalism Under Conditions of Complex Economic Interdependence’, Review of International Political Economy 11 (2), pp.231-262.

Hay, C. and Watson, M. (1999) ‘The Politics and Discourse of Globalisation: “Sceptical” Notes on the 1999 Reith Lectures’, Political Quarterly 70 (4), pp.418-425.

Hirst, P. (1999) ‘Has Globalisation Killed Social Democracy?’, in A. Gamble and A. Wright (eds.) The New Social Democracy , Oxford: Blackwell, pp.84-96.

Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. (1999) Globalisation in Question .Cambridge: Polity.

Huber, E. and Stephens, J. D. (1998) ‘Internationalisation and the Social Democratic Model: Crisis and Future Prospects’, Comparative Political Studies 31 (3), pp.353-397.

Kellner, P., ‘The Recovery Position’, New Statesman , 20 th September 2010.

Kurzer, P. (1993) Business and Banking .Ithaca,NY:CornellUniversity Press.

Moene, O. K. and Wallerstein, M. (1995) ‘How Social Democracy Worked’, Politics and Society 23 (2), pp.185-211.

Moses, J. W. (1994) ‘Abdication from National Policy Autonomy: What’s Left to Leave?’, Politics and Society 22 (2), pp.125-148.

Notermans, T. (1997) ‘Social Democracy and External Constraints’, in Cox, R. W. (ed.) Spaces of Globalisation. New York:Guilford, pp. 201-239.

OECD, ‘OECD Economic Surveys:Sweden: Overview’, January 2011.

Paton, G., ‘Third of Companies “Struggling to Recruit Skilled Graduates’, The Telegraph , 26 th January 2012.

Pontusson, J. (2011) ‘Once Again a Model: Nordic Social Democracy in a Globalised World’, in J. Cronin, G. Ross and J. Shoch (eds.) What’s Left of the Left? ,Durham,NC: Duke University Press, pp.89-115.

Przeworski, A. and Wallerstein, M. (1988) ‘Structural Dependence of the State on Capital’, American Political Science Review 82 (1), pp.11-30.

Siburn, J., ‘Dyson Says Lack of Engineers in the UKCould Force Vacuum Maker Offshore’, The Telegraph, 16 August 2011.

The Economist , ‘Fading charms: The Party That Once Ruled Swedish Politics is Struggling’, 31st December 2011.

[1] Hirst 1999: 90; Moene and Wallerstein 1995: 205; Huber and Stephens 1998: 390.

[2] Hay 2002: 459; See Hay 2000; Hay 2004; Hay and Watson 1999.

Written by: Sean McDaniel Written at: University of Sheffield Written for: Professor Colin Hay Date written: 01/12

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Social Media and Democracy Essay

Social media is a method of communication that uses the Internet or mobile phones to interact with people. It has reformed the mode of broadcasting messages to people all over the world. This social communication mode has been used by many countries and has enabled citizens to communicate and exercise their democratic rights. Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks help people to keep in touch on democratic issues.

This paper focuses on the role of social media and democracy in the world. According to Kubicek and Westholm (212), social democracy keeps citizens up to date with information, as they are enlightened on what is happening, in either their country or the whole world through communication and comments on Facebook, Twitter and other communication networks as they express their opinions.

The Internet as a mode of social media has helped countries like Iran whose electronic and publishing are controlled by the state. Citizens have used the Internet to pass and share information. For example, in 2009, during the Iran elections, citizens were able to comment on Facebooks and Youtube, and the whole world was able to follow the election proceedings.

Since Iran is like a locked society, the Internet has benefited its citizens and other closed countries whose freedom of the press is limited. There are groups that support such countries’ Media coverage internationally and emphasizes the freedom of the press. The objective of such groups is to support the countries, which have been affected by politics, conflicts, and insecurities because it is non-profit associations.

Social media may have a positive or negative impact. Despite being informative, it can pass negative messages that can cause wars and conflicts in many countries. Comment on Facebook can be passed on to many people and influence their actions. For example, in African countries like Egypt where people were not contented with the way the government was operating.

The messages were passed on through Twitter and Facebook and media clips on YouTube; these messages turned into protests and riots, which later turned to wars that claimed many people’s lives. This is an indication of how the Internet is as powerful as social media. Thus, the government and citizens should be careful about writing messages and posting comments.

Likewise, the US President Barrack Obama’s visit to Facebook, which is on Calif headquarters, was to have a conversation with Facebook Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg, and the Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, and the Facebook users. Facebook’s live event was to have famous people participate in it.

The president communicated and connected with people in America and had a chat about issues on improving the economy and advancements that will increase America’s competitive advantage. Andrew Noyes, who is a Facebook spokesperson, recognized that people Facebook in politics to communicate with their friends and to reach them within the shortest time possible (Fowler 1).

Also, Americans have used the social sites to communicate to their political allies, and the government and local authorities have used such sites to collect opinions of every citizen. President Obama has used these social sites to communicate and to gain more support, for example, in his campaign on health care improvement.

Google moderator has been used to vote on topics and issues in question, and this enables analysts to predict the outcome of the upcoming events (Owen 32). With President Obama’s use of social sites to interact with people, it is an indication that the white house has embraced these technological improvements.

The US has its website attached to state agencies, and it is accessible to citizens and non-citizens. It is easy to read the governments information. Electronic democracy reduces costs of communications, and it is easy to get votes from the youth who lead with a high percent of Internet use and think that traditional voting is time-consuming and inconvenient. In essence, the Internet has improved communication technologies like E-voting and E-democracy.

Works Cited

Fowler, G. “ Obama To Visit Facebook on April 20 .” The Wall Street Journal. 2011. Web.

Kubicek, H. and Westholm, H. Scenarios for future use of E-democracy tools in Europe . Hershey: Cybernetic Publishing, 2007. Print.

Owen, D. The Internet and Youth Civic engagement in the United States. The Internet and Politics: Citizens, voters and activists . London: Routledge, 2008. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2024, February 23). Social Media and Democracy. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-media-and-democracy/

"Social Media and Democracy." IvyPanda , 23 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/social-media-and-democracy/.

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IvyPanda . 2024. "Social Media and Democracy." February 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-media-and-democracy/.

1. IvyPanda . "Social Media and Democracy." February 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-media-and-democracy/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Social Media and Democracy." February 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-media-and-democracy/.

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By the People: Essays on Democracy

Harvard Kennedy School faculty explore aspects of democracy in their own words—from increasing civic participation and decreasing extreme partisanship to strengthening democratic institutions and making them more fair.

