lecture 5 Flashcards
THE ISSUE OF
REPRESENTATION
should elected politicians be bound by policies and
positions outlined during an election and endorsed by
the voters, or is it their job to lead public opinion and
thereby help to define the public interest?” [Heywood
2013: 197]
The issue of representation has generated deep and recurrent political controversy.
Even the absolute monarchs of old were expected to rule by seeking the
advice of the ‘estates of the realm’ (the major landed interests, the clergy, and so
on). In this sense, the English Civil War of the 17th century, fought
between King and Parliament, broke out as a result of an attempt to deny representation
to key groups and interests. Similarly, debate about the spread of
democracy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries centred largely on the
question of who should be represented. Should representation be restricted to
those who have the competence, education and, perhaps, leisure to act wisely
and think seriously about politics (variously seen as men, the propertied, or
particular racial or ethnic groups), or should representation be extended to all
adult citizens?
Such questions have now largely been resolved through the widespread
accept ance of the principle of political equality (see p. 90), at least in the formal
sense of universal suffrage and ‘one person, one vote’. Plural voting, for example,
was abolished in the UK in 1949, women were enfranchised in one canton in
Switzerland in 1971, and racial criteria for voting were swept away in South
Africa in 1994. However, this approach to representation is simplistic, in that it
equates representation with elections and voting, politicians being seen as ‘representatives’
merely because they have been elected. This ignores more difficult
questions about how one person can be said to represent another, and what it is
that he or she represents. Is it the views of the represented, their best interests,
the groups from which they come, or what
Compulsory voting
Compulsory voting
5. Would you agree that compulsory voting
strengthens democratic legitimacy and ensures that
governments do not neglect sections of society that
are less active politically?
6. Would you agree that compulsory voting will have
educational benefits stimulating political activism and
creating a better informed citizenry?
Define representation
Representation is, broadly, a relationship through which an individual or group stands for, or acts on behalf of, a larger body of people. Representation differs from democracy in that, while the former acknowledges a distinction between government and the governed, the latter, at least in its classical form, aspires to abolish this distinction and establish popular self-government. Representative democracy (see p. 92) may nevertheless constitute a limited and indirect form of democratic rule, provided that the representation links government and the governed in such a way that the people’s views are articulated, Representation is, broadly, a relationship through which an individual or group stands for, or acts on behalf of, a larger body of people. Representation differs from democracy in that, while the former acknowledges a distinction between government and the governed, the latter, at least in its classical form, aspires to abolish this distinction and establish popular self-government. Representative democracy (see p. 92) may nevertheless constitute a limited and indirect form of democratic rule, provided that the representation links government and the governed in such a way that the people’s views are articulated, or their interests secured
Theories of representation
There is no single, agreed theory of representation. Rather, there are a number of
competing theories, each of which is based on particular ideological and political
assumptions. For example, does representative government imply that government
‘knows better’ than the people, that government has somehow ‘been
instructed’ by the people what to do and how to behave; or that the government
‘looks like’ the people, in that it broadly reflects their characteristics or features?
Such questions are not of academic interest alone. Particular models of representation
dictate very different behaviour on the part of representatives. For
instance, should elected politicians be bound by policies and positions outlined
during an election and endorsed by the voters, or is it their job to lead public
opinion and thereby help to define the public interest? Moreover, it is not
uncommon for more than one principle of representation to operate within the
same political system, suggesting, perhaps, that no single model is sufficient in
itself to secure representative government.
Four principal models of representation have been advanced:
trusteeship
delegation
the mandate
resemblance.
Trustee model
A trustee is a person who acts on behalf of others, using his or her superior
knowledge, better education or greater experience. The classic expression of
representation as trusteeship is found in Edmund Burke’s (see p. 36) speech to
the electors of Bristol in 1774:
You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him he is not
member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament . . . Your representative
owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of
serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion (Burke, 1975).
For Burke, the essence of representation was to serve one’s constituents by the
exercise of ‘mature judgement’ and ‘enlightened conscience’. In short, representation
is a moral duty: those with the good fortune to possess education and
understanding should act in the interests of those who are less fortunate. This
view had strongly elitist implications, since it stresses that, once elected, representatives
should think for themselves and exercise independent judgement on
the grounds that the mass of people do not know their own best interests. A
similar view was advanced by John Stuart Mill in the form of the liberal theory of
representation. This was based on the assumption that, although all individuals
have a right to be represented, not all political opinions are of equal value. Mill
therefore proposed a system of plural voting in which four or five votes would be
allocated to holders of learned diplomas or degrees, two or three to skilled or
managerial workers, and a single vote to ordin ary workers. He also argued that
rational voters would support politicians who could act wisely on their behalf,
rather than those who merely reflected the voters’ own views. Trustee representation
thus portrays professional politicians as repre sentatives, insofar as they are
members of an educated elite. It is based on the belief that knowledge and understanding
are unequally distributed in society, in the sense that not all citizens
know what is best for them.
This Burkean notion of representation has also attracted severe criticism,
however. For instance, it appears to have clearly antidemocratic implications. If politicians should think for themselves because the public is ignorant, poorly
educated or deluded, then surely it is a mistake to allow the public to elect their
representatives in the first place. Second, the link between representation and
education is questionable. Whereas education may certainly be of value in aiding
the understanding of intricate political and economic problems, it is far less clear
that it helps politicians to make correct moral judgements about the interests of
others. There is little evidence, for example, to support Burke’s and Mill’s belief
that education breeds altruism and gives people a broader sense of social
responsibility. Finally, there is the fear traditionally expressed by radical democrats
such as Thomas Paine that, if politicians are allowed to exercise their own
judgement, they will simply use that latitude to pursue their own selfish interests.
In this way, representation could simply become a substitute for democracy. In
his pamphlet Common Sense ( [1776] 1987), Paine came close to the rival ideal
of delegate representation in insisting that ‘the elected should never form to
themselves an interest separate from the electors’.
Delegate model
A delegate is a person who acts as a conduit conveying the views of others, while
having little or no capacity to exercise his or her own judgement or preferences.
Examples include sales representatives and ambassadors, neither of whom are,
strictly speaking, authorized to think for themselves. Similarly, a trade-union
official who attends a conference with instructions on how to vote and what to
say is acting as a delegate, not as a Burkean representative. Those who favour this
model of representation as delegation usually support mechanisms that ensure
that politicians are bound as closely as possible to the views of the represented.
