essay on democratic country

Democracy Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on democracy.

Democracy is known as the finest form of government. Why so? Because in a democracy, the people of the country choose their government. They enjoy certain rights which are very essential for any human being to live freely and happily. There are various democratic countries in the world , but India is the largest one. Democracy has withstood the test of time, and while other forms have the government has failed, democracy stood strong. It has time and again proved its importance and impact.

Significance of a Democracy

Democracy is very important for human development . When people have free will to live freely, they will be happier. Moreover, we have seen how other forms of government have turned out to be. Citizens are not that happy and prosperous in a monarchy or anarchy.

Furthermore, democracy lets people have equal rights. This ensures that equality prevails all over the country. Subsequently, it also gives them duties. These duties make them better citizens and are also important for their overall development.

Most importantly, in a democracy, the people form the government. So, this selection of the government by the citizens gives everyone a chance to work for their country. It allows the law to prevail efficiently as the rules are made by people whom they have selected.

In addition, democracy allows people of various religions and cultures to exist peacefully. It makes them live in harmony with one another. People of democracy are more tolerant and accepting of each other’s differences. This is very important for any country to be happy and prosper.

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India: A Democratic Country

India is known to be the largest democracy all over the world. After the rule of the British ended in 1947 , India adopted democracy. In India, all the citizens who are above the age of 18 get the right to vote. It does not discriminate on the basis of caste, creed, gender, color, or more.

Although India is the largest democracy it still has a long way to go. The country faces a lot of problems which do not let it efficiently function as a democracy. The caste system is still prevalent which hampers with the socialist principle of democracy. Moreover, communalism is also on the rise. This interferes with the secular aspect of the country. All these differences need to be set aside to ensure the happiness and prosperity of the citizens.

In short, democracy in India is still better than that in most of the countries. Nonetheless, there is a lot of room for improvement which we must focus on. The government must implement stringent laws to ensure no discrimination takes place. In addition, awareness programs must be held to make citizens aware of their rights and duties.

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Essay on Democracy in 100, 300 and 500 Words

Updated on
Jan 15, 2024

The oldest account of democracy can be traced back to 508–507 BCC Athens . Today there are over 50 different types of democracy across the world. But, what is the ideal form of democracy? Why is democracy considered the epitome of freedom and rights around the globe? Let’s explore what self-governance is and how you can write a creative and informative essay on democracy and its significance.

Today, India is the largest democracy with a population of 1.41 billion and counting. Everyone in India above the age of 18 is given the right to vote and elect their representative. Isn’t it beautiful, when people are given the option to vote for their leader, one that understands their problems and promises to end their miseries? This is just one feature of democracy , for we have a lot of samples for you in the essay on democracy. Stay tuned!

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What is democracy , sample essay on democracy (100 words), sample essay on democracy (250 to 300 words), sample essay on democracy for upsc (500 words).

Democracy is a form of government in which the final authority to deliberate and decide the legislation for the country lies with the people, either directly or through representatives. Within a democracy, the method of decision-making, and the demarcation of citizens vary among countries. However, some fundamental principles of democracy include the rule of law, inclusivity, political deliberations, voting via elections , etc.

Did you know: On 15th August 1947, India became the world’s largest democracy after adopting the Indian Constitution and granting fundamental rights to its citizens?

Must Explore: Human Rights Courses for Students

Must Explore: NCERT Notes on Separation of Powers in a Democracy

Democracy where people make decisions for the country is the only known form of governance in the world that promises to inculcate principles of equality, liberty and justice. The deliberations and negotiations to form policies and make decisions for the country are the basis on which the government works, with supreme power to people to choose their representatives, delegate the country’s matters and express their dissent. The democratic system is usually of two types, the presidential system, and the parliamentary system. In India, the three pillars of democracy, namely legislature, executive and judiciary, working independently and still interconnected, along with a free press and media provide a structure for a truly functional democracy. Despite the longest-written constitution incorporating values of sovereignty, socialism, secularism etc. India, like other countries, still faces challenges like corruption, bigotry, and oppression of certain communities and thus, struggles to stay true to its democratic ideals.

Did you know: Some of the richest countries in the world are democracies?

Must Read : Consumer Rights in India

Must Read: Democracy and Diversity Class 10

As Abraham Lincoln once said, “democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people.” There is undeniably no doubt that the core of democracies lies in making people the ultimate decision-makers. With time, the simple definition of democracy has evolved to include other principles like equality, political accountability, rights of the citizens and to an extent, values of liberty and justice. Across the globe, representative democracies are widely prevalent, however, there is a major variation in how democracies are practised. The major two types of representative democracy are presidential and parliamentary forms of democracy. Moreover, not all those who present themselves as a democratic republic follow its values.

Many countries have legally deprived some communities of living with dignity and protecting their liberty, or are practising authoritarian rule through majoritarianism or populist leaders. Despite this, one of the things that are central and basic to all is the practice of elections and voting. However, even in such a case, the principles of universal adult franchise and the practice of free and fair elections are theoretically essential but very limited in practice, for a democracy. Unlike several other nations, India is still, at least constitutionally and principally, a practitioner of an ideal democracy.

With our three organs of the government, namely legislative, executive and judiciary, the constitutional rights to citizens, a multiparty system, laws to curb discrimination and spread the virtues of equality, protection to minorities, and a space for people to discuss, debate and dissent, India has shown a commitment towards democratic values. In recent times, with challenges to freedom of speech, rights of minority groups and a conundrum between the protection of diversity and unification of the country, the debate about the preservation of democracy has become vital to public discussion.

Did you know: In countries like Brazil, Scotland, Switzerland, Argentina, and Austria the minimum voting age is 16 years?

Also Read: Difference Between Democracy and Dictatorship

Democracy originated from the Greek word dēmokratiā , with dēmos ‘people’ and Kratos ‘rule.’ For the first time, the term appeared in the 5th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Classical Athens, to mean “rule of the people.” It now refers to a form of governance where the people have the right to participate in the decision-making of the country. Majorly, it is either a direct democracy where citizens deliberate and make legislation while in a representative democracy, they choose government officials on their behalf, like in a parliamentary or presidential democracy.

The presidential system (like in the USA) has the President as the head of the country and the government, while the parliamentary system (like in the UK and India) has both a Prime Minister who derives its legitimacy from a parliament and even a nominal head like a monarch or a President.

The notions and principle frameworks of democracy have evolved with time. At the core, lies the idea of political discussions and negotiations. In contrast to its alternatives like monarchy, anarchy, oligarchy etc., it is the one with the most liberty to incorporate diversity. The ideas of equality, political representation to all, active public participation, the inclusion of dissent, and most importantly, the authority to the law by all make it an attractive option for citizens to prefer, and countries to follow.

The largest democracy in the world, India with the lengthiest constitution has tried and to an extent, successfully achieved incorporating the framework to be a functional democracy. It is a parliamentary democratic republic where the President is head of the state and the Prime minister is head of the government. It works on the functioning of three bodies, namely legislative, executive, and judiciary. By including the principles of a sovereign, socialist, secular and democratic republic, and undertaking the guidelines to establish equality, liberty and justice, in the preamble itself, India shows true dedication to achieving the ideal.

It has formed a structure that allows people to enjoy their rights, fight against discrimination or any other form of suppression, and protect their rights as well. The ban on all and any form of discrimination, an independent judiciary, governmental accountability to its citizens, freedom of media and press, and secular values are some common values shared by all types of democracies.

Across the world, countries have tried rooting their constitution with the principles of democracy. However, the reality is different. Even though elections are conducted everywhere, mostly, they lack freedom of choice and fairness. Even in the world’s greatest democracies, there are challenges like political instability, suppression of dissent, corruption , and power dynamics polluting the political sphere and making it unjust for the citizens. Despite the consensus on democracy as the best form of government, the journey to achieve true democracy is both painstaking and tiresome.

Difference-between-Democracy-and-Dictatorship

Did you know: Countries like Singapore, Peru, and Brazil have compulsory voting?

Must Read: Democracy and Diversity Class 10 Notes

Democracy is a process through which the government of a country is elected by and for the people.

Yes, India is a democratic country and also holds the title of the world’s largest democracy.

Direct and Representative Democracy are the two major types of Democracy.

Hope you learned from our essay on democracy! For more exciting articles related to writing and education, follow Leverage Edu .

Sonal is a creative, enthusiastic writer and editor who has worked extensively for the Study Abroad domain. She splits her time between shooting fun insta reels and learning new tools for content marketing. If she is missing from her desk, you can find her with a group of people cracking silly jokes or petting neighbourhood dogs.

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Home » Essay » Essay on democracy (100, 200, 300, & 500 Words)

Essay on democracy (100, 200, 300, & 500 Words)

Essay on democracy (100 words), essay on democracy (200 words), essay on democracy (300 words), what is democracy, the origins of democracy, key principles of democracy.

Popular Sovereignty: Democracy places power in the hands of the people, ensuring that their consent and approval are essential for any decision-making process.
Rule of Law: Democracy upholds the principle that everyone, including those in positions of authority, is subject to the law. This promotes fairness, justice, and accountability.
Political Pluralism: Democracy allows for multiple political parties and various ideologies to coexist, promoting healthy competition and diversity of thought.
Equality and Human Rights: Democracy emphasizes the protection of individual rights and equality for all citizens, regardless of their gender, race, religion, or social status.
Free and Fair Elections: Democracy ensures that elections are conducted transparently, with equal opportunities for all candidates to participate. This allows citizens to choose their representatives freely.

The Advantages of Democracy

Protection of Individual Rights: Democracy guarantees the protection of fundamental human rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and assembly. It provides a platform for citizens to voice their concerns and hold the government accountable.
Stability and Peace: Democracies tend to be more stable and peaceful compared to authoritarian regimes. By allowing citizens to have a say in decision-making, it reduces the likelihood of political upheaval and violent conflicts.
Economic Growth and Development: Democracy fosters an environment that encourages innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. By providing citizens with a voice, it enables them to demand policies that promote economic development and social welfare.
Transparency and Accountability: Democracy requires governments to be transparent in their actions and be accountable to the people. This helps prevent corruption and ensures that public officials act in the best interest of the citizens.
Social Progress and Inclusion: Democracy promotes social progress by allowing marginalized groups to have a voice in shaping policies. It ensures that the needs and concerns of all citizens, regardless of their background, are considered.

Challenges and Criticisms of Democracy

Political Polarization: Democracies often face the challenge of increasing polarization, where political parties and individuals become divided along ideological lines. This can hinder effective decision-making and lead to gridlock.
Inequality: Despite its principles of equality, democracy can struggle to address deep-rooted social and economic inequalities. Disparities in wealth and power can affect the fairness of elections and the representation of marginalized groups.
Slow Decision-Making: The democratic process, with its emphasis on consensus-building and deliberation, can sometimes result in slow decision-making. Urgent issues may require prompt action, which can be hindered by bureaucratic procedures.
Manipulation and Populism: Democracy is susceptible to manipulation by charismatic leaders who exploit public sentiment for personal gain. Populist movements can undermine democratic institutions and promote divisive policies.
Voter Apathy: Low voter turnout and citizen apathy can weaken the effectiveness of democracy. When individuals disengage from the political process, it undermines the legitimacy of elected representatives and reduces public participation.

The Future of Democracy

1. what is democracy, 2. where did democracy originate, 3. what are the key principles of democracy, 4. what are the advantages of democracy, leave a comment cancel reply.

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People around the world have gained democratic rights, but some have many more rights than others

How democratic have countries been across the world? And how big are the differences between them?

200 years ago, everyone lacked democratic rights. Now, billions of people have them .

But there are still large differences in the degree to which citizens enjoy political rights: most clearly between democracies and non-democracies, but also within these broad political regimes.

To understand the extent of people’s political rights, we shouldn’t only look at whether a country is classified as a democracy or not. We should also look at smaller differences in how democratic countries are.

To answer these questions, we need information on countries’ political systems over recent centuries.

How can researchers measure how democratic a country is?

Measuring how democratic countries are comes with many challenges. People do not always agree on what characteristics define a democracy. Its characteristics — such as whether an election was free and fair — are difficult to assess. The assessments of experts are to some degree subjective and they may disagree; either about a specific characteristic, or how several characteristics can be reduced into a single measure of democracy.

Because of these difficulties, classifying political systems is unavoidably controversial. I have written more about how researchers deal with the challenges of measuring democracy in another article .

The source we show here is the electoral democracy index from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project 1 . In our Democracy Data Explorer , however, we show the data for several leading approaches, so that you can compare how different sources score democracy across the world.

The electoral democracy index from V-Dem tries to capture the extent to which political leaders are elected under comprehensive voting rights in free and fair elections , and freedoms of association and expression are guaranteed. 2

The interactive map shows how democratic each country is at the end of each year, going back in time as far as 1789. 3 To explore changes over time, you can drag the time-slider below the map.

We see that countries differ in how democratic they are, with some countries close to the index’s maximum of 1, and others close to its minimum score of 0. Most countries are somewhere in the middle.

The world was highly undemocratic in the 18th and 19th centuries

The world did not always look like it does today. It has become much more democratic over time.

A very clear way of showing this is to look at the distribution of democracy scores at different stages in history.

Here we do this in the form of a bar chart, where electoral democracy is again measured on a scale from 0 to 1. The shortest bars here are the least democratic countries, the highest bars indicate the most democratic.

This means that the area covered by all of the bars gives us a proxy for the extent of democracy globally.

In the data’s earliest available year, 1789, the world was very undemocratic: most of the world’s political leaders were unelected, few people had voting rights, elections were neither free nor fair, and citizens were not able to assemble and speak freely.

Only a few countries, such as France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, had a few democratic characteristics. The United States was the most democratic country according to V-Dem’s assessment, but still only received a score of 0.35.

In this sense, the world was more equal than it is today: democratic rights were very limited everywhere .

The world was mostly undemocratic in the early 20th century

By 1900, political institutions had become more diverse, but remained highly undemocratic in most countries.

A fair number of countries in Europe and the Americas now had some democratic features: citizens especially had become freer to associate and express their opinions. A couple of countries, such as Australia, France, and Switzerland, had even developed fairly democratic features, with men now having the right to vote and almost all political leaders being chosen in elections.

The most democratic country, with a score of 0.8, was New Zealand.

But the many other countries, most under colonial rule, had political systems that granted few democratic rights to their citizens: the colonial powers installed unelected leaders, gave no or only few citizens the right to vote, and restricted citizens’ ability to assemble and express their opinions.

Democratic rights became highly unequal across the world in the first half of the 20th century

In the first half of the 20th century, some countries continued to become more democratic, while progress in most others stalled.

More democratic political institutions in Europe after the First World War were almost completely undone in the two decades that followed, but were then reestablished after the second World War. Some non-European countries such as Canada and the United States also extended the democratic rights of their citizens.

In the rest of the world, however, countries broadened some political rights while remaining overwhelmingly undemocratic. The colonial powers at times expanded voting rights and loosened restrictions on freedoms of expression and association, but local political leaders remained unelected, or the elections choosing them were marred by violence, intimidation, or fraud.

This meant that democratic rights were distributed highly unequally across the world’s inhabitants, shown by the chart’s steep slope.

Democracy spread across the world in the second half of the 20th century

Many countries then became much more democratic in the second half of the 20th century.

In the 1990s especially, democratic institutions expanded across the world. Countries in South America shed their highly autocratic political systems that had spread in the 1970s. According to V-Dem, a considerable number of countries in Africa became fairly democratic (such as Ghana and South Africa) in the decades after gaining independence. Civil society organizations and political parties could operate more freely, and elections became freer and fairer.

And while many countries in Asia and the Middle East remained decidedly undemocratic, some countries in these regions expanded democratic rights, such as India, Indonesia, Turkey, and South Korea.

Democratic rights therefore became much more evenly distributed across the world.

Democracy’s spread has slowed in the 21st century

The spread of democracy has slowed in the 21st century compared to previous decades.

While some countries became more democratic according to V-Dem, such as Tunisia and Peru, many stagnated or became less democratic — some, such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Poland considerably so.

Despite these declines in democracy, almost all countries remain much more democratic than they were at the beginning of the 20th century.

And they remain vastly more democratic than most countries during the 18th and 19th centuries: a score of 0.11 made Denmark one of the most democratic countries in 1789, while the same score made Mexico an average country in 1900, and Yemen one of the least democratic countries in the world in 2021.

Some countries are much more democratic than others

While the world has become much more democratic over the last 200 years, there are still large differences between countries.

As the previous chart shows, some countries — mostly located in Europe and the Americas — are highly democratic: they have elected political leaders, elections are free and fair, and most citizens have the right to vote and can associate and express their opinions freely. The most democratic countries were Denmark and Sweden, with scores of 0.92 and 0.90.

Other countries, concentrated in Asia, are highly undemocratic according to V-Dem. This includes countries such as China, North Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and the least democratic country in the world, Saudi Arabia, with a score of just 0.02. In these countries, citizens do not have the right to choose their political leaders in popular elections.

Most countries, often situated in Africa and East and Southeast Asia, fall somewhere in the middle. In these countries, political leaders usually are elected and most citizens have the right to vote, but their rights to associate and express their opinions are limited, and elections are not entirely free and fair.

As mentioned, V-Dem is only one of the leading approaches to measure democracy. And its electoral democracy index is only one main measure it provides alongside other, more comprehensive indices of democracy.

Yet, using another approach or V-Dem index to measure democracy shows a similar development from a highly undemocratic world in the 18th and 19th century, to high democratic inequality in the earlier 20th century, and a much more democratic, and more equally democratic, world in recent decades.

You can see so for yourself by exploring the four charts below, which use the Polity project’s democracy index and V-Dem’s liberal democracy index.

Taken together, the democratic political systems of many countries show that a world where people have much more say in how they are governed is possible.

But the fact that so many countries are still highly undemocratic means that the fight for democratic political rights goes on.

Keep reading at Our World in Data

Featured image for the Democracy topic page. Stylized raised hands with topic page title in the middle.

How has democracy spread across countries? Are we moving towards a more democratic world? Explore global data and research on democracy.

Acknowledgements

I thank Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser for their very helpful comments and ideas about how to improve this article.

Coppedge, Michael, John Gerring, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Staffan I. Lindberg, Jan Teorell, David Altman, Michael Bernhard, Agnes Cornell, M. Steven Fish, Lisa Gastaldi, Haakon Gjerløw, Adam Glynn, Ana Good God, Sandra Grahn, Allen Hicken, Katrin Kinzelbach, Joshua Krusell, Kyle L. Marquardt, Kelly McMann, Valeriya Mechkova, Juraj Medzihorsky, Natalia Natsika, Anja Neundorf, Pamela Paxton, Daniel Pemstein, Josefine Pernes, Oskar Rydén, Johannes von Römer, Brigitte Seim, Rachel Sigman, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Jeffrey Staton, Aksel Sundström, Eitan Tzelgov, Yi-ting Wang, Tore Wig, Steven Wilson and Daniel Ziblatt. 2023. V-Dem [Country-Year/Country-Date] Dataset v13. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project.

While we use V-Dem’s data, we expand the years and countries covered. You can find more information in this article .

You can download the complete dataset, including supplementary variables, from GitHub .

Cite this work

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this article, please also cite the underlying data sources. This article can be cited as:

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All visualizations, data, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license . You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

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Democracy Essay for Students in English

Essay on Democracy

Introduction.

Democracy is mainly a Greek word which means people and their rules, here peoples have the to select their own government as per their choice. Greece was the first democratic country in the world. India is a democratic country where people select their government of their own choice, also people have the rights to do the work of their choice. There are two types of democracy: direct and representative and hybrid or semi-direct democracy. There are many decisions which are made under democracies. People enjoy few rights which are very essential for human beings to live happily.

Our country has the largest democracy. In a democracy, each person has equal rights to fight for development. After the independence, India has adopted democracy, where the people vote those who are above 18 years of age, but these votes do not vary by any caste; people from every caste have equal rights to select their government. Democracy, also called as a rule of the majority, means whatever the majority of people decide, it has to be followed or implemented, the representative winning with the most number of votes will have the power. We can say the place where literacy people are more there shows the success of the democracy even lack of consciousness is also dangerous in a democracy. Democracy is associated with higher human accumulation and higher economic freedom. Democracy is closely tied with the economic source of growth like education and quality of life as well as health care. The constituent assembly in India was adopted by Dr B.R. Ambedkar on 26 th November 1949 and became sovereign democratic after its constitution came into effect on 26 January 1950.

What are the Challenges:

There are many challenges for democracy like- corruption here, many political leaders and officers who don’t do work with integrity everywhere they demand bribes, resulting in the lack of trust on the citizens which affects the country very badly. Anti-social elements- which are seen during elections where people are given bribes and they are forced to vote for a particular candidate. Caste and community- where a large number of people give importance to their caste and community, therefore, the political party also selects the candidate on the majority caste. We see wherever the particular caste people win the elections whether they do good for the society or not, and in some cases, good leaders lose because of less count of the vote.