Winter 2020

By Archon Fung , Nancy Gibbs , Tarek Masoud , Julia Minson , Cornell William Brooks , Jane Mansbridge , Arthur Brooks , Pippa Norris , Benjamin Schneer

The basic terms of democratic governance are shifting before our eyes, and we don’t know what the future holds. Some fear the rise of hateful populism and the collapse of democratic norms and practices. Others see opportunities for marginalized people and groups to exercise greater voice and influence. At the Kennedy School, we are striving to produce ideas and insights to meet these great uncertainties and to help make democratic governance successful in the future. In the pages that follow, you can read about the varied ways our faculty members think about facets of democracy and democratic institutions and making democracy better in practice.

Explore essays on democracy

Archon fung: we voted, nancy gibbs: truth and trust, tarek masoud: a fragile state, julia minson: just listen, cornell william brooks: democracy behind bars, jane mansbridge: a teachable skill, arthur brooks: healthy competition, pippa norris: kicking the sandcastle, benjamin schneer: drawing a line.

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Democracy Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on democracy.

Democracy is known as the finest form of government. Why so? Because in a democracy, the people of the country choose their government. They enjoy certain rights which are very essential for any human being to live freely and happily. There are various democratic countries in the world , but India is the largest one. Democracy has withstood the test of time, and while other forms have the government has failed, democracy stood strong. It has time and again proved its importance and impact.

Significance of a Democracy

Democracy is very important for human development . When people have free will to live freely, they will be happier. Moreover, we have seen how other forms of government have turned out to be. Citizens are not that happy and prosperous in a monarchy or anarchy.

Furthermore, democracy lets people have equal rights. This ensures that equality prevails all over the country. Subsequently, it also gives them duties. These duties make them better citizens and are also important for their overall development.

Most importantly, in a democracy, the people form the government. So, this selection of the government by the citizens gives everyone a chance to work for their country. It allows the law to prevail efficiently as the rules are made by people whom they have selected.

In addition, democracy allows people of various religions and cultures to exist peacefully. It makes them live in harmony with one another. People of democracy are more tolerant and accepting of each other’s differences. This is very important for any country to be happy and prosper.

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India: A Democratic Country

India is known to be the largest democracy all over the world. After the rule of the British ended in 1947 , India adopted democracy. In India, all the citizens who are above the age of 18 get the right to vote. It does not discriminate on the basis of caste, creed, gender, color, or more.

Although India is the largest democracy it still has a long way to go. The country faces a lot of problems which do not let it efficiently function as a democracy. The caste system is still prevalent which hampers with the socialist principle of democracy. Moreover, communalism is also on the rise. This interferes with the secular aspect of the country. All these differences need to be set aside to ensure the happiness and prosperity of the citizens.

In short, democracy in India is still better than that in most of the countries. Nonetheless, there is a lot of room for improvement which we must focus on. The government must implement stringent laws to ensure no discrimination takes place. In addition, awareness programs must be held to make citizens aware of their rights and duties.

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Social Democracy - Political Ideology

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• Democracy Essays

Social democracy as a political ideology orchestrated the transition of society from a capitalist viewpoint to social democracy that focused on economic and equitable distribution of resources, unlike capitalism. Britain, as the pioneer of industrialization, had resulted in contradictions in Western industrialized nations. As such, this resulted in the social disparities, societal dependencies that inevitably led to the shifts in power. Karl Max and Frederic Engels relate the social democracy ideologies with communism. Most particular is the Marxist doctrine, which was referred to as revisionism in the 19 th Century, where revolution used to establish a socialist society. In this regard, the conception of the idea of joint property and collective ownership gave rise to cooperatives, trade unions, and social legislation.

August Bebel significantly contributed to the social democratic movement founding the Social Democratic Worker’s Party in 1869. From that, there was the conception of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of Germany as a General German Worker’s Union in 1875. Gradually SDP grew in stature and became the largest single party by 1912, garnering over 25 percent of the total seats in the Reichstag. However, Eduard Bernstein contributed significantly to the growth of SDP. He did not support the Marxist theory proposition that capitalism was an essential contributor to inequitable resources and unemployment. Bernstein emphasized that capitalism was not very bad, and the shortcomings that come with it would be managed. Bernstein focused on socialism as a way to eliminate misery of the working class, while also highlighting that social conditions were improving, hence, the working class would be able to establish socialism by electing social representatives. Another significant contributor to the distinction of socialism and capitalism was the Russian Revolution of 1917, where afterward, there was the emergence of social democratic powers of Western Europe nations.

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Consequently, After the Revolution or precisely World War II, socialism can be said to the basis of modern European Social Welfare. Totalitarianism was denounced, and democracy embraced as an essential element of social theorists. Economic growth and equitable distribution of income would emerge because of state regulations in both the business and the industry levels.

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Regions & Countries

What can improve democracy, ideas from people in 24 countries, in their own words.

This Pew Research Center analysis on views of how to improve democracy uses data from nationally representative surveys conducted in 24 countries across North America, Europe, the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific region, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. All responses are weighted to be representative of the adult population in each country.

For non-U.S. data, this analysis draws on nationally representative surveys of 27,285 adults conducted from Feb. 20 to May 22, 2023. All surveys were conducted over the phone with adults in Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Surveys were conducted face-to-face with adults in Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland and South Africa. In Australia, we used a mixed-mode probability-based online panel. Read more about international survey methodology .

In the U.S., we surveyed 3,576 adults from March 20 to March 26, 2023. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Researchers examined random samples of English responses, machine-translated non-English responses, and non-English responses translated by a professional translation firm to develop a codebook for the main topics mentioned across the 24 countries. The codebook was iteratively improved via practice coding and calculations of intercoder reliability until a final selection of 17 substantive codes was formally adopted. (For more on the codebook, refer to Appendix C .)

To apply the codebook to the full collection of open-ended responses, a team of Pew Research Center coders and professional translators were trained to code English and non-English responses. Coders in both groups coded random samples and were evaluated for consistency and accuracy. They were asked to independently code responses only after reaching an acceptable threshold for intercoder reliability. (For more on the coding methodology, refer to Appendix A .)

There is some variation in whether and how people responded to our open-ended question. In each country surveyed, some respondents said that they did not understand the question, did not know how to answer or did not want to answer. This share of adults ranged from 4% in Spain to 47% in the U.S. 

In some countries, people also tended to mention fewer things that would improve democracy in their country relative to people surveyed elsewhere. For example, across the 24 countries surveyed, a median of 73% mentioned only one topic in our codebook (e.g., politicians). The share in South Korea is much higher, with 92% suggesting only one area of improvement when describing what they think would improve democracy. In comparison, about a quarter or more mention two areas of improvement in France, Spain, Sweden and the U.S.

