I was inspired by SubStack writer 'Aurelian' to add a definition of democracy to the glossary yesterday. This is as follows:
There is no consensus about what “democracy” means.
To the extent that a definition is required, democracy is a political system where the political unit in question is run broadly as desired by the people who reside in it.
Note that such a definition is about the nature and purpose of a democracy, not its structure and the way it functions. These vary too widely to be described.
Democracy is an idea, not a specific system of government.
Based on the work of Substack writer 'Aurelian'.
Comments are welcome. Revisions are possible.
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oddly I was reading Herodotus: The Histories over breakfast (as one does). the intro notes: the explanation of Demaratus to the Xerxes who does not understand how the Spartans (& by extension the Greeks) can fight well if they do not put on the “yoke of necessity” (Aeschylus). Demaratus empahsises that the Spartan master (& thus the Greek master) is Law, what the community has agree upon & chosen to follow. Heredotus notes that in wars, the law is superior to one-man rule no matter how great the disparity in number between the combatants.
2500 years ago, the Greeks had figured it out. Right now in front of us we have an on-going war which is “Rule of Law” vs dictatorship and on the otherside of the Atlantic a country which seems to have voted for no rule of law & dictatorship. I am certain that Herodotus would be puzzled.
Agreed, and thanks
I think your definition / description is a little too broad Richard.
The people who live within it may be broadly happy for the time being within a benevolent dictatorship or a plutocratic oligarchy but unless they would be free to change who is in charge we shouldn’t accept that as being a democracy
Noted
In response to Mr Colkett &:
“The people who live within it may be broadly happy for the time being within a benevolent dictatorship or a plutocratic oligarchy”. I guess “plutocratic oligarchy” applies to Russia?
This is well worth watching – from 16min in it gets to the heart of the matter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gyMho1c0ig
don’t be fooled by the title – its all about power structures. There is no rule of law in Russia & the USA is heading in the same direction. = citizens as powerless doormats in both states & what happens depends on “in favour or not”. Laws don’t apply to those “in favour”.
Roger Collett” but unless they would be free to change who is in charge we shouldn’t accept that as being a democracy”
How many elections really allow you to change anything other than the face at the top.
How about you can change who is in charge but not the policies implemented.
The soviet Union had elections, agreed they did change the top job but could theoretically change a substantial layer of government but while the elected representatives changed the essence of the policies couldn’t be changed..
For the EU, many polices are hard wired into the treaties and regulations, you can choose in an election who has the top jobs but its virtually impossible for them to change the fundamental polices, that would require treaty change which is not in their power.
For many neoliberals, though they wouldn’t necessarily express it so plainly, democracy is about having a free choice in a free market, the purpose of elections is so people can elect the individuals they’d like to implement the same basic free market policies. Elected representatives can change some aspects of how the markets operate but not offer anything fundamentally different.
What if the people have been so heavily indoctrinated to believe in the existing administration, that no one will vote for anything else.
Hitler got a 99.7% Yes vote in the 1938 Anschluss referendum but we would not consider that to be a democratic vote (for a variety of reasons) but potentially a no vote might have changed who was in charge. The actual Question was “Do you agree with the reunification of Austria with the German Reich that was enacted on 13 March 1938, and do you vote for the party of our leader Adolf Hitler?”
In summary, being able to change who is, nominally at least, in charge is pretty useless if it doesn’t allow the policies implemented to be changed and if people have been indoctrinated not to vote for change then they won’t elect anyone offering a real alternative.
All noted
Fantastic!
It s time to stop kidding ourselves that we live in one.
I know what Socrates would say!
I think that a real democracy is a place of restraint, especially by power and the powerful. Our world has lost all restraint as far as I am concerned amongst the powerful, the monied etc. This means that a balance is lost because the ‘demos’ – the public – then begin to get unhappy and think about losing their restraint. So that is how it is supposed to work, that is supposed to be the balance. Restraint.
The powerful know this, so their job is to provide the demos with alternative hate figures to throw them off the scent of who and what is making them poor, such as immigrants, transgender, Turkish barbers etc. This is called Fascism – an old political science, that has taken on more power given advances in communications technology.
Maybe ‘democracy’ is an ancient, even pre-Greek word meaning ‘deception’?
I think that that the restraint applies to the use and abuse of money. One area where there is no restraint is debt – we live in a society where all money debt has to be repaid no matter what the cost in terms of other life factors. Of course, these thoughts I am offering are to do with Western ‘democracy’. Other ‘democracies’ have no problem putting soldiers on streets and bullying and killing those they don’t like – I mean, look what is happening in the U.S. ?
I go back to what I said the other day……….we voted Thatcher and Nicholas Ridley out of Government and still, the roll back of the State, its retrenchment from your life and needs is still on as a project 40 years after she came on the scene. After how many elections to this date? Nothing has fundamentally changed.
The rich shall inherit the earth and you with it. That is the plan. You will pay for their real estate, champagne and yachts with what little wealth you have.
‘Democracy’ – pah!