These include what Paine referred to as ‘frequent interchange’ between representatives
and their constituents in the form of regular elections and short terms in
office. In addition, radical democrats have advocated the use of initiatives and
the right of recall as means of giving the public more control over politicians.
Although delegation stops short of direct democracy, its supporters nevertheless
usually favour the use of referendums (see p. 201) to supplement the representative
process. The virtue of what has been called ‘delegated representation’ is that it
provides broader opportunities for popular participation and serves to check the
self-serving in clinations of professional politicians. It thus comes as close as is
possible in represent ative government to realizing the ideal of popular sovereignty.
Its disadvantages are, nevertheless, also clear. In the first place, in ensuring
that representatives are bound to the interests of their constituents, it tends
to breed narrowness and foster conflict. This is precisely what Burke feared
would occur if members of the legislature acted as ambassadors who took
instructions from their constituents, rather than as representatives of the nation.
As he put it, ‘Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest,
that of the whole’. A second drawback is that, because professional politicians
are not trusted to exercise their own judgement, delegation limits the scope for
leadership (see p. 300) and statesmanship. Politicians are forced to reflect the
views of their constituents or even pander to them, and are thus not able to
mobilize the people by providing vision and inspiration.
Mandate model
Both the trustee model and the delegate model were developed before the emergence
of modern political parties, and therefore view representatives as essentially
independent actors. However, individual candidates are now rarely elected
mainly on the basis of their personal qualities and talents; more commonly, they
are seen, to a greater or lesser extent, as foot soldiers for a party, and are
supported because of its public image or programme of policies. New theories of
representation have therefore emerged. The most influential of these is the socalled
‘doctrine of the mandate’. This is based on the idea that, in winning an
election, a party gains a popular mandate that authorizes it to carry out whatever
policies or programmes it outlined during the election campaign. As it is the
party, rather than individual politicians, that is the agent of representation, the
mandate model provides a clear justification for party unity and party discipline.
In effect, politicians serve their constituents not by thinking for themselves or
acting as a channel to convey their views, but by remaining loyal to their party and
its policies.
The strength of the mandate doctrine is that it takes account of the
undoubted practical importance of party labels and party policies. Moreover, it
provides a means of imposing some kind of meaning on election results, as well
as a way of keeping politicians to their word. Nevertheless, the doctrine has also
stimulated fierce criticism. First, it is based on a highly questionable model of
voting behaviour, insofar as it suggests that voters select parties on the grounds
of policies and issues. Voters are not always the rational and well-informed creatures
that this model suggests. They can be influenced by a range of ‘irrational’
factors, such as the personalities of leaders, the images of parties, habitual allegiances
and social conditioning.
Second, even if voters are influenced by policies, it is likely that they will be
attracted by certain manifesto commitments, but be less interested in, or
perhaps opposed to, others. A vote for a party cannot therefore be taken to be an
endorsement of its entire manifesto or, indeed, of any single election promise.
Third, the doctrine imposes a straitjacket. It limits government policies to those
positions and proposals that the party took up during the election, and leaves no scope to adjust policies in the light of changing circumstances. What guidance
do mandates offer in the event of, say, international or economic crises? Finally
(as discussed in the next main section of this chapter), the doctrine of the
mandate can be applied only in the case of majoritarian electoral systems, and its
use even there may appear absurd if the winning party fails to gain 50 per cent
of the popular vote.
Resemblance model
The final theory of representation is based less on the manner in which representatives
are selected than on whether they typify or resemble the group they
claim to represent. This notion is embodied in the idea of a ‘representative crosssection’,
as used by market researchers and opinion pollsters. By this standard, a
representative government would constitute a microcosm of the larger society,
containing members drawn from all groups and sections in society (in terms of
social class, gender, age and so on), and in numbers that are proportional to the
size of the groups in society at large. The idea of descriptive representation, or
as it has been called ‘microcosmic representation’, has traditionally been
endorsed by socialist, feminist and other radical thinkers. They argue that the
‘under-representation’ of groups such as the working class, women and racial minorities at senior levels in key institutions ensures that their interests are
marginalized, or ignored altogether.
The resemblance model suggests that only people who come from a particular
group, and have shared the experiences of that group, can fully identify with
its interests. This is the difference between ‘putting oneself in the shoes of
another’ and having direct and personal experience of what other people go
through. A ‘new man’ or a ‘pro-feminist’ male may, for instance, sympathize with
women’s interests and support the principle of gender equality, but will never
take women’s problems as seriously as women do themselves, because they are
not his problems. On the other hand, the idea that representatives should resemble
the represented undoubtedly causes a number of difficulties.
One of these is that this model portrays representation in exclusive or narrow
terms, believing that only a woman can represent women, only a black person
can represent other black people, only a member of the working class can represent
the working classes and so on. If all representatives simply advanced the
interests of the groups from which they come, the result would be social division
and conflict, with no one being able to defend the common good or advance a
broader public interest. Moreover, a government that is a microcosm of society
would reflect that society’s weaknesses as well as its strengths. What would be the
advantage, for example, of government resembling society if the majority of the
population are apathetic, ill-informed and poorly educated? Finally, the micro -
cosmic ideal can be achieved only by imposing powerful constraints on electoral
choice and individual freedom. In the name of representation, political parties
may be forced to select quotas of female and minority candidates, constituencies
may be set aside for candidates from par ticular backgrounds, or, more dramatically,
the electorate might have to be classified on the basis of class, gender, race
and so on, and only be allowed to vote for candidates from their own group
ELECTIONS
Although controversy continues to rage about the nature of representation, there
is one point of universal agreement: the representative process is intrinsically
linked to elections and voting. Elections may not, in themselves, be a sufficient
Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950)
Moravian-born US economist and sociologist. Following an early academic career and
a brief spell as Minister of Finance in post-First-World-War Austria, Schumpeter
became professor of economics at Harvard University in 1932. His economic thought,
developed in Theory of Economic Development (1912) and Business Cycles (1939),
centred on the long-term dynamics of the capitalist system and in particular the
role of ‘risk-loving’ entrepreneurs. In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942),
Schumpeter drew on economic, sociological and political theories to advance the
famous contention that western capitalism was, impelled by its very success, evolving
into a form of socialism.
condition for political representation but, in modern circumstances, there is
little doubt that they are a necessary condition. Indeed, some thinkers have gone
further and portrayed elections as the very heart of democracy. This was the view
developed by Joseph Schumpeter (see p. 202) in Capitalism, Socialism and
Democracy (1942), which portrayed democracy as an ‘institutional arrangement’,
as a means of filling public office by a competitive struggle for the people’s vote.
