Government for the People: the Substantive Elements of Democracy

INTERNATIONAL DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2397.2008.00556.x JOURNAL OF Int J Soc Welfare 2008: 17: 251–259 SOCIAL WELFARE ISSN 1369-6866 BlackwellOxford,IJSWInternational1369-68661468-2397©XXX OriginalViGovernmentSpicker 2008 TheUK Articles Publishing Author(s), Journalfor the people ofLtd Journal Sociale Welfarecompilationwpoints © Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare Government for the people: the substantive elements of democracy

Spicker P. Government for the people: the substantive Paul Spicker elements of democracy Int J Soc Welfare 2008: 17: 251–259 © 2008 The Author(s), Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. The most widely used understandings of the concept of democracy – normative, procedural and institutional – focus on its methods and approaches. This article argues that democracy needs also to be understood in terms of its substantive implications. Democratic rights include not only the civil and political rights associated with liberal democracy, but also the economic and social rights promoted in industrially developed countries. Liberal principles promote democracy and economic development. Social rights have developed, not just through state action, but through the Key words: democracy, welfare, social rights, liberal democracy independent establishment of solidarities facilitated by the exercise of democratic rights. Every established democracy Prof. Paul Spicker, Centre for Public Policy & Man., Robert Gordon has a system of social welfare provision. This is not University, Kepplestone Mansion, Aberdeen AB15 7AW, UK coincidental. Democracy, economic development and social E-mail: [email protected] protection are intimately linked. Accepted for publication October 11, 2007

democratic. This has been the direction of much Introduction contemporary writing. Where earlier sources were Democracy is a complex, multifaceted concept. It is not content to suggest criteria for governance – Barker, for possible to isolate one, simple agreed core of meaning; example, characterises democracy as ‘government by rather, there are clusters of meaning, linked by a family discussion’ (Barker, 1961) and Benn and Peters suggest resemblance between the terms. For present purposes, that democracy means that ‘every claim should be given it may be helpful to identify three main heuristic a hearing’ (Benn & Peters, 1959: 354) – in recent years categories. The first class is normative. For some, a small industry has developed in the production of democracy is a principle, norm or ideal. The ideal of prescriptive models of democracy. Dahl’s understanding democracy typically expresses in some sense the idea of ‘procedural democracy’ is based on an elaborate that people are responsible for their own government, ideal, depending on principles of political equality, but normative concepts of democracy are based on a effective participation, enlightened understanding, final range of different foundations – foundations such as the control of the agenda and inclusiveness (Dahl, 1979); sovereignty of the people, the popular will and individual Beetham (1991), in another example, defines democracy consent. in terms of political equality and popular control; and A second class of definitions puts democracy in Joshua Cohen (1997) argues for a model of ‘deliberative’ terms of characteristic approaches to decision making democracy, which emphasises democracy’s character of or politics. Democracy, within this broad set of discussion, cooperation, equality and social inclusion. understandings, is concerned with prescriptions for The third class is institutional. Democracy is often governance, such as accountability, participation, described as a system of government, defined by a set negotiation and discussion, the representation of of institutional arrangements. Schumpeter famously interests or the legitimisation of dissent. The general describes democracy in terms of a competitive struggle class might be termed ‘prescriptive’, because application for the popular vote (Schumpeter, 1967). Bobbio of the characteristic approach would be considered defines a minimal democracy as characterised by a necessary for a system of government to qualify as set of rules about who is eligible to vote, the rights of