These differences help explain why the share giving a particular answer in certain publics may appear much lower than others, even if it is the top- ranked suggestion for improving democracy. To give a specific example, 10% of respondents in Poland mention politicians, while 18% do so in South Africa – yet the topic is ranked second in Poland and third in South Africa. Given this discrepancy, researchers have chosen to highlight not only the share of the public that mentions a given topic but also its relative ranking among all topics coded, both in text and in graphics.

Here is the question used for this report , along with coded responses for each country, and the survey methodology .

Open-ended responses highlighted in the text of this report were chosen to represent the key themes researchers identified. They have been edited for clarity and, in some cases, translated into English by a professional firm. Some responses have also been shortened for brevity.

Pew Research Center surveys have long found that people in many countries are dissatisfied with their democracy and want major changes to their political systems – and this year is no exception . But high and growing rates of discontent certainly raise the question: What do people think could fix things?

We set out to answer this by asking more than 30,000 respondents in 24 countries an open-ended question: “What do you think would help improve the way democracy in your country is working?” While the second- and third-most mentioned priorities vary greatly, across most countries surveyed, there is one clear top answer: Democracy can be improved with better or different politicians.

People want politicians who are more responsive to their needs and who are more competent and honest, among other factors. People also focus on questions of descriptive representation – the importance of having politicians with certain characteristics such as a specific race, religion or gender.

Respondents also think citizens can improve their own democracy. Across most of the 24 countries surveyed, issues of public participation and of different behavior from the people themselves are a top-five priority.

Other topics that come up regularly include:

• Economic reform , especially reforms that will enhance job creation.
• Government reform , including implementing term limits, adjusting the balance of power between institutions and other factors.

We explore these topics and the others we coded in the following chapters:

• Politicians, changing leadership and political parties ( Chapter 1 )
• Government reform, special interests and the media ( Chapter 2 )
• Economic and policy changes ( Chapter 3 )
• Citizen behavior and individual rights and equality ( Chapter 4 )
• Electoral reform and direct democracy ( Chapter 5 )
• Rule of law, safety and the judicial system ( Chapter 6 )

You can also read people’s answers in their own words in our interactive data essay and quote sorter: “How People in 24 Countries Think Democracy Can Improve.” Many responses in the quote sorter and throughout this report appear in translation; for selected quotes in their original language, visit this spreadsheet .

The survey was conducted from Feb. 20 to May 22, 2023, in 24 countries and 36 different languages. Below, we highlight some key themes, drawn from the open-ended responses and the 17 rigorously coded substantive topics.

How politicians can improve

In almost every country surveyed, changes to politicians are the most commonly mentioned way to improve democracy. People broadly call for three types of improvements: better representation , increased competence and a higher level of responsiveness . They also call for politicians to be less corrupt or less influenced by special interests.

Representation

“Bringing in more diverse voices, rather than mostly wealthy White men.” Woman, 30, Australia

First, people want to see politicians from different groups in society – though which groups people want represented run the gamut. In Japan, for example, one woman said democracy would improve if there were “more diversity and more women parliamentarians.” In Kenya, having leaders “from all tribes” is seen as a way to make democracy work better. People also call for younger voices and politicians from “poor backgrounds,” among other groups. The opposing views of two American respondents, though, highlight why satisfying everyone is difficult:

“Most politicians in office right now are rich, Christian and old. Their overwhelmingly Christian views lead to laws and decisions that not only limit personal freedoms like abortion and gay marriage, but also discriminate against minority religions and their practices.”

– Man, 23, U.S.

“We need to stop worrying about putting people in positions because of their race, ethnicity or gender. What happened to being put in a position because they are the best person for that position?”

– Man, 64, U.S.

“Our politicians should have an education corresponding to their subject or field.” Woman, 72, Germany

Second, people want higher-caliber politicians. This includes a desire to see more technical expertise and traits such as morality, honesty, a “stronger backbone” or “more common sense.”

Sometimes, people simply want politicians with “no criminal records” – something mentioned explicitly by a South Korean man and echoed by respondents in the United States, India and Israel, among other places.

Responsiveness

“Make democracy promote more of the people’s voice. The people’s voice is the great strength for leadership.” Man, 27, Indonesia

Third, people want their politicians to hear them and respond to their needs and wishes, and for politicians to keep their promises. One man in the United Kingdom said, “If leaders would listen more to the local communities and do their jobs as members of Parliament, that would really help democracy in this country. It seems like once they’re elected, they just play lip service to the role.”

Special interests and corruption

Concerns about special interests and corruption are common in certain countries, including Mexico, the U.S. and Australia. One Mexican woman said, “Politicians should listen more to the Mexican people, not buy people off using money or groceries.” Others complained about politicians “pillaging” the country and enriching themselves by keeping tax money.

Calls for systemic reform

For some, the political system itself needs to change in order for democracy to work better. Changing the governmental structure is one of the top five topics coded in most countries surveyed – and it’s tied for the most mentioned issue in the U.S., along with politicians. These reforms include adjusting the balance of power between institutions, implementing term limits, and more.

Some also see the need to reform the electoral system in their country; others want more direct democracy through referenda or public forums. Judicial system reform is a priority for some, especially in Israel. (In Israel, the survey was conducted amid large-scale protests against a proposed law that would limit the power of the Supreme Court, but prior to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the court’s rejection of the law in January .)

Government reform

The U.S. stands out as the only country surveyed where reforming the government is the top concern (tied with politicians). Americans mention very specific proposals such as giving the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico statehood, increasing the size of the House of the Representatives to allow one representative per 100,000 people, requiring a supermajority for all spending bills, eliminating the filibuster, and more.

Term limits for elected officials are a particularly popular reform in the U.S. Americans call for them to prevent “career politicians,” as in the case of one woman who said, “I think we need to limit the number of years politicians can serve. No one should be able to serve as a politician for 40+ years like Joe Biden. I don’t have anything against him. I just think that we need limits. We have too many people who have served for too long and have little or nothing to show for it.” Term limits for Supreme Court justices are also top of mind for many Americans when it comes to judicial system reform.

Electoral reform

“There are many parts of the UK where it’s obvious who will get elected. My vote doesn’t count where I live because the Conservative Party wins every time. Effectively it means that the majority is not represented by the government. With proportional representation, everybody’s vote would count.” Man, 62, UK

The electoral system is among the top targets for change in some countries. In Canada, Nigeria and the UK, changing how elections work is the second-most mentioned topic of the 17 substantive codes – and it falls in the top five in Australia, Japan, the Netherlands and the U.S.

