Introduction
Consider the question’s negative response: “There is no such thing as too much democracy.” This implies that democracy is a limitless good that one can never have too much of. I oppose this statement by showing that limitations of democracy arise from its nature, and that considering these limitations is vital to accomplishing the “democratic project.” However, democracy, by conception, is still a good because of its appeal to human nature which is unique among other forms of government.
Democracy is simply “rule by the people,” as opposed to power being concentrated by a small group or a single ruler. Here, there is a distinction to be made between democracy as an ideal and democracy as a means of government to achieve this ideal, which will be vital to showing its limitations.
Formation of Democracy and Democracy’s Dual Nature
Democracy’s unique appeal to human nature can be seen in Locke’s (1689) account of the formation of state. Because humans want agency and are social animals, Locke proposes in his “social contract” theory that this free nature of man leads to his desire for a community with no subjugation without consent. For Locke, the idea of democracy arises from a need for a peaceful end to meet the expressed needs of the participants.
Due to democracy arising as a compromising form of government ruled by common interests, the primary function of democracy as government is to balance individual interests. So, the democratic project is the ultimate goal of democracy as an ideal: to give community and agency to the people. Dahl (1989) argues no other form of government’s ideology appeal to “the people” is as effective because it will always give less direct power to each participant than a democracy.
Social contract theory has been criticized empirically because many governments have been formed based on subjugation and conquest. However, social contract theory as a normative basis for government is still valuable in revealing that the appeal of democracy lies in human nature’s desire for self-agency and community. In validating the desires of human nature for recognition and dignity, the democratic project aims to protect basic individual rights of expression necessary to secure this dignity.
Democracy as a form of government, then, is a direct response to the components of human nature which formed democracy as an ideology.
However, in Locke’s social contract theory, there are inherent limitations to the democratic project. By presenting democracy as a consent-based community united by the desire to be able to shape their environment, the formulation of state is a “negative” one, where individuals are allowed to have freedom from coercion. Because democracy is built on “freedom from,” per Berlin’s idea of negative liberty, limitations are required in the very formation of a democracy itself. Thus, even for libertarians such as Locke, democracy cannot be misconstrued as complete license.
Democracy as a Good
Democracy as an ideology encourages the preservation of key rights such as freedom of expression and spurs the members of a democracy to be more engaged, as it appeals to self-agency and community. Democracy is built upon these rights because a government “by the people” is predicated upon the acknowledgment of the agency of each member, which is fundamentally egalitarian. Historically, democracy has been a cause under which hegemonic systems of government that rely on subjugation and abuse of human rights have fallen, such as colonialism and aristocracy.
For instance, the French Revolution of 1789 and the promises of the Robespierre government stirred up such revolutionary fervor that peasants were willing to bear extreme poverty because of the hope that the new government gave them, a promise which was rhetorically driven by democratic ideals. The promise of the French Revolution was especially enticing due to the contrast between the monarchy’s economic and political suppression of the lower class.
In government, democracy provides two key assets in ensuring a peaceful society where fundamental human rights are upheld: Responsibility and participation.
In contrast to what Dahl (1971) claims as “guardianship,” where a select few control power, in governance methods like central planning, democracies encourage participation without ulterior motives that are present in highly bureaucratic forms of government. This is because participation in democracy directly affects each participant, so the incentive to act in one’s own best interests is caused by the responsibility of distributed power within a democracy. Widespread participation and the resulting responsibility are extensions of the democratic desire for formation of community and agency within that community.
Participation’s Limits
For democracy as government, there are limits to participation. As Dahl acknowledges, direct democracy or democracy without local-level organization, what he deems “committee democracy,” is inefficient and leads to a lack of cooperation and disconnect towards local needs, what is called the tyranny of the majority. Participation can take the form of direct or representative democracy, but it must preserve the element of responsibility, at least from what the participant feels. If a participant no longer feels that their participation bears any weight in the community, the democratic project has failed; if a participant feels no responsibility for their actions then the democracy can no longer keep its participants accountable, leading to abuses of power. This balance is one of the key limitations to participation in a democracy.
These abuses of power are further depicted in Dahl’s account of guardianship. This belief, Dahl argues, is an extension of the democratic project’s goal to be “for the people,” with the belief that “the people” do not act in their own best interests. For instance, the Founding Fathers of the United States created the Electoral College out of weariness for the common people’s ability to decide the president.
However, Dahl critiques guardianship by challenging its assumptions that there is an absolute way to govern and, furthermore, that a select few are especially capable of possessing this knowledge. Empirically, many of the greatest social revolutions throughout history have been grassroots movements spearheaded by oppressed communities to overthrow autocracies, such as the Portuguese revolution of 1974 which was motivated by a desire for democracy. As the opposition of guardianship and the grassroots impulses of the democratic project have shown, the belief that power should be concentrated in the hands of the few in a democracy creates a lack of responsibility for those in power. Therefore, the tendency to concentrate power and avoid the effort of the organization required for mass participation is a limitation that democracy faces.