© 2008 The Author(s) Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA 251

Spicker political parties and free and frequent elections; and a it must not be truly democratic. However, even if the set of rules which establish who is authorised to rule proposition is not watertight, there is something here and which procedures should be applied (Bobbio, worth examining. If Sen is right, there is more to 1987). This class of definitions is difficult to separate democracy than the conventional understandings make from the others in practice, because both normative and evident. I want to argue that democracy cannot be prescriptive understandings of democracy have to be understood adequately in procedural terms, and that realised through some kind of institutional mechanism. there are important substantive elements in the main These elements are not exclusive, and conventional understandings of democratic theory. models for understanding democracy combine them in different permutations. Most contemporary models Democracy and social protection have in common a strong emphasis on methods and approaches. Representative models of democracy As a general proposition, democratic government is describe a system of government in which people choose organised to provide protection for citizens in the event representatives who are accountable to them. Democracy of a wide range of contingencies. Table 1 shows some is characterised by the process of election, the recent figures for the Organisation for Economic establishment of systems of accountability and the rule Cooperation and Development (OECD). of law. Participative models of democracy describe a The literature on social welfare usually emphasises system of government in which people are able directly the differences between welfare regimes, rather than the to engage in decision making. The key concepts include similarities, but the similarities are striking. Despite voice, empowerment and community organisation. Bowles major differences in philosophy, approach and institutional and Gintis write: history, every country in the list makes some provision for social welfare. These similarities include state The problem of building a democratic society is thus sponsored provision for income maintenance, including one of a dynamic interaction of rules and actors with social insurance, pensions schemes and incapacity the actors rendering the rules more democratic, and benefits; extensive state engagement in health care – the increasingly democratic rules rendering the actors even in nominally ‘private’ systems such as the US; and more firmly committed to and skilled in democratic financial support for people on low incomes. participation and decision making. We term this There are important limitations to this kind of process a democratic dynamic. (Bowles & Gintis, generalisation. The first is that the definition of 1986: 186) ‘democracy’ is unstable, to the point where virtually In common with the representative model, this is every country would claim to be a democracy. There is concerned with methods and approaches, not with a risk of circularity in the argument – if a country what a democracy actually does. Both models imply appears to be exceptional, it must not be truly a procedural understanding of democracy. They see democratic; or perhaps the exception can be explained democracy as being concerned with how decisions are away where a history of poverty or conflict has obstructed taken, and not what the decisions might be. developments in the directions that democracies move The purpose of this article is to review democracy in. Second, the similarities between countries can be in a different light: to understand the substantive difficult to interpret. There was a fashion in the 1970s elements in democratic thought. At first sight, the claim for literature on ‘convergence’, which sought to that democracy is ‘for the people’ seems to do very examine what kinds of factors prompted common little to distinguish it from any other form of responses from government. Wilensky (1975) identified government. Hobbes was able to see the welfare of the the principal factors promoting welfare society as people as a justification for absolutism (salus populi including the numbers of elderly people, the presence suprema est lex). It can be argued, however, that of a left-wing opposition and the influence of military democracy offers identifiable material advantages. expenditure. Barnes and Srivenkataramana (1982) Amartya Sen makes a simple but contentious claim reworked Wilensky’s data to show a strong inverse about famine. He writes: relationship between the amount of money a country spent on welfare expenditure and its distance from In the terrible history of famines in the world, no Vienna – evidence, they suggested, of the influence of substantial famine has ever occurred in any history and ideology. More recently, Castles (2004) has independent and democratic country with a relatively used a range of plausible explanations – catching up, free press. We cannot find exceptions to this rule . . . economic growth, deindustrialisation and the influence (Sen, 1999) of the political left – in an attempt to examine current There are debates as to how far this generalisation holds trends in OECD countries. The kinds of explanation (see Woo-Cumings, 2001), and a risk of circularity in that are given for associations are necessarily given the argument – if a country appears to be exceptional, post hoc, and it is difficult to see how theoretical

Government for the people

Table 1. Social expenditure in OECD countries (as a percentage of GDP, 2001).

Country Expenditure Expenditure Expenditure Ratio of bottom 10 per cent on health on incapacity on old age to top 10 per cent

Australia 6.2 2.3 4.7 12.5 Austria 5.2 2.5 10.7 6.9 Belgium 6.4 3.3 8.7 8.2 Canada 6.7 0.8 4.8 9.4 Czech Republic 6.7 3.0 6.7 5.2 Denmark 7.1 3.9 8.3 8.1 Finland 5.3 3.9 7.9 5.6 France 7.2 2.1 10.6 9.1 Germany 8.0 2.3 11.7 6.9 Greece 5.2 1.8 12.7 10.2 Hungary 5.1 2.7 8.0 5.5 Iceland 7.5 2.8 5.5 – Ireland 4.9 1.4 2.7 9.4 Italy 6.3 2.1 11.3 11.6 Japan 6.3 0.7 7.3 4.5 Korea 3.2 0.5 1.2 7.8 Luxembourg 4.8 3.6 7.5 – Mexico 2.7 0.2 0.7 24.6 Netherlands 5.7 4.1 6.4 9.2 New Zealand 6.1 2.8 4.7 12.5 Norway 6.8 4.8 6.8 6.1 Poland 4.4 5.5 8.5 15.0 Portugal 6.3 2.5 7.9 8.8 Slovak Republic 5.0 2.3 6.7 – Spain 5.4 2.4 8.3 10.3 Sweden 7.4 5.2 9.2 6.2 Switzerland 6.4 3.8 11.8 9.0 United Kingdom 6.1 2.5 8.1 13.8 United States 6.2 1.1 5.3 15.9