As he put it, ‘democracy means only that the people have the opportunity of
accepting or refusing the men [sic] who are to rule them’. In interpreting democracy
as nothing more than a political method, Schumpeter, in effect, identified it
with elections, and specifically with competitive elections. While few modern
democratic theorists are prepared to reduce democracy simply to competitive
elections, most nevertheless follow Schumpeter in understanding democratic
government in terms of the rules and mechanisms that guide the conduct of
elections. This focuses attention on the very different forms that elections can
take.
First, which offices or posts are subject to the elective principle? Although elections
are widely used to fill those public offices whose holders have policy-making
respons ibilities (the legislature and executive, in particular), key political institutions
are sometimes treated as exceptions. This applies, for instance, to the
second chambers of legislature in states such as the UK and Canada, and where
constitutional monarchs still serve as heads of state. Second, who is entitled to
vote, how widely is the franchise drawn? As pointed out, restrictions on the right
to vote based on factors such as property ownership, education, gender and racial
origin have been abandoned in most countries. Nevertheless, there may be informal
restrictions, as in the practice in most US states of leaving electoral registration
entirely in the hands of the citizen, with the result that non-registration and
non-voting are widespread. On the other hand, in Australia, Belgium and Italy,
for instance, voting is compulsory (see p. 204).
Third, how are votes cast? Although public voting was the norm in the USSR
until 1989, and it is still widely practised in small organizations in the form of a
show of hands, modern political elections are generally held on the basis of a
secret ballot (sometimes called an ‘Australian ballot’, as it was first used in South
Australia in 1856). The secret ballot is usually seen as the guarantee of a ‘fair’ election,
in that it keeps the dangers of corruption and intimidation at bay. Nevertheless,
electoral fairness cannot simply be reduced to the issue of how people vote. It is
also affected by the voters’ access to reliable and balanced information, the range
of choice they are offered, the circumstances under which campaigning is carried
out, and, finally, how scrupulously the vote is counted.
Fourth, are elections competitive or non-competitive? This is usually seen as
the most crucial of distinctions, as, until the 1990s, only about half of the countries
that used elections offered their electorates a genuine choice of both candidates
and parties. Single-candidate elections, for example, were the rule in
orthodox communist states. This meant that public office was effectively filled
through a nomination process dominated by the communist party. Electoral
competition is a highly complex and often controversial issue. It concerns not
merely the right of people to stand for election and the ability of political parties
to nominate candidates and campaign legally, but also broader factors that affect
party performance, such as their sources of funding and their access to the
media. From this point of view, the nature of the party system may be as crucial
in terms of his ‘impossibility theorem’. In Social Choice and Individual Values (1951)
Arrow drew attention to the problem of ‘transitivity’ that occurs when voters are
allowed to express a range of preferences for candidates or policy options, rather
than merely cast a single vote. The drawback of casting but a single vote is not only
that it is a crude all-or-nothing device, but also that no single candidate or option
may gain majority support. For instance, candidate A may gain 40 per cent of the vote,
candidate B 34 per cent, and candidate C 26 per cent. The situation could, nevertheless,
become more confused if second preferences were taken into account.
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the second preferences of all
candidate A’s supporters go to candidate C, the second preferences of candidate
B favour candidate A, and the second preferences of candidate C go to candidate
B. This creates a situation in which each candidate can claim to be preferred by
a majority of voters. The first and second preferences for candidate A add up to
74 per cent (40 per cent plus B’s 34 per cent). Candidate B can claim 60 per cent
support (34 per cent plus C’s 26 per cent), and candidate C can claim 66 per cent
support (26 per cent plus A’s 40 per cent). This problem of ‘cyclical majorities’
draws attention to the fact that it may not be possible to establish a reliable link
between individual preferences and collective choices. In other words, election
results cannot speak for themselves, and politicians and political commentators
who claim to find meaning in them are, to some extent, acting arbitrarily.
Nevertheless, the latitude that this allows polit icians is not unlimited, because
they know that they will be called to account at the next election. In this light,
perhaps the most significant function of elections is to set limits to arbitrary
government by ensuring that politicians who claim to speak for the public must
ultimately be judged by the public.
VOTING BEHAVIOUR
The growth of academic interest in voting behaviour coincided with the rise of
behavioural political science. As the most widespread and quantifiable form of
political behaviour, voting quickly became the focus for new techniques of
sample surveying and statistical analysis. The American Voter (Campbell et al.,
1960), the product of painstaking research by the University of Michigan,
became the leading work in the field and stimulated a wealth of similar studies,
such as Butler and Stokes’ Political Change in Britain (1969). At the high point of
the behavioural revolution, it was thought that voting held the key to disclosing
all the mysteries of the political system, perhaps allowing for laws of mass political
psychology to be developed. Even though these lofty hopes have not been
fulfilled, psephology (the scientific study of voting behaviour) still commands a
central position in polit ical analysis. This is because voting provides one of the
richest sources of information about the interaction between individuals, society
and politics. By investigating the mysteries of voting behaviour, we are thus able
to learn important lessons about the nature of the political system, and gain
insight into the process of social and political change.
Voting behaviour is clearly shaped by short-term and long-term influences.
Short-term influences are specific to a particular election and do not allow con -
clusions to be drawn about voting patterns in general. The chief short-term influence
is the state of the economy, which reflects the fact that there is usually a link
216 POLITICS
identification. Events are thus interpreted to fit with pre-existing loyalties and
attachments. This partisan alignment tends to create stability and continuity,
especially in terms of habitual patterns of voting behaviour, often sustained over
a lifetime. From this point of view, it should be possible to calculate the ‘normal’
vote of a party by reference to partisanship levels. Deviations from this ‘normal’
level presumably reflect the impact of short-term factors. One of the weaknesses
of this model is the growing evidence from a number of countries of partisan
dealignment (see p. 217). This indicates a general fall in party identification and
a decline in habitual voting patterns. In the USA, partisan dealignment is
reflected in a decline in the number of registered Democrats and Republicans,
and a rise in the number of Independents (up from 6 per cent in 1952 to 36 per
cent in 2009). In the UK, it is demonstrated by a decline in the strength of allegiance
to the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, ‘very strong’ identification
with either party having fallen from 43 per cent in 1966 to 9 per cent in 2005.