Suggested changes vary across countries and include switching from first-past-the-post to a proportional voting system, having a fixed date for elections, lowering the voting age, returning to hand-counted paper ballots, voting directly for candidates rather than parties, and more.

Direct democracy

Calls for direct democracy are prevalent in several European countries – even ranking second in France and Germany. One French woman said, “There should be more referenda, they should ask the opinion of the people more, and it should be respected.”

In the broadest sense, people want a “direct voting system” or for “people to have the vote, not middlemen elected officials.” More narrowly, they also mention specific topics they would like referenda for, including rejoining the European Union in the UK; “abortion, retirement and euthanasia” in France; “all legislation which harms the justice system” in Israel; asylum policy, nitrogen policy and local affairs in the Netherlands; “when and where the country goes to war” in Australia; “gay marriage, marijuana legalization and bail reform” in the U.S.; “nuclear power, sexuality, NATO and the EU” in Sweden; and who should be prime minister in Japan. (The survey was conducted prior to Sweden joining NATO in March 2024.)

The judicial system

Of the systemic reforms suggested, few bring up changes to the judicial system in most countries. Only in Israel, where the topic ranked first at the time of the survey, does judicial system reform appear in the top 10 coded issues. Israelis approach this issue from vastly different perspectives. For instance, some want to curtail the Supreme Court’s influence over government decisions, while others want to preserve its independence, as in these two examples:

“Finish the legislation that will limit the enormous and generally unreasonable power of the Supreme Court in Israel!”

– Man, 64, Israel

“Do everything to keep the last word of the High Court on any social and moral issue.”

– Man, 31, Israel

Is the grass always greener?

Notably, some respondents propose the exact reform that those in another country would like to do away with.

For example, while some people in countries without mandatory voting think it could be useful to implement, there are respondents in Australia – where voting is compulsory – who want it to end. People without mandatory voting see it as a way to force everyone to have a say: “We have to get everyone out to vote. Everyone complains. Voting should be mandatory. Everyone has to vote and have a say,” said a Canadian woman. But the flip side one Australian expressed was, “Eliminate compulsory voting. The votes of people who do not care about a result voids the vote of somebody who does.”

The ideal number of parties in government is another topic that brings about opposing suggestions. In the Netherlands, which has a relatively large number of parties, altering the party system is the second-most mentioned way to improve democracy. Dutch respondents differed on terms of the maximum number of parties they want to see (“a three-party system,” “four or five parties at most,” “a maximum of seven parties,” etc.) but the tenor is broadly similar: Too many parties is leading to fragmentation, polarization and division. Elsewhere, however, some squarely attribute polarization to a system with too few parties. In the U.S., a man noted, “The most egregious problem is that a two-party system cannot ever hope to be representative of its people as the will of any group cannot be captured in a binary system: The result will be increased polarization between the Democratic and Republican parties.”

Even in countries with more than two parties, like Canada and the UK, there can be a sense that only two are viable. A Canadian man said, “We need to have a free election with more than two parties.”

For many respondents, fixing democracy begins with the people

Citizens – both their quality and their participation in politics – come up regularly as an area that requires improvement for democracy to work better. In most countries, the issue is in the top five. And in Israel, Sweden, Italy and Japan, citizens are the second-most mentioned topic of the 17 coded. (In this analysis, “citizens” refers to all inhabitants of each country, not just the legal residents.)

In general, respondents see three ways citizens can improve: being more informed, participating more and generally being better people.

Being more informed

“More awareness and more information. We have highly separated classes. There are generations who have never read a newspaper. One cannot be fully democratic if one is not aware.” Man, 86, Italy

First, citizens being more informed is seen as crucial. Respondents argue that informed citizens are able to vote more responsibly and avoid being misled by surface-level political quips or misinformation.

In the Netherlands, for example, where the survey predated the electoral success of Geert Wilders’ right-wing populist Party for Freedom (PVV), one woman noted that citizens need “education, and openness, maybe. There are a lot of people who vote Geert Wilders because of his one-liners, and they don’t think beyond those. They haven’t learned to think beyond what’s right in front of them.” (For more information on how we classify populist parties, refer to Appendix E .)

Participating more

“Each and every one of us must go to the polls and make our own decisions.” Woman, 76, Japan

Second, some respondents want people in their country to be more involved in politics – whether that be turning out to vote, protesting at key moments or just caring more about politics or other issues. They hold the notion that if people participate, they will be less apathetic and less likely to complain, and their voices will be represented more fully. One woman in Sweden noted, “I would like to see more involvement from different groups of people: younger people, people with different backgrounds, people from minority groups.”

Being better people

“People should walk around rationally, respecting each other, dialoguing and respecting people’s cultures.” Woman, 29, Brazil

Third, the character of citizens comes up regularly – respondents’ requests for their countrymen range from “care more about others” to “love God and neighbor completely” to asking that they be “better critical thinkers,” among myriad other things. Still, some calls for improved citizen behavior contradict each other, as in the case of two Australian women who differ over how citizens should think about assimilation:

“We need to be more caring and thoughtful about people who come to the country. We need to be more tolerant and absorb them in our community.”

– Woman, 75, Australia

“We need to stop worrying that we are going to offend other nationalities and their traditions. We should be able to say ‘Merry Christmas’ instead of ‘happy holidays,’ and Christmas celebrations should be held in schools without worrying about offending others in our so-called ‘democratic society.’”

– Woman, 70, Australia

It’s difficult to please everyone

One challenge is that people in the same country may offer the exact opposite solutions. For example, in the UK, some people want politicians to make more money; others, less. In the U.S., while changes to the electoral system rank as one of the public’s top solutions for fixing democracy, some want to make it significantly easier to vote by methods like automatically registering citizens or making it easier to vote by mail. Others want to end these practices or even eliminate touch-screen voting machines.

Economic reform and basic needs

People in several countries, mostly in the middle-income nations surveyed (Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa) stand out for the emphasis they place on economic reform as a means to improve democracy. In India and South Africa, for example, the issue ranks first among the 17 substantive topics coded; in Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia and Kenya, it ranks second. These calls include a focus on creating jobs , curbing inflation , changing government spending priorities and more.

“When education, roads, hospitals and adequate water are made available, then I can say democracy will improve.” Man, 30, Nigeria

Sometimes, people draw a causal link between the economy and democracy, suggesting that improvements to the former would improve the latter. For example, one woman in Indonesia said, “Improve the economic conditions to ensure democracy goes well.” People also insinuated that having basic needs met is a precursor to their democracy functioning. One South African man noted that democracy in his country would work better if the government “created more employment for the youth, fixed the roads and gave us water. They must also fix the electricity problem.” A man in India said, “There’s a need for development in democracy.”

