Monday, July 23, 2012
James Q. Wilson, John J. DiIulio, Jr., Meena Bose
When circumstances do not permit majoritarian decision making, then some group of officials will have to act without knowing (and perhaps without caring) exactly what people want. Indeed, even on issues that do evoke a clear opinion from a majority of citizens, the shaping of the details of a policy will reflect the views of those who are sufficiently motivated to go to the trouble of becoming active participants in policymaking. These active participants usually will be a small, and probably an unrepresentative, minority. Thus the actual distribution of political power, even in a democracy, will depend importantly on the composition of the political elites who are actually involved in the struggles over policy. By elite we mean an identifiable group of persons who possess a disproportionate share of some valued resource—in this case, political power.
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A.P. Government and Politics
ReplyDeletePreview Reading: Types of Government and Theories of Democracy
Excerpts taken from Textbook: American Government (10th Edition) by Wilson and Dililio
http://www.qcsd.org/213012512714233/lib/213012512714233/Reading_-_Types_and_Theories_of_Democracy.pdf
American Government: Institutions and Policies
ReplyDeleteby James Q. Wilson, John J. DiIulio, Jr., Meena Bose
What Is Democracy?
ReplyDeleteDemocracy is a word with at least two different meanings. First, the term democracy is used to describe those regimes that come as close as possible to Aristotle’s definition—the ―rule of the many.‖ A government is democratic if all, or most, of its citizens participate directly in either holding office or making policy. This often is called direct or participatory democracy. In Aristotle’s time—Greece in the fourth century B.C.—such a government was possible. The Greek city-state, or polis, was quite small, and within it citizenship was extended to all free adult male property holders. (Slaves, women, minors, and those without property were excluded from participation in government.) In more recent times, the New England town meeting approximates the Aristotelian ideal. In such a meeting, the adult citizens of a community gather once or twice a year to vote directly on all major issues and expenditures of the town. As towns have become larger and issues more complicated, many town governments have abandoned the pure town meeting in favor of either the representative town meeting (in which a large number of elected representatives, perhaps 200–300, meet to vote on town affairs) or representative government (in which a small number of elected city councilors make decisions).
The second definition of democracy is the principle of governance of most nations that are called democratic. It was most concisely stated by the economist Joseph Schumpeter: ―The democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals [that is, leaders] acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote.‖ Sometimes this method is called, approvingly, representative democracy; at other times it is referred to, disapprovingly, as the elitist theory of democracy. It is justified by one or both of two arguments: first, it is impractical, owing to limits of time, information, energy, interest, and expertise, for the people to decide on public policy, but it is not impractical to expect them to make reasonable choices among competing leadership groups. Second, some people (including, as we shall see in the next chapter, many of the Framers of the Constitution) believe direct democracy is likely to lead to bad decisions, because people often decide large issues on the basis of fleeting passions and in response to popular demagogues. This concern about direct democracy persists today, as seen from the statements of leaders who do not like what voters have decided. For example, in 2000, voters in Michigan overwhelmingly rejected a referendum that would have increased public funding for private schools. Politicians who opposed the defeated referendum spoke approvingly of the ―will of the people,‖ but politicians who favored it spoke disdainfully of ―mass misunderstanding.
Is Representative Democracy Best?
ReplyDeleteWhenever the word democracy is used alone in this book, it will have the meaning Schumpeter gave it. As we discuss in the next chapter, the men who wrote the Constitution did not use the word democracy in that document. They wrote instead of a ―republican form of government,‖ but by that they meant what we call ―representative democracy.‖ Whenever we refer to that form
of democracy involving the direct participation of all or most citizens, we shall use the term direct or participatory democracy.
For representative government to work, there must, of course, be an opportunity for genuine leadership competition. This requires in turn that individuals and parties be able to run for office, that communication (through speeches or the press, and in meetings) be free, and that the voters perceive that a meaningful choice exists. Many questions still remain to be answered. For instance: How many offices should be elective and how many appointive? How many candidates or parties can exist before the choices become hopelessly confused? Where will the money come from to finance electoral campaigns? There is more than one answer to such questions. In some European democracies, for example, very few offices—often just those in the national or local legislature—are elective, and much of the money for campaigning for these offices comes from the government. In the United States, many offices—executive and judicial as well as legislative—are elective, and most of the money the candidates use for campaigning comes from industry, labor unions, and private individuals.
Some people have argued that the virtues of direct or participatory democracy can and should be reclaimed even in a modern, complex society. This can be done either by allowing individual neighborhoods in big cities to govern themselves (community control) or by requiring those affected by some government program to participate in its formulation (citizen participation). In many states, a measure of direct democracy exists when voters can decide on referendum issues—that is, policy choices that appear on the ballot. The proponents of direct democracy defend it as the only way to ensure that the ―will of the people‖ prevails.
The Framers of the Constitution did not think that the ―will of the people‖ was synonymous with the ―common interest‖ or the ―public good.‖ They strongly favored representative democracy over direct democracy. They believed that government should mediate, not mirror, popular views and that elected officials should represent, not register, majority sentiments. They supposed that most citizens did not have the time, information, interest, and expertise to make reasonable choices among competing policy positions. They suspected that even highly educated people could be manipulated by demagogic leaders who played on their fears and prejudices. They granted that representative democracy often proceeds slowly and prevents sweeping changes in policy, but they cautioned that a government capable of doing great good quickly also can do great harm quickly. They agreed that majority opinion should figure in the enactment of many or most government policies, but they insisted that the protection of civil rights and civil liberties—the right to a fair trial; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; or the right to vote itself—ought never to hinge on a popular vote. Above all, they embraced representative democracy because they saw it as a way of minimizing the chances that power would be abused either by a tyrannical popular majority or by self-serving officeholders.