Sociological model
The sociological model links voting behaviour to group membership, suggesting
that electors tend to adopt a voting pattern that reflects the economic and social
position of the group to which they belong. Rather than developing a psychological
attachment to a party on the basis of family influence, this model highlights
the importance of a social alignment, reflecting the various divisions and tensions
within society. The most significant of these divisions are class, gender, ethnicity,
religion and region. Although the impact of socialization is not irrelevant to this
model, social-base ex planations allow for rationality insofar as group interests
may help to shape party allegiances. For many analysts, the sociological model is
best understood as an ‘interest plus socialization’ approach to voting (Denver,
2012). This has perhaps been clearest in relation to social class (see p. 153).
Not uncommonly, party systems have been seen to reflect the class system, with
the middle classes providing the electoral base for right-wing parties, and the
working classes providing the electoral base for left-wing parties. The Labour–
Conservative two-party system in the UK was traditionally understood in
precisely this light. Peter Pulzer (1967) was able to declare, famously, ‘class is the
basis of British party politics; all else is embellishment and detail’. The sociological
model, however, has been attacked on the grounds that, in focusing on social
groups, it ignores the in di vidual and the role of personal self-interest. Moreover,
there is growing empirical evidence that the link between sociological factors
and party support has weakened in modern societies. In particular, attention has
been paid to the phenomenon of class dealignment. Evidence of class dealignment
can be found in most western societies. For example, absolute class voting
(the proportion of voters who support their ‘nat ural’ class party) fell in the UK
from 66 per cent in 1966 to 47 per cent in 1983. In 1997, the Labour Party, for
the first time, received more votes from non-manual workers than from manual
workers.
Rational-choice model
Rational-choice models of voting shift attention onto the individual, and away
from socialization and the behaviour of social groups. In this view, voting is seen
218 POLITICS
CONCEPT
Class
dealignment
Class dealignment is the
weakening of the
relationship between
social class and party
support. Social class may
nevertheless remain a
significant (even the
most significant) factor
influencing electoral
choice. The impact of
dealignment has been to
undermine traditional
class-based parties
(notably, working class
parties of the left), often
bringing about a
realignment of the party
system. Explanations of
class dealignment usually
focus on changes in the
social structure that have
weakened the solidaristic
character of class
identity, such as postindustrialism.
as a rational act, in the sense that individual electors are believed to decide their
party pre ference on the basis of personal self-interest. Rather than being habitual,
a manifestation of broader attachments and allegiances, voting is seen as
essentially instrumental; that is, as a means to an end. Rational-choice models
differ in that some, following the example of V. O. Key (1966), see voting as a
retrospective comment on the party in power and how its performance has
influenced citizen’s choice. Others, such as Himmelveit et al., (1985), portray
voters as active, in the sense that they behave like consumers expressing a choice
amongst the available policy options.
The latter view stresses the importance of what is called ‘issue voting’, and
suggests that parties can significantly influence their electoral performance by
revising and reshaping their policies. It is generally accepted that this has been
one of the consequences of partisan and class dealignment. This has also been
encouraged by the pluralism and individualism that postmodernism (see p. 18)
has fostered. The weakness of rational-choice theories is that they abstract the
individual voter from his or her social and cultural context. In other words, to
some extent, the ability to evaluate issues and calculate self-interest (the essence
of instrumental voting) is structured by broader party attachments and group
loyalties.
Dominant-ideology model
Radical theories of voting tend to highlight the degree to which individual choices
are shaped by a process of ideological manipulation and control. In some
respects, such theories resemble the sociological model, in that voting is seen to
reflect a person’s position in a social hierarchy. Where these theories differ from
the sociological model, however, is in emphasizing that how groups and individuals
interpret their position depends on how it has been presented to them
through education, by the government and, above all, by the mass media. (The
influence of the media on political debate and party competition is examined in
greater detail in Chapter 8.)
In contrast to the earlier view that the media merely reinforce pre-existing
preferences, this suggests that the media are able to distort the flow of political
communications, both by setting the agenda for debate and by structuring preferences
and sympathies. The consequence of this is that, if voters’ attitudes
conform to the tenets of a dominant ideology, parties will not be able to afford
to develop policies that fall outside that ideology. In this way, far from challenging
the existing distribution of power and resources in society, the electoral
process tends to uphold it. The weakness of the dominant-ideology model is
that, by overstating the process of social conditioning, it takes individual calculation
and personal autonomy out of the picture altogether.
a crisis in politics?
On the face of it, it seems odd to suggest that politics is in crisis. In some respects,
politics has never been healthier. Dramatic demonstrations of ‘people power’
have brought authoritarian regimes to their knees, as occurred in the Eastern
European Revolutions of 1989–91 and the Arab Spring (see p. 88), and the seemingly
remorseless advance of democratization (see p. 272) has led to a major
expansion of political and civic rights. Insofar as politics (in the sense of
compromise and consensus-building, see pp. 8–9) constitutes a distinctively
non-violent means of resolving conflict, the long- and short-term decline in
violence that has occurred mainly, but not only, in western societies (Pinker,
2011) surely provides evidence of both the effectiveness of politics and its wider
use. Yet, in other respects, a heavy cloud hangs over politics. In particular,
growing numbers of people appear to be disengaging from the political process,
or expressing disenchantment with it. Why is politics coming under attack? Has
politics become a problem, rather than a solution?
Declining civic engagement?
It has long been assumed that the level of civic engagement is an indication of
the health of a political system. Democratic theorists have certainly argued that
one of the key strengths of democratic rule (examined more fully in the final
section of this chapter) is that it offers wider opportunities for popular participation
than any other form of rule, ensuring not merely government for the
people, but also government by the people. Yet, however hard-won the rights of
political participation may have been, especially the right to vote in free and fair
elections, there is evidence (from mature democracies in particular) that citizens
are becoming less interested in using these rights.
For instance, in the period 1945–97, average voter turnout in UK general
elections usually remained above 75 per cent, with a postwar high of 84 per cent
being achieved in 1950. The turnout in the 2001 general election nevertheless fell
to 59 per cent, the lowest figure since 1918. Although the turnouts in 2005 and
2010 rose marginally (to 61 per cent and 65 per cent, respectively), these figures
were still more than 10 per cent below the 1945–97 average, and occurred despite
the wider use of postal voting (in 2005) and the first use of televised leaders’
debates (in 2010). In Canada, voter turnout in federal elections plummeted
during the 1990s from levels, once again, usually above 75 per cent to an average
of 61.5 per cent in the elections held between 2000 and 2011. As elsewhere,
declining voter turnout in Canada has been particularly evident amongst
younger voters, creating a situation in which only about one third of first-time
voters now actually vote, half the rate of a generation ago. Similar trends can be
found across Western Europe, in Japan and in parts of Latin America, leading to
the estimate that voter turnout has decreased globally by about 5 percentage
points since the 1950s (Lijphart, 1996).