India is considered to be the largest democracy around the globe, with a population of 1.3 billion. Even though being the biggest democratic nation, India still has a long way to becoming the best democratic system. The caste system still prevails in some parts, which hurts the socialist principle of democracy. Communalism is on the rise throughout the globe and also in India, which interferes with the secular principle of democracy. All these differences need to be set aside to ensure a thriving democracy.

Principles of Democracy:

There are mainly five principles like- republic, socialist, sovereign, democratic and secular, with all these quality political parties will contest for elections. There will be many bribes given to the needy person who require food, money, shelter and ask them to vote whom they want. But we can say that democracy in India is still better than the other countries.

Basically, any country needs democracy for development and better functioning of the government. In some countries, freedom of political expression, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, are considered to ensure that voters are well informed, enabling them to vote according to their own interests.

Let us Discuss These Five Principles in Further Detail

Sovereign: In short, being sovereign or sovereignty means the independent authority of a state. The country has the authority to make all the decisions whether it be on internal issues or external issues, without the interference of any third party.

Socialist: Being socialist means the country (and the Govt.), always works for the welfare of the people, who live in that country. There should be many bribes offered to the needy person, basic requirements of them should be fulfilled by any means. No one should starve in such a country.

Secular: There will be no such thing as a state religion, the country does not make any bias on the basis of religion. Every religion must be the same in front of the law, no discrimination on the basis of someone’s religion is tolerated. Everyone is allowed to practice and propagate any religion, they can change their religion at any time.

Republic: In a republic form of Government, the head of the state is elected, directly or indirectly by the people and is not a hereditary monarch. This elected head is also there for a fixed tenure. In India, the head of the state is the president, who is indirectly elected and has a fixed term of office (5 years).

Democratic: By a democratic form of government, means the country’s government is elected by the people via the process of voting. All the adult citizens in the country have the right to vote to elect the government they want, only if they meet a certain age limit of voting.

Merits of Democracy:

better government forms because it is more accountable and in the interest of the people.

improves the quality of decision making and enhances the dignity of the citizens.

provide a method to deal with differences and conflicts.

A democratic system of government is a form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodic free elections. It permits citizens to participate in making laws and public policies by choosing their leaders, therefore citizens should be educated so that they can select the right candidate for the ruling government. Also, there are some concerns regarding democracy- leaders always keep changing in democracy with the interest of citizens and on the count of votes which leads to instability. It is all about political competition and power, no scope for morality.

Factors Affect Democracy:

capital and civil society

economic development

modernization

Norway and Iceland are the best democratic countries in the world. India is standing at fifty-one position.

India is a parliamentary democratic republic where the President is head of the state and Prime minister is head of the government. The guiding principles of democracy such as protected rights and freedoms, free and fair elections, accountability and transparency of government officials, citizens have a responsibility to uphold and support their principles. Democracy was first practised in the 6 th century BCE, in the city-state of Athens. One basic principle of democracy is that people are the source of all the political power, in a democracy people rule themselves and also respect given to diverse groups of citizens, so democracy is required to select the government of their own interest and make the nation developed by electing good leaders.

FAQs on Democracy Essay for Students in English

1. What are the Features of Democracy?

Features of Democracy are as follows

Equality: Democracy provides equal rights to everyone, regardless of their gender, caste, colour, religion or creed.

Individual Freedom: Everybody has the right to do anything they want until it does not affect another person’s liberty.

Majority Rules: In a democracy, things are decided by the majority rule, if the majority agrees to something, it will be done.

Free Election: Everyone has the right to vote or to become a candidate to fight the elections.

2. Define Democracy?

Democracy means where people have the right to choose the rulers and also people have freedom to express views, freedom to organise and freedom to protest. Protesting and showing Dissent is a major part of a healthy democracy. Democracy is the most successful and popular form of government throughout the globe.

Democracy holds a special place in India, also India is still the largest democracy in existence around the world.

3. What are the Benefits of Democracy?

Let us discuss some of the benefits received by the use of democracy to form a government. Benefits of democracy are:

It is more accountable

Improves the quality of decision as the decision is taken after a long time of discussion and consultation.

It provides a better method to deal with differences and conflicts.

It safeguards the fundamental rights of people and brings a sense of equality and freedom.

It works for the welfare of both the people and the state.

4. Which country is the largest democracy in the World?

India is considered the largest democracy, all around the world. India decided to have a democratic Govt. from the very first day of its independence after the rule of the British. In India, everyone above the age of 18 years can go to vote to select the Government, without any kind of discrimination on the basis of caste, colour, religion, gender or more. But India, even being the largest democracy, still has a long way to become perfect.

5. Write about the five principles of Democracy?

There are five key principles that are followed in a democracy. These Five Principles of Democracy of India are - secular, sovereign, republic, socialist, and democratic. These five principles have to be respected by every political party, participating in the general elections in India. The party which got the most votes forms the government which represents the democratic principle. No discrimination is done on the basis of religion which represents the secular nature of democracy. The govt. formed after the election has to work for the welfare of common people which shows socialism in play.

By the People: Essays on Democracy

Harvard Kennedy School faculty explore aspects of democracy in their own words—from increasing civic participation and decreasing extreme partisanship to strengthening democratic institutions and making them more fair.

Winter 2020

By Archon Fung , Nancy Gibbs , Tarek Masoud , Julia Minson , Cornell William Brooks , Jane Mansbridge , Arthur Brooks , Pippa Norris , Benjamin Schneer

The basic terms of democratic governance are shifting before our eyes, and we don’t know what the future holds. Some fear the rise of hateful populism and the collapse of democratic norms and practices. Others see opportunities for marginalized people and groups to exercise greater voice and influence. At the Kennedy School, we are striving to produce ideas and insights to meet these great uncertainties and to help make democratic governance successful in the future. In the pages that follow, you can read about the varied ways our faculty members think about facets of democracy and democratic institutions and making democracy better in practice.

Explore essays on democracy

Archon fung: we voted, nancy gibbs: truth and trust, tarek masoud: a fragile state, julia minson: just listen, cornell william brooks: democracy behind bars, jane mansbridge: a teachable skill, arthur brooks: healthy competition, pippa norris: kicking the sandcastle, benjamin schneer: drawing a line.

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500+ word Essay on Democracy

Democracy is like a bright guiding light that has shaped our world for centuries. It’s not just a word; it’s a powerful idea that brings people together, giving them a voice and a choice in how they want to be governed. In this essay, we will explore why democracy is so important and why it matters to people all over the world.

Equality and Freedom

Democracy is all about equality and freedom. It means that every person, regardless of their background, has a say in how their country is run. In a democracy, the power doesn’t belong to just one person or a small group; it belongs to the people. For example, in the United States, the President is elected by the citizens, and this election happens every four years. This ensures that leaders are chosen by and for the people.

Protecting Rights

In a democratic country, certain rights and freedoms are protected. These include the right to express your thoughts and ideas freely, the right to choose your religion, and the right to a fair trial if you are accused of a crime. These rights are like a shield that keeps us safe from unfair treatment. They are written in documents like the Constitution and are upheld by the government.

Decision-Making

In a democracy, important decisions are made by considering the opinions of many people. This makes the decisions fairer and better for everyone. For instance, when a new law is proposed, it has to go through a process where lawmakers discuss it, and citizens can give their input. This way, laws are not made in secret, but in the open, with everyone having a chance to be heard.

Peaceful Change

Democracy allows for peaceful change. When people disagree with their leaders or government policies, they can vote for different leaders in the next election. This prevents violence and wars that can happen in places where people don’t have a say. An example is when Nelson Mandela became the leader of South Africa through democratic elections, ending years of racial discrimination and violence.

Economic Prosperity

Countries with strong democracies often have more economic prosperity. This is because democracy encourages entrepreneurship and innovation. People are more willing to invest and start businesses when they know their rights and property will be protected. A great example is how the democratic country of South Korea transformed from poverty to a global economic powerhouse in just a few decades.

Learning and Progress

Democracy encourages learning and progress. In democratic societies, education is highly valued. People have access to information and can make informed decisions. Leaders are held accountable for their actions, which motivates them to work for the betterment of the country. Finland is a prime example of a democratic nation that highly values education and consistently ranks among the top in global education assessments.

Protecting Minorities

Democracy protects the rights of minorities. It ensures that even if you belong to a small group or have different beliefs, you still have a voice, and your rights are respected. This helps create a diverse and inclusive society where everyone can thrive. Canada, for instance, has a strong democratic tradition and a commitment to protecting the rights of its Indigenous peoples and other minority groups.

Global Cooperation

Democracy also plays a role in global cooperation. Democratic countries often work together to solve common problems, like climate change or global health crises. They can negotiate and make agreements that benefit everyone. The Paris Agreement on climate change is an example of such global cooperation among democratic nations.

Conclusion of Essay on Democracy

In conclusion, democracy is not just a word; it’s a guiding principle that has the power to shape our world for the better. It ensures equality, freedom, and the protection of our rights. It encourages peaceful change and economic prosperity. Democracy values learning, progress, and the protection of minorities. It also fosters global cooperation. As we continue to cherish and uphold democracy, we strengthen the foundations of a just and prosperous world for generations to come. Democracy is not just for some; it’s for all of us, and it’s worth preserving and celebrating.

Also Check: 500+ Words long Essay on Technology

Democracy Essay

Democracy is derived from the Greek word demos or people. It is defined as a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people. Democracy is exercised directly by the people; in large societies, it is by the people through their elected agents. In the phrase of President Abraham Lincoln, democracy is the “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” There are various democratic countries, but India has the largest democracy in the world. This Democracy Essay will help you know all about India’s democracy. Students can also get a list of CBSE Essays on different topics to boost their essay-writing skills.

500+ Words Democracy Essay

India is a very large country full of diversities – linguistically, culturally and religiously. At the time of independence, it was economically underdeveloped. There were enormous regional disparities, widespread poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and a shortage of almost all public welfare means. Since independence, India has been functioning as a responsible democracy. The same has been appreciated by the international community. It has successfully adapted to challenging situations. There have been free and fair periodic elections for all political offices, from the panchayats to the President. There has been a smooth transfer of political power from one political party or set of political parties to others, both at national and state levels, on many occasions.

India: A Democratic Country

Democracy is of two, i.e. direct and representative. In a direct democracy, all citizens, without the intermediary of elected or appointed officials, can participate in making public decisions. Such a system is only practical with relatively small numbers of people in a community organisation or tribal council. Whereas in representative democracy, every citizen has the right to vote for their representative. People elect their representatives to all levels, from Panchayats, Municipal Boards, State Assemblies and Parliament. In India, we have a representative democracy.

Democracy is a form of government in which rulers elected by the people take all the major decisions. Elections offer a choice and fair opportunity to the people to change the current rulers. This choice and opportunity are available to all people on an equal basis. The exercise of this choice leads to a government limited by basic rules of the constitution and citizens’ rights.

Democracy is the Best Form of Government

A democratic government is a better government because it is a more accountable form of government. Democracy provides a method to deal with differences and conflicts. Thus, democracy improves the quality of decision-making. The advantage of a democracy is that mistakes cannot be hidden for long. There is a space for public discussion, and there is room for correction. Either the rulers have to change their decisions, or the rulers can be changed. Democracy offers better chances of a good decision. It respects people’s own wishes and allows different kinds of people to live together. Even when it fails to do some of these things, it allows a way of correcting its mistakes and offers more dignity to all citizens. That is why democracy is considered the best form of government.

Students must have found this “Democracy Essay” useful for improving their essay writing skills. They can get the study material and the latest update on CBSE/ICSE/State Board/Competitive Exams, at BYJU’S.

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Essays on democracy draw attention to critical threats, explore safeguards ahead of Jan. 6

by Tracy DeStazio, University of Notre Dame

Following the events of Jan. 6, 2021—when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building in an effort to interrupt the certification process of the 2020 presidential election—experts began to question how to protect the next presidential election from a similar threat. To that end, University of Notre Dame political scientists have partnered with preeminent scholars of democracy from across the country to produce a set of recommendations to strengthen and safeguard democracy in America.

The University's Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy established the January 6th, 2025, Project in an effort to understand the social, political, psychological and demographic factors that led to that troublesome day in the capital.

By pursuing research, teaching and public engagement , the project offers insight into how American democracy got to this point and how to strengthen and protect it, while emphasizing how to prepare for a similar attack many deem imminent on Jan. 6, 2025, when Congress seeks to certify the 2024 presidential election results. The project includes 34 members who represent various disciplines and leading universities—10 of whom hail from Notre Dame's faculty.

Matthew E.K. Hall, director of the Rooney Center, said one of the project's first goals was to create a collection of essays written by its members to be included in a special issue of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , which was published this month. These essays aim to draw attention to the vulnerabilities in our democratic system and the threats building against it, and to create consensus on ways to remedy both problems.

The authors set out to tackle the following tough questions, but from different perspectives: How serious are the threats to our democracy, how did we get to this point, and what can we do to fix the situation? The 14 essays are broken down into categories, falling under the headings of "'Us' Versus 'Them,'" "Dangerous Ideas" and "Undermining Democratic Institutions." With most pieces being co-authored by faculty from multiple institutions, the collection offers a collaborative approach to evaluating what led America to this crisis and how to avert it.

David Campbell, director of the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative and the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy in the Department of Political Science, described the project as "an example of how Notre Dame can be a national leader on the issue of preserving American democracy. Not only do we have top scholars working on the issue, but we can provide a forum for a community of scholars across many leading universities. Maintaining democracy will require all hands on deck."

In the collection's introduction, Hall explained the backdrop of what led America to this point and why these essays help acknowledge the challenges we are facing as a nation.

"We are basically living through a revival of fascist politics in the U.S.," Hall wrote, "where politicians are using divisive rhetoric to separate us into an 'us' versus 'them' paradigm—left versus right, white versus Black, rich versus poor, urban versus rural, religious versus secular—the divisions go on and on."

Hall estimated that between 25 and 30% of Americans have consistently endorsed some fascist ideas such as racial oppression, conspiracy theories and authoritarianism. "Ordinarily, this consistent minority is held in check by the democratic process," Hall explained.

"These candidates don't even get nominated for major political positions because their co-partisan allies don't want to lose the general election.

"But when our politics become this intensely polarized, most partisans will support their party no matter who is nominated," he continued. "As a result, politicians pushing these fascist ideas can gain power by taking over one political party and then exploiting the polarization to win elections. Once taking power, they will likely manipulate the electoral process to remain in power."

Consequently, Hall said, fascist leaders are able to exploit these social divisions to break down basic social norms and shared understandings about American politics. This pushes huge swaths of society toward accepting dangerous ideas that would normally be rejected, such as expanded executive power, intense animosity toward political opponents, a wavering support for free speech, and political candidates who deny election losses.

This weakened support for democratic norms enables attacks on our democratic institutions, such as ignoring court rulings, enacting voter suppression laws and—most shockingly (as in the case of Jan. 6)—openly subverting elections.

With the political situation as dire as many feel it to be, the January 6th, 2025, Project's essays outline a few practical steps that can be taken to strengthen and safeguard democracy in America.

For example, Hall said, as the nation moves forward into this next election year, American voters have to stay focused on the "deliberate denial of reality" on the part of some politicians so that they can discern the difference between lies, truths and just plain distractions.

"The more we lose touch with basic facts and accept misinformation, conspiracies and contradictory claims as the norm in our society," he said, "the more vulnerable we are to losing our democracy.

"Even more importantly, we have to be willing to sacrifice short-term political gains in order to preserve the long-term stability of our democracy. That might mean holding your nose to vote for candidates that you would not otherwise support."

Hall added that Americans must redouble their devotion to democratic principles such as open elections and free speech, and states should adopt institutional reforms that remove partisans from the electoral process (for example, employing nonpartisan election commissions). He also noted the importance of paying close attention to efforts that divide groups of Americans, especially those that portray outgroup members as evil or less than human.

The members of the project hope that by honestly acknowledging the challenges our nation is facing, understanding the mistakes that were made and recognizing the vulnerabilities in our system that led us to this situation—and by resolving to fix these issues—we can pull our country's political system back from the edge of the cliff before it's too late.

"The public needs to take these critical threats seriously and we're hoping that these essays draw attention to them, and help to build consensus about the underlying problems in our politics and potential remedies," Hall concluded.

Democracy is one of several University-wide initiatives emerging from Notre Dame's recently released Strategic Framework . The Democracy Initiative will further establish Notre Dame as a global leader in the study of democracy, a convenor for conversations about and actions to preserve democracy, and a model for the formation of civically engaged citizens and public servants.

Provided by University of Notre Dame

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18 Democracy and Freedom

Jason Brennan is the Robert J and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Chair of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University.

Published: 01 September 2016
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There seems to be an intimate connection between democracy and freedom. But the nature of this connection is disputed. This chapter outlines possible connections between democracy and freedom. First, it is shown that there is indeed a robust positive correlation between democracy and various forms of liberal freedom. Second, the chapter examines and critiques an argument purporting to show that exercising equal political power in a democracy directly enhances citizens’ autonomy by making them authors of the laws. Third, it examines and critiques the argument that republican democracy is essential to enhancing freedom because it prevents citizens from being dominated. It is argued that we should be skeptical of these latter two positions. Empirically, democratic countries tend to be more free. But there is probably no essential connection between democracy and freedom.

Free countries tend to be democratic; democratic countries tend to be free. Unfree countries tend to be non-democratic, and non-democratic countries tend to be unfree. Why?

There seems to be an intimate connection between democracy and freedom. But the nature of this connection is disputed. Some hold it is merely a positive correlation: the background conditions that tend to cause liberal politics also tend to produce democratic political structures. Some think there is causation: perhaps liberalism causes democracy, democracy causes liberalism, or they are mutually reinforcing.

Many people—including most American laypeople—insist that democracy is not merely positively correlated with liberalism, and is indeed more than a useful instrument for promoting liberty. They believe that democratic politics itself is an important kind of freedom, that democracy is essential to freedom, or that the rights to vote, run for office, and participate are themselves constitutive of what it means to be free.

This chapter outlines possible connections between democracy and freedom. First, it will be shown that there is indeed a robust positive correlation between democracy and various forms of liberal freedom. Second, the chapter will examine and critique an argument purporting to show that exercising equal political power in a democracy directly enhances citizens’ autonomy by making them authors of the laws. Third, the chapter will examine and critique the argument that republican democracy is essential to enhancing freedom because it prevents citizens from being dominated. It is argued that we should be skeptical of these latter two positions.

1. Democracy and Liberalism Defined

At base, “democracy” refers to a range of ways of allocating political decision-making rights. Democracy is an answer to the question, who rules? As Thomas Christiano (2006) elaborates, the term democracy “refers very generally to a method of group decision making characterized by a kind of equality among the participants at an essential stage of the collective decision making.” David Estlund (2008 : 38) says democracy is the “actual collective authorization of laws and policies by the people subject to them.”

Democracy is defined here as a system of government in which fundamental political power is shared equally by all adult members of society. A regime will be called democratic to the extent it has regular, competitive elections, without electoral fraud or manipulation, and with universal adult suffrage ( Economist Intelligence Unit, 2012 ; Freedom House, 2013 ).

A country will be counted as liberal to the extent it recognizes and effectively protects basic civil and economic rights. Among civil liberties are included the right to free speech, free assembly, free association, freedom of conscience, right of bodily integrity and freedom from abuse and assault, freedom of lifestyle choice, rights to protest, the right to exit, and freedom of sexual choice. The definition also includes liberal procedural rights in the criminal justice system, including rights against unwarranted search and seizure, the right to a fair and expeditious trial, the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, the right to hear and question one’s accusers, and habeas corpus. Among economic liberties are included the right to acquire, hold, use, give, and in many cases destroy personal property, to make and enter into contracts, to buy and sell goods and services on terms to which all parties consent, to choose one’s occupation, to negotiate the terms under which one will work, to manage one’s wealth, to create things for sale, to start, run, and stop businesses, to own private property in the means of production, to develop property for productive purposes, and to take risks with capital.

It is not claimed that by definition democracies recognize and protect citizens’ civil or economic liberties. Some might wish to say a country that severely curtails civil liberties should not qualify as democratic, even if it has regular contested elections. However, our goal here is to determine whether a particular way of allocating political decision-rights correlates with liberal freedom. For that purpose, we should avoid loading liberalism into the very definition of democracy.

2. How Free Are Citizens of Democracies?

Liberalism and democracy are not connected on a conceptual level. At least in principle, a non-democratic regime could fully realize liberal freedoms. Similarly, a democracy could run roughshod over its citizens’ civil and economic liberties. If there is a connection between liberalism and democracy, this will be an interesting empirical finding.

