There is not one single definition of what democracy is. Democracy does not consist of a single unique set of institutions. There are many types of democracy, and their diverse practices produce many effects. The specific form democracy takes depends on a country’s socioeconomic conditions as well as its entrenched state structures and policy practices. At the same time, a remarkable consensus has emerged concerning the minimal conditions that institutions must meet in order to merit the prestigious identification of “democratic.” A number of international organizations now monitorhow well these standards are met; indeed, some countries even consider them when formulating foreign policy.
What Democracy Is
Modern democracy is a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through their elected representatives. But, democracy cannot be reduced to the regular holding of elections. Democratic regime is one generic label. Other regimes are autocratic, authoritarian, despotic, dictatorial, tyrannical, totalitarian, absolutist, traditional, monarchic, oligarchic, plutocratic, aristocratic, and sultanistic. What distinguishes democratic rulers from nondemocratic ones are the norms that condition how the rulers come to power and the practices that hold them accountable for their actions.
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Glossary of Regime Types Absolutism: The theory or practice of absolute government, typically based on a claim to an unlimited right to rule Authoritarianism: A political system in which a small group of individuals exercises power over the state without being constitutionally responsible to the public. Autocrat: a person who rules with total power Clientelism: A process whereby the state co-opts members of the public by providing specific benefits or favors to a single person or a small group in return for public support. Communism: (1) A political-economic system in which all wealth and property are shared so as to eliminate exploitation, oppression, and, ultimately, the need for political institutions such as the state. (2) A political ideology that advocates such a system. Despot, dictator, tyrant: a ruler who has total power and who often uses that power in cruel and unfair ways Fascism: A political ideology that asserts the superiority and inferiority of different groups of people and stresses a low degree of both freedom and equality in order to achieve a powerful state. Fundamentalism: A view of religion as absolute and inerrant that should be legally enforced by making faith the sovereign authority. Military rule: Rule by one or more military officials, often brought to power through a coup d’état. Monarchy: a country that is ruled by a monarch (such as a king or queen) Nationalism: Pride in one’s people and the belief that they have a unique political destiny. Oligarchy: government or control by a small group of people one-party rule Rule by one political party, with other parties banned or excluded from power. Plutocracy: government by the richest people Sultanistic regime: an authoritarian regime based on personal ideology and personal favor to maintain the autocrat in power; there is little ideological basis for the rule except personal power. Technocracy: the government or control of society or industry by an elite of technical experts. Theocracy: A nondemocratic form of rule where religion is the foundation for the regime. Totalitarianism: A nondemocratic regime that is highly centralized, possessing some form of strong ideology that seeks to transform and absorb fundamental aspects of state, society, and the economy, using a wide array of institutions. Traditional legitimacy: Legitimacy that accepts aspects of politics because they have been institutionalized over a long period of time. |
Citizens
Citizens are the most unique element in democracies. All regimes have rulers. Only democratic regimes have citizens. Historically, severe restrictions on citizenship were imposed in most emerging or partial democracies according to criteria of age, gender, class, race, literacy, property ownership, tax-paying status and so on. Only a small part of the total population was eligible to vote or run for office.
Only restricted social categories were allowed to form, join, or support political associations. After a long struggle, most of these restrictions were lifted. Today, the criteria for inclusion are fairly standard. All native-born adults are eligible,although somewhat higher age limits may still be imposed upon candidates for certain offices. None of the current democracies has attempted to impose formal restrictions on the franchise or eligibility to office. When it comes to informal restrictions on the effective exercise of citizenship rights, however, the story can be quite different.
Competition
Competition has not always been considered an essential defining condition of democracy. “Classic” democracies presumed decision making based on direct participation leading to consensus. The assembled citizenry was expected to agree on a common course of action after listening to the alternatives. Today it is widely accepted that competition among factions is a necessary evil in democracies that operate on a more-than-local scale. The most popular definition of democracy equates it with regular elections, fairly conducted and honestly counted.
Elections are central for democracy, but we should not fall in the trap of “electoralism.” Electoralism means “a faith that merely holding elections will channel political action into peaceful contests among elites and accord public legitimacy to the winners” no matter how they are conducted or what else constrains those who win them.
During the intervals between elections, citizens can seek to influence public policy through a wide variety of other intermediaries: interest associations, social movements, locality groupings, clientelistic arrangements, and so forth. Modern democracy, in other words, offers a variety of competitive processes and channels for the expression of interest and values – associational as well as partisan, functional as well as territorial, collective as well as individual. All are integral to its practice.
Majority rule
Any governing body that makes decisions by combining the votes of more than half of those eligible and present is said to be democratic, whether that majority emerges within an electorate, a parliament, a committee, a city council, or a party caucus. For exceptional purposes, (e.g. amending the constitution or expelling a member), “qualified majorities” of more than 50 percent may be required.