Civic disengagement goes well beyond non-voting, however. As discussed in
Chapter 10, political parties in many parts of the world appear to be failing in
their traditional role as agents of popular mobilization and political participation.
This has been evident at a number of levels. Fewer people ‘identify’ with
political parties than they once did, in the sense of having a psychological attachment or loyalty towards a party. This trend is called partisan dealignment (see p.
217), and has been associated with more volatile voting behaviour and a growing
willingness to vote for ‘fringe’ parties. There is also evidence of a major longterm
decline in party membership across established democracies. During the
1980s and 1990s, party membership dropped by one million or more in Italy,
France and the UK, around half a million in Germany, and close to half a million
in Austria. Norway and France have lost well over half their party members since
the 1980s, while fewer than 1 per cent of adults in the UK belong to political
parties, down from 7 per cent some fifty years ago.
Declines in party membership are also matched by declines in levels of party
activism. Party members have increasingly become ‘cheque book members’, who
are prepared to pay their membership fees but are less inclined to attend regular
meetings or, in particular, get involved in canvassing or campaigning. Civic
disengagement may nevertheless go beyond conventional forms of political
participation, such as voting, party membership and campaigning, and affect
wider civic participation, in the form of church attendance, membership of
professional societies, sports clubs, youth groups and parent-teacher associations,
and the like. Robert Putnam (see p. 176) has interpreted such trends as
evidence of declining ‘social capital’ (see p. 175) in the USA and, by extension,
other industrialized countries, and of the emergence of a ‘post-civic’ generation.
However, the notion that modern societies suffer from a ‘participation crisis’
has also been criticized. The problem may not be so much that the overall level
of political participation has fallen, but that there has been a shift from one kind
of participation to another. In particular, as disillusionment and cynicism with
mainstream politics has grown, there has been an upsurge in interest in pressure
group politics, protest movements and the use of ‘new media’ to facilitate
political debate and activism (see p. 190). The rise of what has been called the
‘new politics’ – reflecting more fluid, participatory, non-hierarchical and, possibly,
more spontaneous styles of political participation – has been linked, variously,
to the emergence of post-industrial societies (as discussed in Chapter 7)
and to the spread of ‘postmaterialist’ values (as discussed in Chapter 8). As such,
it may reflect a shift from a traditional conception of citizenship to a kind of
‘reflexive’ citizenship, through which citizens seek a more critical and reciprocal
relationship with the structures of power.
The politics of ‘anti-politics’
The perception that politics is in crisis arises not merely from concerns about
civic disengagement, but also from evidence of growing cynicism about, and
even anger towards, mainstream political parties and politicians. What appears
sometimes to be a breakdown in trust (see p. 87) between the public and the
political class in general, sometimes seen as the rise of ‘anti-politics’, does not
simply encourage citizens to turn away from politics and retreat into private
existence. Instead, it has spawned new forms of politics, which, in various ways,
seek to articulate resentment or hostility towards conventional political structures.
Although such hostility is based on a common perception that established
political elites are ‘out-of-touch’, ‘privileged’, ‘corrupt’ or ‘self-serving’, anti-political
groups and movements have taken very different forms. Certain forms of
anti-politics clearly overlap with ‘new politics’, as in the case of the upsurge in anti-capitalist or anti-globalization protests since the late 1990s. The anti-capitalist
movement has embraced an activist-based, theatrical style of politics that
is sometimes called the ‘new’ anarchism. Its attraction, particularly to young
people, is its resistance to compromise for the sake of political expediency, borne
out of a suspicion of structures and hierarchies of all kinds (including governmental
arrangements and conventional parties), and the fact that it offers a form
of politics that is decidedly ‘in the moment’.
However, anti-politics has also been articulated though a range of rightwing
groups and movements that have arisen in recent decades. In many parts
of Europe, for example, far right or ‘neo-fascist’ groups have emerged that mix
an appeal based on opposition to immigration, multiculturalism (see p. 167)
and globalization (see p. 142) with avowed support for the ‘common man’ in the
face of ‘corrupt’ economic and political elites. Similar tendencies have been
evident in the Tea Party movement in the USA, which has emerged since
2009–10. Taking its name from the 1773 Boston Tea Party (a political protest
against colonial British tax policies, in which tea was thrown into Boston
Harbour), the Tea Party has built a separate and distinct political identity for
itself around the commitment to tax cuts, reductions in federal government’s
spending, support for unregulated markets, limited government and a strictly
literal interpretation of the US constitution. The overwhelming target of the Tea
Party’s lobbying and agitation has been ‘Washington’, represented both by the
Obama administration and its supposed imposition of ‘big government’, and
‘weak willed’, mainstream conservatives in the Republican Party, in both
Congress and the states. Nevertheless, there has been disagreement about the
extent to which the Tea Party should be viewed as a genuine spontaneous, grassroots
‘anti-political’ movement, or as the creation of wealthy interests, intent on
using populism (see p. 307) to further the agenda of a small number of rich
individuals in the USA.
Explaining civic disengagement
Although there is ongoing, and possibly irresolvable, debate about whether the
overall level of political participation has declined, evidence of voter apathy
cannot be lightly dismissed. As all modern democracies are representative democracies,
elections lie at their very core. The level of voter turnout must, therefore, be
an important indication of the health of the larger democratic system. But who,
or what, is to blame for declining participation rates and, in particular, for falling
voter turnout? A number of possible culprits have been identified, as follows:
politics
politicians and parties
the media
the public
modern society.
Blame politics
Although it is common for civic disengagement to be laid at the feet of politicians
– they, after all, are the target of most of the criticism and abuse – the chief
trade-offs that are, at best, ethically imperfect (Flinders, 2012). So embedded in
political life are hypocricy, deception and double-dealing, that the public is
routinely left with a choice between, in Runciman’s (2008) words, ‘different
kinds of lies and different kinds of truth’.