We cannot measure degrees of freedom or democracy as easily as we can measure GDP, life expectancy, or height. However, each year various institutes, think tanks, and foundations conduct extensive research on the political conditions around the world. For example, Canada’s Fraser Institute produces the widely cited annual “Economic Freedom of the World” index. The Wall Street Journal , in conjunction with the Heritage Institute, also produces an annual Index of Economic Freedom. Freedom House and The Economist each produce similar ratings of protection for civil liberties, as well as indices that score countries on how well they implement basic democratic electoral procedures. Using such indices, we can examine whether various liberal freedoms and democratic political procedures tend to be correlated.

Democracy and Economic Freedom Go Together

Freedom House’s “political rights” score and The Economist ’s “electoral process and pluralism” score are both meant to measure the degree to which countries have universal adult suffrage and free, open, competitive, and uncorrupt elections. Countries that fail to have these things—whether they are active monarchies, dictatorships, communist single party states, or whatnot—receive bad scores. Both indices try to avoid conflating political rights with other civil or economic liberties. Thus, if there turns out to be any correlation between, say, Freedom House’s “political rights” score and various measures of economic or civil liberty, this is an interesting rather than trivial result.

Many countries that Freedom House or The Economist describe as authoritarian are democracies on paper . They have constitutions that formally guarantee competitive elections, universal suffrage, and fair voting rights. But Freedom House and The Economist do not rate a country as democratic unless it actually uses democratic procedures. Similarly, the Fraser Institute and The Wall Street Journal do not rate countries as economically free merely because their constitutions “guarantee” the rule of law or substantive due process in protecting property rights. They score countries by what they do, not what their constitutions say they will do.

As figure 18.1 shows, there is a clear and strong positive correlation between democracy and economic freedom. Note that in figure 18.1 , a lower political rights score counts as more democratic. Freedom House scores the freest countries a 1 and the least free countries a 7. Thus, the negative slope of the regression line shows a positive correlation between political rights and economic freedom.

Using different measures gets similar results. If we substitute The Wall Street Journal ’s rankings for the Fraser Institute’s, the correlation increases slightly to 0.4994. If we substitute The Economist ’s electoral process and pluralism ratings for Freedom House’s political rights scores, the correlation drops slightly to 0.4669. Regardless, the correlations are similar and robust.

Democracy and Civil Liberties Go Together

As figure 18.2 shows, there is an even stronger positive relationship between democracy and civil liberties. Here, The Economist ’s measure of civil liberties is graphed against Freedom House’s Political Rights score. Once again, for Freedom House, a lower political rights score indicates a country is more democratic. Thus, the negative slope represents a positive correlation.

Once again, substituting different rating systems yields similar results. (The correlation holds steady at around 0.9.)

Figure 18.2 might be misleading because it provides a snapshot of conditions at any given year. Sometimes democratic countries elect bad leaders who seize power for themselves. When democracies collapse into authoritarianism, leaders tend to suppress democratic procedures and civil liberties at the same time. 1 Since the protection of political rights and of civil liberties tend to fall in tandem, the correlation seen above might overstate just how much protection democracy offers on behalf of liberal rights. Countries that currently have high political rights scores also have high civil liberties scores, but some such countries are vulnerable to collapse.

In common English, we use the words “liberty” and “freedom” not merely to refer to a range of civil and economic rights, but also to refer to the power or capacity to achieve one’s ends. We say that Superman is free to fly while I am not, not because no one stops him from flying, but because he has the power to fly. For this reason, G. A. Cohen (1995 : 58) claims that wealth and positive freedom are intimately connected. Cohen argues that “to have money is to have freedom.” The more wealth one has, the more one is able to do, and in that sense, the more freedom one has.

For the sake of argument, let us accept Cohen’s argument and ask, do people in democracies tend to have more positive liberty? As figure 18.3 shows, they do.

Once again, substituting different measures of freedom or different GDP/GNI estimates yields similar results.

As seen in figure 18.4 , which is reproduced from Gwartney, Lawson, and Hall, 2015 : 24, if we confine ourselves to looking at the absolute levels of income held by the bottom deciles in the most and least democratic countries, we get similar results. Note that the graph below shows absolute, purchasing price parity-adjusted levels of income before any welfare payments have been made. Since richer and freer countries tend to have more generous welfare systems, figure 18.4 understates the disparity in the standard between the bottom 10 percent in the economically freer and the less free countries.

Democratic Countries Tend to Be Richer

Economic Freedom and Pre-Transfer Income of the “Poor”

Of course, strong correlation does not imply causation. These correlations do not tell us whether democratic politics tends to lead to liberal results, whether liberal politics tends to lead to democracy, whether some third factor tends to produce both, or whether democracy and liberalism tend to be mutually reinforcing. There is an extensive literature debating this question. There are empirical papers supporting each position, as well as papers arguing that democracy and liberalism are in tension, despite their strong correlation.

For instance, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (2013) recently argued that regimes fall into two broad types: extractive and inclusive. In extractive regimes, power is concentrated into the hands of the few, and these few in turn use their power to expropriate wealth and dominate the majority. In inclusive regimes, power is widely dispersed. Institutions and laws in inclusive regimes tend to be designed to benefit the majority of citizens. Inclusive regimes tend to enjoy the rule of law, respect for private property, and reduced economic rent seeking. In turn, this leads to greater economic prosperity and respect for civil rights.

Despite these correlations, we should not assume that democracies are liberal because most citizens in democracies are strong advocates of liberalism. As Scott Althaus, Bryan Caplan, and Martin Gilens each conclude (using different surveys and data sets), the modal and median citizens in the United States are much less supportive of economic or civil liberties than more elite, educated, and higher income citizens. For instance, Caplan ( 2001 ; 2007 : 51) shows that while educated or high IQ voters support free trade, the modal American advocates economic protectionism. Gilens (2012 : 106–111) similarly finds that educated, rich voters are more in favor of protecting civil liberties than typical voters, especially poor and uneducated voters. Elites tend to support same-sex marriage, oppose the Patriot Act, oppose torture, and advocate widespread access to birth control and abortion services, while modal and poor American voters tend to have the opposite preferences. Althaus (2003 : 11) obtains similar results: the typical and median voter is less in favor of economic or civil liberty than the more knowledgeable voter. The United States is significantly freer than we would expect it to be if politicians just gave the majority of voters exactly what they want. The policies that actually obtain are generally more liberal than what the model, mean, or median voter wants. Gilens (2012 : 80) argues this is because presidents and other leaders are much more responsive to the expressed policy preferences of the rich than the poor.

3. Democracy and Autonomy

Many people believe democracy is more than just a useful instrument for producing liberal freedom. In the United States, most laypeople regard the American War of Independence as a fight for freedom, not because victory was expected to produce any spectacular gains in liberal rights, but simply because it replaced a foreign constitutional monarchy with democratic self-rule. In their view, Americans became free because they became their own lawmakers.

This conception of freedom—that to be free is to be the author of the laws—has a long history. Benjamin Constant (1988 : 81) claims that the ancient Greeks and Romans viewed freedom not as a matter of liberal rights, but as authorship of the law:

the liberty . . . of the ancients . . . consisted in exercising collectively, but directly, several parts of the complete sovereignty; in deliberating, in the public square, over war and peace; . . . But if this was what the ancients called liberty, they admitted as compatible with this collective freedom the complete subjection of the individual to the authority of the community. 2

Isaiah Berlin (1997 : 178) similarly noted that one prominent conception of liberty identifies liberty with autonomous self-control, and, in particular, with “self-government”: “[One] sense of the word liberty derives from the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master.” On this conception of liberty, what makes a citizen free is not that his government leaves him alone, but that he is a part of that government.

In this vein, Justine Lacroix argues that exercising one’s equal political rights in a democracy enhances autonomy. She says (2007: 192), “Liberty . . . is rather akin to the concept of autonomy, that is to say that liberty does not mean the absence of law but rather the respect of the laws that men have made and accepted for themselves.” She thinks for citizens to be autonomous, it is not enough that one merely possess the right to vote, but must also actively vote. (Indeed, she thinks they should be forced to vote.)

Many democratic theorists—from Rousseau onward—believe democracy uniquely enables citizens to realize autonomous self-government. In an idealized democracy, the governed are themselves the authors of the laws that govern them; any constraints imposed by law are constraints they themselves imposed. Thus, the thought is, democracy enables citizens to be fully autonomous. In contrast, in a non-democratic system, citizens will always subject to laws that are not of their own making or choosing. The laws will in some way be imposed upon them.

One problem with trying to link democracy and autonomy on the conceptual level is that, in the real world, what democratic governments do is not entirely a matter of the will of the people. First, it is unclear whether we can attribute to a winning majority a collective will or point of view ( Arrow, 1950 ). Second, as Gilens (2012) has shown, in real-life democracies, some voters count more than others. In the United States, presidents are about six times more responsive to the policy preferences of the rich than the poor. Third, congresspeople, bureaucrats, and administrators do not merely implement the will of the people, but have agendas of their own ( Mueller, 2003 ). In response to worries like these, some democratic theorists claim the problem is just that real-life democracy falls short of the ideal; in an ideal, properly functioning democracy, citizens would be fully autonomous authors of the laws.

But this brings out a deeper problem, a problem that remains even in ideal conditions. Suppose every voter counted the same, and suppose government agents were mere technicians who scrupulously carried out the will of the democratic majority. Even here, while the democratic majority as a collective would have autonomy, it is unclear why this would enhance the autonomy of individual citizens. In an idealized democracy, the answer to the question of “Who rules?” is “ We —but not you or I.” Democracy empowers collectives, not individuals.

For the sake of argument, grant that by voting, a citizen can become the partial author of the laws that govern her. Grant that if she abstains, or if she is denied the right to vote, then she has no partial authorship over the laws, and thus the laws are in some way imposed upon her. Notice, however, that even on this charitable assumption, voting confers autonomy upon a voter only if her side wins. If her side loses, then she is not in part the author of the laws.

However, even if her side wins, and if she is thus a partial author of the law, it remains unclear why we should regard this as conferring upon her any morally significant degree of autonomy. In a properly functioning democracy, each citizen has an equal share of fundamental political power. But this is a small share indeed. There are 210 million eligible voters in the United States, so by law I hold 1/210 millionth of the fundamental political power in the United States. This does not empower me in any significant way. If I were to vote against a hawkish candidate, it is not as though the resulting wars will be fought a 210-millionth degree less aggressively. If I were to vote for open borders, it is not as though the borders would become a 210-millionth more open. Rather, for any one of us in a contemporary democracy, regardless of whether one votes or abstains, and regardless how one votes, the same political outcomes would happen anyway. We each have some power, but our individual power does not matter.

An individual’s vote has an effect on political outcomes only if she changes the outcome of the election. Casting a vote is like playing the lottery—there is some small chance that a single vote will break a tie. But the probability that a voter will break a tie is vanishingly small ( Brennan and Lomasky, 1993 : 56–57, 119). 3 Individual votes rarely matter. Thus, even if a voter in a winning coalition is in some way causally responsible for the laws, it seems extravagant to call her the autonomous author of the laws, or to claim that the laws that govern her are laws she herself imposed.

Robert Nozick (1974 : 290–292) gently mocks the theory that democracy grants individual citizens autonomy with a story called the “Tale of the Slave.” Suppose Hagar the Slave has a cruel master, who imposes arbitrary punishments. As the master ages, he becomes kinder. He only punishes Hagar for violating posted rules. When the master dies, he bequeaths all 10,001 of his slaves, including Hagar, to 10,000 of the slaves, excluding Hagar. As a result, 10,000 other slaves collectively own everyone, including Hagar. For Hagar, this just means she now has a 10,000-headed master rather than a one-headed master. Her new 10,000-headed master sometimes asks her for advice about what rules should be imposed upon all 10,001 slaves. As a reward for her advice, they grant her the right to make that decision herself whenever the 10,000 masters are evenly split—5,000 to 5,000—over what to do. Finally, since they have never been evenly split, they just include Hagar’s vote with theirs all the time.

At the end of the story, many readers think the slave never stopped being a slave. But by the end of the story, the situation resembles modern democracy. Being an equal member of a rule-making body, especially a large one, does not give one much control. Each slave in the Tale of the Slave can legitimately claim that everyone else makes all the decisions and that the decisions the collective makes would have occurred without her input. Individuals have no power.

In a democracy, the majority of voters, considered as a collective, in some sense rule themselves and everyone else. If majorities frequently change, every citizen might eventually have the opportunity to be part of a winning majority. But it is unclear why we should regard this as empowering individual citizens, or giving them greater real autonomy. Individual citizens have only a vanishingly small chance of making a difference. Even when an individual votes in favor of the winning side, had she reversed her vote, or refused to vote at all, the same political outcomes would have occurred anyway.

4. Democracy and Non-Domination

“ Neo-republican” political philosophers argue that there is a tight connection between democracy (of a sort) and freedom. Notably, they do so in part because they reject the traditional liberal conception of freedom. They can accept the points made above—that is, that while democracy and liberal freedom are strongly correlated, it is conceptually possible to have one without the other. But, they argue, liberals have a defective conception of freedom. Once we replace this defective conception with a superior one, we will see that freedom and democracy (of the right sort) are tightly bound, and not merely as a matter of empirical correlation.

Republican political theorist Philip Pettit asks, what is problematic about the master-slave relationship? It is not merely that the master might be cruel to the slave, or might interfere with the slave. To see why, imagine you are a slave with an unusually kind and liberal master. The master never issues any orders or interferes with you in any way. However, Pettit says, you remain in some important sense less free than non-slaves. While the master does not interfere with you or control you, he retains the right and ability to do so.

Isaiah Berlin, in his famous (1997) essay on different conceptions of liberty, claims that liberals tend to regard freedom as the absence of interference from others. Pettit maintains that this liberal conception of liberty cannot properly explain what is wrong with the master-slave relationship. After all, no one interferes with the slave, but the slave remains unfree. Pettit thinks we thus need a third conception of liberty: liberty as non-domination. Freedom is not the absence of interference; rather, freedom is the absence of domination .

One person (call him the dominator) is said to dominate another person (call him the victim) when the dominator has the capacity to interfere with the victim’s choices, and the dominator can exercise this capacity at will, with impunity ( Pettit, 1996 : 581). On this definition of freedom, a person is free only when she is not subject to the arbitrary will of another.

Republicans hold that a properly constituted democracy is essential to realizing freedom as non-domination. Though republicans have a different conception of liberty from liberals, they concur with liberals that unlimited direct democracy would undermine citizens’ freedom. Like liberals, they advocate due process of law, checks and balances, separation of powers, and constitutionally protected rights of free speech and assembly ( Lovett, 2014 ). Like liberals, they also recognize that these devices are imperfect. In any democratic government, government agents—from police officers to bureaucrats to senators—will always enjoy some degree of arbitrary power over others.

Republicans hold that to prevent domination and to reduce the degree to which government agents wield this arbitrary power, citizens must be actively engaged with politics. Frank Lovett (2014) says,

The standard republican remedy . . . is enhanced democracy. . . . Roughly speaking, the idea is that properly-designed democratic institutions should give citizens the effective opportunity to contest the decisions of their representatives. This possibility of contestation will make government agents wielding discretionary authority answerable to a public understanding of the goals or ends they are meant to serve and the means they are permitted to employ. In this way, discretionary power can be rendered non-arbitrary in the sense required for the secure enjoyment of republican liberty.

To “enhance” democracy in this way, republicans hold that we need two major sets of changes. First, there must be greater public deliberation . Political decision-makers, such as legislative bodies, courts, or bureaucracies, routinely should present the rationale behind their decisions in public fora, where the public may challenge and debate these reasons. Some republicans argue that some such fora should serve as “courts of appeals,” in which citizens can object to or even overturn decisions ( Pettit, 2012 ). Second, there should be greater inclusion and real political equality . All citizens must have an equal right to participate in such public contestation. Republicans hold that formal political equality is not enough. Some citizens (in virtue of wealth, family, or prestige) have more de facto influence and power than others. To ensure that all citizens can participate on an equitable basis, there should be limits on campaign financing, advertising, and lobbying. In summary, republicans think that regular, contested, competitive elections are not enough. They think we need deliberative democracy both before and after decisions are made. We need to protect the political sphere from being unduly influenced by money, fame, or other irrelevant factors.

Thus, republicans, unlike liberals, deny that citizens under a benevolent liberal dictator would be free. Republicans advocate what they regard as a distinct and superior conception of liberty, and hold that a robustly participatory and deliberative democratic regime of the right sort is essential to realizing this form of freedom.

Note that many republicans do not merely hold that freedom as non-interference needs to be supplemented with freedom as non-domination. They regard freedom as non-domination as an alternative. Thus, many republicans are skeptical of traditional liberal freedoms. They are committed to many traditional liberal rights only insofar as such rights are necessary to ensure equitable deliberative democracy. On this point, Brennan and Lomasky (2006 : 240) complain,

In a Pettit republic, the determinations of democratic majorities bring about far fewer restrictions of individual liberty than is the case in liberal democracies. That is not because political rule is exercised with a lighter hand; just the reverse. Rather, it is because republicans decline to classify most impositions on individual preferences as liberty restricting.

For instance, republicans are comfortable with a remarkable degree of paternalistic intervention into citizens’ private lives. The state must consider the interests of citizens, but not necessarily their preferences , and so, on the republican view, the state may continually impose upon citizens what it deems to be in citizens’ best interest ( Brennan and Lomasky, 2006 : 241). For many republicans, it does not matter if a state continuously and actively interferes with its citizens’ lives. So long as citizens are not dominated —because they enjoy regular opportunities to deliberate and contest the laws as equals—these citizens count as free.

The original theoretical motivation for republicanism was supposed to be a defect in the traditional liberal conception of freedom as non-interference. Supposedly, liberals cannot adequately explain just what makes slaves unfree. Recall Pettit’s point: even if a master never interferes with or controls the slave, the master could do so with impunity.

However, to liberals, this seems less like a deep challenge and more like a call for clarification. Perhaps Berlin’s essay is misleading—perhaps it is not really true, pace Berlin, that liberals traditionally hold that a person is free if and only if no one interferes with her. Liberals seem to have a ready explanation for why even slaves with kind, liberal masters are nevertheless unfree. The problem is that slaves lack adequately enforced rights against interference. A liberal could just say that a person is free to the extent that her rights against interference are adequately protected from threats. This formulation of the liberal conception of freedom might sound almost the same as freedom as non-domination, but, as Brennan and Lomasky complained above, republicans are happy to license frequent state interference in ways that liberals would count as rights violations. One way of stating Brennan and Lomasky’s worry about republicanism, then, is that republican “freedom as non-domination,” as far as liberals are concerned, is compatible with the state dominating individuals.

If slavery is legal, the law fails to recognize the slave as a rights-holder, and instead treats her as chattel. If slavery is illegal but the master still enslaves her, then the problem is that no government or agency successfully protects the slave’s liberal rights. So, perhaps Berlin’s definition of liberal freedom is indeed inadequate, but it remains unclear whether, to explain what makes slaves unfree, we must reject liberalism and accept republicanism.

A further problem with republicanism is that its institutional recommendations may be unrealistic. If so, then the institutional recommendations might protect republican freedom in ideal conditions, but not in realistic conditions. If so, then republicanism would do little to justify real-world democracy.

To see why the republican institutional recommendations might be unrealistic, consider the role of democratic deliberation in their theories. Republicans and deliberative democrats imagine deliberation as being like an idealized philosophical discussion. They imagine deliberators as sincere, open-minded, consistent, and rational speakers, who are committed to finding consensus and who avoid manipulating one another. ( Habermas, 2001 : 65). They thus expect deliberation to enlighten and ennoble participants, to lead to consensus, and to generate better political policy.

For instance, Hélène Landemore (2012 : 97) says, “Deliberation is supposed to . . . Enlarge the pools of ideas and information . . . . , Weed out the good arguments from the bad . . ., [and] Lead to a consensus on the ‘better’ or more ‘reasonable’ solution.” Bernard Manin, Elly Stein, and Jane Mansbridge (1987 : 354) say that democratic deliberation is a process of training and education. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson (1996 : 9) claim that even when deliberation fails to produce consensus, it will generally cause citizens to respect one another more.

The problem, though, is that real-world deliberation rarely proceeds the way deliberative democrats want it to proceed, and it (thus?) rarely delivers the results they want it to deliver. Diana Mutz (2006 : 5) remarks, “It is one thing to claim that political conversation has the potential to produce beneficial outcomes if it meets a whole variety of unrealized criteria, and yet another to argue that political conversations, as they actually occur, produce meaningful benefits for citizens.” In a comprehensive survey of the empirical research on democratic deliberation, Tali Mendelberg (2002 : 154) concludes that the “empirical evidence for the benefits that deliberative theorists expect” is “thin or non-existent.” For instance, deliberation generally tends to exacerbate conflict rather then mediate it ( Mendelberg, 2002 : 158). Instead of debating the facts, people try to win positions of influence and power over others ( Mendelberg, 2002 : 159). High-status individuals talk more, are perceived as more accurate and credible, and have more influence, regardless of whether the high-status individuals actually know more ( Mendelberg, 2002 : 165–167). Deliberators use language in biased and manipulative ways ( Mendelberg, 2002 : 170–172). Deliberation tends to cause group polarization; it moves people toward more extreme versions of their ideologies rather than toward more moderate versions ( Sunstein, 2002 ). Deliberation often causes deliberators to choose positions inconsistent with their own views, positions which the deliberators “later regret” ( Ryfe, 2005 : 54). Rather than causing consensus, public deliberation might cause disagreement and the formation of in-groups and out-groups ( Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2002 ). It can even lead to violence ( Mutz, 2006 : 89). And so on.

