Lecture 1: What is democracy Flashcards
Concepts that distinguish democracy as a unique system for organising relations between rulers and the ruled are
- Regime/system of governance
- The presence of rulers
- The public realm
- Citizens
- Competiton
- Fairly conducted and honestly counted election
- Majority rule
- Cooperation
- Civil society
- Representatives
- Review procedures
A regime/system of governance is…
- A group of patterns that determines the access methods to the principal public offices. It must be institutionalised to work properly, preferably through a written body of laws with a constitution
- The characteristics of the actors admitted to or excluded from such access.
- The strategies that actors may use to gain access.
- The rules that are followed in making publicly binding decisions.
The presence of rulers and democracy
- Democracies depend on the presence of rulers.
- What distinguishes democratic rulers from non-democratic ones are the norms that condition how they come to power and the practices that hold them accountable for their actions.
Public realm and democracy
- The public realm contains the making of collective norms and choices that are binding on society and backed by state coercion.
- How the public realm looks can vary across democracies and depends on preexisting conditions (public vs private, state vs society, legitimate coercion vs voluntary exchange, collective needs vs individuals preferences).
Citizens and democracy
- Only democracies have citizens
- There used to be restrictions on citizenship, now the criteria for inclusion are pretty standard.
- All native-born adults are eligible for citizenship.
Competition and democracy
- Competition has different modes, and there are different boundaries of competition.
- This contributes to distinguishing one subtype of democracy from the other.
Fairly conducted and honestly counted elections and democracy
- Can be seen as the same as democracy.
- Some even consider just the existence of elections as a sufficient condition for democracy. This fallacy is called electoralism.
How can citizens influence public policy between elections
Through:
1. Interest associations
2. Social movements
3. Locality groupings
4. Clientelistic arrangement
Majority rule and democracy
- Problems can arise when the majority makes decisions that harm some minority.
- Successful democracies have the central principle of majority rule.
- Can be in the form of constitutional provisions
- Most common and effective way is the existence of interest associations and social movements
Cooperation democracy
- Actors have to voluntarily make collective decisions binding on the polity.
- They have to cooperate to compete.
- This can be through parties, associations and movements to select candidates, articulate preferences, petition authorities and influence policies.
Civil society and democracy
- Civil society can restrain the arbitrary actions of rulers and contribute to forming better citizens who are aware of the preferences of others and more self-confident in their actions.
- It provides a layer of governance between the individual and the state and is capable of resolving conflicts and controlling the behaviour of members without public coercion.
Representatives and democracy
- Representatives are professional politicians whose career is oriented around the desire to fill key offices.
- In a democracy, it is about how they are chosen and held accountable for their actions.
Review procedures
The rules and arrangements needed to make democracy last
The procedural minimal conditions to make a democracy exists are:
- Control over government decisions about policy is constitutionally awarded in elected officials.
- Elected officials are chosen in frequent and fairly conducted elections in which coercion is comparatively uncommon.
- Practically all adults have the right to vote.
- Practically all adults have the right to run for elective offices in the government.
- Citizens have a right to express themselves on political matters without the danger of severe punishment.
- Citizens have a right to seek alternative sources of information. These have to exist and are protected by law.
- Citizens have a right to form independent associations/organisations, including independent political parties and interest groups.
- Popularly elected officials must be able to exercise their constitutional powers without being subjected to overriding opposition from unelected officials.
- The polity must be self-governing. It must be able to act independently of constraints imposed by some overarching political system.
Two operative principles that make democracy work
- The principle that representatives agree that those who win greater electoral support or influence over policy will not use their power to ban the losers from taking office or influencing in the future. In exchange, the losers will respect the winners’ right to make binding decisions.
- Citizens must obey the decisions that come out of this, as long as they align with the collective preferences they express through fair and regular elections or negotiations.
All democracies have a degree of uncertainty about who will be elected and what policies they will pursue. However, this uncertainty is bounded. Not just any actor can get into the competition and raise any issue they want, and not just any policy can be adopted.