Democracy in Theory and in Practice Flashcards
Weber on legitimacy
- Domination + legitimacy = Authority
- Three ways to legitimate domination: traditional, charismatic, legal-rational
Three ways to legitimate domination (Weber)
1) Traditional
- Political authority has been legitimized because of its continuity and consistency in history
2) Charismatic
- In times of crisis, people look for charismatic leaders
3) Legal-rational
- Appeal of reasonable and general rules
- When you observe the universality of the law, then it becomes rational
Since Weber
Democracy also legitimates – power of the people and the law
-Popular consent and participation
-Facilitates peaceful reconciliation of competing interests
-Feedback mechanism
-Just watch out for manipulation from above
(elite tries to manipulate things for legitimacy)
-Legitimacy deficit can destroy a democracy
Legitimacy in the UK
- Legal-rational, constitutional, and democratic
- Always with a touch of tradition
- A traditional sentimental attachment “that no legislature can manufacture in any people” (Walter Bagehot)
- People in the UK love their monarchs and they cannot be replaced in the short-term
- Charisma has helped at critical moments
What is democracy?
- A contested term because it is multi-faceted
- Many varieties – There are different ways to institutionalize a democracy
- Popular sovereignty – Consent is not enough
Rule by the people
- The propertyless masses
- The nation
- The community within established state borders
Equal right to participate
-The political nation has shifted over time:
- Intense but limited participation in Ancient Greece
- Tax and property qualifications established
- Gradual removal of these restrictions
- Recognition of women as independent political actors
- Define the age of maturity, status of prisoners
Direct democracy
- Classical ideal
- Representative democracy is just a dictatorship punctured by elections every four or five years
- Difficult to establish in modern states: scale, capacity, complexity
Indirect/representitive democracy
- Through elected representatives
- Public opinion keeps representatives accountable between elections
- Elements of direct democracy still available (referendum, initiative, recall)
Responses to indirect democracy
- Ancient Greeks: a denial of democracy
- Rousseau: “The moment a people gives itself representatives, it is no longer free”
- Paine: we need a system of government capable of embracing and considering all of the various interests
Representative democracy (process)
1) Elections
2) Competition
3) People speak by a majority or a pluralist
4) Winners govern
Joseph Schumpeter
- Democracy is about procedures, not goals
- People don’t rule – ‘they are producers of governments’
- Competitive elitism
Theories of representation
1) Trustee
- Edward Burke: elect someone who is superior with independent judgement
- Jean Stuart Mill: plural voting
2) Delegate
- Limit the independence of representatives
- Approximate but direct democracy
3) Mandate
- Modern democracy – voters elect not just representatives but governments
- Offers democratic justification for party discipline
- A useful fiction
4) Resemblance
- Legislatures: should be microcosms of society as a whole
- But should we encourage advancement of narrow group interests and identities?
Liberty and democracy
- Rulers govern within legal and constitutional limits
- Rulers for elections – ‘free and fair’
- Rules constraining rulers – protective democracy
Independence and opinion formulation
- Rules enabling formation of independent opinions and associations:
- Rights
- Information
- Civil society
- Developmental democracy