And finally a nod to our generous host – tax. A system that allows the rich to accrue huge wealth and then abuse it by buying the political system and promoting usury whilst denying proper income to the demos is not worth preserving. At all.
Much to agree with
Those who live in a democracy determine what democracy means by how they participate in democratic politics. Democratic politics requires a degree of political thought. This political thought is not constant. It can decline and rise in quality. Those who live with democratic institutions can shape this quality by collective political action. Without these institutions you are completely reliant on good fortune (which won’t happen because someone else has control of the institutions and will shape your fate for you).
Bill Williams is correct. Interest and time to understand issues are needed. One of Britain’s many problems is that people sit back until they have a vote, then there is a tendency not to get to grips with what matters.
A proactive participatory population is needed, otherwsie vested interests maintain tight control.
On a scale of 100% democracy to 100% autocracy, Britain must rank as one of the least democratic countries, an autocratic country excepting an occasional change in the ruling elite.
The key element of British democracy is that two parties compete for absolute power: two autocrats take turns at imposing their world view. Labour are already trying to frame the 2029 contest as Starmer vs. Farage.
The first-past-the-post electoral system prevents other parties from competing, which would surely be a breach of competition law if that law applied to politics as regards monopolies and duopolies.
Aurelian may well be correct about democracy, as a concept, but most people’s understanding and experience of democracy will not be so amorphous, I suspect, and will instead relate to the “types” they experience. In the dim (but bright by today’s standards) and increasingly distant past I wrote about such things (usually with others), with particular reference to how new technology (which, at the time, we preferred to refer to as ICT – Information and Communication Technology – and which we’d now collapse almost entirely into a discussion of the internet and apps) would impact democracy and democratic practices.
At the start of that project (Horrocks, I. and Pratchett L., 1995, Democracy and New Technology) we identified from literature and practice three broad types of democracy, all of which had or were being practiced: direct or plebiscitary; representative and communitarian. Here’s a summary, with, in each case, why it was argued ICT (or the emergent internet, if you prefer) was important.
Plebiscitary democracy: Traditionally the size of modern states was seen to make direct democracy impossible. Nevertheless, public opinion expressed through the plebiscite continues to stand as a symbol of true democracy and a practical way to empower individuals to do more in government. Consequently advocates of of plebiscitary democracy saw the potential new technology offered in eliminating constraints on place and time, which had traditionally worked against direct democracy. Thus, ICT could provide the information, processing power, and communication facilities which would enable unlimited numbers of people to participate simultaneously in debate and voting.’
Representative democracy: This is the model we’re all familiar with, as various versions of it (e.g. federalised, unitary, constituency, etc) underpin the political systems of contemporary democratic states. The argument was that ICTs could make existing models of representative democracy more responsive, by making more information more widely available to a more diverse range of groups, and for a more diverse range of purposes, than had previously been possible, thus creating a more level playing field within the polity.
Communitarian democracy: This form of democracy is frequently presented as “strong” democracy. Citizenship and the common good are the key features of communitarianism, with the aim of democratic politics becoming, ‘…not a process for allowing the majority to rule over minority interests antagonistically; it is the process of persuasion through which we seek to create and maintain a good life in common.’ (Abrahamson, et al. 1988:22., The Electronic Commonwealth). It’s worth adding that this form of democracy was and is still a feature of US politics, particularly at a local level. And the Blair governments also found it an attractive idea, due to a well regarded book of the time (though in the UK’s political system it was bound to be a non starter).
Interestingly, not having read the work from which the material above is taken for many years, I was interested to see that Lawrence and I went on to conclude the section on representative democracy and new technology thus: ‘…there is a very real danger that ICTs used in this context will serve only to compound existing biases in the distribution of information between different groups. New technologies, therefore, also have the potential to augment extant asymmetries in the distribution of information, and therefore, of power. Where access to, or control of, such technologies is limited especially to a technocratic elite ICTs can be used to militate against democracy.’ (page 1222).
By 2000 members of the same research project had undertaken empirical research across Western Europe into what we referred to as ’emerging models of democracy for the information age’, which we defined as: Consumer, Demo-elitist, Neo-republican, and Cyberdemocratic. (Hoff, J., Horrocks, I., and Tops, P., Eds. 2000. Democratic Governance and New Technology: technologically mediated innovations in political practice in Western Europe).
Believe it or not, at that time (1999) there were examples of projects that promoted, or were underpinned by, each of the four models, above. However, I shan’t bother repeating the detail of each of these here, except to say that the only one that exists today is the ‘consumer’ variant. Which is unsurprising as it equates to neoliberalism.
Many thanks Ivan
Apologies for the delay – yesterday was busy
“Democracy: nominal form of governance and citizen involvement which is much promoted despite its many and various subverted actual forms.”
