We the People

Taiwan is currently in the run-up for local elections, the world is holding its breath for the American midterms, there are protests and riots in the French republic, the developments in Albania and Serbia, and Sweden held its parliamentary elections that I myself participated in. It seems to me a good opportunity to discuss what the nature of democracy really is, how to create a democratic society, and what pitfalls are common when trying to improve democracy.

There are two primary arguments for democracy; one moral and one technical. The moral one hinges upon the belief that human rights, individual freedom, and the consent of the governed is an inherently good thing. It is important to emphasise that this is an arbitrary assumption — there is nothing that makes this inherently true, and we must accept that there are some people (even within democratic society) that do not believe that this is worth striving and sacrificing for.¹ This group represent the biggest threat to democratic society since they would be willing to sacrifice it for short-term gain or comfort.² This group does not just exist on the political left, right, center or in any particular political grouping. They are instead dispersed throughout society.

The second group of arguments is one most commonly cited because we live in an inherently technical global society. Democracy must deliver concrete benefits, else be removed by a system that offers greater efficiency and results. There are nevertheless many arguments in this favour: the many benefits of a higher trust in institutions that follow accountability, the ability to do business and make long-term plans in a society with the rule of law, and the ability to remove incompetent leadership. Winston Churchill put this most succinctly as:

Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

I was recently asked, regarding the Taiwanese local elections, whether or not voting actually makes a difference — particularly in constituencies where one party or political grouping possess a strong lead over all others. The natural answer is that it of course matters. The individual may not posses enough power to decide an election (although in some cases they can come remarkably close) but by Kant’s categorical imperative³ it becomes clear that by not voting we in practice announce our agreement with the elimination of suffrage altogether. But at the same time it is true that the act and ability to vote does not itself make a democracy.

The Russian-born French philosopher Alexandre Kojève described authority as composed of four fundamental elements⁴ derived from different sources: The authority of the father, leader, master, and judge. These can then be combined into a number of different ways to form a specific authority that is then followed. None of these fundamental forms represents democracy, and Kojève explains this through an election⁵ being merely a transfer of authority that already exists. Because of this the “legitimacy” of a ruler does not change on the basis of free and fair elections — a legitimate (in that their orders are followed and that authority exists) ruler can come to power in both a system of democracy and autocracy.

The European Union is often criticised for not being “democratic enough” to to the lack of direct universal suffrage in picking the representatives of the European Commission (ec). The ec is then seen as an autocratic and technocratic apparatus that does not help govern with the consent of the people. But as we have seen the Commission is still legitimate in its authority. On the other end of the spectrum lies Pakistan. It holds elections to the parliamentary and provincial bodies of the civilian government, but much of the actual authority lies with the military establishment.

It is not voting that makes a democracy, but if anything rather democracy that oftentimes demands voting. A system and society of an authoritarian nature, given voting, will not magically become a democracy through the will of the people, as can be tragically seen in the case of the Russian federation. The struggle for universal suffrage (and women’s suffrage in particular) has rarely been a top-down struggle, and when it has (exempli gratia when imposed by a foreign power) is has oftentimes not resulted in the creation of a healthy and democratic society.⁶

Representative democracy is a deliberate trade-off between democratic rule and technical efficiency. This should be immediately clear — most people have other things to do than governing their country, region, or local area, and so we delegate this power to elected representatives. But in practice this is not so simple. Politicians are not experts in all subjects, and can themselves not perform all of the tasks required to run the moden state apparatus. They therefore delegate their power in turn to technicians of different sorts: Lawyers, engineers, researchers, generals, detectives, doctors, city planners, and civil servants above all. These people are not elected by the public, but they are in practice the ones most responsible for the activities of the state.

The technical role of politicians is to take blame and receive credit. Jacques Ellul made this quite clear in The Technological Society:⁷

When the expert has effectively performed his task of pointing out the necessary ways and means, there is generally only one logical and admissible solution. The politician will then find himself obliged to choose between the technician’s solution, which is the only reasonable one, and other solutions, which he can indeed try out at his own peril but which are not reasonable. […] the politician no longer has any real choice; decision follows automatically from the preparatory technical labours.