Indeed, specific policies and legislation – particularly improvements to infrastructure like roads, hospitals, water, electricity and schools – are the second-most mentioned topic in Brazil, India, Nigeria and South Africa. Some respondents offer laundry lists of policies that need attention, such as one Brazilian woman who called for “improving health care, controlling drug use, more security for the population, and improving the situation of people on the streets.”

Priority differences in high- and middle-income countries

Beyond economic reform , other changes to living conditions also receive more emphasis in some middle-income countries surveyed:

• In South Africa and Nigeria, both middle-income countries, mentions of economic reform tend to reference jobs . In other, high-income countries, calls for economic change generally refer to other economic issues like inflation and government spending priorities.
• When bringing up the issue of money in politics, respondents in middle-income countries generally cite corruption more than those in high-income countries. Those in high-income countries tend to bring up special interests more broadly.
• People in middle-income countries also focus more on issues related to public safety – including reducing crime and supporting law enforcement – than those in high-income countries.
• For their part, people in the 16 high-income countries surveyed tend to focus more on political party reform, direct democracy, government reform and media reform than those in the eight middle-income nations.

No changes and no solutions – or at least no democratic ones

“Democracy is fine because you have the freedom to express yourself without being persecuted, especially in politics.” Man, 26, Argentina

People sometimes say there are no changes that can make democracy in their country work better. These responses include broadly positive views of the status quo such as, “I am very happy to live in a country with democracy.” An Indian man responded simply, “Everything is going well in India.” Some respondents even compare their system favorably to others, as one Australian man said: “I think it currently works pretty well, far better than, say, the U.S. or UK, Poland or Israel.”

“Our current system is broken and I’m not sure what, if anything, can fix it at this point.” Woman, 41, U.S

But some are more pessimistic. They have the sense that “no matter what I do, nothing will change.” A Brazilian man said, “It is difficult to make it better. Brazil is too complicated.”

And some see no better options. In Hungary – where “no changes” was the second-most cited topic of the 17 coded – one man referenced Winston Churchill’s quote about democracy, saying, “Democracy is the worst form of government, not counting all the others that man has tried from time to time.”

In many countries, a sizable share offer no response at all – saying that they do not know or refusing to answer. This includes around a third or more of those in Indonesia, Japan and the U.S. In most countries, those who did not answer the question tended to have lower levels of formal education than those who offered a substantive solution. And in some places – including the U.S. – they were also more likely to be women than men.

Few call for ending democracy altogether

Despite considerable discontent with democracy , few people suggest changing to a non-democratic system. Those who do call for a new system offer options like a military junta, a theocracy or an autocracy as possible new systems.

Related: Who likes authoritarianism, and how do they want to change their government?

Road map for this research project

One other way to think about what people believe will help improve their democracy is to focus on three themes: basic needs that can be addressed, improvements to the system and complete overhauls of the system. We explore these themes in our interactive data essay and quote sorter: “How People in 24 Countries Think Democracy Can Improve.”

You can also explore people’s responses in their own words, with the option to filter by country and code by navigating over to the quote sorter .

In the chapters that follow, we discuss 15 of our coded themes in detail. We analyze how people spoke about them, as well as how responses varied across and within countries. We chose to emphasize the relative frequency, or rank order , in which people mentioned these different topics. For more about this choice, as well as details about our coding procedure and methodology , refer to Appendix A .

Explore the chapters of this report:

Why this report focuses on topic rank order in addition to percentages

There is some variation in whether and how people responded to our open-ended question. In each country surveyed, some respondents said that they did not understand the question, did not know how to answer or did not want to answer. This share of adults ranged from 4% in Spain to 47% in the U.S.

These differences help explain why the share giving a particular answer in certain publics may appear much lower than others, even if the topic is the top mentioned suggestion for improving democracy. To give a specific example, 10% in Poland mention politicians while 18% say the same in South Africa, but the topic is ranked second in Poland and third in South Africa. Given this, researchers have chosen to highlight not only the share of the public who mention a given topic but also its relative ranking among the topics coded, both in the text and in graphics.

Facts are more important than ever

In times of uncertainty, good decisions demand good data. Please support our research with a financial contribution.

Report Materials

Table of contents, freedom, elections, voice: how people in australia and the uk define democracy, global public opinion in an era of democratic anxiety, most people in advanced economies think their own government respects personal freedoms, more people globally see racial, ethnic discrimination as a serious problem in the u.s. than in their own society, citizens in advanced economies want significant changes to their political systems, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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Democracy, human rights and governance in The Gambia : essays on social adjustment

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• Introduction : human rights and democracy in the Gambia : Is the Gambia a democratic state?
• 1. Africa in a changing world : the major governance crisis in West Africa and the way forward
• 2. Liberal democracy and governance in Africa : a brief critique
• 3. Press freedom and democratic governance in the Gambia : a rights-based approach
• 4. The judiciary in governance in the Gambia : the quest for autonomy in the second republic
• 5. International human rights and the laws of nations : a brief analysis of the philosophical foundations, basic premises and historical background of human rights from the conventional and Islamic perspectives
• 6. Law faculties, ethics and legal professionalism : a contemporary African perspective
• 7. Harnessing traditional governance institutions to improve governance in West Africa
• the case study of the Gambia
• Conclusion : towards Arab-African integration in the struggle against western hegemony and imperialism : a critical perspective.

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I. introduction.

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II. The Impact of Social Media on Political Participation

A. increased access to information and political discussion:.

Social media has greatly increased access to information and political discussion for citizens. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook provide a space for individuals to share news, express their views, and participate in political discussions. This allows citizens to stay informed about current events and access different perspectives on political issues.

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Also Read: Political Instability Leads to Economic Downfall Essay

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D. Facilitation of Direct Democracy:

Social media platforms have also enabled direct democracy by allowing citizens to participate in online voting, e-petitions, and other forms of direct engagement with government and political representatives.

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E. Influencing Public Opinion:

Social media also plays a significant role in shaping public opinion. Through social media, individuals and organizations can disseminate information. They also can express their views and shape public discourse. This has the potential to influence political decision-making and public policy. Additionally, social media platforms can be used to target specific audiences and demographics, which can impact public opinion and the outcome of elections.

Its examples were seen during the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, the 2016 US general elections, and the Black Lives Matter Movement.