Third, democratic systems create further difficulties for politicians by forcing
them to operate in a market in which each seeks to out-bid the others, inflating
expectations and making disappointment yet more certain. In short, democratic
politicians are always likely to promise more than they can deliver. In view of
this, it is no surprise that attempts have sometimes been made to replace politics
with technocracy, as has occurred in Italy (see p. 450). Once again, however, the
unchanging nature of these tendencies and pressures suggests that they are not
the cause of the modern trend towards civic disengagement. Nevertheless, there
are a number of reasons why may be held in their public standing may have
fallen even further in recent decades. These include the following:
Lack of vision. The shift from programmatic political parties to so-called
‘catch-all’ or ‘de-ideological’ parties (as discussed in Chapter 10) helps to
explain why modern politicians often appear to lack vision and a sense of
moral purpose. As modern politicians and political parties increasingly seem
to believe in nothing except getting elected, politics has become an end in
itself, and being a politician has become just another professional career.
Age of ‘spin’. One of the consequences of the modern media-obsessed age is
that politicians have become over-concerned about communication and
news management (as discussed in Chapter 8). The growth of what is called
‘spin’ creates the impression that politicians are less trustworthy than
before, and more willing to be ‘economical with the truth’.
‘All the same’. The declining significance of the left/right divide and the
emergence of managerial politics in place of ideological politics, means
that, regardless of their party allegiance, all politicians have come to look
the same and sound the same. The problem with this is both that, by abandoning
major issues and ‘big’ choices, electoral battles have become less
gripping and less meaningful, and that politicians have maintained their
adversarial rhetoric by dramatically over-stating minor or technical divisions
– a psychological tendency that Sigmund Freud referred to as ‘the
narcissism of small differences’.
‘In it for themselves’. The growth, in recent decades, of an industry of
professional lobbying has focused greater attention on politicians’ ‘outside
interests’ and on their sources of revenue other than from politics. This has
strengthened the image of politicians as self-serving and dishonest, and
created anxiety, generally, about declining standards in public life.
Blame the media
As discussed in Chapter 8, the media is sometimes charged with having created a
climate of cynicism amongst the public, leading to growing popular disenchantment
with politics generally, and a lack of trust in governments and politicians of
all complexions (Lloyd, 2004). This has occurred, in large part, because increasingly
intense commercial pressures have forced the media to make their coverage
of politics ‘sexy’ and attention-grabbing. Routine political debate and policy analysis therefore receive less and less attention, as the media focuses instead on – or
‘hypes’ – scandals of various kinds and allegations of incompetence, policy failure
or simple inertia. No longer are there ‘problems’, ‘challenges’ or ‘difficulties’ in politics;
everything is a ‘crisis’. Although the tabloid press in the UK is often seen as the
most advanced example of a media-driven ‘culture of contempt’, similar trends are
evident elsewhere. Healthy scepticism, which serves the interests of democracy and
freedom, may, thus, have turned into corrosive and aggressive negativity.
Blame the public
Are ‘we’ the problem? Is civic disengagement a ‘demand-side’ problem (stemming
from the attitudes and behaviour of the public), rather than a ‘supply-side’
problem (stemming from the performance of politics or politicians)? The argument
that ordinary citizens bear much of the blame for civic disengagement is
rooted in the allegation that consumerist attitudes and instincts, already widely
evident in society at large, are increasingly being applied to politics. It is in the
nature of consumerism (see p. 159) that people seek to acquire as much as possible,
but pay as little as possible in return. Insofar as citizenship is in the process
of being remodelled on consumerist lines, this implies that citizens are becoming
ever-more demanding of politics and politicians whilst, at the same time, being
less and less prepared to contribute to the maintenance of the political system in
which they live. Are we becoming a society of politically-apathetic ‘free-riders’,
who enjoy all the benefits of citizenship (schools, roads, free speech, economic
progress, public order and so forth) without accepting the associated costs, and,
especially, without bothering to vote? If this is the case, it is difficult to see how
the people can complain about the behaviour of politicians, or about allegedly
declining standards in public life – we get the politicians we deserve. Those who
explain civic disengagement in such terms, either wholly or in part, tend to advocate
one of two solutions. Either they call for improved education (for example,
compulsory citizenship classes in schools) to counteract consumerism, or they
support ways in which political participation can be made easier and more
convenient (such as postal voting or ‘e-voting’).
Blame modern society
The weakness in blaming the public for civic disengagement is that it suggests
that popular attitudes and perceptions emerge in a vacuum, when they are, in
important ways, shaped by the character of modern society. The social and
economic circumstances of modern society may have fostered civic disengagement
in two main ways. First, the spread of consumerist attitudes towards politics
– and, for that matter, other things – is less a consequence of rational
decision-making by independent citizens, and more a by-product of the growth
of consumer capitalism combined with modern technology. The advance of
neoliberal economic structures (as discussed in Chapter 6), which emphasize
aspiration and individual self-striving, weaken people’s capacity to think collectively
and tend to make forms of communal activity – the basis of civic engagement
– progressively less meaningful. The spread of neoliberalism (see p. 144)
has, moreover, damaged the image of politics in at least two ways. First, by
suggesting that political involvement in matters of economics and social
argue that social order will emerge from the spontaneous actions of free individuals,
all political thinkers and philosophers have endorsed the political process, and
especially government, as the only means of keeping chaos and instability at bay.
In Thomas Hobbes’s (see p. 61) words, in the absence of government, life would be
‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. From this perspective, the core purpose of
government is to govern, to rule, to ensure stability through the exercise of authority.
This, in turn, requires that government is able to perpetuate its own existence
and ensure the survival of the broader political system. System performance can
thus be judged on the basis of criteria such as longevity and endurance, as the
simple fact of survival indicates a regime’s ability to contain or reconcile conflict.
However, there are differing views about how this goal can best be achieved.
These views fall into two broad categories. The first stems from the essentially
liberal belief that a stable system of rule must be rooted in consensus (see p. 8)
and consent. In this view, what ensures the long-term survival of a political
system is its responsiveness to popular demands and pressures. This is expressed
in the language of systems theory as the ability to bring the ‘outputs’ of government
into line with the various ‘inputs’. This capacity has often been identified as
a particular strength of western liberal democracies. Advocates of liberal democracy
(see p. 270) stress that, as it is based on consent, it embodies mechanisms that
ensure that it is responsive, and so guarantees a high degree of systemic equilibrium.
Government power is won through a competitive struggle for the popular
vote, and can be lost when that support diminishes. A vigorous civil society also
allows citizens to exert influence through autonomous groups and associations.