Further, even if republicans are correct that checks and balances, deliberative fora, courts of appeals, and the like would help reduce domination, it is unclear why this requires universal adult suffrage. To illustrate with a simple case, suppose that everyone in the country were allowed to vote and deliberate, except for me . While this might make me a “second-class citizen” and might be objectionable on egalitarian grounds, it seems unlikely that this would cause me to be dominated or would reduce my freedom in any meaningful way. If, despite the rule of law, checks and balances, and widespread deliberation, politicians and others can still interfere arbitrarily with my life, granting me the right to vote or deliberate would not suddenly stop them dominating me. As we discussed above, individuals have vanishingly little effective political power.

Now, if were to disenfranchise an entire race or group of citizens with shared interests—for example, all blacks—this probably would expose them to the threat of domination. But it does not follow that widespread disenfranchisement necessarily exposes citizens to domination.

One of the major debates in contemporary democratic theory is whether we should prefer democracy to epistocracy. An epistocracy is a political system in which, as a matter of law, citizens receive political power in proportion to their political knowledge ( Estlund, 2008 ). The primary motivation behind epistocracy is a concern that most citizens in contemporary democracies are ignorant or misinformed about the relevant facts and social scientific theory needed to form sound political preferences ( Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996 ; Somin, 2013 ). Epistocrats believe that limiting the political power of the ignorant or misinformed might produce better political outcomes for all; it might better serve the common good. For instance, an epistocrat might advocate that the rights to vote or run for office should be conditional upon passing a test of basic political knowledge ( Brennan, 2011 ), or that the highly educated should have extra votes ( Mill, 1861 ).

While there are many important objections against epistocracy, epistocracy appears to be compatible with republican liberty, if not republican concerns for equality. Consider a form of epistocracy in which suffrage is restricted only to citizens who can pass a test of basic political knowledge. Suppose only the top 50 percent of citizens pass the exam. Will this top half of voters thus dominate the other half? It seems unlikely. An epistocracy could retain the other “enhancements” republicans favor—deliberative fora, citizens’ courts of appeal, limits on campaign spending, and so on. If these procedural checks and balances would prevent government officials or special interest groups from dominating citizens when everyone is allowed to participate, it is not clear why they would suddenly fail if ignorant or misinformed citizens were not allowed to vote.

Further, ignorant and misinformed citizens are only contingently excluded. They can acquire rights to vote and participate; they just have not. In both a democracy and an epistocracy, “Elected officials serve, if not at the pleasure of citizens, at least in the absence of gross displeasure.” ( Brennan and Lomasky, 2006 : 234). If an epistocracy starts to mistreat ignorant citizens, they could acquire voting rights by studying harder. And if they are not able to study hard enough to acquire such rights, it is unclear why giving them voting rights would protect them. They are, by hypothesis, badly informed. Even if they could vote, they mostly likely do not have the background social scientific knowledge needed to cast their votes in ways that would protect them.

5. Conclusion

Constitutional democracy is strongly correlated with liberal freedom. Democracies generally have a high degree of respect for civil liberties, and a moderate degree of respect for economic freedom. Democracy might also be valuable for other reasons—for example, perhaps it is essential or useful for realizing the right kinds of equality, or perhaps democracies tend to make good political decisions.

But most people tend to equate freedom with democracy and democracy with freedom. Here, we should be more skeptical. While democracy empowers or grants law-making autonomy to collectives, it does not follow that it empowers or grants autonomy to the individuals who form part of those collectives. Widespread democratic participation might be a good thing, but describing it as constitutive or essential to personal liberty is a stretch.

E.g., Bolivia and Venezuela’s political rights and civil rights scores have been declining gradually at the same rate for the past ten years.

Raaflaub (2003 : 222–223) disagrees—he argues that the ancient Greeks were in fact concerned with modern civil rights as well.

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Democracy in the Developing World: Challenges of Survival and Significance

Published: 03 March 2016
Volume 51 , pages 32–49, ( 2016 )

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Kenneth M. Roberts 1

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The study of political development over the past half century has been heavily influenced by the ebb and flow of democracy in the global South. The global experience has demonstrated that the geographic, economic, and cultural range of democratic regimes is far more expansive than often assumed half a century ago, forcing major theoretical reassessments of democracy’s political origins and social correlates. At the same time, the challenges of constructing effective representative and participatory institutions to stabilize democracy and make it more “consequential” have become increasingly apparent. The tensions between democracy’s rapid spread and its oftentimes shallow reach have fostered a wide range of experiments with new representative and participatory channels, creating a fluid democratic landscape in much of the developing world.

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Classical Approaches to Development: Modernisation and Dependency

Why Do Some Countries Develop and Others Not?

Douglass North’s Theory of Institutions: Lessons for Law and Development

Julio Faundez

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Normative democratic theory deals with the moral foundations of democracy and democratic institutions, as well as the moral duties of democratic representatives and citizens. It is distinct from descriptive and explanatory democratic theory, which aim to describe and explain how democracy and democratic institutions function. Normative democracy theory aims to provide an account of when and why democracy is morally desirable as well as moral principles for guiding the design of democratic institutions and the actions of citizens and representatives. Of course, normative democratic theory is inherently interdisciplinary and must draw on the results of political science, sociology, psychology, and economics in order to give concrete moral guidance.

This brief outline of normative democratic theory focuses attention on seven related issues. First, it proposes a definition of democracy. Second, it outlines different approaches to the question of why democracy is morally valuable at all. Third, it discusses the issue of whether and when democratic institutions have authority and different conceptions of the limits of democratic authority. Fourth, it explores the question of what it is reasonable to demand of citizens in large democratic societies. This issue is central to the evaluation of normative democratic theories. A large body of opinion has it that most classical normative democratic theory is incompatible with what we can reasonably expect from citizens. Fifth, it surveys different accounts of the proper characterization of equality in the processes of representation and the moral norms of representation. Sixth, it discusses the relationship between central findings in social choice theory and democracy. Seventh, it discusses the question of who should be included in the group that makes democratic decisions.

1. Democracy Defined

2.1.1.1 the production of relatively good laws and policies: responsiveness theories, 2.1.1.2 the production of relatively good laws and policies: epistemic theories, 2.1.1.3 character-based arguments, 2.1.2 instrumental arguments against democracy, 2.1.3 grounds for instrumentalism, 2.2.1 liberty, 2.2.2 democracy as public justification, 2.2.3 equality, 3.1 instrumentalist conceptions of democratic authority, 3.2.1 democracy as collective self-rule, 3.2.2 freedom and democratic authority, 3.2.3 equality and authority, 3.3.1 internal limits to democratic authority, 3.3.2 the problem of persistent minorities, 3.3.3 external limits to democratic authority, 4.1 the problem of democratic participation, 4.2.1 elite theory of democracy, 4.2.2 interest group pluralism, 4.2.3 neo-liberalism.

4.2.4. The self-interest assumption

4.2.5 The Division of Democratic Labor

4.3.1 the duty to vote, 4.3.2 principled disobedience of the law, 4.3.3 accommodate disagreement through compromise and consensus, 5.1 what sort of representative system is best, 5.2 the ethics of representation, 6. social choice and democracy, 7. the boundary problem: constituting the demos, other internet resources, related entries.

The term “democracy”, as we will use it in this entry, refers very generally to a method of collective decision making characterized by a kind of equality among the participants at an essential stage of the decision-making process. Four aspects of this definition should be noted. First, democracy concerns collective decision making, by which we mean decisions that are made for groups and are meant to be binding on all the members of the group. Second, we intend for this definition to cover many different kinds of groups and decision-making procedures that may be called democratic. So there can be democracy in families, voluntary organizations, economic firms, as well as states and transnational and global organizations. The definition is also consistent with different electoral systems, for example first-past-the-post voting and proportional representation. Third, the definition is not intended to carry any normative weight. It is compatible with this definition of democracy that it is not desirable to have democracy in some particular context. So the definition of democracy does not settle any normative questions. Fourth, the equality required by the definition of democracy may be more or less deep. It may be the mere formal equality of one-person one-vote in an election for representatives to a parliament where there is competition among candidates for the position. Or it may be more robust, including substantive equality in the processes of deliberation and coalition building leading up to the vote. “Democracy” may refer to any of these political arrangements. It may involve direct referenda of the members of a society in deciding on the laws and policies of the society or it may involve the participation of those members in selecting representatives to make the decisions.

The function of normative democratic theory is not to settle questions of definition but to determine which, if any, of the forms democracy may take are morally desirable and when and how. To evaluate different moral justifications of democracy, we must decide on the merits of the different principles and conceptions of human beings and society from which they proceed.

2. The Justification of Democracy

In this section, we examine different views concerning the justification of democracy. Proposed justifications of democracy identify values or reasons that support democracy over alternative forms of decision-making, such as oligarchy or dictatorship. It is important to distinguish views concerning the justification of democracy from views concerning the authority of democracy, which we examine in section 3 . Attempts to establish democratic authority identify values or reasons in virtue of which subjects have a duty to obey democratic decisions. Justification and authority can come apart (Simmons 2001: ch. 7)—it is possible to hold that the balance of values or reasons supports democracy over alternative forms of decision-making while denying that subjects have a duty to obey democratic decisions.

We can evaluate the justification of democracy along at least two different dimensions: instrumentally, by reference to the outcomes of using it compared with other methods of political decision; or intrinsically, by reference to values that are inherent in the method.

2.1 Instrumentalism

2.1.1 instrumental arguments in favor of democracy.

Two kinds of in instrumental benefits are commonly attributed to democracy: (1) the production of relatively good laws and policies and (2) improvements in the characters of the participants.

It is often argued that democratic decision-making best protects subjects’ rights or interests because it is more responsive to their judgments or preferences than competing forms of government. John Stuart Mill, for example, argues that since democracy gives each subject a share of political power, democracy forces decision-makers to take into account the rights and interests of a wider range of subjects than are taken into account under aristocracy or monarchy (Mill 1861: ch. 3). There is some evidence that as groups are included in the democratic process, their interests are better advanced by the political system. For example, when African Americans regained the right to vote in the United States in 1965, they were able to secure many more benefits from the state than previously (Wright 2013). Economists argue that democracy promotes economic growth (Acemoglu et al. 2019). Several contemporary authors defend versions of this instrumental argument by pointing to the robust empirical correlation between well-functioning democratic institutions and the strong protection of core liberal rights, such as rights to a fair trial, bodily integrity, freedom of association, and freedom of expression (Gaus 1996: ch. 13; Christiano 2011; Gaus 2011: ch. 22).

A related instrumental argument for democracy is provided by Amartya Sen, who argues that

no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent country with a democratic form of government and a relatively free press. (Sen 1999: 152)

The basis of this argument is that politicians in a multiparty democracy with free elections and a free press have incentives to respond to the expressions of needs of the poor.

Epistemic justifications of democracy argue that, under the right conditions, democracy is generally more reliable than alternative methods at producing political decisions that are correct according to procedure-independent standards. While there are many different explanations for the reliability of democratic decision-making, we outline three of the most prominent explanations here: (1) Condorcet’s Jury Theorem, (2) the effects of cognitive diversity, and (3) information gathering and sharing.

The most prominent explanation for democracy’s epistemic reliability rests on Condorcet’s Jury Theorem (CJT), a mathematical theorem developed by eighteenth-century mathematician the Marquis de Condorcet that builds on the so-called “law of large numbers”. CJT states that, when certain assumptions hold, the probability that a majority of voters support the correct decision increases and approaches one as the number of voters increases. The assumptions are (Condorcet 1785):

each voter is more likely than not to identify the correct decision (the competence assumption );
voters vote for what they believe is the correct decision (the sincerity assumption );
votes are statistically independent of one another (the independence assumption ).

While Condorcet’s original proof was restricted to decisions with only two choices, more recent work argues that CJT can be extended to decisions with three or more choices (List & Goodin 2001). The use of CJT to explain democracy’s reliability is often thought to originate with Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s claim that

[i]f, when a sufficiently informed populace deliberates, the citizens were to have no communication among themselves, the general will would always result from the large number of small differences, and the deliberation would always be good. (Rousseau 1762: Book III, ch. IV)

Contemporary theorists continue to rely on CJT, or variants of it, to justify democracy (Barry 1965; Cohen 1986; Grofman and Feld 1988; Goodin & Spiekermann 2019).

The appeal of CJT for epistemic democrats derives from the fact that, if its underlying assumptions are satisfied, decisions produced by even moderately-sized electorates are almost certain to be correct. For example, if the assumptions of CJT hold for an electorate of 10,000 voters, and if each voter is 51 percent likely to identify the correct decision of two options, then the probability that a majority will select the correct decision is 99.97 percent. The formal mathematics of CJT are not subject to dispute. However, critics of CJT-based arguments for democracy argue that the assumptions underlying CJT are rarely, if ever, satisfied in actual democracies (see Black 1963: 159–65; Ladha 1992; Estlund 1997b; 2008: ch. XII; Anderson 2006). First, many have remarked that voters’ opinions are not independent of each other. Indeed, the democratic process seems to emphasize persuasion and coalition building. Second, the theorem does not seem to apply to cases in which the information that voters have access to, and on the basis of which they make their judgments, is segmented in various ways. Segmentation occurs when some sectors of the society do not have the relevant information while others do have it. Modern societies and politics seem to instantiate this kind of segmentation in terms of class, race, ethnic groupings, religion, occupational position, geographical place and so on. Finally, all voters approach issues they have to make decisions on with strong ideological biases that undermine the claim that each voter is bringing a kind of independent observation on the nature of the common good to the vote.

Advocates of CJT-based justifications of democracy generally respond to these sorts of criticisms by attempting to develop variations of CJT with weaker assumptions. These assumptions are more easily satisfied in democracies and so the revised theorems may show that even moderately-sized electorates are almost certain to produce correct decisions (Grofman & Feld 1988; Austen-Smith 1992; Austen-Smith & Banks 1996).

A second common epistemic justification for democracy—which is often traced to Aristotle ( Politics , Book II, Ch. 11; see Waldron 1995)—argues that democratic procedures are best able to exploit the underlying cognitive diversity of large groups of citizens to solve collective problems. Since democracy brings a lot of people into the process of decision making, it can take advantage of many sources of information and perspectives in assessing proposed laws and policies. More recently, Hélène Landemore (2013) has drawn on the “diversity-trumps-ability” theorem of Scott Page and Lu Hong (Hong & Page 2004; Page 2007)—which states that a random collection of agents drawn from a large set of limited-ability agents typically outperforms a collection of the very best agents from that same set—to argue that democracy can be expected to produce better decisions than rule by experts. Both Page and Hong’s original theorem and Landemore’s use of it to justify democracy are subject to dispute (see Quirk 2014; Brennan 2014; Thompson 2014; Bajaj 2014).

A third common epistemic justification for democracy relies on the idea that democratic decision-making tends to be more informed than other forms of decision-making about the interests of citizens and the causal mechanisms necessary to advance those interests. John Dewey argues that democracy involves “a consultation and a discussion which uncovers social needs and troubles”. Even if experts know how best to solve collective problems, they need input from the masses to correct their biases tell them where the problems lie (Dewey 1927 [2012: 154–155]; see also Anderson 2006; Knight & Johnson 2011).

Many have endorsed democracy on the grounds that democracy has beneficial effects on the characters of subjects. Many agree with Mill and Rousseau that democracy tends to make people stand up for themselves more than other forms of rule do because it makes collective decisions depend on their input more than monarchy or aristocracy do. Hence, in democratic societies individuals are encouraged to be more autonomous. Relatedly, by giving citizens a share of control over political-decision-making, democracy cultivates citizens with active and productive characters rather than passive characters. In addition, it has been argued that democracy tends to get people to think carefully and rationally more than other forms of rule because it makes a difference to political outcomes whether they do or not. Finally, some argue that democracy tends to enhance the moral qualities of citizens. When they participate in making decisions, they have to listen to others, they are called upon to justify themselves to others and they are forced to think in part in terms of the interests of others. Some have argued that when people find themselves in this kind of circumstance, they can be expected genuinely to think in terms of the common good and justice. Hence, some have argued that democratic processes tend to enhance the autonomy, rationality, activity, and morality of participants. Since these beneficial effects are thought to be worthwhile in themselves, they count in favor of democracy and against other forms of rule (Mill 1861 [1991: 74]; Elster 1986 [2003: 152]; Hannon 2020).

Some argue in addition that the above effects on character tend to enhance the quality of legislation as well. A society of autonomous, rational, active, and moral decision-makers is more likely to produce good legislation than a society ruled by a self-centered person or a small group of persons who rule over slavish and unreflective subjects. Of course, the soundness of any of the above arguments depends on the truth of the causal theories of the consequences of different institutions.

Not all instrumental arguments favor democracy. Plato argues that democracy is inferior to various forms of monarchy, aristocracy and even oligarchy on the grounds that democracy tends to undermine the expertise necessary to the proper governance of societies (Plato 1974, Book VI). Most people do not have the kinds of intellectual talents that enable them to think well about the difficult issues that politics involves. But in order to win office or get a piece of legislation passed, politicians must appeal to these people’s sense of what is right or not right. Hence, the state will be guided by very poorly worked out ideas that experts in manipulation and mass appeal use to help themselves win office. Plato argues instead that the state should be ruled by philosopher-kings who have the wisdom and moral character required for good rule. He thus defends a version of what David Estlund calls “epistocracy”, a form of oligarchy that involves rule by experts (Estlund 2003).

Mill defends a form of epistocracy that is sometimes referred to as the “plural voting” scheme (1861: ch. 4). While all rational adults get at least one vote under this scheme, some citizens get a greater number of votes based on satisfying some measure of political expertise. While Mill identifies the relevant measure of expertise in terms of formal education, the plural voting scheme is consistent with other measures. This scheme might be thought to combine the instrumental value of political expertise with the intrinsic value of broad inclusion.

One objection to any form of epistocracy—the demographic objection —holds that any criterion of expertise is likely to select demographically homogeneous individuals who are be biased in ways that undermine their ability to produce political outcomes that promote the general welfare (Estlund 2003).

Hobbes argues that democracy is inferior to monarchy because democracy fosters destabilizing dissension among subjects (Hobbes 1651: chap. XIX). On his view, individual citizens and even politicians are apt not to have a sense of responsibility for the quality of legislation because no one makes a significant difference to the outcomes of decision making. As a consequence, citizens’ concerns are not focused on politics and politicians succeed only by making loud and manipulative appeals to citizens in order to gain more power, but all lack incentives to consider views that are genuinely for the common good. Hence the sense of lack of responsibility for outcomes undermines politicians’ concern for the common good and inclines them to make sectarian and divisive appeals to citizens.

Many contemporary theorists expand on these Platonic and Hobbesian criticisms. A good deal of empirical data shows that citizens of large-scale democracies are ill-informed and apathetic about politics. This makes room for special interests to control the behavior of politicians and use the state for their own limited purposes all the while spreading the costs to everyone. Moreover, there is empirical evidence that democratic citizens often engage in motivated reasoning that unconsciously aims to affirm their existing political identities rather than arrive at correct judgments (Lord, Ross, & Lepper 1979; Bartels 2002; Kahan 2013; Achen & Bartels 2016). Some theorists argue that these considerations justify abandoning democracy altogether, while modest versions of these arguments have been used to justify modification of democratic institutions (Caplan 2007; Somin 2013; Brennan 2016). Relatedly, some theorists argue that rather than having beneficial effects on the characters of subjects as Mill and others argue, democracy actually has deleterious effects on the subjects’ characters and relationships (Brennan 2016: ch. 3).

Pure instrumentalists argue that these instrumental arguments for and against the democratic process are the only bases on which to evaluate the justification of democracy or compare it with other forms of political decision-making. There are a number of different kinds of argument for pure instrumentalism. One kind of argument proceeds from a more general moral theory. For example, classical utilitarianism has no room in its monistic axiology for the intrinsic values of fairness and liberty or the intrinsic importance of an egalitarian distribution of political power. Its sole concern with maximizing utility—understood as pleasure or desire satisfaction—guarantees that it can provide only instrumental arguments for and against democracy.