F. Amplification of Marginalized Voices:

Social media platforms can also amplify the voices of marginalized communities and individuals, giving them a platform to share their perspectives and experiences. This can contribute to increased diversity in political discourse and representation. However, it also highlights the need for further research and regulation in this area to ensure that social media is inclusive, transparent, and fair for all voices.

The #MeToo movement is a specific example of how social media platforms can amplify the voices of marginalized communities and individuals. It gave them a platform to share their perspectives and experiences. The movement, which began in 2017 , aimed to raise awareness about sexual harassment and assault and to support survivors. The hashtag #MeToo was used extensively on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook. Many women shared stories and experiences of sexual harassment and assault.

Also read: The Debate Over Renewable Energy: Is it the Solution to Climate Change?

III. The Challenges of Digital Democracy and Social Media

While social media and digital platforms have the potential to enable greater political participation and amplify marginalized voices, there are also several challenges that need to be addressed. Some of these challenges include:

• Misinformation and fake news : Social media platforms have been used to spread misinformation and fake news, which can undermine the democratic process and manipulate public opinion.
• Privacy and security : Social media platforms collect and store vast amounts of personal data, which can be vulnerable to breaches and misuse. This can compromise the privacy and security of individuals and threaten the integrity of the democratic process.
• Digital divide : Not all citizens have access to digital technologies and platforms, which can lead to a digital divide and exclude certain groups from participating in the democratic process.
• Lack of regulation : Social media platforms are currently not subject to the same regulations as traditional media, leading to a lack of accountability and oversight.
• Lack of diversity : Social media platforms can be dominated by certain groups or individuals, which can limit the diversity of voices and perspectives in political discourse.
• Cyberbullying and hate speech : Social media platforms have been used to spread hate speech and cyberbullying, which can undermine the democratic process and harm marginalized communities.

IV. Conclusion

In conclusion, social media and digital platforms have the potential to enable greater political participation and amplify marginalized voices. However, there are also several challenges that need to be addressed, including misinformation and fake news, privacy and security, digital divide, polarization and echo chambers, lack of regulation, lack of diversity, and cyberbullying and hate speech.

Addressing these challenges will require further research and regulation of social media and digital platforms, as well as efforts to increase access to digital technologies and platforms for all citizens. It’s also important to note that addressing these challenges will require the collaboration of government, the private sector, civil society, and citizens. Ultimately, a healthy digital democracy requires a balance between the benefits and challenges of social media and digital platforms, and the need to ensure that they are inclusive, transparent, and fair for all voices.

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Digital Democracy: Social Media and Public Participation

• Maleeha Sattar
• August 26, 2023
• CSS , Css Essays , CSS Solved Essays , Current Affairs , Pakistan's Domestic Affairs , Pakistan's External Affairs , PMS , PMS Essays
• 42530 Views

CSS 2022 Solved Essay | Digital Democracy: Social Media and Public Participation | CSS and PMS Solved Essays by Sir Syed Kazim Ali Students

Maleeha Sattar has attempted the essay “ Digital Democracy: Social Media and Public Participation ” on the given pattern, which Sir  Syed Kazim Ali  teaches his students. Sir Syed Kazim Ali has been Pakistan’s top English writing and CSS, PMS essay and precis coach with the highest success rate of his students. The essay is uploaded to help other competitive aspirants learn and practice essay writing techniques and patterns.

1- Introduction

• ✓Technology, indeed, advancing and improving worldwide with its diverse field of novelty
• ✓Forming digital spaces, like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc., broadly encouraging the politically aware public to articulate their views openly while experiencing their freedom of expression right
• ✓Public participation changing the picture of democracy by making it more digital and strengthening it via using social media platforms across the globe
• ✓Therefore, the leader-voter bond formation, youth’s indulgence in welfare activities lessening leaders’ burden, and promulgation of transparency via e-governance initiatives by using digital tools, conjointly giving rise to digital democracy across the boards

2- Debunking the term ‘Digital Democracy’ from the broader perspective

3- How has public participation strengthened digital democracy via social media?

• Case in point:   According to the PEW Research Center, “74pc of the adults in the United States (US) who use social media platforms get news from them”, highlighting the role of social media in disseminating information
• Case in point: The mobilization and activism by people, physically and digitally, to support social causes in the form of movements, like the Arab Spring, Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements, to flourish digital democracy at all fronts is a glaring example of the case
• Case in point: The hashtag “MyCultureMyPride” has aided people on social media platforms, like YouTube and Instagram, to represent their cultures by sharing their cultural videos and pictures, further strengthening pluralism across the boards
• Case in point: According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “White House utilizes social media platforms to engage citizens in discussions and gathers public input on policy issues.”
• Case in point: The online campaigns on social media platforms by infuriated public in the Zainab rape case, helping in the formation of the child abuse and rape-related laws in Pakistan, bolstering the power of digital democracy in the country
• Case in point: The enhanced usage of Twitter accounts by the leaders, like all Pakistan’s political parties’ prominent leaders, showing their online presence, helping them disseminate their parties’ ideology among the masses
• Case in point: According to the United Nations, Coronavirus related updates, the organization has highlighted ten young people’s names from all over the world led the coronavirus response by developing their digital communities to tackle and control the spread of the pandemic at that time
• Case in point: According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report, “Those countries that focus on e-governance initiatives for development projects have seen improvement in their democracy indexes, along with the enhanced public participation.”

4- Case studies of different countries where public participation has strengthened digital democracy via social media

• ✓ Case study of Taiwan
• ✓ Case study of the US
• ✓ Case study of Pakistan

5- Critical Analysis

6- Conclusion

 Technology has advanced and improved worldwide with its diverse field of novelty. Additionally, the revolutionization of the modes of communication and masses’ interaction in the digital age with the advancements in social media platforms has changed the landscape of countries’ democratic processes and, thus, governing patterns. Indeed, forming digital spaces like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc., has encouraged the politically aware public to articulate their views openly while experiencing their freedom of expression broadly. Consequently, public participation has changed the picture of democracy by making it more digital and strengthening it via using social media platforms across the globe. Looking at the intense magnitude of digital democracy in today’s world, civic engagement by using social media has enlarged the information pool for the masses, shaped their opinion towards their leaders and promulgated digital democracy, particularly. Besides this, social media’s activism and cultural assimilation practices, by people, have also contributed to the flourishing digital democracy on all fronts. Despite engaging citizens in decision-making procedures, political accountability via online campaigns has also lessened the trust deficit between the public and stakeholders, fostering digital democracy in societies. Therefore, the leader-voter bond formation, youth’s indulgence in welfare activities reducing leaders’ burden, and promulgation of transparency via e-governance initiatives by using digital tools, conjointly, have given rise to digital democracy across the boards. This essay highlights how public participation has strengthened digital democracy via social media.