To some extent, it has been the ability of liberal democracy to generate
political stability that explains the seemingly ever-wider adoption of liberaldemocratic
practices such as electoral democracy and party com petition in the
modern world. Nevertheless, liberal democracy also has its drawbacks in this
respect. Chief amongst these is that responsiveness may generate instability,
insofar as it heightens popular expectations of government and fosters the illusion
that the political system can meet all demands and accommodate all ‘inputs’.
From this perspective, the central dilemma of stable government is that responsiveness
must be balanced against effect iveness. Government must be sensitive to
external pressures, but it must also be able to impose its will on society when
those pressures threaten to generate irreconcilable conflict.
This latter fear underpins the alternative view of stability and order.
Conservative thinkers have traditionally linked stability and order, not to responsiveness,
but to authority. Thomas Hobbes presented this idea as a stark choice
between absolutism (see p. 268) and anarchy, between the acceptance of an
unquestionable and sovereign power and a descent into the chaos and disorder
of the state of nature. However, con servatives have been particularly concerned
to stress the degree to which political authority is underpinned by shared values
and a common culture. In this view, stability and order are largely the product of
social and cultural cohesion, underpinning the capacity of society to generate
respect for authority and maintain support for established institutions.
This position is clearly reflected in neoconservative fears about permissiveness
and moral and cultural relativism, leading to calls for the restoration of
‘traditional’, ‘family’ or ‘Christian’ values. It is also possible, from this perspective,
to suggest that East Asian states that subscribe to some form of Confucianism
(see p. 278), as well as Islamic states, have a greater capacity to maintain political stability than do western liberal-democratic systems. However, the weakness of
this view of stability is that, since it relies on authority being exerted from above,
it may not place effective constraints on the exercise of government power. If
stability is seen as an end in itself, divorced from considerations such as democratic
legitimacy, social justice and respect for human rights (see p. 342), the
result may simply be tyranny and oppression. Saddam Hussein, after all, was able
to perpetuate the existence of his Iraqi regime, despite economic sanctions and
opposition from Shi’a Moslems and Kurds, largely through systematic terror and
brutal repression, until US intervention brought the regime down in 2003.
Material performance
The idea that political systems can and should be judged by their material
perform ance is a familiar one. Electoral politics, for example, is invariably dominated
by economic issues and the so-called ‘feel good’ factor. Governments are
usually re-elected in periods of growth and widening prosperity, and defeated
during recessions and economic crises. Similarly, there can be little doubt that
the success of the broader political system is linked to its capacity to ‘deliver the
goods’. Widespread poverty and low levels of economic growth in developing
states have deepened social and ethnic tensions, fuelled corruption, and undermined
attempts to establish constitutional and representative government. The
collapse of the state socialist regimes of Eastern Europe and the USSR was also
linked to the failure of central planning and, in particular, to its inability to
deliver the levels of material prosperity and range of consumer goods that were
available in the capitalist West. Moreover, it is no co incidence that advanced
industrialized states have enjoyed both the greatest levels of political stability and
the highest living standards in the world.
Considerable debate has taken place about the most reliable means of generating
wealth and achieving material prosperity. In some senses, this debate reflects
the traditional ideological divide between capitalism and socialism; the former
places its faith in the market and competition, and the latter relies on national -
ization and planning. However, the Eastern European revolutions of 1989–91
dramatically changed the terms of this debate by (apparently) under mining the
validity of any form of socialism qualitatively distinct from market capital ism. In
other words, even socialists came to accept that the market, or at least some form
of market competition, is the only reliable mechanism for generating wealth. The
‘capitalism or socialism?’ debate has therefore developed into a ‘what kind of capitalism?’
debate, as examined in Chapter 5. However, this issue is not merely about
how wealth can be generated, but also about how it is distributed; that is, it is about
who gets what. As such, it is closely linked to debate about the desirable balance
between the market and the state, and the degree to which government can, and
should, modify market outcomes to achieve greater equality.
The central dilemma that arises from the use of material prosperity as a per -
formance indicator is that economic growth must be balanced against fairness.
This is the difficulty of being concerned both about the size of the cake and about
how the cake is cut. Two contrasting views of this problem can be identified. The
free-market view, advanced by theorists such as Friedrich von Hayek (see p. 37)
and Milton Friedman (see p. 138), holds that general prosperity is best achieved by
a system of unregulated capitalism. This is what Titmuss (1968) referred to as the ‘industrial–achievement’ performance model. From this perspect ive, economic
growth is best promoted by material incentives that encourage enterprise and
endeavour, and penalize laziness. The welfare state should therefore only act as a
safety net that protects individuals from absolute poverty, in the sense that they
lack the basic means of subsistence. Although this system is likely to increase social
inequality, the theory suggests that it benefits even the less well-off, who receive a
smaller proportion of a much larger cake, so ending up better off. Free-market
economists refer to this theory as the ‘trickle down’ effect. Such policy priorities
have guided New Right governments since the 1980s in their attempts to break
away from the ‘fiscal crisis of the welfare state’. In this view, burgeoning social
budgets led to a growing tax burden that, in turn, hampered wealth generation.
The rival social-democratic view, which Titmuss called the ‘institutional–
redistributive’ model, highlights the moral and economic benefits of equality.
Not only is unregulated competition condemned for promoting greed and
conflict, it is also seen as inefficient and unproductive. The virtue of social justice
is that, by taking the distribution of wealth away from the vagaries of the market,
it ensures that all citizens have a stake in society and that each of them has an
incentive to contribute. In tolerating wide social inequality, free-market policies
thus run the risk of promoting social exclusion, reflected in the growth of an
underclass that is a breeding ground for crime and social unrest. Long-term and
sustainable prosperity therefore requires that material incentives operate within
a broader framework of fair distribution and effective welfare.
Citizenship performance
The idea that citizenship is the proper end of government can be traced back to
the political thought of Ancient Greece. For instance, in 431 BCE, in his famous
funeral oration, Pericles stated that:
An Athenian citizen does not neglect the state because he takes care of his
own household; and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very
fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public
affairs, not as harmless, but as a useless character; and if few of us are originators,
we are all sound judges of policy.
A citizen is a member of a political community or state, endowed with a set of
rights and a set of obligations. Citizenship is therefore the ‘public’ face of individual
existence. People are able to participate in the life of their communities to
the extent that they possess entitlements and responsibilities. Civil participation
is, in turn, linked to the advance of constitutional government, as reflected in the
extension of political rights and civil liberties (see p. 404).
