Is more democracy the solution to the crises within democracy?

This International Day of Democracy (observed on September 15), let’s reflect on concerns pertaining to the state of democracy. The United Nations General Assembly designated this day in 2007 with the aim of promoting, upholding, and protecting democracy’s universal essence. But in recent years, a worrying pattern of “democratic backsliding” has emerged across a significant number of states.

Seeking recourse to etymology, democracy simply means “rule of the people” or, if we want to bring in the idea of the state, “government of the people”. The centrality of people in any democratic polity can hardly be overstated. Some of the essential features of a democratic political system are fundamental rights and freedom, free and fair elections, viable political opposition, freedom to assemble and protest, separation of powers, the rule of law, and an independent judiciary and media.

The “people” in ancient and modern democracies

Going by the written records, the initial formulations on democracy can be traced back to Plato’s extensive deliberations on the subject. He ranked democracy below aristocracy and monarchy because he found it deficient in political acumen and expertise – prerequisites of sound and proper governance. According to David Estlund, Plato defended a version of “epistocracy”, a form of oligarchy that involves rule by experts. Aristotle, too, remained deeply skeptical about the necessary virtue, political wisdom, and desired selfless-ness among the many who were to rule in a democracy.

However, democracy in the modern world is significantly different from its ancient form. The most important distinction is with respect to the way “the people” are defined. In ancient Athens – also called the cradle of democracy – demos (people) were defined in a markedly restricted way. Women, children, slaves, and metics (foreign residents of the city-state) were excluded. 

By contrast, the modern understanding of people, notwithstanding the cardinal citizen and non-citizen distinction within the nation-states, is more accommodative. Moreover, in its modern variant, democracy is representative (parliamentary and presidential) and indirect, while in its practice in the ancient era, it was direct.

Social contract laying the groundwork for democracy

Democracy in the modern world was preceded by liberal constitutionalism: a political framework based on individual rights and liberties, constitutional limits on government power, and the principle of popular sovereignty. It was the social contract framework that laid down the foundations of the 19th and 20th century theorization of democracy. This framework was a significant attempt at understanding the relationship between citizens and the state, especially in terms of security, rights, and obligations. 

For Thomas Hobbes, the earliest of these philosophers, it was fear that pushed people into a social contract with one another, surrendering before the sovereign state, the “Leviathan”. John Locke attends to natural rights vis-à-vis life, liberty, and property. He introduces the complex idea of consent given by individuals to be governed in order to protect their property, life, and liberty, without relinquishing their right to resist if needed. 

In fact, Locke discusses the right to rebel, resist, or revolt, though he restricted it largely to the educated and propertied classes. However, for Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the social contract implied individuals surrendering their freedom in order to have and experience a collective form of freedom, one geared towards the common good.

Social contract framework and liberal constitutionalism profoundly influenced those involved in the revolutions in America and France in the second half of the 18th century. These frameworks remained exceedingly vital with respect to 19th and 20th century theorisations of the state, individual rights and liberties, democracy, civil society, and citizenship.

Vulnerability to authoritarianism and populism

Within the corpus of 20th century theorization of democracy, the elite theory of democracy offers valuable insights in terms of its proclivity for oligarchic, elite and majoritarian functioning. As early as 1911, German-Italian sociologist Robert Michels advanced the “Iron law of oligarchy” thesis, which argued that because democracy calls for organisation, it is bound to eventually become oligarchic in its operations. This has often been described as a ‘degeneration thesis’. 

Following Michels, Vilfredo Pareto developed the theory of the circulation of elites, while Gaetano Mosca underlined the inevitability of the rule of a minority elite because of its superior and effective organisational capacities. 

In the second half of the 20th century, renowned American Sociologist C. Wright Mills offered his perceptive analysis of elite rule in post-war American society. In his celebrated work The Power Elite (1959), he argued how the elite groups from major American corporations, the military, and the federal government came together and formed a power bloc, with overlapping authority across economic, defence, and political spheres. 

Elite theories thus warn us of democracy’s vulnerability vis-à-vis the pulls of authoritarianism and populism.

Democratic backsliding 

Notwithstanding democracy’s decisive edge as a framework for politics and governance, it is currently going through one of its darkest phases. Across continents, several nation-states have witnessed the rise of right-wing political parties, populist anti-migrant sentiment, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and majoritarianism. While the immediate concern lies in far-right parties already in power, many others, currently in opposition, are not very far from taking the political centre stage. 

Attending to the specificities of the pathology, the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley has identified this hybrid style of politics as “authoritarian populism”, a term coined by renowned literary critic and theorist Stuart Hall in 1979 to explain the way Margaret Thatcher managed to get public acceptance of aggressive law enforcement policies through fearmongering. Even today, people in several countries are kept in a state of perpetual fear under the pretext of national security threats. This threat is often linked with migrants, ethnic, religious, and other minorities, and even academics and public intellectuals. 

In such an authoritarian populist democratic set-up, citizens become less inclined to think independently and instead place their trust in the wisdom and commitment of the leader. This helps understand the unsettling ease with which US President Donald Trump could initiate tariffs with considerable economic and political repercussions for both the US and its trading partners. 

Authoritarian populism in our time has undermined another important aspect of democracy: the right to peacefully protest and assemble. Protest is indispensable to the substantive practice of democracy. Without meaningful avenues for political participation, or when participation is narrowly redefined and restricted, the political and social life of a nation loses its soul. Harvard political scientists Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky have extensively looked at the pervasive democratic backsliding in their 2018 bestseller, How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future.

We, the people of India

One of democracy’s greatest strengths is its capacity to face and correct its fallacies. In this sense, the only response to crises in democracy is more democracy. This requires moving beyond the practice of reducing democracy to politics or institutional arrangements and investing efforts towards having social and economic democracy. 

In presenting India’s extraordinary Constitution of India, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar urged the nation not to overlook the vitality of social democracy for a healthy and meaningful operation of political democracy. He cautioned against discrimination, particularly on the basis of caste. Borrowing from his mentor John Dewey, Ambedkar spoke of democracy as an “associated mode of living”, one that continuously enhances the dignity of all citizens.

There is an urgent need to reclaim the foundational essence of democracy and genuinely invest in associated modes of living in order to strengthen a constitutional framework grounded in social justice, liberty, and equality. In doing so, we take a meaningful step towards realising the collective “we”  invoked in the Preamble’s opening line: We, the people of India.

Post read questions

In recent years, a worrying pattern of what is called “democratic backsliding” has emerged across a significant number of states. Do you agree? Support your answer with examples.

The centrality of people in any democratic polity can hardly be overstated. However, democracy in the modern world is significantly different from its ancient form in terms of the way “the people” are defined. Explain. 

What is “epistocracy”? Why did Plato rank democracy below aristocracy and monarchy?

What is the social contract framework? How did it lay the foundations of the 19th and 20th century theorization of democracy?

Within the corpus of 20th century theorization of democracy, the elite theory of democracy offers valuable insights in terms of its proclivity for oligarchic, elite and majoritarian functioning. Comment.

 (Irfanullah Farooqi is an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.)

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