Participation as a mechanism of democracy has limitations, especially in the social media age of hyper participation where information can be proliferated by anyone with access to technology. Byung Chul-Han (2020) argues that the ease at which “perfect” content can be shared and viewed has created a self-commoditization that promotes a narcissistic culture in which the “other” is eliminated and all subjects become objects, even the subject itself. Han’s digital “panopticon” gives insight into the power of participation to feed into a limitless, self-indulgent materialism that inhibits the ability for compromise and the learning of other perspectives. Thus, participation cannot give way to a materialistic culture where freedom becomes a new form of control and so constraints are necessary in democracy as a governing method to realize democracy as an ideal. The limitations within participation in democracy reveal that the self-agency given to each citizen within a democracy is not directly conducive to accomplishing the democratic project; rather, in democracy as government, there are necessary constraints and limitations to maintain true self-agency and community.
On Institutions
As Dahl argues, democracy can never rely solely on one authority. Rather, it must require multiple institutions and authorities to ensure participation and the basic goals of the democratic project. Democracy as a form of governmental organization, then, must have some form of motivation which drives the tendency towards “rule of the people” in a democracy. Thus, democracy as government cannot only license the people but also needs to involve the creation of democratic norms through institutions like education.
In general, democratic institutions are vital to an effective democratic project as they reduce the tendency for guardianship because of an increased capability among the public to make rational choices. Condorcet’s (17XX) jury theorem posits that democracy is the best form of government because it maximizes the probability of the right decision being made. This is because maximizing the number of decision makers maximizes the probability for the ultimate outcome to be positive. However, a key stipulation of the theorem is that each decision maker has a better than random chance of making the correct decision. Therefore, prominent proponents of public education in democracy like Thomas Jefferson advocate for education to respect the opinions of the majority while limiting their power to protect minorities. Public education’s role in the early democracy of the United States shows how an informed citizenry is vital to the consolidation of an effective democracy.
However, as extensively argued by conservatives such as Richard Nixon (19XX), there are limitations to institutions. Overuse of bureaucracy makes a democracy lose sight of the community necessary to achieve an egalitarian society. Without giving all participants the same access to contacting their representatives and decision-makers, information key to understanding current issues, and equity in the power of each voter to influence their representative, then committee democracy becomes increasingly oligarchical.
Democracy Misconstrued in Foreign Policy
Because democracy is so effective as an appeal to rights ideologically, as Mearsheimer (2018) notes, liberal democracies with power tend to pursue a policy of liberal hegemony, or a tendency to use military intervention to reshape other countries towards a democratic vision. However, the constraints to liberal hegemony are realist international forces and nationalism, both of which may result in the opposite effect of nationalist powers proliferating as a resistance to liberal hegemony, such as the anti-American sentiment in the Middle East following US interventionism from Eisenhower-era CIA operations to the Bush Doctrine. This opposition to liberal hegemony then results in significant breakdown of international relations and increases international tensions instead of getting closer to world peace. Therefore, democracy as an ideology needs to be limited by an acknowledgement of the forces that could curtail efforts to spread democracy in an interventionist and aggressive manner. Democracy as an ideal also cannot be misconstrued as a duty that gives democratic states the power to ignore nationalism and the sovereignty of others.
The tendency of liberal democracies to pursue an ideological “crusader state” policy, as Mearsheimer formulates, is an example of the ideology of democracy taking precedence over the actual enforcement of democracy. This is due to the encroachment of rights that results from crusader states in an imperialistic manner, as shown by the instability of the Middle East caused by US intervention through the CIA in countries such as Iran. Thus, the unique marketability of spreading the democratic ideology and consequently justifying imperialistic actions is a limitation of democracy, where ideology trumps the reality of effective, egalitarian government which the democratic project promises.
Conclusion
Democracy is not a limitless good. There are limitations to what democracy is and should be. Therefore, there are limitations to how it should be spread, how it should be executed as a government, and how it should be perceived as an ideal. However, democracy is a uniquely effective good nonetheless.
In terms of accomplishing the democratic project’s goals, it is necessary to balance between democracy as an ideal to be achieved and democracy as a means where democratic institutions give the people the ability to engage in government.
Thus there is such a thing as too much democracy.
References
Bernstein, Samuel. “Robespierre and the Problem of War.” Science & Society, 1940.
Carpenter, James. “Thomas Jefferson and the Ideology of Democratic Schooling.” Democracy & Education, 2013.
Dahl, Robert A. Democracy and Its Critics. Yale University Press, 1989.
Dahl, Robert Alan. After the Revolution?: Authority in a Good Society. Yale Univ. Press, 1971.
Han, Byung-Chul. The Transparency Society. Stanford University Press, 2020.
Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. 1713.
Mearsheimer, John J. The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities. Yale University Press, 2018.
Wimberly, Cory. “Montesquieu and Locke on Democratic power and the justification of the ‘War on Terror.’” International Studies in Philosophy, vol. 40, no. 2, 2008, pp. 107–120, https://doi.org/10.5840/intstudphil20084028.
By Daniel Liao