Before jumping towards the maxim of how public participation has strengthened digital democracy via social media, the understanding of the term ‘Digital Democracy’ in the broader perspective holds the greatest importance. Indeed, the jargon encapsulates the concept denoting the introduction of digital infrastructures in the organizations’ structure via reforms to establish a more effective and unrestricted democratic setup, building the collective government body best suited for the efficient conduct of the current state of affairs. Speaking in a neutral vein, digital democracy has become a significant factor in the social media age, as it promulgates transparency in the institutions by empowering the citizen-to-citizen contact at large. Moreover, it helps incorporation and inclusion of different ideas and viewpoints in the overall functioning of the government system and gives rise to a new form of business-oriented teamwork-based environment in the system, along with technology-led public management skills of the leaders at length.

Talking about the maxim of how public participation has strengthened digital democracy via social media, it, in fact, has increased civic engagement for access to information on social media platforms, greatly influencing and shaping public opinion. For instance, according to the PEW Research Center, “74 per cent of the adults in the United States (US) who use social media platforms get news from them”, highlighting the role of social media in the dissemination of information related to the ongoing events at the global front. As a result, they build their opinion and act accordingly for the promulgation of democracy in their respective domains on the basis of that information. Thus, the elevated level of public participation has helped foster digital democracy in the countries through the productive use of social media.

In addition, creating awareness among the masses for the achievement of basic human rights also strengthens digital democracy via the use of social media. Indeed, it has shown in the mobilization and activism by people, physically and digitally too, to support social causes in the form of movements, like the Arab Spring, Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements, to flourish digital democracy at all fronts is a glaring example of the case. In this way, they could make public officials aware of the sentiments of the downtrodden segments of society. And via activism, they could seek social justice in all directions, which is necessary for the promotion of digital democracy worldwide.

Besides, the public actively participates in the fostering of cultural diversity via social media platforms, which is mandatory for flourishing digital democracy in all domains. For instance, the hashtag “MyCultureMyPride” has aided people on social media platforms, like YouTube and Instagram, to represent their cultures by sharing their cultural videos and pictures, further strengthening pluralism across the boards. By doing this, virtual people-to-people contact via social media enhances, and the public becomes a capable force that could overthrow power centralization in all political spheres. As a result, digital democracy takes its toll in full swing and negates all authoritative, feudal practices broadly.

Apart from it, active public participation with the productive use of social media platforms has compelled political heads of the states to engage citizens in discussions related to policymaking. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “The White House utilizes social media platforms to engage citizens in discussions and gathers public input on policy issues.” It clearly shows that government institutes, by following the general will principles, also contribute to the advancement of digital democracy by including active and responsible citizens in decision-making. Therefore, digital democracy has smoothened due to the social media platforms in today’s world.

Likewise, the public’s active participation through the usage of social media in the online campaign’s form has also reinforced the political accountability of the officials. Such as the online campaigns on social media platforms that infuriated the public in the Zainab rape case, helping in the formation of child abuse and rape-related laws in Pakistan, and bolstering the power of digital democracy in the country. After accomplishing this, child abuse has ceased for a longer period of time in Pakistan, and consequently, the incident has helped in bridging the gap between the public and stakeholders. Hence, public participation has helped maintain a transparency level in the country, furthering digital democracy with the help of social media.

Similarly, the zestful usage of social media by political leaders has boosted their one-on-one interaction with their vigilant voter diaspora . Illustratively, the enhanced usage of Twitter accounts by the leaders, like all of Pakistan’s political parties’ prominent leaders, shows their online presence, helping them disseminate their parties’ ideology among the masses. In return, the public, influenced by their views, supports them blindly in the electoral campaigns and rallies. In this manner, they openly demand them in office as their representative running the government functions for the effective development of digital democracy in the country.

 Moving ahead towards another justification proving the maxim, the augmented youth efforts during crisis situations using digital tools have kicked the digital democracy’s gradients upstairs. According to the United Nations coronavirus-related updates, the organization has highlighted ten young people’s names from all over the world who led the coronavirus response by developing their digital communities to tackle and control the spread of the pandemic at that time. Due to their diligent participation, the countries’ leaders were capable of tackling the birth of new evils and focusing on the achievement of Sustainable Development’s seventeen goals (17 SDGs) with a collective efforts strategy instead of a man show. Hence, vigilant public participation helps elevate the digital democracy rates via using social media.

Last but not least, the masses’ social involvement has stimulated the effectiveness of e-governance, giving rise to digital democracy in the contemporary world. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report, “Those countries that focus on e-governance initiatives for their multidimensional development, along with the enhanced public participation, have seen improvement in their democracy indexes.” By analyzing the facts, the countries’ people actively participate and gain information from their governance portals and question the validity of the officials’ actions, too, as they have the right to information as an accountability card for the enhancement of their country’s institutional transparency. Therefore, public participation indeed aids in strengthening digital democracy via social media.

The above discussion could be emboldened by giving examples of some developing countries where public participation has strengthened digital democracy via social media. The very first one in the row is the case study of the country Taiwan. Without any doubt, the country’s officials have developed the e-petition platform to include its citizens in decision-making. As a result, the empowered youth have actively taken part in the resolution of the Uber, a ride-sharing app, issue , further enhancing their consensus and participation in the country’s legal working and app launching activities. Thus, Taiwan’s public involvement has invigorated the country’s digital democracy through social media platforms.

Second, the United States also explains the strength of civic engagement by proactively using social media platforms, which has augmented digital democracy in the country. Delineating their citizens’ activity, the masses have actively used social media platforms during the US’s 2016 elections . In fact, they have shown their sentiments via slogan raising and hashtag development on their Twitter accounts to dominate their allegiance to their leaders. Through their online voting system, they have also ensured transparency in the voter turnout rates. Therefore, digital democracy has been raised to its height via social media in the country by the public.

Lastly, Pakistan’s case study has significantly outlined the increasing support of digital democracy by the public’s social media using capacity in the current global environment, which can be gauged by the availability ratio of the internet in the country. According to the Digital Pakistan report (2022), “61 million people out of 220 million population are internet users.” It clearly shows that the public has enthusiastically used social media platforms to raise their concerns and get connected with their leaders, the necessary element in the promulgation of digital democracy in the country’s multiple domains. Hence, the public’s interest has compelled the officials to ensure democracy in the country in today’s social media age.