But one need not be a thoroughgoing utilitarian to argue for instrumentalism in democratic theory. There are arguments in favor of instrumentalism that pertain directly to the question of democracy and collective decision making generally. One argument states that political power involves the exercise of power of some over others. And it argues that the exercise of power of one person over another can only be justified by reference to the protection of the interests or rights of the person over whom power is exercised. Thus no distribution of political power could ever be justified except by reference to the quality of outcomes of the decision making process (Arneson 1993 [2002: 96–97]; 2003; 2004; 2009). Another sort of argument for instrumentalism proceeds negatively, attempting to show that the non-instrumental values most commonly used in attempted justifications for democracy do not actually justify democracy, and that an instrumental justification for democracy is therefore the only available sort of justification (Wall 2007).

Other arguments question the coherence of the idea of intrinsically fair collective decision making processes. For instance, social choice theory questions the idea that there can be a fair decision making function that transforms a set of individual preferences into a rational collective preference. The core objection is that no general rule satisfying reasonable constraints can be devised that can transform any set of individual preferences into a rational social preference. And this is taken to show that democratic procedures cannot be intrinsically fair (Riker 1982: 116). Ronald Dworkin argues that the idea of equality, which is for him at the root of social justice, cannot be given a coherent and plausible interpretation when it comes to the distribution of political power among members of the society. The relation of politicians to citizens inevitably gives rise to inequality; the process of democratic deliberation inevitably gives those with superior argument making abilities and greater willingness to participate more influence and therefore more power, than others, so equality of political power cannot be intrinsically fair or just (Dworkin 2000). In later work, Dworkin has pulled back from this originally thoroughgoing instrumentalism (Dworkin 1996).

2.2 Non-instrumentalism

Few theorists deny that political institutions must be at least in part evaluated in terms of the outcomes of having those institutions. Some argue in addition, that some forms of decision making are morally desirable independent of the consequences of having them. A variety of different approaches have been used to show that democracy has this kind of intrinsic value.

One prominent justification for democracy appeals to the value of liberty. According to one version of the view, democracy is grounded in the idea that each ought to be master of his or her life. Each person’s life is deeply affected by the larger social, legal and cultural environment in which he or she lives. Only when each person has an equal voice and vote in the process of collective decision-making will each have equal control over this larger environment. Thinkers such as Carol Gould conclude that only when some kind of democracy is implemented, will individuals have a chance at self-government (Gould 1988: 45–85). Since individuals have a right of self-government, they have a right to democratic participation. The idea is that the right of self-government gives one a right, within limits, to do wrong. Just as an individual has a right to make some bad decisions for himself or herself, so a group of individuals have a right to make bad or unjust decisions for themselves regarding those activities they share.

One major difficulty with this line of argument is that it appears to require that the basic rule of decision-making be consensus or unanimity. If each person must freely choose the outcomes that bind him or her then those who oppose the decision are not self-governing. They live in an environment imposed on them by others. So only when all agree to a decision are they freely adopting the decision (Wolff 1970: ch. 2). The trouble is that there is rarely agreement on major issues in politics. Indeed, it appears that one of the main reasons for having political decision making procedures is that they can settle matters despite disagreement.

One liberty-based argument that might seem to escape this worry appeals to an irreducibly collective right to self-determination. It is often argued that political communities have a right as a community to organize themselves politically in accordance with their values, principles, or commitments. Some argue that the right to collective self-determination requires democratic institutions that give citizens collective control over their political and legal structure (Cassese 1995). However, many argue democratic institutions are sufficient but not necessary to realize the right to collective self-determination because political communities might exercise this right to implement non-democratic institutions (Altman & Wellman 2009; Stilz 2016).

Another non-instrumental justification of democracy appeals to the ideal of public justification. The idea behind this approach is that laws and policies are legitimate to the extent that they are publicly justified to the citizens of the community. Public justification is justification to each citizen as a result of free and reasoned debate among equals.

Jürgen Habermas’s discourse theory of deliberative democracy has been highly influential in the development of this approach. Habermas analyses the form and function of modern legal systems through the lens of his theory of communicative action. This analysis yields the Democratic Principle:

[O]nly those statutes may claim legitimacy that can meet with the assent of all citizens in a discursive process of legislation that in turn has been legally constituted. (Habermas 1992 [1996: 110])

Habermas advances a conception of democratic legitimacy according to which law is legitimate only if it results from a free and inclusive democratic process of “opinion and will-formation”. What might such a process look like in a complex and differentiated society? Habermas answers by advancing a “two-track” model that understands democratic legitimation in terms of the relationship between institutionalized deliberative bodies (e.g legislatures, agencies, courts) and informal communication in the public sphere, which is “wild”, and not centrally coordinated.

One possible objection to this view is that free and inclusive democratic procedures are insufficient to satisfy the demand for deliberative consensus embodied in the Democratic Principle. This demand is unlikely to be satisfied in diverse societies, since deep disagreements about which laws ought to be enacted is likely to remain after the relevant process of opinion and will-formation. The Democratic Principle might thus be thought to embody an overly idealistic conception of democratic legitimacy (Estlund 2008: ch.10). Another possible worry is that the Discourse Principle is not a genuine moral principle, but a principle that embodies the felicity conditions of practical discourse. As such, the Discourse Principle cannot ground a conception of democratic legitimacy that yields robust moral prescriptions (Forst 2016).

Drawing on Habermas and John Rawls, among others, Joshua Cohen (1996 [2003]) develops a conception of democracy in which citizens justify laws and policies on the basis of mutually acceptable reasons. Democracy, properly understood, is the context in which individuals freely engage in a process of reasoned discussion and deliberation on an equal footing. The ideas of freedom and equality provide guidelines for structuring democratic institutions.

The aim of Cohen’s conception of democracy as public justification is reasoned consensus among citizens. But a serious problem arises when we ask about what happens when disagreement remains. Two possible replies have been suggested. It has been urged that forms of consensus weaker than full consensus are sufficient for public justification and that the weaker varieties are achievable in many societies. For instance, there may be consensus on the list of reasons that are acceptable publicly but disagreement on the weight of the different reasons. Or there may be agreement on general reasons abstractly understood but disagreement about particular interpretations of those reasons. What would have to be shown here is that such weak consensus is achievable in many societies and that the disagreements that remain are not incompatible with the ideal of public justification.

The basic principle seems to be the principle of reasonableness according to which reasonable persons will only offer principles for the regulation of their society that other reasonable persons can reasonably accept. One only offers principles that others, who restrain themselves in the same way, can accept. Such a principle implies a kind of principle of restraint which requires that reasonable persons avoid proposing laws and policies on the basis of controversial moral or philosophical principles. When individuals offer proposals for the regulation of their society, they ought not to appeal to the whole truth as they see it but only to that part of the whole truth that others can reasonably accept. To put the matter in the way Rawls puts it: political society must be regulated by principles on which there is an overlapping consensus (Rawls 2005: Lecture IV). This is meant to obviate the need for a complete consensus on the principles that regulate society.

However, it is hard to see how this approach avoids the need for a complete consensus, which is highly unlikely to occur in any even moderately diverse society. The reason for this is that it is not clear why it is any less of an imposition on me when I propose legislation or policies for the society that I must restrain myself to considerations that other reasonable people accept than it is an imposition on others when I attempt to pass legislation on the basis of reasons they reasonably reject. For if I do restrain myself in this way, then the society I live in will not live up to the standards that I believe are essential to evaluating the society. I must then live in and support a society that does not accord with my conception of how it ought to be organized. It is not clear why this is any less of a loss of control over society than for those who must live in a society that is partly regulated by principles they do not accept. If one is a problem, then so is the other, and complete consensus is the only solution (Christiano 2009).

Many democratic theorists have argued that democracy is a way of treating persons as equals when there is good reason to impose some kind of organization on their shared lives but they disagree about how best to do it. Peter Singer argues that when people insist on different ways of arranging matters properly, each person in a sense claims a right to be dictator over their shared lives (Singer 1973: 30–41). But these claims to dictatorship cannot all hold up. Democracy embodies a kind of peaceful and fair compromise among these conflicting claims to rule. Each compromises equally on what he claims as long as the others do, resulting in each having an equal say over decision making. In effect, democratic decision making respects each person’s point of view on matters of common concern by giving each an equal say about what to do in cases of disagreement (Singer 1973; Waldron 1999: chap. 5).

What if people disagree on the democratic method or on the particular form democracy is to take? Are we to decide these latter questions by means of a higher order procedure? And if there is disagreement on the higher order procedure, must we also democratically decide that question? The view seems to lead to an infinite regress.

An alternative way of justifying democracy on the basis of equality is to ground democracy in public equality. Public equality is a principle of equality which ensures that people can see that they are being treated as equals. This view arises from three ideas. First, there is the basic egalitarian idea that people’s interests ought to be equally advanced, or at least that they ought to have equal opportunities to advance them. Second, human beings generally have highly fallible and biased understandings of their own and other people’s interests. Third, persons have fundamental interests in being able to see that they are being treated as equals. Public equality is an egalitarian principle that can be seen to be realized among persons despite the dramatically incomplete forms of knowledge people have. It is not all of justice, but it is essential that the principle be realized in a pluralistic society.

Democracy is a uniquely publicly egalitarian way to make collective decisions when there is substantial disagreement and conflict of interest among persons about how to shape the society they share. Each can see that the only plausible way of overcoming persistent disagreement over how to shape the society they all live in, while still publicly treating all persons as equals in the face of bias and fallibility, is to give each person an equal say in the process of shaping that society. Thus, democracy is necessary to the realization of public equality in a political society. Within the framework determined by this publicly realized equality, persons are permitted to attempt to bring about their more particular ideas about justice and the common good that they think are right.

The idea of public equality also grounds limits to democratic decision making. The thought is that a society cannot democratically decide to abolish the democratic rights of some of its members. Public equality also requires that basic liberal and civil rights be respected as well, by the democratic process and so serves as a limit to democratic decision making (Christiano 2008; Valentini 2013).

A number of worries attend this kind of view. First, it is generally thought that majority rule is required for treating persons as equals in collective decision making. This is because only majority rule is neutral towards alternatives in decision making. Unanimity tends to favor the status quo as do various forms of supermajority rule. But if this is so, the above view raises the twin dangers of majority tyranny and of persistent minorities, i.e., groups of persons who find themselves always losing in majority decisions. Surely these latter phenomena must be incompatible with public equality. Second, the kind of view defended above is susceptible to the worry that political equality is not a coherent ideal in any modern state with a complex division of labor and the need for representation. This last worry will be discussed in more detail in the next sections on democratic citizenship and legislative representation. The first worry will be discussed more in the discussion on the limits to democratic authority.

A related approach grounds democracy in the ideal of relational equality . A concern with relational equality is a concern for

human relationships that are, in certain crucial respects at least, unstructured by differences of rank, power, or status. (Scheffler 2010: 225)

Niko Kolodny argues that democratic institutions are an essential component of relational equality (Kolodny 2014a,b). One line of Kolodny’s argument holds that political decisions involve the use of coercive force. Inequalities in the power to use force undermine equal social status at least in part because the power to use force is “the power that usually determines the distribution of other powers” (Kolodny 2014b: 307). Individuals who have superior power to use force on others have a superior social status. An egalitarian distribution of political power is thus essential for realizing social equality. And only democratic institutions provide an egalitarian distribution of political power. We will discuss the relationship between relational equality and democracy further when we discuss the authority of democracy in Part 3 below.

3. The Authority of Democracy

Since democracy is a collective decision process, the question naturally arises about whether there is any duty of citizens to obey democratic decisions when they disagree with it.

There are three main concepts of the legitimate authority of the state. First, a state has legitimate authority to the extent that it is morally justified in coercively imposing its rule on the members. Legitimate authority on this account has no direct implications concerning the obligations or duties that citizens may hold toward that state. It simply says that if the state is morally justified in doing what it does, then it has legitimate authority. Second, a state has legitimate authority to the extent that its directives generate duties in citizens to obey. The duties of the citizens need not be owed to the state but they are real duties to obey. The third is that the state has a right to rule that is correlated with the citizens’ duty to it to obey it. This is the strongest notion of authority and it seems to be the core idea behind the legitimacy of the state. The idea is that when citizens disagree about law and policy it is important to be able to answer the question, who has the right to choose?

Instrumental arguments for democracy give some reason for why one ought to respect the democracy when one disagrees with its decisions. There may be many instrumental considerations that play a role in deciding on the question of whether one ought to obey. And these instrumental considerations are pretty much the same whether one is considering obedience to democracy or some other form of rule.

There is one instrumentalist approach which is quite unique to democracy and that seems to ground a strong conception of democratic authority. That is the epistemic approach inspired by the Condorcet Jury Theorem, which we discussed in section 2.1.1.2 above. There, we discussed a number of difficulties with the application of the Condorcet Jury Theorem to the case of voting in elections and referenda in large-scale democracies, including lack of independence, informational segmentation, and the existence of ideological biases.

One further worry about the Jury Theorem’s epistemic conceptions of authority is that it would prove too much since it undermines the common practice of the loyal opposition in democracies. If the background conditions of the Jury Theorem are met, a large-scale democracy majority is practically certain to produce the right decisions. On what basis can citizens in a political minority rationally hold on to their competing views? The members of the minority have a powerful reason for shifting their allegiance to the majority position, since each has very good reason to think that the majority is right. The epistemic conception of authority based on the Jury Theorem thus threatens to be objectionably authoritarian, since it looks like it demands not only obedience of action but obedience of thought as well. Even in scientific communities the fact that a majority of scientists favor a particular view does not make the minority scientists think that they are wrong, though it does perhaps give them pause (Goodin 2003: ch. 7).

Some theories of democratic authority combine instrumental and non-instrumental considerations. David Estlund argues that democratic procedures have legitimate authority because they are better than random and epistemically the best of the political systems that are acceptable to all reasonable citizens (Estlund 2008). They must be better than random because, otherwise, why wouldn’t we use a fair random procedure like a lottery or coin flip? Democratic authority must have an epistemic element. And the justification of democratic procedure must be acceptable to all reasonable citizens in order to respect their freedom and equality. Estlund’s conception of democratic authority—which he calls “epistemic proceduralism”— thus combines the ideal of public justification with a concern for the tendency of democracies to produce good decisions.

3.2 Intrinsic Conceptions of Democratic Authority

Some theorists argue that there is a special relation between democracy and legitimate authority grounded in the value of collective self-rule. John Locke argues that when a person consents to the creation of a political society, they necessarily consent to the use of majority rule in deciding how the political society is to be organized (Locke 1690: sec. 96). Locke thinks that majority rule is the natural decision rule when there is disagreement. He argues that a society is a kind of collective body that must move in the direction of the greater force. One way to understand this argument is as follows. If we think of each member of society as an equal and if we think that there is likely to be disagreement beyond the question of whether to join society or not, then we must accept majority rule as the appropriate decision rule. This interpretation of the greater force argument assumes that the expression “greater force” is to be understood in terms of the equal worth of each person’s interests and rights, so the society must go in the direction in which the greater number of persons wants it to go.

Locke thinks that a people, which is formed by individuals who consent to be members, could choose a monarchy by means of majority rule and so this argument by itself does not give us an argument for democracy. But Locke refers back to this argument when he defends the requirement of representative institutions for deciding when property may be regulated and taxes levied. He argues that a person must consent to the regulation or taxation of his property by the state. But he says that this requirement of consent is satisfied when a majority of the representatives of property holders consent to the regulation and taxation of property (Locke, 1690: sec. 140). This does seem to be moving towards a genuinely democratic conception of legitimate authority.

Rousseau argues that when individuals consent to form a political community, they agree to put themselves under the direction of the “general will” (Rousseau 1762). The general will is not a mere aggregation of individuals’ private wills. It is, rather, the will of the political community as a whole. And since the general will can only emerge as the product of a properly organized democratic procedure, individuals consent to put themselves under the direction of a properly organized democratic procedure. On one interpretation of Rousseau, democratic procedures are properly organized only when they (1) define rights that apply equally to all, (2) via a procedure that considers everyone’s interests equally, and (3) everyone who is coerced to obey the laws has a voice in that procedure.

There are at least two ways of understanding the idea of the general will. On what might be called the constitutive interpretation, the general will is constituted by the results of a properly organized democratic procedure. That is, the results of a properly organized democratic procedure are the general will in virtue of the fact that they emerge from a properly organized democratic procedure, and not because they reflect some procedure-independent truth about the common good. On what might be called the epistemic interpretation, the results of a properly organized democratic procedure are the way of tracking the procedure-independent truth about the common good. As we discussed in section 3.1 , Rousseau is often interpreted as appealing to Condorcet’s Jury Theorem to support the epistemic credentials of a properly organized democratic procedure.

Anna Stilz develops an account of democratic authority that appeals to the value of “freedom as independence” (Stilz 2009). Freedom as independence is freedom from being subject to the will of another. In order not to be subject to the will of others, individuals need property rights and a protected sphere of autonomy to pursue one’s plans. Drawing on Kant, Stilz argues that attempts by particular individuals, no matter how conscientious, to define and secure rights to property and autonomy in a state of nature will be inconsistent with freedom as independence. Such attempts unilaterally impose new obligations on others through acts of private will in the face of competing claims. But even if individuals in a state of nature do agree to a resolution of their competing claims, they are dependent on the will of others to honor this agreement. Stilz thus argues that justice must be administered by an authoritative legal system which can coercively impose one set of objective rules—rules we must respect even when we disagree—to adjudicate our conflicting claims. But if such a system is to be consistent with the freedom of subjects, it cannot be imposed by the private wills of rulers. The solution, Stilz argues, lies in Rousseau’s idea of the general will. When subjects obey the general will, they are not obeying the private will of any individual; they are obeying a will that arises from all and applies to all.

One worry with this account is that those who oppose democratically-enacted laws or policies can complain that those laws or policies are imposed against their will. Perhaps they are not subject to the will of a particular individual, but they are subject to the will of a majority. This might be thought to constitute a significant threat to individuals’ freedom as independence. Another worry, which Stilz’s view arguably inherits from Rousseau, is that the conditions for the general will to emerge are so demanding that the view implies that no state that exists or has existed has legitimate political authority. Stilz’s view might thus be thought to entail what A.J. Simmons calls “a posteriori anarchism” (Simmons 2001).

Another approach to democratic authority asserts that failing to obey the decisions of a democratic assembly amounts to treating one’s fellow citizens as inferiors (Christiano 2008: ch. 6). In the face of disagreement about substantive law and policy, democracy realizes a kind of public equality by giving each individual an equal say in determining which laws or policies will be enacted. Citizens who skirt laws made by suitably egalitarian procedures act contrary to the equal right of all citizens to have a say in making laws. Those who refuse to pay taxes or respect property laws on the grounds that they are unjust are affirming a superior right to that of others in determining how the shared aspects of social life ought to be arranged. Thus, they violate the duty to treat others publicly as equals. And there is reason to think this duty must normally have some pre-eminence. Public equality is the most important form of equality and democracy is required by public equality. The other forms of equality in play in substantive disputes about law and policy are ones about which people can have reasonable disagreements (within limits specified by the principle of public equality). Citizens thus have obligations to abide by the democratic process even if their favored conceptions of justice or equality are passed by in the decision making process.

Daniel Viehoff develops an egalitarian conception of democratic authority based on the ideal of relational equality (Viehoff 2014; see section 2.2.3 above for more on relational equality). Viehoff argues that relational equality is threatened by “subjection” in a relationship, which occurs when individuals have significantly different power over how they interact with and relate to one another. According to Viehoff, obeying the outcomes of egalitarian democratic procedures is necessary and sufficient for citizens to achieve coordination on common rules without subjection. It is sufficient because democratic procedures distribute decision-making power equally, which ensures that coordination is not determined by unequal power advantages. It is necessary because parties must set aside the considerations of greater and lesser power to realize non-subjection in their relationship.

Fabienne Peter develops a fairness-based conception of democratic authority that incorporates epistemic considerations (Peter 2008; 2009). Drawing on insights from proceduralist epistemology, Peter’s “pure epistemic proceduralism” holds that suitably egalitarian democratic decisions are binding at least in part because they result from a fair procedure of knowledge-production. This account differs from Estlund’s epistemic proceduralism (see section 5.1 above) because it does not condition the authority of democratic procedures on their ability to produce decisions that track the procedure-independent truth. Rather, the authority of democratic procedures is grounded in their fairness. And it differs from pure procedural accounts because the relevant notion of fairness is fairness in knowledge-production.

3.3 Limits to the Authority of Democracy

What are the limits to democratic authority? A limit to democratic authority is a principle violation of which defeats democratic authority. When the principle is violated by the democratic assembly, the assembly loses its authority in that instance or the moral weight of the authority is overridden. A number of different views have been offered on this issue. We can distinguish between internal and external limits to democratic authority. An internal limit arises from the constitutive requirements of the democratic process or from the principles that ground democracy. An external limit arises from principles that are independent of the values or requirements that ground democracy.