The principle of majority rule is balanced with the requirement of special provisions that guarantee protection of minority rights and a protection of universal individual human rights. This can take the form of constitutional provisions that are beyond the reach of majorities (bills of rights); requirements for concurrent majorities in several different constituencies (confederalism); guarantees securing the autonomy of local or regional governments against the demands of the central authority (federalism); grand coalition governments that incorporate all parties (consociationalism); or the negotiation of social pacts between major social groups like business and labor (neocorporatism). The most common and effective way of protecting minorities, however, lies in the everyday operation of interest associations and social movements
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Minority Rights Minority Rights Glossary Bill of rights: A constitutional document that specifies the rights and freedoms of the individual, and so defines the legal extent of civil liberty. Confederation: A qualified union of states in which each state retains its independence, typically guaranteed by unanimous decision-making. Consociational democracy: A form of democracy that operates through power-sharing and a close association amongst a number of parties or political formations. Federalism: A territorial distribution of power based on the sharing of sovereignty between central (usually national) bodies and peripheral ones Neocorporatism: A system of social democratic policy making where a number of organizations representing business and labor work with the state to set economic policy. |
Cooperation
Cooperation has always been a central feature of democracy. Actors must voluntarily make collective decisions binding on the polity as a whole. They must cooperate in order to compete. They must be capable of acting collectively
through parties, associations, and movements in order to select candidates,articulate preferences, petition authorities, and influence policies.
Democracy’s freedoms should also encourage citizens to deliberate among themselves, to discover their common needs, and to resolve their differences without relying on some supreme central authority. Democracy is something more than a struggle for election and re-election among competing candidates. In contemporary political discourse, this phenomenon of cooperation and deliberation via autonomous group activity goes under the rubric of “civil society.” The diverse units of social identity and interest, by remaining independent of the state (and perhaps even of parties), not only can restrain the arbitrary actions of rulers, but can also contribute to forming better citizens who are more aware of the preferences of others, more self-confident in their actions, and more civic-minded in their willingness to sacrifice for the common good.
Civil society provides an intermediate layer of governance between the individual and the state. Rather than overloading decision makers with increased demands and making the system ungovernable, a good civil society can solve conflicts and improve the quality of citizenship – without relying exclusively on the privatism of the marketplace.
Representatives – whether directly or indirectly elected – do most of the real work in modern democracies. Most are professional politicians who orient their careers around the desire to fill key offices. It is doubtful that any democracy could survive without such people. The central question, therefore, is not whether or not there will be a political elite or even a professional political class, but how these representatives are chosen and then held accountable for their actions.
Channels of representation in modern democracy
Elected representatives (parliamentary and presidency) that are periodically accountable to the citizenry as a whole. But in a democratic society we also have a relatively big number and variety of governmental agencies charged with making public decisions and not subject elections. Around these agencies there has developed a vast apparatus of specialized representation based largely on functional interests, not territorial constituencies. These interest associations, and not political parties, have become the primary expression of civil society in most stable democracies. The last form of representation that we find in modern democracies is more sporadic interventions of social movements.
New and fragile democracies cannot expect to acquire multiple channels of representation in gradual historical progression. A bewildering array of parties, interests, and movements will all simultaneously seek political influence in them.
This will cause challenges to the polity that did not exist in earlier processes of democratization.
Procedures that Make Democracy Possible
For democracy to thrive, however, specific procedural norms must be followed and civic rights must be respected. Any polity that fails to impose such restrictions upon itself, that fails to follow the “rule of law” with regard to its own procedures, should not be considered democratic. These procedures alone do not define democracy, but their presence is indispensable to its persistence. In essence, they are necessary but not sufficient conditions for its existence.
Robert Dahl’s list of “procedural minimal” conditions that must be present for modern political democracy:
1. Control over government decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials.
2. Elected officials are chosen in frequent and fairly conducted elections in which coercion is comparatively uncommon.
3. Practically all adults have the right to vote in the election o f officials.
4. Practically all adults have the right to run for elective offices in the government.
5. Citizens have a right to express themselves without the danger of severe punishment on political matters broadly defined.
6. Citizens have a right to seek out alternative sources of information. Moreover, alternative sources of information exist and are protected by law.
7. Citizens also have the right to form relatively independent associations or organizations, including independent political parties and interest groups.
These seven conditions capture the essence of procedural democracy.
We propose to add two others:
8. Popularly elected officials must be able to exercise their constitutional powers without being subjected to overriding opposition from unelected officials.
Democracy is in jeopardy if military officers, entrenched civil servants, or state managers retain the capacity to act independently of elected civilians or even veto decisions made by the people’s representatives.
9. The polity must be self-governing; it must be able to act independently of constraints imposed by some other overarching political system. With the development of blocs, alliances, spheres of influence, and a variety of “neocolonial” arrangements, the question of autonomy has been a salient one.
Is a system really democratic if their elected officials are unable to make binding decisions without the approval of actors outside their territorial domain?
Principles that Make Democracy Feasible
In a democracy, representatives must at least informally agree that those who win greater electoral support or influence over policy will not use their temporary superiority to bar the losers from taking office or exerting influence in the future, and that in exchange for this opportunity to keep competing for power and place, momentary losers will respect the winners’ right to make binding decisions.
Citizens are expected to obey the decisions ensuing from such a process of competition, provided its outcome remains contingent upon their collective preferences as expressed through fair and regular elections or open and repeated negotiations.
All democracies involve a degree of uncertainty about who will be elected and what policies they will pursue. But the uncertainty embedded in the core of all democracies is bounded. There are previously established rules that must be respected. Not just any policy can be adopted. There are conditions that must be met. Democracy institutionalizes “normal,” limited political uncertainty. These boundaries vary from country to country.
Constitutional guarantees of property, privacy, expression, and other rights are part of this, but the most effective boundaries are generated by competition among interest groups and cooperation within civil society.