It is a truism to say that many believe in democracy, but few are able to explain what exactly they mean by it.
Democracy comes in so many shapes and forms that pundits have described democracy by many names — parliamentary democracy (a reference to the parliamentary system pioneered by England); liberal democracy (a reference to the liberal values which underpin democratic systems); “default” democracy (as Winston Churchill put it, the worst form of government except for others which had been tried); or “dynamic” democracy (democratic activity is not a means to an end but a dynamic process in its own right).
Political scientist Robert Dahl identified three democratic models : Madisonian democracy, where power is distributed between three branches of government and the power of any branch or faction is curbed by checks and balances; populistic democracy (which rests on the principles of popular sovereignty, political equality and rule by majorities); and polyarchal democracy (where power is vested in multiple agencies and the democratic process is characterized by participation and opposition).
Democracy sprouted as “direct democracy” in the first democratic Greek city-state of Athens, where the population was small enough for citizens to directly decide on issues in the equivalent of today’s town hall meetings. Direct democracy became unmanageable as states grew more populous; hence indirect democracy, or representative government, was introduced to give people a voice in governance through their elected representatives.
It should be noted that early Greek democracy as in Athens was not unlimited democracy. Voting rights were confined to “citizens” — women, foreigners and slaves were excluded. Moreover, those citizens were supposedly sufficiently conversant with the affairs of the state to make the right decisions “for the common good”.
The “first new nation”, the United States of America established after the American Revolution, is more accurately defined as a republic than a democracy. Voting rights were confined to white males. Women and black people were not given the right to vote until the Nineteenth Amendment to the American Constitution in 1920 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Senators were appointed by states until the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1912. It was certainly not a mass, electoral democracy as in many democratic countries today.
Even after these constitutional amendments, the US can hardly be said to be a populistic democracy where power is vested in the people. As we have seen from successive American presidential elections, political power is vested in the two major political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. Very few independent candidates can get on to the ballot paper unless he (or, most unlikely, she) is extremely rich. The party machinery controls who gets to be nominated, and the electoral college ensures that the popular choice is not always the elite’s choice.
As for those who believe that the democratic process is intrinsically valuable because of its transformative effect on individuals, empowering them to take political responsibility and turning them into political agents, this belief hinges on the ability of each and every individual to function as active, informed citizen, willing to make political decisions in the interest of the common good. Yet the reality falls far short of this ideal. Most people lack the leisure and expertise to study each and every societal or political issue in depth, or the incentive to work for the common good rather than private interests. The task of political organization, representation and formation of government has become the province of the political class — policy wonks, fund-raisers, campaign organizers, speech writers, spin doctors, corridors of power insiders, and increasingly important in recent years tech savvy operators who can sow misinformation, lies and falsehoods to attack rivals and confound the voters.
Modern democracy, as seen from the democratic process now on display in the US, bears little resemblance to the noble theories which have given the democratic model moral legitimacy and widespread credence. In order to woo voters, politicians mortgage the future and adopt measures that could bankrupt their nations. Politicians win kudos by giving the people theatre, rather than make substantive contributions to the well-being of the people. Voters vote on the basis of their passions and strongly held political predilections. Even when voters make political choices on the basis of what they perceive as “the common good”, their visions of what constitutes the common good are as starkly polarized as night and day. Ideological differences are magnified by information technology which has the effect of locking people into echo chambers of their views.
In the US, the two opposing camps appear to have become two tribes, two nations. Rather than helping to unify the nation after citizens have taken part in a cathartic, democratic process, the US risks becoming even more torn after November 3, whoever wins the next presidential election.
If democracy is seen as instrumental to improving the welfare of the people, many of the richest and most advanced democracies have failed the Covid test. On 23 October, the US registered a record number of Covid-19 infections. Democracy has come a long way from its early days as direct, participatory democracy by informed citizens in the Greek city-state of Athens. Questions should rightly be asked whether democracy can continue to serve the modern world as well as it generally has in the past few hundred years, and what’s next in the future.