External limits to democratic authority are rebutting limits, which are principles that weigh against—and may sometimes outweigh the principles that ground democracy. So in a particular case, an individual may see that there are reasons to obey the assembly and some reasons against obeying the assembly and in the case at hand the reasons against obedience outweigh the reasons in favor of obedience. Internal limits to democratic authority are undercutting limits. These limits function not by weighing against the considerations in favor of authority, they undercut the considerations in favor of authority altogether; they simply short circuit the authority. When an undercutting limit is in play, it is not as if the principles which ground the limit outweigh the reasons for obeying the democratic assembly, it is rather that the reasons for obeying the democratic assembly are undermined altogether; they cease to exist or at least they are severely weakened.

Some have argued that the democratic process ought to be limited to decisions that are not incompatible with the proper functioning of the democratic process. So they argue that the democratic process may not legitimately take away the political rights of its citizens in good standing. It may not take away rights that are necessary to the democratic process such as freedom of association or freedom of speech. But these limits do not extend beyond the requirements for proper democratic functioning. They do not protect non political artistic speech or freedom of association in the case of non political activities (Ely 1980: chap. 4).

Another kind of internal limit is a limit that arises from the principles that underpin democracy. And the presence of this limit would seem to be necessary to making sense of the first limit because in order for the first limit to be morally important we need to know why a democracy ought to protect the democratic process.

Locke gives an account of the internal limits of democracy in his idea that there are certain things to which a citizen may not consent (Locke 1690: ch. XI). She may not consent to arbitrary rule or the violation of fundamental rights including democratic and liberal rights. Since consent is the basis of democratic authority for Locke, this account provides an explanation of the idea behind the first internal limit, that democracy may not be suspended by democratic means but it goes beyond that limit to suggest that rights that are not essentially connected with the exercise of the franchise may also not be violated because one may not consent to their violation.

More recently, Ronald Dworkin has defended an account of the limits of democratic authority (Dworkin 1996). He argues that democracy is justified by appeal to a principle of self-government. He argues that self-government cannot be realized unless all citizens are treated as full members of the political community, because, otherwise, they are not able to identify as members of the community. Among the conditions of full membership, he argues, are rights to be treated as equals and rights to have one’s moral independence respected. These principles support robust requirements of non-discrimination and of basic liberal rights.

The conception of democratic authority that grounds it in public equality also provides an account of the limits of that authority (Christiano 2008: ch. 6). Since democracy is founded in public equality, it may not violate public equality in any of its decisions. The basic idea is that overt violation of public equality by a democratic assembly undermines the claim that the democratic assembly embodies public equality. Democracy’s embodiment of public equality is conditional on its protecting public equality. To the extent that liberal rights are grounded in public equality and the provision of an economic minimum is also so grounded, this suggests that democratic rights and liberal rights and rights to an economic minimum create a limit to democratic authority. This account also provides a deep grounding for the kinds of limits to democratic authority defended in the first internal limit and it goes beyond these to the extent that protection of rights that are not connected with the exercise of the franchise is also necessary to public equality.

This account of the authority of democracy also provides some help with a vexing problem of democratic theory. This problem is the difficulty of persistent minorities. There is a persistent minority in a democratic society when that minority always loses in the voting. This is always a possibility in democracies because of the use of majority rule. If the society is divided into two or more highly unified voting blocks in which the members of each group votes in the same ways as all the other members of that group, then the group in the minority will find itself always on the losing end of the votes. This problem has plagued some societies, particularly those with indigenous peoples who live within developed societies. Though this problem is often connected with majority tyranny it is distinct from the problem of majority tyranny because it may be the case that the majority attempts to treat the minority well, in accordance with its conception of good treatment. It is just that the minority never agrees with the majority on what constitutes proper treatment. Being a persistent minority can be highly oppressive even if the majority does not try to act oppressively. This can be understood with the help of the very ideas that underpin democracy. Persons have interests in being able to correct for the cognitive biases of others and to be able to make the world in such a way that it makes sense to them. These interests are set back for a persistent minority since they never get their way.

The conception of democracy as grounded in public equality can shed light on this problem. It can say that the existence of a persistent minority violates public equality (Christiano 2008: chap. 7). In effect, a society in which there is a persistent minority is one in which that minority is being treated publicly as an inferior because it is clear that its fundamental interests are being set back. Hence to the extent that violations of public equality undercut the authority of a democratic assembly, the existence of a persistent minority undermines the authority of the democracy at least with respect to the minority. This suggests that certain institutions ought to be constructed so that the minority is not persistent.

One natural kind of limit to democratic authority is the external kind of limit. Here the idea is that there are certain considerations that favor democratic decision making and there are certain values that are independent of democracy that may be at issue in democratic decisions. For example, many theories recognize core liberal rights—such as rights to property, bodily integrity, and freedom of thought and expression—as external limits to democratic authority. Locke is often interpreted as arguing that individuals have natural rights to property in themselves and the external world that democratic laws must respect in order to have legitimate authority (Locke 1690).

Some views may assert that there are only external limits to democratic authority. But it is possible to think that there are both internal and external limits. Such an issue may arise in decisions to go to war, for example. In such decisions, one may have a duty to obey the decision of the democratic assembly on the grounds that this is how one treats one’s fellow citizens as equals but one may also have a duty to oppose the war on the grounds that the war is an unjust aggression against other people. To the extent that this consideration is sufficiently serious it may outweigh the considerations of equality that underpin democratic authority. Thus one may have an overall duty not to obey in this context. Issues of foreign policy in general seem to give rise to possible external limits to democracy.

4. The Demands of Democratic Participation

In this section, we examine the demands of participation in large-scale democracies. We begin by examining a core challenge to the idea that democratic citizens are capable of governing a large and complex society. We then explore different proposed solutions to the core challenge. Finally, we examine the moral duties of democratic citizens in large-scale democracies in light of the core challenge.

A vexing problem of democratic theory has been to determine whether ordinary citizens are up to the task of governing a large and complex society. There are three distinct problems here:

Plato argued that some people are more intelligent and informed about political matters than others and have a superior moral character, and that those persons ought to rule ( The Republic , Book VI)
Others have argued that a society must have a division of labor. If everyone were engaged in the complex and difficult task of politics, little time or energy would be left for the other essential tasks of a society. Conversely, if we expect most people to engage in other difficult and complex tasks, how can we expect them to have the time and resources sufficient to devote themselves intelligently to politics?
Since individuals have so little impact on the outcomes of political decision making in large societies, they have little sense of responsibility for the outcomes. Some have argued that it is not rational to vote since the chances that an individual’s vote will a decide the outcome of an election (i.e., will determine whether a candidate gets elected or not) are nearly indistinguishable from zero. For example, one widely accepted estimate puts the odds of an individual casting the deciding vote in a United States presidential election at 1 in 100 million. Many estimates put the odds much lower. Worse still, Anthony Downs has argued that almost all of those who do vote have little reason to become informed about how best to vote (Downs 1957: ch.13). On the assumption that citizens reason and behave roughly according to the Downsian model, either the society must in fact be run by a relatively small group of people with minimal input from the rest or it will be very poorly run. As we can see these criticisms are echoes of the sorts of criticisms Plato and Hobbes made.

These observations pose challenges for any robustly egalitarian or deliberative conception of democracy. Without the ability to participate intelligently in politics one cannot use one’s votes to advance one’s aims nor can one be said to participate in a process of reasoned deliberation among equals. So, either equality of political power implies a kind of self-defeating equal participation of citizens in politics or a reasonable division of labor seems to undermine equality of power. And either substantial participation of citizens in public deliberation entails the relative neglect of other tasks or the proper functioning of the other sectors of the society requires that most people do not participate intelligently in public deliberation.

4.2 Proposed Solutions to the Problem of Democratic Participation

Some modern theorists of democracy, called elite theorists, have argued against any robustly egalitarian or deliberative forms of democracy in light of the problem of democratic participation. They argue that high levels of citizen participation tend to produce bad legislation designed by demagogues to appeal to poorly informed and overly emotional citizens. They look upon the alleged uninformedness of citizens evidenced in many empirical studies in the 1950s and 1960s as perfectly reasonable and predictable. Indeed they regard the alleged apathy of citizens in modern states as highly desirable social phenomena.

Political leaders are to avoid divisive and emotionally charged issues and make policy and law with little regard for the fickle and diffuse demands made by ordinary citizens. Citizens participate by voting but since they know very little they are not effectively the ruling part of the society. The process of election is usually just a fairly peaceful way of maintaining or changing those who rule (Schumpeter 1942 [1950: 269]).

On Schumpeter’s view, however, citizens do have a role to play in avoiding serious disasters. When politicians act in ways that nearly anyone can see is problematic, the citizens can throw the bums out.

So the elite theory of democracy does seem compatible with some of the instrumentalist arguments given above but it is strongly opposed to the intrinsic arguments from liberty, public justification and equality. To be sure, there can be an elite deliberative democracy wherein elites deliberate, perhaps even out of sight of the population at large, on how to run the society.

A view akin to the elite theory but less pessimistic about citizens’ political agency and competence argues that a well-functioning representative democracy can function as a kind of “defensible epistocracy” (Landa & Pevnick 2020). This view holds that, under the right conditions, elected officials can be expected to exercise political power more responsibly than citizens in a direct democracy because each official is far more likely to cast the deciding vote in legislative assemblies (the “pivotality effect”) and officials have more incentive to exercise power with due regard for the general welfare (the “accountability effect”). Moreover, under the right conditions, representative democracy allows individuals to assess the competence of candidates for office and to select candidates who are best able to help the community pursue its commitments.

One approach that is in part motivated by the problem of democratic citizenship but which attempts to preserve some elements of equality against the elitist criticism is the interest group pluralist account of politics. Robert Dahl’s early statement of the view is very powerful.

In a rough sense, the essence of all competitive politics is bribery of the electorate by politicians… The farmer… supports a candidate committed to high price supports, the businessman…supports an advocate of low corporation taxes… the consumer…votes for candidates opposed to a sales tax. (Dahl 1959: 69)

In this conception of the democratic process, each citizen is a member of an interest group with narrowly defined interests that are closely connected to their everyday lives. On these subjects citizens are supposed to be quite well informed and interested in having an influence. Or at least, elites from each of the interest groups that are relatively close in perspective to the ordinary members are the principal agents in the process. On this account, democracy is not rule by the majority but rather rule by coalitions of minorities. Policy and law in a democratic society are decided by means of bargaining among the different groups.

This approach is conceivably compatible with the more egalitarian approach to democracy. This is because it attempts to reconcile equality with collective decision making by limiting the tasks of citizens to ones which they are able to perform reasonably well. It is not particularly compatible with the deliberative public justification approach because it takes the democratic process to be concerned essentially with bargaining among the different interest groups where the preferences are not subject to further debate in the society as a whole.

A third approach inspired by the problem of participation may be called the neo-liberal approach to politics favored by public choice theorists such as James Buchanan & Gordon Tullock (1962). Against elite theories, they contend that elites and their allies will tend to expand the powers of government and bureaucracy for their own interests and that this expansion will occur at the expense of a largely inattentive public. For this reason, they argue for severe restrictions on the powers of elites. They argue against the interest group pluralist theorists that the problem of participation occurs within interest groups more or less as much as among the citizenry at large. Only powerful economic interests are likely to succeed in organizing to influence the government and they will do so largely for their own benefit. Since economic elites will advance their own interests in politics while spreading the costs to others, policies will tend to be more costly (because imposed on everyone in society) than they are beneficial (because they benefit only the elites in the interest group.)

Neo-liberals infer that one ought to transfer many of the current functions of the state to the market and limit the state to the enforcement of basic property rights and liberties. These can be more easily understood and brought under the control of ordinary citizens.

But the neo-liberal account of democracy must answer to two large worries. First, citizens in modern societies have more ambitious conceptions of social justice and the common good than are realizable by the minimal state. The neo-liberal account thus implies a very serious curtailment of democracy of its own. More evidence is needed to support the contention that these aspirations cannot be achieved by the modern state. Second, the neo-liberal approach ignores the problem of large private concentrations of wealth and power that are capable of pushing small states around for their own benefit and imposing their wills on populations without their consent.

Somin (2013) also argues that government be significantly reduced in size so that citizens have a lesser knowledge burden to carry. But he calls for government decentralization so that citizens can vote with their feet in favor of or against competing units of government, in effect creating a kind of market in governments among which citizens can choose.

4.2.4 The self-interest assumption

A considerable amount of the literature in political science and the economic theory of the state are grounded in the assumption that individuals act primarily and perhaps even exclusively in their self-interest narrowly construed. The problem of participation and the accounts of the democratic process described above are in large part dependent on this assumption. When the preferences of voters are not assumed to be self-interested the calculations of the value of participation change. For example, if a person is a motivated utilitarian, the small chance of making a difference is coupled with a huge accumulated return to many people if there is a significant difference between alternatives. It may be worth it in this case to become reasonably well informed (Parfit 1984: 74). Even more weakly altruistic moral preferences could make a big difference to the rationality of becoming informed, for example if one had a preference to comply with perceived civic duty to vote responsibly (see section 4.3.1 for discussion of the duty to vote). Any moral preference can be formulated in consistent utility functions.

Moreover, defenders of deliberative democracy often claim that concerns for the common good and justice are not merely given prior to politics but that they can evolve and improve through the process of discussion and debate in politics (Elster 1986 [2003]; Gutmann & Thompson 2004; Cohen 1989 [2009]). They assert that much debate and discussion in politics would not be intelligible were it not for the fact that citizens are willing to engage in open minded discussion with those who have distinct morally informed points of view. Empirical evidence suggests that individuals are motivated by moral considerations in politics in addition to their interests (Mansbridge 1990).

Public deliberation in any large-scale democracy will occur within a complex and differentiated “deliberative system”, a

wide variety of institutions, associations, and sites of contestation accomplish political work. (Mansbridge et. al. 2012)

Moreover, the deliberative system of a complex democracy will be characterized by a division of democratic labor , with different parts of the system making different contributions to the overall system. The question arises: what is the appropriate role for a citizen in this division of labor? Philosophically, we should ask two questions. What ought citizens have knowledge about in order to fulfill their role? What standards ought citizens’ beliefs live up to in order to be adequately supported? One promising view is that citizens must think about what ends the society ought to aim at and leave the question of how to achieve those aims to experts (Christiano 1996: ch 5). The rationale for this division of labor is that expertise is not as fundamental to the choice of aims as it is to the development of legislation and policy. Citizens are capable in their everyday lives of understanding and cultivating deep understandings of values and of their interests. And if citizens genuinely do choose the aims and others faithfully pursue the means to achieving those aims, then citizens are in the driver’s seat in society and they can play this role as equals.

To be sure, citizens need to know who to vote for and whether those they vote for are genuinely advancing their aims. This would appear to require some basic knowledge of about how best to achieve their political aims. How is this possible without extensive knowledge? In addition, there is empirical evidence that those who are better informed have more influence on representatives (Erikson 2015). So, if this task requires some kind of knowledge to do well, how can this be compatible with equality?

One promising response is that ordinary citizens do not need individually to have a lot of knowledge of social science and particular facts in order to make political decisions based on such knowledge. Recent research in cognitive science indicates the individuals use “cognitive shortcuts” to save on time in acquiring information about the world they live in (Lupia & McCubbins 1998). This use of shortcuts is common and essential throughout economic and political life. In political life, we see part of the rationale for the many intermediate institutions between government and citizens (Downs 1957: 221–229). Citizens save time by making use of institutions such as the press, unions and other interest group associations, political parties, and opinion leaders to get information about politics. They also rely on interactions in the workplace as well as conversations with friends and families. Political parties can connect ordinary citizens in various ways to expertise because each one contains a division of labor within them that mirrors that in the state. Experts in parties have incentives to make their expertise intelligible to other members (Christiano 2012). In addition, under favorable conditions, political parties stimulate the development of citizens’ normative perspectives and facilitate a healthy public competition of political justifications based on those perspectives (White & Ypi 2016).

People are dependent on social networks in other ways in a democracy. People receive “free” information (which they do not deliberately seek out) about politics and law in school, through their jobs, in discussion with friends, colleagues and family and incidentally through the media. And this can form a better or worse basis on which to pursue other information. Institutions can make a difference to the stream of free information individuals receive. Education can be distributed in a more or less egalitarian way. The circumstances of work can provide more or less free information about politics and law. People who have jobs with a significant amount of power such as lawyers, business persons, government officials will be beneficiaries of very high quality free information. They need to know about law and politics to do their jobs properly. Those who hold low skilled and non-unionized jobs will receive much less free information about politics at work. To the extent that we can alter the economic division of labor by for example giving more place to unions or having greater worker participation, we might be able to reduce inequalities of information among citizens.

4.3 The Moral Duties of Democratic Citizens

What are the moral duties of democratic citizens in complex democracies? In this section, we discuss three important democratic duties: (1) the duty to vote, (2) the duty to promote justice through principled disobedience of the law, and (3) duties to accommodate disagreement through compromise and consensus.

It is often thought that democratic citizens have a moral duty to vote in elections. But this is not obvious. Individual votes are a causally insignificant contribution to the democratic process. In large-scale democracies, the chance that any particular citizen’s vote will decide the outcome of an election is minuscule. What moral reason do democratic citizens have to participate in politics even though they’re almost certain not to make the difference to who gets elected? Why shouldn’t they seek to promote the good or justice in other ways?

Parfit develops an act-utilitarian answer to this question (Parfit 1984: 73–75). Act-utilitarians hold that morally right actions maximize the total expected sum of the utilities of all persons in the society. Parfit argues that voting might nonetheless maximize expected utility if one candidate is significantly superior to the other(s). If we add the benefits to each member of the society of having the superior candidate win, we get a very large difference in value. So when we multiply that value by the probability of casting the deciding vote, which is often thought to be about 1/100,000,000 in a United States presidential election, we might still get a reasonably high expected value. When we subtract the cost to the voter and others of voting, which is often quite low, from this number, we may still have a good reason to vote.

One worry with Parfit’s view is that it faces a version of what Jason Brennan calls “the particularity problem” (Brennan 2011). This is the problem of explaining why citizens ought to promote value through political participation as opposed to through non-political acts. Voting is just one way of promoting overall utility; we need to know the expected utility of the different acts they might perform instead. Even if the argument above is correct, it might be the case that many individuals maximize expected utility by not voting and doing something even more beneficial with their time.

Alex Guerrero argues that citizens have moral reasons to vote because candidates who win by a larger proportion of votes can claim a greater “normative mandate” to govern (Guerrero 2010). Still each individual vote makes only a tiny contribution to the proportion of votes a candidate receives. So, we might doubt the strength of the reason to vote that Guerrero identifies.

Some theorists argue that individuals have a moral duty to vote in order to absolve themselves of complicity in state injustices (Beerbohm 2012; Zakaras 2018). All states commit injustices—they make and enforce unjust laws, wage unjust wars, and much else. And citizens of large-scale democracies have a kind of standing responsibility, by paying taxes and obeying laws, for their state’s injustices of which they must actively absolve themselves The complicity account argues that citizens avoid shared responsibility for their state’s injustices if they oppose those injustices through voting and of public advocacy (Beerbohm 2012).

One worry is that it is unclear why voting and publicly advocating against injustice should be thought to absolve responsibility that is established by paying taxes and obeying laws. Another worry is that one’s concern to oppose injustice should derive from a more direct concern for the wrongs suffered by victims of injustice rather than a concern with keeping one’s hands clean.

One sort of account that avoids this worry grounds the moral duty to vote in the importance of doing one’s fair share of the demands of political justice consistent with public equality. The demands of creating and sustaining just institutions distribute fairly among all citizens (Maskivker 2019). If one fails to do one’s fair share of these demands, then one fails to show due regard for the eventual victims of injustice. Furthermore, voting provides citizens with a mechanism for doing their fair shares of the demands of making their institutions just in a way that is consistent with respecting the public equality of fellow citizens. By showing up and casting a vote, citizens can contribute to the collective achievement of justice while maintaining equal decision-making power with fellow citizens.

Civil disobedience has long been recognized as a central mechanism through which democratic citizens may legitimately promote political justice in their society. According to the standard view, civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law that aims to change laws or government policies. People who engage in civil disobedience are willing to accept the legal consequences of their actions in order to show fidelity to the law (Bedau 1961; Rawls 1971: ch. 55). The standard definition of civil disobedience has been subjected to challenge. For example, some argue that the private acts in which the disobedient seeks to evade legal consequences can count as instances of civil disobedience (Raz 1979; Brownlee 2004, 2007, 2012).

Perhaps the most common way of justifying civil disobedience argues that the same considerations that ground the pro tanto duty to obey the law sometimes make it appropriate to engage in civil disobedience of the law (see, e.g., Rawls 1971: ch. 57; Sabl 2001; Markovits 2005; Smith 2011). For example, Rawls argues that while citizens of a “nearly just” society have a pro tanto duty to obey its laws in virtue of it being nearly just, civil disobedience can be justified as a way of making the relevant society more just (Rawls 1971: ch. 57). Similarly, Daniel Markovits argues that members of a society with suitably egalitarian and inclusive democratic procedures have a general duty to obey its laws because they are produced by procedures that are suitably egalitarian and inclusive, but that civil disobedience can be justified as a way of making the relevant procedures more egalitarian or inclusive (Markovits 2005).