The Framers were powerfully influenced by philosophers who had discussed democracy. Aristotle, who lived four centuries before Christ, defined democracy as the rule of the many; that is, rule by ordinary people, most of whom would be poor. But democracy can, he suggested, easily decay into an oligarchy (the rule of the rich) or a tyranny (the rule of a despot). To prevent this, a good political system will be a mixed regime, combining elements of democracy and oligarchy: most people will vote, but talented people will play a large role in managing affairs.
ReplyDeleteBut the decisive influence on the Framers was wielded by John Locke, the 17th-century English writer who argued against powerful kings and in favor of popular consent. People can exist in a state of nature—that is, without any ruler—so long as they can find enough food to eat and a way to protect themselves. But food may not be plentiful and, as a result, life may be poor and difficult.
The human desire for self-preservation will lead people to want a government that will enable them to own property and thereby to increase their supply of food. But unlike his English rival, Thomas Hobbes, Locke did not think it necessary to have an all-powerful government. Hobbes had argued that people live in a ―war of all against all‖ and so an absolute, supreme ruler was essential to prevent civil war. Locke disagreed: people can get along with one another if they can securely own their farms and live off what they produce.
A decent government must exist with the consent of the governed and be managed by majority rule. To prevent a majority from hurting a minority of the people, Locke wrote, the government should separate its powers, with different and competing legislative and executive branches.
As we shall see in the next chapter, what the Framers tried to do in 1787 was to create a government that would protect freedom and private property. And as with Aristotle, they hoped they had created a moderate regime that would simultaneously safeguard people and leave them alone.
How Is Political Power Distributed?
ReplyDeleteThe second question asks how political power has actually been distributed in America’s representative democracy. Scholars differ in their interpretations of the American political experience. Where some see a steady march of democracy, others see no such thing; where some emphasize how voting and other rights have been steadily expanded, others stress how they were denied to so many for so long, and so forth. Short of attempting to reconcile these competing historical interpretations, let us step back now for a moment to our definition of representative democracy and four competing views about how political power has been distributed in America.
Representative democracy is defined as any system of government in which leaders are authorized to make decisions—and thereby to wield political power—by winning a competitive struggle for the popular vote. It is obvious then that very different sets of hands can control political power, depending on what kinds of people can become leaders, how the struggle for votes is carried on, how much freedom to act is given to those who win the struggle, and what other sorts of influence (besides the desire for popular approval) affect the leaders’ actions.
In some cases, the leaders will be so sharply constrained by what most people want that the actions of officeholders will follow the preferences of citizens very closely. We shall call such cases examples of majoritarian politics wherein elected officials are the delegates of the people, acting as the people (or a majority of them) would act were the matter put to a popular vote. The issues handled in a majoritarian fashion can be only those sufficiently important to command the attention of most citizens, sufficiently clear to elicit an informed opinion from citizens, and sufficiently feasible to address so that what citizens want done can in fact be done.
When circumstances do not permit majoritarian decision making, then some group of officials will have to act without knowing (and perhaps without caring) exactly what people want. Indeed, even on issues that do evoke a clear opinion from a majority of citizens, the shaping of the details of a policy will reflect the views of those who are sufficiently motivated to go to the trouble of becoming active participants in policymaking. These active participants usually will be a small, and probably an unrepresentative, minority. Thus the actual distribution of political power, even in a democracy, will depend importantly on the composition of the political elites who are actually involved in the struggles over policy. By elite we mean an identifiable group of persons who possess a disproportionate share of some valued resource—in this case, political power.
There are at least four ways of describing political elites: (1) elites reflect a dominant social class; (2) a group of business, military, labor union, and elected officials control all decisions; (3) appointed bureaucrats run everything; and (4) representatives of a large number of interest groups are in charge.
ReplyDeleteThe first view began with the theories of Karl Marx who, in the 19th century, argued that governments were dominated by business owners (the ―bourgeoisie‖) until a revolution replaced them with rule by laborers (the ―proletariat‖). But strict Marxism has collapsed in most countries. Today a class view, though it may take some inspiration from Marx, is less dogmatic and emphasizes the power of ―the rich‖ or the leaders of multinational corporations. The second theory ties business leaders together with whatever other elites concern some people: top military officials, labor union leaders, mass media executives, and the heads of a few special interest groups. This power elite view argues that American democracy is dominated by a few top leaders, many of them wealthy or privately powerful, who do not hold elective office. The third concept is that appointed officials run everything despite the efforts of elected officials and the public to control them. The bureaucratic view was first set forth by the German scholar, Max Weber (1864–1920). He argued that the modern state, in order to become successful, puts its affairs in the hands of appointed bureaucrats whose competence is essential to the management of complex affairs.7 These officials, invisible to most people, have mastered the written records and legislative details of the government and do more than just implement democratic policies: they actually make those policies. The fourth view argues that political resources—such as money, prestige, expertise, and access to the mass media—have become so widely distributed that no single elite, no social class, no bureaucratic arrangement, can control them. Political power is instead based on a pluralist view. In the United States, political resources are broadly shared in part because there are so many governmental institutions (cities, states, school boards) and so many rival institutions (legislatures, executives, judges, bureaucrats) that no single group can dominate most, or even much, of the political process.