In a critical diagnosis, digital democracy, standing on the pillars of social media platforms, has undoubtedly been promulgated by productive public participation. Speaking in a positive manner, the concept has gained so much popularity among the masses that it helps foster diverse perspectives in societies and encourages people to work collectively in a win-win situation instead of relying on self-help. However, the enhanced public participation that has strengthened digital democracy via social media could be proved as a double-edged sword in the coming future in the form of propaganda games, further raising prisoner’s dilemma for the future world order. But for now, social engagement has always borne fruits for society by boosting digital democracy in a positive way, paving the countries’ way towards development.

In conclusion, using social media platforms actively by the global citizens in the global village has raised the standards of democracy in the twenty-first century. Surely, the inclusion of digital telecommunication tools in the government structure has raised the living standards of the masses and ensured the active accountability of the leaders holding public offices. Furthermore, it also helped the masses become well aware of their rights and their timely dispensation, boosting the levels of digital democracy and taking it to an advanced level. In the end, digital democracy by using social media has strengthened due to the continuous struggle of the public, seeking pluralism by accepting diversity at all fronts. 

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Trump unable to finance an appeal bond for at least $450 million, lawyers say

Trump and the trump organization have been unable to get an insurer that issues court bonds to accept property as collateral.

NEW YORK — Donald Trump has failed to finance an appeal bond for more than $450 million to cover a judgment in the New York attorney general’s business fraud case against him and is seeking a reprieve from an appellate court to keep the state from seizing assets, according to a court filing by his attorneys on Monday.

The former president’s lawyers said in the filing that Trump and the Trump Organization, the real estate, hospitality and golf resort company he solely owns, have been unable to get a surety company, an insurer that issues court bonds, to accept property as collateral — stalling any efforts to obtain a bond with a week before the state might begin collecting.

“Critical among these challenges is not just the inability and reluctance of the vast majority of sureties to underwrite a bond for this unprecedented sum, but, even more significantly, the unwillingness of every surety bond provider approached by Defendants to accept real estate as collateral,” Alan Garten, the Trump company’s general counsel, wrote in a sworn submission.

Garten said Trump and the company approached 30 surety companies through four brokers, proposing combinations of liquid and real estate assets, without success. None of them were willing to accept real estate collateral for appeal bonds, he said, noting that Trump and the company have faced “insurmountable difficulties” in exhaustive efforts to secure a bond for the full amount necessary.

Barring financial or court developments, Trump, the likely Republican nominee against President Biden in the 2024 election , could see New York state officials take steps toward seizing his real estate and other assets next week.

The legal team behind Trump recently failed to get an emergency appeals judge to issue a stay of enforcement on the judgment as the 30-day unofficial deadline the attorney general gave the company to fulfill its appeal bond obligation looms. . That judge also rejected an offer of a $100 million bond in lieu of the full amount. A full panel will soon examine the same issues.

Trump’s financial outlook appears significantly jeopardized by the pending bond issue and the massive judgment looming over him, which remains unresolved less than two weeks after Trump posted a $91 million bond to hold off enforcement in a defamation lawsuit he lost to advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.

Such large civil judgments are more commonly seen in litigation involving corporations or other major financial institutions. For the family-run Trump Organization, which owns and manages Trump’s real estate and makes up the vast majority of his personal wealth, quickly finding such a large amount of cash or other available assets has proved exceedingly difficult.

Barring a court stay, Trump will need to post a bond of about $464 million by Monday — the day a month-long grace period offered by New York Attorney General Letitia James’s expires. If a bond is posted before the window closes, it would have the effect of imposing a stay on James’s enforcement while Trump’s appeal is pending because the surety company would have guaranteed future payment. If a bond isn’t posted, James’s office can begin enforcing the judgment by starting the process of seizing his assets.

Trump’s lawyers called it a “practical impossibility” to post a bond under the circumstances.

Trump’s lawyers in the case asked for permission to send the bond fulfillment issue to the state’s highest court for review should the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division decline to stay enforcement of the monetary judgment. The team previously won a temporary stay of a non-monetary condition which would remove Trump’s adult sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. from running the company.

Trump, his company and several current and former executives were found civilly liable in Manhattan state court this year for engaging in illegal acts to defraud banks and insurance companies by lying about the true value of his assets to falsely obtain profits and savings in business over a decade.

James, who brought the case, said Trump misstated the value of his properties and other assets by up to $2.2 billion a year from 2011 to 2021.

Surety companies are requiring Trump to put up the entire amount needed for the bond in collateral, according to the defense filing. Legal experts said that a likelihood of the appeal failing is the main reason companies would mandate such terms.

“Insurance companies in appeals cases tend to want the full amount of the judgment as collateral,” said Adam Pollock, an attorney who formerly served as assistant attorney general in New York.

Surety companies generally accept only cash or an irrevocable letter of credit as collateral, according to JD Weisbrot, who has worked in the business for more than 20 years and is a managing director at the underwriting firm Risk Strategies.

Someone with assets like Trump, who has the majority of his fortune tied up in real estate, would ideally go through a bank to get that letter of credit, Weisbrot said. A bank would also likely want the full amount of the bond in collateral but might accept many more types of collateral, including deeds to real estate, fine art or other assets, he said. That could free up funds for someone who owns lots of property.

“My feeling is a bank would likely take a similar position as a surety and likely also require a dollar-for-dollar amount in collateral,” he said. “But a bank is more flexible as a financial situation than a surety would be in terms of the type of collateral.”

Trump has few existing relationships with big banks on Wall Street, according to a financial disclosure he filed with the government in August as part of his candidacy. Deutsche Bank, which provided him with a number of loans that fueled the expansion of his business before he entered politics, no longer has any loans with him.

When the state attorney general gets the green light from a court to enforce a financial judgment, state law allows her office to instruct law enforcement to deliver execution notices — similar to subpoenas — to banks or other parties that hold a defendant’s assets.

Staff from the New York City Marshals (or the Sheriff’s Office if the asset is real estate) then go to collect the debtor’s assets, Pollock said. That can include draining the defendant’s bank accounts by requesting cashier’s checks for the full amounts or, in some cases, going to defendants’ homes or businesses and hauling away expensive cars or pieces of artwork.

In some instances, enforcement might require the state attorney general’s office to spend time determining where a defendant’s assets are located. But because the case with Trump revolved around his assets and chronicled them in great detail, James’s office likely already has much or all of the information it needs.

“They know where his assets are — the whole case was about his assets,” Pollock said.

That would make enforcement much easier, Pollock suggested, particularly for bank accounts that are in his name or the name of his business units that were named as defendants.

“They could get that money tomorrow,” he said.

O’Connell reported from Washington. Josh Dawsey in Washington contributed to this report.

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