It is easy to see why this constitutes an attractive way of justifying civil disobedience, since it justifies it by appeal to the same values that ground the pro tanto duty to obey the law. On the other hand, as Simmons notes, if there is no general duty to obey the law, there would seem to be no presumption in favor of obedience and thus no special need for a justification of civil disobedience; obedience and disobedience would stand equally in need of justification (Simmons 2007: ch 4).

Advocates of the standard approach generally assume that only civil disobedience can be justified in this way. However, some argue civil disobedience does not enjoy a special normative presumption over uncivil disobedience. The core idea that insofar as the values that ground a pro tanto duty to obey the law—for example, justice or democratic equality—are sometimes best served by civil disobedience of the law, they are sometimes best served by covert, evasive, anonymous, or even violent disobedience of the law (Delmas 2018; Lai 2019; Pasternak 2018).

Disagreement about what laws, policies, or principles ought to be implemented is a persistent feature of democratic societies. It is often argued that citizens and officials have duties to moderate their political activity in order to accommodate the competing views of fellow citizens or officials. Two duties of accommodation are widely discussed in the literature: duties of compromise and duties of public justification.

A compromise can be understood as an agreement between parties to advance laws or policies that all regard as suboptimal because they disagree about which laws or policies are optimal (May 2005). While it is widely accepted that there are sometimes compelling instrumental reasons to compromise, whether there are intrinsic moral reasons to compromise is more controversial. Some defend intrinsic reasons to compromise based on democratic values like inclusion, mutual respect, and reciprocity (Gutmann and Thompson 2014; Wendt 2016; Weinstock 2013). However, Simon May argues that such arguments fail and that all reasons to compromise are pragmatic (May 2005).

Advocates of the public justification approach to democracy (see section 2.2.2 ) often argue that democratic citizens and officials have individual moral duties of public justification. John Rawls argues for a “duty of civility” that requires citizens and officials to be prepared to give mutually acceptable justifications for important laws when voting and engaged in public advocacy. Given the inevitability of disagreement about comprehensive moral and philosophical truth in free democracies, the duty of civility requires citizens to appeal to a reasonable “political” conception of justice that can be the object of an “overlapping consensus” between different comprehensive doctrines. While different theorists motivate duties of public justification in different ways, many appeal to the need for exercises of coercive political authority to respect citizens’ freedom and equality.

5. Democratic Representation

Representation is an essential part of the division of labor of large-scale democracies. In this section, we examine two moral questions concerning representation. First, what sort of representative system is best? Second, by what moral principles are representatives bound?

A number of debates have centered on the question of what kinds of representative systems are best for a democratic society. What choice we make here will depend heavily on our underlying moral justification of democracy, our conception of citizenship as well as on our empirical understanding of political institutions and how they function. The most basic types of formal political representation available are single member district representation, proportional representation and group representation. In addition, many societies have opted for multicameral legislative institutions. In some cases, combinations of the above forms have been tried.

Single member district representation returns single representatives of geographically defined areas containing roughly equal populations to the legislature and is prominent in the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, among other places. The most common form of proportional representation is party list proportional representation. In a simple form of such a scheme, a number of parties compete for election to a legislature that is not divided into geographical districts. Parties acquire seats in the legislature as a proportion of the total number of votes they receive in the voting population as a whole. Group representation occurs when the society is divided into non-geographically defined groups such as ethnic or linguistic groups or even functional groups such as workers, farmers and capitalists and returns representatives to a legislature from each of them.

Many have argued in favor of single member district legislation on the grounds that it has appeared to them to lead to more stable government than other forms of representation. The thought is that proportional representation tends to fragment the citizenry into opposing homogeneous camps that rigidly adhere to their party lines and that are continually vying for control over the government. Since there are many parties and they are unwilling to compromise with each other, governments formed from coalitions of parties tend to fall apart rather quickly. The post war experience of governments in Italy appears to confirm this hypothesis. Single member district representation, in contrast, is said to enhance the stability of governments by virtue of its favoring a two party system of government. Each election cycle then determines which party is to stay in power for some length of time.

Charles Beitz argues that single member district representation encourages moderation in party programs offered for citizens to consider (Beitz 1989: ch. 7). This results from the tendency of this kind of representation towards two party systems. In a two party system with majority rule, it is argued, each party must appeal to the median voter in the political spectrum. Hence, they must moderate their programs to appeal to the median voter. Furthermore, they encourage compromise among groups since they must try to appeal to a lot of other groups in order to become part of one of the two leading parties. These tendencies encourage moderation and compromise in citizens to the extent that political parties, and interest groups, hold these qualities up as necessary to functioning well in a democracy.

In criticism, advocates of proportional and group representation have argued that single member district representation tends to muffle the voices and ignore the interests of minority groups in the society (Mill 1861; Christiano 1996). Minority interests and views tend to be articulated in background negotiations and in ways that muffle their distinctiveness. Furthermore, representatives of minority interests and views often have a difficult time getting elected at all in single member district systems so it has been charged that minority views and interests are often systematically underrepresented. Sometimes these problems are dealt with by redrawing the boundaries of districts in a way that ensures greater minority representation. The efforts are invariably quite controversial since there is considerable disagreement about the criteria for apportionment.

In proportional representation, by contrast, representatives of different groups are seated in the legislature in proportion to citizens’ choices. Minorities need not make their demands conform to the basic dichotomy of views and interests that characterize single member district systems so their views are more articulated and distinctive as well as better represented.

Advocates of group representation, like Iris Marion Young, have argued that some historically disenfranchised groups may still not do very well under proportional representation (Young 1990: ch. 6). They may not be able to organize and articulate their views as easily as other groups. Also, minority groups can still be systematically defeated in the legislature and their interests may be consistently set back even if they do have some representation. For these groups, some have argued that the only way to protect their interests is legally to ensure that they have adequate and even disproportionate representation.

One worry about group representation is that it tends to freeze some aspects of the agenda that might be better left to the choice of citizens. For instance, consider a population that is divided into linguistic groups for a long time. And suppose that only some citizens continue to think of linguistic conflict as important. In the circumstances a group representation scheme may tend to be biased in an arbitrary way that favors the views or interests of those who do think of linguistic conflict as important.

What moral norms apply to representatives carrying out their official duties? We can get a better handle on possible answers by introducing Hannah Pitkin’s famous distinction between trustees and delegates (Pitkin 1967). Representatives who act as trustees rely on their own independent judgments in carrying out their duties. Norms of trusteeship are supported in recognition that, given a natural division of democratic labor, officials are in a much better position to make well-reasoned and well-informed political decisions than ordinary citizens.

Representatives who act as delegates defer to the judgments of their citizens. These norms might be thought to reflect the value of democratic accountability. Because the people authorize representatives to govern, it is natural to think that representatives are accountable to the people to enact their judgments. If representatives are not accountable in this way, citizens lose democratic control over their representatives’ actions.

Which norms should win out when they conflict? Pitkin argues that the answer varies by context. This seems plausible. For example, if we take the view that citizens primarily have the role of determining the aims of the society, we might think that representatives ought to be delegates with regard to the aims, but trustees with regard to the ways of realizing the aims (Christiano 1996). See Suzanne Dovi’s discussion of representation for a deeper and more nuanced discussion of these issues.

Kenneth Arrow’s impossibility theorem is thought by some to provide a major set of difficulties for democratic theory (Arrow 1951). William Riker, Russell Hardin, and others have thought that the impossibility theorem shows that there are deep problems with democratic ideals (Riker 1982; Hardin 1999). Neither of these thinkers are opposed to democracy itself, they both think that there are good instrumental reasons for having democracy.

The basic results of social choice theory are laid out in detail elsewhere in the encyclopedia (List 2013). Here we will simply articulate the basic result and an illustration. The question of Arrowian social choice theory is: how do we determine a social preference for a society overall on the basis of the set of the individual preferences of the members? Arrow shows that a social choice function that satisfies a number of plausible constraints cannot be defined when there are three or more alternatives to be chosen by the group. He lays out a number of conditions to be imposed on a social choice function. Unlimited domain : The social choice function must be able to give us a social preference no matter what the preferences of the individuals over alternatives are. Non dictatorship : the social choice function must not select the preference of one particular member regardless of others’ preferences. Transitivity and completeness : The individual preferences orderings must be transitive and complete orderings and the social preference derived from them must be transitive and complete. Independence of irrelevant alternatives : the social preference between two alternatives must be the result only of the individual orderings between those two alternatives. Pareto condition : if all the members prefer an alternative x over y , then x must be ranked above y in the social preference. The theorem says that no social choice function over more than two alternatives can satisfy all of these conditions.

A useful illustration of this idea involves an extension of majority rule to cases of more than two alternatives. The Condorcet rule says that an alternative x wins when, for every other alternative, a majority prefers x over that alternative. For example, suppose we have three persons A , B and C and three alternatives x , y and z . A prefers x over y , y over z ; B prefers y over z and z over x ; C prefers x over z and z over y . In this case, x is the Condorcet winner since it beats y , and it beats z . The problem with this plausible sounding rule is the case of a majority cycle. Suppose you have three persons A , B and C , and three alternatives, x , y and z . In the case in which A prefers x over y and y over z , while B prefers y over z and z over x , and C prefers z over x and x over y , the Condorcet rule will yield a social preference of x over y , y over z and z over x . One can see here that the Condorcet rule satisfies all the conditions except transitivity of social preference. One way to avoid intransitivity is to restrict the domain of preferences from which the social preference arises. Another is to introduce cardinal information that compares the how much people prefer alternatives (violating independence). Another might be to make one person a dictator. So, this case nicely illustrates that one cannot satisfy all of the constraints simultaneously.

Riker argues that the theorem shows that the idea that the popular will can be the governing element in a society is false. If an existence condition for a popular will is a restricted set of preferences the question naturally arises as to whether such a condition is always or normally met in a moderately complex society. We might wonder whether a highly pluralistic society with a very complex division of labor is likely to satisfy the restricted preference set condition necessary to avoid cycles or other pathologies of social choice. Some have argued that we have empirical evidence to the effect that modern societies do normally satisfy such conditions (Mackie 2003). Others have argued that this seems unlikely (Riker 1982; Ingham 2019). This is not merely a defense of unlimited domain. It is a defense of the thesis that normally the collections of preferences in modern societies are not likely to have the properties that enable them to avoid cycles.

The fairness critique from social choice theory is based on the idea that when a voting process meets requirements of fairness, the fairness of the process and the preferences may not generate determinate outcomes. If cycles are pervasive, the outcomes of democratic processes may be determined by clever strategies and not by the fairness of the procedures (Riker 1982). Three remarks are in order here. First, it is compatible with the process being completely fair that the outcomes of the process are indeterminate. After all, coin flips are fair. Second, there is some question as to how prominent the cycles are. Third, one might think that if the conditions which enable opposing sides to strategize effectively are themselves roughly equal, then the concerns for fairness are fully met. If resources for persuasion and organization are distributed in an egalitarian way, perhaps the fairness account is vindicated after all. This point can be made more compelling when we consider Sean Ingham’s account of political equality. He includes intensity of preference in his account of fairness. This is a departure from the Arrowian approach, but it is in many ways a realistic one. The idea is that majorities have equal control over policy areas when they are able to get what they want with the same amount of intensity of preferences. And equality holds generally when all groups of the same size have the same control (Ingham 2019). There remains an extreme case in which all majorities have equal intensity of preference and are caught in a majority cycle. But the chances of this happening are very slim, even if the chances of majority cycles more generally are not as small. Even if there are a lot of majority cycles, if the issues are resolved in such a way that those majorities that have most at stake in the conflict are the ones that get their way, then we can have fairness in a quite robust sense even while having pervasive majority cycles.

If democratic societies allow members to participate as equals in collective decision making, a natural question arises: who has the right to participate in making collective decisions? We can ask this question within a particular jurisdiction (ought all adults have the right to participation? Ought children have the right to participation? Ought all residents have such rights?). But we can also ask what the extent of the jurisdiction ought to be. How many of the people in the world ought to be included in the collective decision-making? An easy, though slightly misleading, way of asking this question is, what ought the physical boundaries of a particular institution of collective decision-making be? We see partially democratic societies within the confines of the modern nation-state. But we might ask, why should we restrict the set of persons who participate in making decisions of the modern state just to those who happen to be the physical inhabitants of those states? Surely there are many other persons affected by decisions made by democratic states aside from those persons. For example, activities in one society A can pollute another society B . Why shouldn’t the members of B have a say in the decisions regarding the polluting activities in A ? And there can be many other effects that activities in A can have on B .

Some have suggested that the boundaries of a state ought to be determined through a principle of national self-determination. We identify a nation as an ongoing group of persons who share certain cultural, historical and political norms and who identify with each other and with a piece of land. Then we determine the boundaries of the territory by appeal to the size of the group of people and the land they cherish (Miller 1995; Song 2012). This is an appealing idea in many ways: shared nationality breeds a willingness to share the sacrifices that arise from collective decision making; it generates a sense of at-homeness for people. But it is hard to use as a general principle for dividing land among persons when one of the central facts for many societies is that a diversity of nations, ethnic groups and cultures co-mingle on the very same land.

Is there a democratic solution to the boundary problem? A number of ideas have been suggested. The first idea is that the people ought to decide what the boundaries are. But this suggestion, while it may be a pragmatic resolution to the problem, seems to beg the question about who the members are and who are not (Whelan 1983).

A second theoretical solution that has some democratic credentials is to invoke the principle that all who are subjected to decision making, in the sense of who are coerced or have duties imposed upon them, ought to have a say in the decision making (Abizadeh 2008). This principle is plausible enough, but it doesn’t get at enough cases. The pollution case above is not a case of subjection.

A third proposed theoretical solution is the all-affected principle. One formulation is “all affected persons ought to have a say in the decisions that affect them”. This does suggest that when the activities in one state affect those of another state, the people of the other state ought to have a say in those activities. Some have thought that this principle tends to lead to a kind of politically cosmopolitan principle in support of world government (Goodin 2007).

But the all-affected principle is conceptually quite uncertain and morally deeply problematic, and it provides very little, if anything, in the way of a solution to the boundary problem.

First, “having a say” is not clear. Does it require having a vote in collective decision-making? Or is it also satisfied by a person’s being able to modify another’s action by negotiating with them, as we see when there is bargaining over an externality? This latter version would undermine the idea that the all-affected principle has direct implications for the boundary problem. When the United States permits activities that produce acid rain in Canada, Canada can negotiate with the United States to lessen the production of acid rain and/or to compensate Canada for the harm. As long as there is a fair and effective system of negotiation, this would seem to satisfy the all-affected principle without giving Canadians a vote in American politics or Americans a vote in Canadian politics.

Second, it is not clear what “being affected” means. One, does a person being affected just mean that there is a change in the person’s situation or must the effect involve the setting back of one’s preferences, or interests, or legitimate interests, or exercise of one’s capacities or one’s good? Two, are one’s interests affected by a decision only when they are advanced or set back relative to some baseline (either the present state of affairs or some morally defined baseline like what you have promised me), or am I affected by decisions that could be to my advantage or disadvantage but end up making no difference? For example, if I am drowning in a pool and you are deciding whether to save me or go buy yourself a candy bar, am I affected by your buying the candy bar? If I am not affected when no change occurs, then who is affected by a decision often depends on who participates in the decision and we have no solution to the problem of inclusion. If I am affected, then the principle has some quite extraordinary implications. Now it turns out that impoverished persons in South Asia are affected by my buying a candy bar, since I could have sent the money to them (Goodin 2007).

The all-affected principle is a merely suggestive and rhetorically effective phrase. It is a conversation starter and a list of topics to be discussed, not a genuine principle. For example, if I must include everyone possibly affected by my decision for every decision I make, I will not be able to make many decisions and my decision making will no longer enable me to give a shape to my own life and my relations with others. My life becomes fragmented and lacks integrity (Williams 1973). An analog of this problem would arise for political societies, presumably. Each society would have to include a variety of different persons in each decision. It is hard to see how any society could take on any particular character if this is the case.

A more plausible principle that encompasses some of the suggestions of the all-affected principle is that a framework of institutions should be set up so that people have power to advance and protect their legitimate interests in life.

But if we understand the principle in this way, it is not clear that it helps us much with the boundary problem. First of all, there are different ways in which people can be said to possess power over their lives. One kind of power is the power to participate as an equal in a collective decision-making process. Another kind is to be able to advance one’s interests in a decentralized process like a market or a system of agreement making like international law. Recalling our pollution problem above, we could give the state of which they are members power to negotiate with the polluting state terms that are mutually agreeable. Only the power to participate as an equal in collective decision-making involves the boundaries of collective decision-making.

Another solution to the boundary problem is a conservative one. The basic idea is to keep the boundaries of states roughly as they are except if there is a pressing need to change them. Trying to alter the boundaries of political societies is a recipe for serious conflict because there is no institution that has the legitimacy or power actually to resolve problems at an international level and there is likely to be a lot of disagreement on how to do it. States as we know them, are by far the most powerful political entities in the international system. They have developed more effective practices of accountability of power than any other entity in the system. They have created unified societies with highly interdependent populations. Finally, states and the individuals in them can be made accountable to some degree to other individuals and states through the process of negotiation and international law making. The origin of these boundaries may be arbitrary, but it is not, for all that, irrelevant. To be sure, there are clear cases where borders can be changed. One source of pressing need is serious injustice within a country. Another might be the existence of permanent minorities that are sectionally defined. Here, we ask only how to revise boundaries and the basis of such revision is that it is a remedy for serious injustice (Buchanan 1991).

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Democracy In India Essay

Democracy is regarded as the best type of government since it allows citizens to directly elect their leaders. They have access to a number of rights that are fundamental to anyone's ability to live freely and peacefully. There are many democratic countries in the world, but India is by far the biggest. Here are a few sample essays on the topic ‘Democracy In India’.

100 Words Essay On Democracy

200 words essay on democracy, 500 words essay on democracy.

Democracy is a term used to describe a form of government in which the people have a voice by voting. Democracy is an essential part of any society, and India is no exception. After years of suffering under British colonial control, India attained democracy in 1947. India places a great emphasis on democracy. India is also without a doubt the largest democracy in the world.

The spirit of justice, liberty, and equality has permeated Indian democracy ever since the country attained independence. As the world’s largest democracy, India has been a shining example of how democracy can foster progress and ensure rights for all its citizens.

In a democracy, the people have the ultimate say in how their government is run. They elect representatives to represent them in government, and they can hold those representatives accountable through regular elections. And finally, the rule of law is important in a democracy to ensure that everyone is treated equally before the law and that the government operates within its proper bounds. Democracy has been a recent phenomena in human history, only really taking root in the last few centuries. But it has quickly become one of the most popular forms of government around the world. India is one of the world’s largest democracies, with over 1 billion people living within its borders.

India's constitution serves as the foundation for its democracy. The Indian Constitution guarantees equality for all citizens regardless of caste, creed, or religion. It also establishes a system of representative government, with elected officials at the national, state, and local levels. And finally, it enshrines the rule of law by establishing an independent judiciary to interpret and uphold the Constitution.

There are many different types of democracy, but most modern democracies are based on the principles of popular sovereignty, representative government, and rule of law and public opinion.

There are two main types of democracies—direct and representative. Direct democracy allows citizens to participate directly in the decision-making process, while representative democracy allows citizens to elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf. The advantages of democracy in India include the fact that it allows for greater participation of citizens in the political process, and it also provides checks and balances on the government. The disadvantages of democracy in India include the fact that it can be slow to make decisions and that it can be difficult to hold people accountable for their actions.

Features Of Indian Democracy

Sovereignty | One important aspect of Indian democracy is sovereignty. The absolute control a governing body has over itself without external influence is referred to as sovereignty. In India's democracy, people can also exert their power. The fact that Indians choose their representatives is remarkable. Furthermore, these officials continue to be accountable to the general public.

Political Equality | It is the foundation of Indian democracy. It also simply means that everyone is treated equally under the law. The fact that there is no discrimination based on caste, religion, race, creed, or sect is particularly notable. As a result, all Indian citizens have equal political rights.

Rule Of Majority | A key component of Indian democracy is the rule of the majority. Furthermore, the winning party creates and governs the government. In addition, the party with the most seats creates and governs the country. Most importantly, no one can object to majority support.

Socialist | Being socialist implies that the country continuously prioritises the needs of its citizens. The poor person should be offered numerous incentives, and their fundamental needs should be met by any means necessary.