In his classic contribution to the study of citizenship rights, T. H. Marshall
(1950) distinguished between three ‘bundles of rights’: civil rights, political
rights and social rights. Civil rights were defined by Marshall as ‘rights necessary
for individual freedom’. These include freedom of speech, freedom of
assembly, freedom of movement, freedom of conscience, the right to equality
before the law, and the right to own property. Civil rights are therefore rights
that are exercised within civil society; they are ‘negative’ rights in the sense
that they limit or check the exercise of government power. Political rights
A CRISIS IN POLITICS? 455
provide the individual with the opportunity to par ticipate in political life. The
central political rights are thus the right to vote, the right to stand for election,
and the right to hold public office. The provision of political rights clearly
requires the development of universal suffrage, political equality (see p. 90),
and democratic government. Finally, and most controversially, Marshall
argued that citizenship implies social rights that guarantee the individual a
minimum social status and, in so doing, provide the basis for the exercise of
both civil and political rights. Marshall defined these ‘positive’ rights, somewhat
vaguely, as the right ‘to live the life of a civilized being according to the
standards prevailing in society’.
As the concept of citizenship is usually seen as a distinctively western invention,
it is perhaps not surprising that liberal democracies have performed particularly
well in this respect (previously discussed concerns about declining civic
engagement notwithstanding). Civil and political rights clearly imply the form
of con stitutional and representative government commonly found in the industrialized
West. The idea of social rights, however, has stimulated significant divisions,
because it implies a level of welfare provision and redistribution that (as
discussed earlier) classical liberals and the New Right regard as unjustifiable and
economically damaging. Marxists and feminists have also criticized the idea of
citizenship; the former on the grounds that it ignores unequal class power, and
the latter because it takes no account of patriarchal oppression.
A major dilemma nevertheless confronts those who employ citizenship as a
performance criterion: the need to balance rights against duties and, thereby,
apportion responsibilities between the individual and the community. Since the
early 1980s, this issue has been taken up in the growing debate between liberals
and com munitarians. Communitarian theorists such as Alisdair MacIntyre
(1981) and Michael Sandel (1982) have dismissed the idea of an unencumbered
self, arguing that the ‘politics of rights’ should be replaced by a ‘politics of the
common good’. In this view, liberal individualism (see p. 158), in effect, eats
itself. By investing individuals with rights and entitlements, it simply breeds
atomism and alienation, weakening the communal bonds that hold society
together. From this perspective, non-western societies that may appear to
perform poorly in relation to citizenship indicators (for example, having poor
records on human rights) may nevertheless succeed in creating a strong sense of
community and social belonging.
Democracy performance
Whereas stability, material prosperity and citizenship are all outcomes, or products,
of the political process, democracy is concerned essentially with the process
itself, with how decisions are made, rather than with what decisions are made.
Democracy means popular rule – in crude terms, the widest possible dispersal of
political power and influence. From the democratic perspective, the purpose of
politics is to empower the individual and enlarge the scope of personal autonomy
(see p. 457). Autonomy has been seen as both an end in itself and a means
to an end. Classical theorists of democracy, such as J.-J. Rousseau (see p. 97) and
J. S. Mill (see p. 198), portrayed political participation as a source of personal
development and self-realization. Democracy is thus the stuff of freedom, or, as
Rousseau put it, freedom means ‘being one’s own master’.
456 POLITICS
Taken to its logical extreme, the idea of popular self-government implies the
abolition of the distinction between the state and civil society through the establishment
of some form of direct democracy (see p. 92). For example, Athenian
demo cracy (see p. 95) amounted to a form of government by mass meeting, in
which citizens were encouraged to participate directly and continuously in the
life of their polis, or city-state. Modern notions of democracy, however, have
shifted away from this utopian vision and, instead, embrace democracy more as
a means to an end. The more familiar machinery of representative democracy –
universal suffrage, the secret ballot, and competitive elections – tends to be
defended on the grounds that, for example, the existence of voting rights checks
the abuse of government power, and party competition helps to generate social
consensus. The ability of the people to ‘kick the rascals out’ therefore helps to
ensure that government is limited and that there is, at least, a measure of public
accountability.
However, most political systems fare poorly by the standards of personal
autonomy and popular rule. What passes for democracy in the modern world
tends to be a limited and indirect form of democracy: liberal democracy. This
operates as an ‘institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in
which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle
for the people’s vote’ (Schumpeter, 1942). This ‘institutional arrangement’
has been criticized by radical democrats for reducing popular participation to a
near meaningless ritual: casting a vote every few years for politicians who can be
removed only by replacing them with another set of politicians. In short, the
people never rule, and the growing gulf between government and the people is
reflected, as we have seen, in the spread of inertia, apathy and a breakdown of
community.
This perspective is, therefore, linked to calls for radical, even revolutionary,
polit ical and social change. For example, government power should be decentralized
so as to bring power ‘closer’ to the people. This could, for instance,
require the break-up of the nation-state, as it is difficult, in practical terms, to see
how a community the size of a modern nation could govern itself through direct
and continuous participation. Similarly, insofar as the democratic principle is
applied in modern societies, it is confined to a narrowly ‘political’ set of decisions.
If democracy is understood as self-mastery – the ability to shape decisions
that affect one’s life – surely economic power must also be democratized,
presumably through the machinery of workers’ control and self-management.
As with the performance criteria examined above, democracy also poses its
own set of dilemmas. The most important of these is the need for a balance
between the twin goals of government by the people and government for the
people. This highlights the tension between the competing virtues of popular
participation and rule in the public interest. The most fundamental objection to
all forms of participatory democracy is simply that ordinary people lack the
time, maturity and specialist knowledge to rule wisely on their own behalf. The
earliest version of this argument was put by Plato (see p. 13), who advanced the
idea of rule by the virtuous; that is, government by a class of philosopher kings.
In this form, the case for government for the people amounts to an argument in
favour of an enlightened despotism. The concern about the capabilities of ordinary
people can, however, be dealt with more modestly, through the provision of
representative processes that allow for a division of labour in political life. A further dilemma is that the empowerment of the individual must be balanced
against the empowerment of the com munity. To give priority to personal autonomy
is necessarily to place limits on public authority. However, to extol the
virtues of popular rule is to risk sub ordinating the individual to the will of the
public, or the majority. The tension between the individual and society not only
raises major practical difficulties, but also highlights what some would argue has
always been, and remains, the central issue in political theory