It is therefore hard for an individual politician to make meaningful change. They are forced into doing performing the action that is seen as most efficient. This only leaves one major aspect of democratic life that can shape and create a democratic society.

The participation of individuals in political life is the single largest and most impactful element of a democracy. Rights such as the freedom of association and of speech are central to this. They allow for healthy debate and for a collective power that is otherwise sorely lacking in the technical governance of the state. This is what allows the demos (people) the ability to act as a genuine political force and element in a democratic system. The individual does not have a place in the view of the state,⁸ so the individual must join some sort of group or movement in order to gain influence over the state.

Political participation in the strict formal sense has decreased in almost all western democratic countries. While participation in elections has remained high this does not count as genuine political participation, as explained above. The lack of party membership amongst the population is then a direct lack of democratic rule. It is instead the rule of the those who control and elect the leadership of the political parties. If these groups are not representative of the population as a whole, the population of the country does not have the power to intervene in political affairs.

Membership of formal political parties is not the only method of participation, although it is one that has historically been popular and influential. New ways of participation have emerged in recent times. particularly as a consequence of the development of large-scale individual-to-public communications technologies such as the internet and social media.⁹ And yet there is no proper way for these new forms of participation to be adequately represented in modern political environments. A citizen may be able to vote every four years, but a member of a political party can vote much more often on current policy.

What the exact nature of a new form of political participation should be is difficult to assess. The basic idea however is that it should be built around ideas rather than people. At the same time there is a risk that such a system would be plagued by control by the extremes. The moderate center — oftentimes the majority of the population — would not care to take up such issues and would only be able to respond in a reactionary fashion.

This may suit some people, but one of the technical benefits of democracy is its apparent and general stability. Things such as the rule of law, public debate, and transparent decision-making means that changes are slow to make but rigid and stable once implemented — they have after all gone through rigorous testing in the public eye and are generally agreed upon. Membership in this public debate is one of the most overlooked facets of democratic participation, even if some aspects of it such as freedom of speech are held in high regard.

Corruption is the death of any system of governance. It can be resisted in some fashion for a long time, but there are few aspects of a government that are as disliked by the people as corruption. Even things such as war, when done for a noble cause, can be supported to a much higher degree than corruption. It may be easy to forget that even such transformational events such as the French revolution are in many ways reactions and responses to corruption.

Democracy is importantly built on trust, and is therefore particularly responsive to corruption. Voters will not elect people who they assume to be corrupt or who will do corrupt things. They may of course elect corrupt politicians, but they do so believing that they will not be.¹⁰

It remains to be see what the results of the us midterms will be, but opinion polls corruption specifically as a major issue.

Corruption is a purely technical (and therefore “bipartisan”) issue. It is a question of being able to do as much as possible, and therefore as efficiently as possible, with the tax money and political power accumulated from the people. Like all technical matters it works in two ways; as a sound rational argument itself, and as a powerful tool for to person that successfully harnesses it. The person that manages to increase efficiency will be able to do more things than the person before them, and through that amass power and the favour of the people.

Democracy is not a state of affairs, it is a choice. We must, as citizens of our republics,¹¹ make active use of our lives in shaping the governance of society. It is easy to point out the industrial elements of the democratic state and despair over the minuscule influence the individual can have over a machine of this magnitude, particularly as the democratic state is in many ways the most industrial of all. But doing so is fruitless.

The duty of the citizen is instead to create those bonds they can, so as to rule through action instead of merely being a statistic in an election. Community building — whether through family ties, board game nights, sports teams, the friend group chat, or something else — is what creates authentic political presence. This is the case even when the activity is not ostensibly “political”.

The people, and the society they create, are something that exists apart from the state. This is easy to forget, particularly in democratic societies where, in many cases, groups have been atomized to only be composed of lone individuals. But it is the people that political authority is ultimately derived from. ❦