Secular | There is no such thing as a "state religion," and there is no discrimination based on religion in this nation. In the eyes of the law, all religions must be equal; it is not acceptable to discriminate against anyone based on their religion. Everyone has the right to practise and spread any religion, and they are free to do so at any moment.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Democracy In India

There are many advantages and disadvantages of democracy in India. On the one hand, democracy gives everyone an equal say in how the country is run. This is particularly important in a country as large and diverse as India. On the other hand, democracy can also be slow and chaotic, and it can be difficult to get things done. One advantage of democracy in India is that it ensures that everyone has a say in how the country is run. This is especially important in a country as large and diverse as India.

There are many different languages spoken in India, and democracy ensures that everyone has a voice. Another advantage of democracy in India is that it leads to more stability than other forms of government. In a dictatorship, for example, one person has all the power. This can lead to them making decisions that are not in the best interests of the country. In a democracy, there are checks and balances in place so that no one person has too much power.

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Germany Looks to Stop the Far Right From Assuming Power

Mainstream parties are changing laws to protect government institutions. Critics say the changes risk undermining democracy.

By Erika Solomon

Reporting from Berlin

For Germany — a country that knows something about how extremists can hijack a government — the surging popularity of the far right has forced an awkward question.

How far should a democracy go in restricting a party that many believe is bent on undermining it?

It is a quandary that politicians and legal experts are grappling with across the country as support surges for Alternative for Germany, a far-right party whose backing now outstrips each of the three parties in the governing coalition.

Not only is the AfD the most popular party in three states holding elections this year, it is polling nationwide as high as 20 percent. German politicians have become increasingly alarmed that someday the party could wield influence in the federal government. Its popularity has grown despite the fact that the domestic intelligence services announced they are investigating the party as a suspected threat to democracy.

Germans have already had a front-row seat to the rise of so-called illiberal democrats in Poland and Hungary who used their power to stack courts with pliant judges and silence independent media. History hangs heavy over Germany as well — the Nazis used elections to seize the levers of the state and shape an authoritarian system.

Today, German lawmakers are rewriting bylaws and pushing for constitutional amendments to ensure courts and state parliaments can provide checks against a future, more powerful AfD. Some have even launched a campaign to ban the AfD altogether.

But every remedy holds its own dangers, leaving German politicians threading a course between safeguarding their democracy and the possibility of unwittingly providing the AfD with tools it could someday use to hobble it.

“It’s never the case that if you have democracy, once you’ve won it, you have it forever,” said Stephan Thomae, a member of Parliament from the Free Democratic Party. “Therefore, we should protect it a little more.”

10,000 Extremists

For years, Germany’s mainstream parties have tried to isolate and ostracize the AfD by avoiding political collaboration.

They now acknowledge that those efforts failed to curb the AfD, whose popularity has grown with German concerns about migration and a stagnating economy, and despite reports of the AfD’s increasingly anti-democratic bent.

Germany’s domestic intelligence says 10,000 of the party’s 28,500 members are extremists. Several state branches of the AfD have already been classified as extremist, as has its youth wing.

Some AfD members are entangled in criminal charges, including a fantastical, foiled plot in 2022 to violently overthrow the government: Police say the plot was aided by a former AfD lawmaker who let the plotters into the Parliament to scout routes and targets.

Most recently, several AfD members, including an aide to the party’s co-leader, attended a meeting where an extreme-right activist reportedly discussed his vision for “remigration,” or mass deportations of immigrants, potentially including naturalized citizens.

The aide was later dismissed and AfD leaders have denied wanting to deport German citizens. But news of the meeting, reported by the German investigative outlet Correctiv in January, set off weeks of protests against the AfD across the country.

The protests, in turn, have intensified debate over how to protect German democracy.

The Enemy of My Enemy

Already, the AfD’s impact in government is being felt on the state level.

In the central German state of Hesse, the AfD became the largest opposition party in the state parliament after elections last year. That gave the party the right to hold positions on key committees — among them the body that oversees domestic intelligence services.

In other words, the members of a party that is currently the subject of surveillance operations would have access to information on who and what was being watched.

Hesse’s rival mainstream parties came together to pass a “democracy package,” rewriting several parliamentary rules, including one that effectively blocked the AfD from the intelligence committee. Now members are selected solely by the ruling coalition, a move that risks weakening opposition oversight of the majority.

In the eastern state of Thuringia, mainstream lawmakers also wanted to block the AfD from their intelligence committee, and initially agreed to put their differences aside and vote for each other’s candidates.

The plan failed when the Christian Democrats, the largest center-right party in the country, ultimately refused to accept the nominee of the center-left Green Party. The committee is still run by members of the former parliament — including one lawmaker who retired.

“Political compromise and cooperation is eroding,” said Jelena von Achenbach, a public law expert at the University of Erfurt. “They can’t trust each other. And that makes things like cooperating against the AfD very difficult.”

In Bavaria, the AfD came second in the October elections, giving it the right to appoint two honorary judges to the southern state’s constitutional court.

One of the judges the party nominated had been photographed with far-right and anti-vaccination supporters who tried to storm the German Parliament during a protest in 2020. (He later told reporters he was only trying to get a sense of the protest.)

Since court nominees are elected by parliament as an entire list, Bavaria’s lawmakers were faced with either accepting all nominees, including the AfD candidates, or blocking everyone and hampering the functioning of the state’s highest court.

The left-leaning parties decided to block.

“There is no way around the fact that enemies of democracy cannot sit on bodies that are supposed to protect or shape democracy,” Bavaria’s parliamentary Green leader, Jurgen Mistol, told The New York Times in a statement.

But Bavaria’s majority conservatives pushed the list through, vowing instead to work with their center-left rivals to amend the system later.

The two AfD judges sit on the court today.

Unintended Consequences

Efforts to head off the rise of the AfD are now intensifying at the national level, but those efforts may have the unintended effect of weakening democratic functions in Germany.

Some measures under discussion would give law enforcement and domestic intelligence agencies more latitude, never an easy step in a country that experienced both Fascism and Communism in the last century.

The interior ministry has proposed a 13-point plan that would, among other things, enable security forces to investigate the finances of anyone viewed as having “threat potential,” as opposed to only those people being investigated for incitement or violence.

Another would allow civil servants to be dismissed based on suspected ties to extremists, placing the burden of proof on employees rather than the state.

“A culture of suspicion is being created,” said Gottfried Curio, an AfD member of Parliament. “We consider this to be the real threat to democracy.”

Some national legislators are especially concerned with protecting the independence of the Supreme Court. They want to enshrine the process for appointing judges in the Constitution and have it require a two-thirds majority in both houses of Parliament. Until now, the appointment of judges has been governed by federal law and requires a simple majority.

But if the AfD ever controlled more than a third of parliament, such a change would actually allow it to block any judicial appointment it wanted.

“It’s one of those classically hard questions where there isn’t a good answer,” said Michaela Hailbronner, a public law professor at the University of Munster. “You see the potential for abuse. You might even already label it as abuse.”

Yet some Germans are demanding even more drastic measures.

The governing coalition in the northern city of Bremen has announced it will collect evidence against the AfD in support of a nationwide ban of the party.

But many politicians, like Mr. Thomae of the Free Democrats, worry such a step could backfire — effectively disenfranchising the nearly quarter of voters expressing support for the AfD.

“It’s our political task to explain to people the AfD’s real aim is to change the fundamentals of democracy,” he said. “You can’t solve all problems with laws.”

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DR Congo + 4 more

Democratic Republic of the Congo: Annual Country Report 2023 - Country Strategic Plan 2021 - 2024

Attachments.

Key messages

• The protracted crisis in DRC is worsening with ramifications on displacement, food security and nutrition, health, and protection, further increasing needs.

• More resources are required, without which WFP would have to resort to prioritization exercises to ensure the limited humanitarian resources available reach the most vulnerable to keep people out of food insecurity.

As the decades-long crisis worsened in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), WFP declared a Corporate Scale-Up emergency to intensify its operations. The deterioration of the crisis worsened displacement, food insecurity and nutrition and increased protection risks for affected populations.

In addition to the large-scale humanitarian crisis in the east, other regions of the country experienced conflict, insecurity, and disasters such as floods and landslides. The gap between WFP’s response and the people it serves widened and consequently WFP had to revise its operational plan to match the needs of the country and resultantly increasing the level of financial resources required for its operations in the year. Against this updated plan, the resources WFP received were insufficient for WFP to fully meet the needs.

WFP reached 5.3 million with emergency food, cash, prevention and treatment of malnutrition, school meals programme and resilience-building activities in 2023. Specifically, WFP provided 116,000 mt of food and nutrition commodities, USD 88 million in cash-based transfers, and capacity strengthening activities. The total number of people reached by WFP in DRC reduced by 14 percent in comparison to 2022, however the average number of beneficiaries reached per month more than doubled (to 1.2 million people). This is because WFP's assistance strategy was revised to provide longer term emergency assistance (minimum of 6 months) in response to increasing needs, and to ensure an improvement in food security outcomes amid the Scale-Up. This approach also allowed WFP to ensure better quality of targeting and management of participant identities.

Food security analyses revealed that nearly a quarter (26 million [1]) of the country’s population was in emergency (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, IPC, 3) and crisis (IPC 4) levels of food insecurity. Food insecurity was higher in female-headed households (57 percent) than in male-headed households (43 percent). A sizeable proportion of female-headed households adopt crisis strategies to cope with food shortages. These approaches include risky or illegal activities to generate income, consumption of the next season's seed reserves, begging for food or financial resources. Some 26 percent of female-headed households resort to such strategies, while the figure is 25 percent for male-headed households. Similarly, almost 23 percent of female-headed households use emergency strategies, compared to 13.4 percent of male-headed households. WFP addressed food inaccessibility and related malnutrition by distributing food, cash, and nutrition support. WFP’s life-saving food and cash assistance remained the predominant share of its operations to contribute to averting catastrophic hunger levels.

To ensure improved food security outcomes, WFP's Scale-Up response aimed to provide blanket assistance to displaced people in camps and collective centres as priority and resultantly, there was an increase in the number of internally displaced populations reached this year as opposed to residents. Concurrently, more refugees were reached as food assistance was also increased for refugees and asylum-seekers outside camps. WFP also supported returnees; both Congolese and other nationals returning to their countries of origin, with food assistance while in transit in collaboration with UNHCR.

Besides food insecurity, malnutrition was on the rise in DRC. In 2023, 3.6 million[2] acutely malnourished people were projected to be in need of humanitarian assistance, and by December, this number had increased to 3.9 million[3]. In partnership with the Government National Nutrition Programme (PRONANUT), WFP distributed specialized nutritious foods to treat and prevent malnutrition in children, and pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls and supported providing essential nutrition services.

For human capital development, WFP provided daily school meals to schoolchildren to ensure attendance in schools when open. In areas like Rutshuru, insecurity forced school closures so that WFP provided take-home rations for schoolchildren.

Further to addressing the humanitarian crisis in DRC, WFP also invested in opportunities for agricultural development, through livelihood diversification and fostering resilience among smallholder farmers including through collaboration with FAO. WFP trained smallholder farmers (mostly women) on post-harvest loss management, business skills and collective marketing and helped local communities rebuild infrastructure. To mitigate the risk posed by a worsening security situation in the east, maintain humanitarian access and security for WFP staff and food, WFP prioritised community engagement across the country, thus contributing to improved programme quality. Besides its own operations, WFP also provided safe, reliable, and predictable logistics services to the humanitarian community to support operations through the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), the WFP-led Logistics Cluster, and on-demand bilateral service provision.

WFP and FAO led the Food Security Cluster (FSC), strengthening partner organisations' capacities and facilitating strategic analysis and Humanitarian Country Team decision-making. WFP led and supported food security and nutrition assessments including Emergency Food Security Assessments and the Integrated Phase Classification analysis which allowed the Government and humanitarian community to assess needs, improve geographic targeting, and prioritise resources. Through the FSC, WFP and partners coordinated their operational coverage which proved even more critical with the System-Wide Scale-Up activated for DRC in the year.

In the provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu the ongoing armed conflict has led to displacement, limited access to farmland, markets, basic services, reduced the humanitarian space and forced households to increase their adoption of negative coping mechanisms that translate to protection risks to meet food security needs. Between June and November, 118,000 protection incidents were reported across the country, 7,825 alerts on cases of sexual violence related to conflict and 72,000 cases of gender-based violence reported in Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu between January and September. Resultantly, WFP mapped potential barriers preventing different groups from participating in WFP activities and adjusted programme design accordingly.

As its main partner, WFP worked to support the Government to address technical gaps, strengthening their ability to achieve their vision to eradicate hunger by 2030 and to respond to shocks. WFP is supporting the Government to establish a national school feeding programme and national strategy to build an exit strategy for WFP’s support. WFP supported the Ministry of Agriculture to develop the first-ever climate-risk insurance component for the National Agriculture Development Programme. WFP supported the Government’s Nutrition Programme to develop a food fortification policy to reduce micronutrient deficiencies.

Central African Republic: Situation Report, 25 Mar 2024

South Sudan + 1 more

WFP South Sudan Country Brief, January 2024

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Major mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a worry to disease docs

Gabrielle Emanuel

The palms of a patient with mpox during an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997. The country is now seeing a dramatic spike in mpox — with a strain that is deadlier than the one that sparked the global outbreak in 2022. CDC/BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images hide caption

"It's just a matter of time, if nothing is done, that the transmission crosses the border in the African region and, again, globally," says Dr. Jean Nachega , an epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh.

Nachega is one of a number of public health experts expressing alarm over a major outbreak of mpox – formerly called monkeypox – in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

They say the current situation represents a triple threat.

First, the DRC is seeing record numbers. About 400 suspect cases are reported each week – the majority in children. Second, the strain of the virus that's circulating is especially deadly, with nearly 1 in 10 patients dying. And third, the virus is behaving differently. Scientists say it is not only surfacing in new areas and new populations (including sex workers), but it's also spreading in new ways – including sexually – and evading diagnostic tests.

Together these issues have made it more urgent – and also more complicated – for the global health community to respond, say mpox specialists.

"For measles, we know what to do. For cholera, we know what to do. For polio, we know what to do. These are things that have been around for a long time. For mpox, a lot of the elements are new," says Dr. Rosamund Lewis , the World Health Organization's technical lead and emergency manager for mpox. "And we don't yet have all the countermeasures in place that we need in place."

A dramatic spike in cases

Last year, the DRC recorded more than 14,500 suspected cases of mpox, and more than 650 deaths. Those figures dwarf previous years, and the numbers continue to rise. In the first two months of this year, there have been more than 3,500 suspected mpox cases and more than 250 deaths.

"We are quite concerned about what we are seeing in the DRC. The number of cases there has far exceeded anything that they've had reported in the past," says Dr. Jennifer McQuiston of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At this point, the majority of the cases in the DRC follow a pattern that has become well-established over the past few decades: The outbreaks happen in remote villages in densely forested areas of the north and central DRC. They typically start when the virus jumps from an animal to a person. Imagine a child catching a rodent or a parent cooking bushmeat. And from there, the virus can spread within a household or a community, often through skin-to-skin contact or through contact with shared surfaces, like a bed sheet or towel.

For some, the mpox virus is mild – causing a few lesions. For others, it can be devastating: fever, malaise and painful lesions all over the hands, face and torso – and even death.

"People are very ill, and there's certainly a risk of dying from it or having long-term consequences," says Dr. Anne Rimoin , a professor of epidemiology at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health who has spent 22 years working on mpox in the DRC.

The strain of the virus that's common in the DRC is called Clade I and it's 10 times more deadly than Clade II, which is found in West Africa and caused the global outbreak. (The nomenclature "Clade" is a scientific way to indicate the strains have a common ancestor.) And with Clade I, about two-thirds of the cases in the DRC are in children under the age of 15.

Lewis of WHO says this could be because many adults have been exposed and acquired some immunity. Plus, anyone who received the smallpox vaccine has some immunity. That vaccine was administered before the disease was eradicated in 1980.

"We've heard about outbreaks in schools. It behaves very much the way other childhood viruses behave," Lewis says. "But we see that high, high death rates are in children. And that is very concerning." So far in 2024, 87% of mpox deaths have been among children under 15 years old.

Experts say it's unclear exactly why there's been such an increase in cases. "I think it's too early to say what exactly is happening here," Rimoin says.

One challenge in getting an accurate case count is that families may avoid hospitals or health centers. "They feel a kind of shame," says Dr. Placide Mbala-Kingebeni , who has studied mpox for more than a decade and is at the University of Kinshasa's medical school. "They will be criticized by the rest of the village saying that bring the disease to the village."

While experts do not know the exact number of cases or the exact number of children impacted, they know the numbers appear to be growing and they worry about regional spread. Earlier this month, more than 40 mpox infections were reported on the other side of the Congo River in the Republic of Congo . But, so far, Lewis says, it's unclear if those cases came from the DRC, since mpox is endemic in both countries.

A tougher version of mpox

In addition to focusing on children, experts are closely tracking a new situation that doesn't fit the traditional mpox story. Attention has been focused on the gold-rich city of Kamituga in the South Kivu province, which never used to have mpox cases.

"It's a rich region where there are several minerals and thousands of workers working in this mining setting," explains Nachega of the University of Pittsburgh. "We have some recent evidence showing that some miners are circulating this virus and it's been documented also in sex workers."

This is concerning for two reasons, he says. First, the more virulent strain of the virus that's present in the DRC – Clade I – was never known to transmit sexually until a few months ago. Now, this type of spread is firmly established. Second, many of the miners are transient, and many families in the area are on the move too, fleeing violence from ongoing strife.

"This population is highly mobile," says Nachega, noting that when people move viruses move with them and Kamituga is not far from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania. "We are calling for urgent reinforcement."

He would like to see the DRC and the international community act quickly, improving everything from surveillance to case management. Fast action is especially important when it comes to testing and vaccination, he says.

Tests that might not work

About 90% of the mpox cases in the DRC are not confirmed by a laboratory test. That's because in a country of over 100 million, there are only two labs that do mpox PCR – or polymerase chain reaction – testing.

"You need to collect specimens from the skin and they have to transit [the sample] hundreds of kilometers across very rough roads or down rivers to arrive at the national lab," explains the WHO's Lewis. "There are, as of yet, no fully validated rapid tests. Lots of research is being done on molecular tests, on protein-based tests, but they're not yet at a stage where they can be widely deployed."

She says the result is that most diagnoses are based solely on symptoms, which is problematic. In the forested part of the country, mild mpox can look like chickenpox or measles. In the mining community where it's sexually transmitted, the virus needs to be distinguished from herpes, syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases.

On top of all that, the specific strain circulating in the mining community has evolved, as viruses do. The part of the genome which the PCR test targets is not present in the current strain.

"So, it's possible to miss the diagnosis," says Lewis. However, she adds that the national lab can adjust to this new reality with testing that reveals the broad type of virus – an orthopoxvirus – and then genome sequencing. The WHO is working to get the word out to neighboring countries.

In the U.S., the CDC is monitoring the situation. "We're looking for Clade I mpox cases in the U.S. and we haven't found any," says McQuiston.

Vaccine hurdles

Vaccines were a major piece of the strategy during the global mpox outbreak in 2022. However, the DRC government has not authorized use of any of the three vaccines available for mpox – nor has any other African government.

"The need is great," said Lewis. "Everybody wants it to happen very quickly but, at the same time, it has to be done carefully and with quality discussions and quality information." She said she expects it to be several more months, at a minimum, before vaccines arrive in the country.

When the global outbreak happened two years ago, vaccines used for mpox were still relatively new. It was only within the last 10 years – and, in some cases, the last couple years – that places like North America, Japan and Europe approved them. One vaccine used in the U.S. is roughly 82% effective with two doses.

But the data about effectiveness comes from healthy adults in high-income settings. Earlier this month, the WHO's advisory group on immunizations grappled with how this data would apply to children and to adults who may be malnourished or face a different health profile than the one seen in high-income countries. The group ultimately recommended an off-label use in children, given the large number of kids affected by mpox in the DRC.

"The group has been struggling to issue a policy recommendation because there is such a lack of data," says Joachim Hombach, executive secretary of the advisory group.

Several nations have offered to donate doses, and one vaccine manufacturer has drawn up plans to scale up production.

However, experts say, even if an mpox vaccine is licensed, a target population is decided on and supply issues are ironed out, it would still not be easy for the DRC.

"Congo is going through, I think at this point, it must be going through eight or ten different epidemics," says Dr. Michael Ryan , executive director of the WHO's Health Emergency Programme, noting that the country is dealing with measles, cholera, plague and anthrax, among other diseases. "We also have a deep amount of instability in the east of Congo – the peacekeeping operation has shut down there and there are many, many armed groups operating. So ... a very difficult area in which to run any form of health operation, particularly any form of vaccination."

But, he says, the stakes are too high not to take up the challenge of controlling the current mpox outbreak in the DRC.

"This bug is badder and it's more virulent," says Ryan. "We really do need to keep a very, very close eye on it."

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