More accurate terms are:
“Dumbocracy: governance of the ignorant and/or gullible by a predatory group or caste which presents fictitious choice”
“Deceitocracy: governance of the maleducated and malinformed by a self-seeking group which disguises its plutocratic, deep purposes with a facade of democratic input whilst manipulating processes and failing to deliver democratic outputs”
(From the Ambrose Bierce Memorial Dictionary)
Just to lower the mood:
Foreign press reports that Israel is gearing up to attack Iran imminently. The U.S. has ordered all its non essential diplomatic staff and dependents in countries like Lebanon and Iraq to leave those countries. The U.S. military estimates that the U.S. will be at war within 30-60 days. Iran says it will retaliate if it is attacked by bombing Israel and U.S. assets in the region.
Israel is progressing with its genocide in Gaza. On Tuesday the whole House of Commons was (uniquely) united in demanding that the Government immediately recognise the State of Palestine. The Tories have written twice TWICE to the Government demanding they recognise the Statr of Palestine.
The U.S. Ambassador to Israel says a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank should be somewhere else because Muslims have all the Middle East and Israel only a tiny fraction.
In other news, 1.3 million disabled people will lose vital income because Kendall is forcing her Green Paper through the Commons. Starmer has tweeted that the tough decision to slash the welfare budget has freed up the money to build Sizewell C. He seems very proud of that.
Sorry. I’m in despair. Both for myself and for 1.3 million others who have no means of defending themselves.
I am so angry this – all this – is happening
I would just like to point out that If the government reduces payment to the poor, almost all of the so called saved money will be off set buy a similar amount of tax will be lost. So there will no extra money for the government.
Correct
I would like there to be something in a REdefinition of democracy that emphasises that the outcome of a democratic process should be that it benefits the majority and not the few. And that somewhere in the mix there should be a (for want of a better word) ‘moral’ framework that promotes equality and fairness.
Following on from Hannah’s post, Israel and the US call themselves democracies but patently have lost the right to use the term. The is no goodness and no fairness in the hearts of the people who have power in those countries.
I like that
I will be revisiting this over the weekend….
Absolutely! That’s my problem with ‘democracy’ per se. There’s no intrinsic moral, ethical code or that it must function for the benefit of all. The will of the majority has never been enough for me
‘broadly as desired by the people who reside in it’ is fine, but what about the rest?
Nixon relied on the ‘silent majority’.
And Trump seems to have significant support, too.
It seems to me that the essence of democracy is less about the majority and more about how the minority is accommodated.
To be honest I’ve always had a bit of a problem with democracy as a ‘political system’ as it evokes, within me at least, a system that is rigid and inflexible and subject to too much manipulation of the ignorant and irrational by the powerful and manipulative. Democracy, I think, is an ideal that should have the flexibility within it to evolve
I did post a comment earlier today on this subject, Richard, but as it hasn’t appeared I assume I must have hit the wrong key when I went to send it. Apologies, as it might have been useful.
No, it was one I needed to muse on before posting and have not yet got to it. Apologies. I should have mailed you.
Fritz Bartel’s fascinating book “The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism” shows how the communist eastern European states collapsed because their governments lost legitimacy as they tried to apply austerity policies (essentially to satisfy western banks).
Whereas, in the West, notably Thatcher’s UK, harsh austerity was imposed quite easily because democracy provided legitimacy. Those eastern European states became democracies, and then applied austerity without too much trouble.
I find it hard to see democracy most in Western states now as anything more than a “mere” legitimation mechanism. The UK votes Labour and gets Tory+ policies; Australia votes and the Liberal Party, cosplaying Trumpism with an Aussie twist, nearly gets wiped out … but if the Liberal’s had won, in reality nothing much would have changed, the same neoliberal economic policies would still apply, the oil and gas industries would continue to get the outcomes they want whichever party is in power, because they buy both. In 1984 NZ voted Labour and got harsh austerity and recession for many years (neoliberalism dubbed “Rogernomics” after the finance minister Roger Douglas).
After Gorbachev ended the USSR, a crash western-advised economic liberalisation programme plunged the country into misery, GDP collapsing 40%, and the associated privatisation created the oligarchs, who, to his credit, Putin eventually reined in. Interestingly, the Chinese government has done the same, keeping the extremely wealthy away from political power.
But in the US, for the oligarchs it’s open season:
“What is an oligarchy, and is the United States poised to become one?”
https://theconversation.com/what-is-an-oligarchy-and-is-the-united-states-poised-to-become-one-247566
BTW this interview, gives a fascinating insight into the depth of political corruption in the US. One stunning example: how a power company extracted a billion dollars from the state of Ohio.
“Chris Hedges speaks with filmmaker Alex Gibney about his new documentary series, which tracks just two examples within the “labyrinth of mirrors” of untraceable corruption that fuels American politics.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orR3DIHEMw4
H L Mencken:
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
I think the best description of the state of US democracy is that of Sheldon Wolin.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691178486/democracy-incorporated
“all politics all of the time but politics largely untempered by the political”
Wolin (2008) wrote:
Inverted totalitarianism reverses things. It is all politics all of the time but politics largely untempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favors and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism#CITEREFWolin2008
Democracy is only a word. Unless deeds and action follow, it means nothing.