Sources: Columns 1–3: OECD, 2007a; column 4: UNDP, 2006. propositions can be developed that are testable without Effectively, then, establishing a connection between having to wait many years for new data to emerge. democracy, social protection and the position of the The third problem is the quality of the empirical poor becomes a matter of interpretation rather than any data. The available quantitative information is varied decisive proof. This article consequently relies on and diffuse, and there is nothing in it which seems theoretical interpretation rather than the empirical capable of resolving the conflicts of interpretation. demonstration of associations. Several countries are aberrant (or ‘outliers’); most The apparent link between democracy and social countries have distinguishing individual characteristics protection is not consistent or invariable; it may be in their history, development, geography and institutions. illusory or ephemeral. Many transitional economies are Aspects of the pattern of organisation and delivery that currently being governed in the belief that the route to are used to classify some aspects of policy (as in emulating the prosperity of the Western countries is to Esping-Andersen, 1990) do not necessarily extend to mirror their political structures, and the Poverty others (Bambra, 2005; Bannink & Hogenboom, 2007; Reduction Strategy Papers being required by the Bolderson & Mabbett, 1995): ‘the devil is in the detail’ International Monetary Fund depend strongly on the (Ditch, 1999). Even where there is a possibility of view that democratic patterns of governance foster detecting trends, associations are not equivalent to causes. economic development. The important issue, in many Although it may be possible to show that countries have ways, is that people believe that the connection is there; more welfare provision under certain conditions – it is and what people believe, politically, becomes true in its fairly clear, for example, that richer countries spend more consequences. of their income on welfare services than poorer ones do – it is difficult to prove that one is a consequence of Explaining the connection the other. These are methodological objections, but they relate to theory, rather than issues of process and What is there about democracy that leads to the method; they are not capable of resolution by more development of social protection? The classification of detailed quantitative examination. The best one can hope understandings of democracy suggests three possible for is a persuasive identification of generative mechanisms. conjectures:

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1. That there is something in the ideal of democracy measures and approaches. The claim that democracy is which offers protection to democratic citizens. ‘responsive’ is a modest one; the representation of 2. That the effect of democratic approaches is to foster sectional interests is not sufficient for those interests and promote economic and social policies which to be met, but it is probably necessary, and it can protect people. be argued that this is why democracy plays a major role 3. That democratic methods act to guarantee economic in the empowerment of people who are otherwise and social welfare. economically and socially disadvantaged. At the same time, the explanation has its weaknesses. Although the conjecture does not preclude the development of First conjecture: that the ideal of democracy common responses, it does not really explain them protects citizens either. There is a risk of tautology: the test of successful There is an intrinsic problem in trying to explain policy ‘responsiveness’ may be applied simply in terms of making in terms of a specific ideal. Explaining the whether the approach delivers what democracy is widespread, or even universal adoption, of patterns of supposed to deliver. And the nature of the explanation social protection in these terms implies that the ideal, tends to imply differences in outcomes rather than despite variations in the way it is expressed, has the same similarities. The various approaches associated with kind of impact in different settings. There is some evidence democracy – such as participation, discussion, pluralism for the diffusion of common values and approaches – or the representation of interests – have to be expressed through issues like trade liberalisation, globalisation within a political forum. If the emphasis in interpretation and pluralistic approaches to welfare – but this is often falls on the process of negotiation and response to seen as implying a reduction in the commitment to circumstances, recognition of the claims of citizens to welfare, rather than strengthening it (Mishra, 1999). No welfare is only one set of factors to consider; others are less important, there are significant differences in ideology interests, constraints and economic and geopolitical and philosophy that characterise social protection (see, influences. As a general explanation for social develop- e.g. Esping-Andersen, 1990). In a complex, highly ment, then, the conjecture seems incomplete. differentiated set of political environments, it is difficult to see a common core of beliefs that might lead directly Third conjecture: that democratic methods guarantee to specific outcomes, a set of mechanisms by which this economic and social welfare might come about or a way of attributing specific policies (like the provision of social assistance or The third proposition is that there is something about healthcare) to the influence of such an ideology. systems of government – like the process of voting, the establishment of formal opposition, or the accountability of government to the electorate – which guarantees the Second conjecture: that democratic approaches foster the position of citizens. Sen (2002) writes: development of social policies There is need to look also at the political In an autocracy, the objectives of government are the circumstances that allow famine and hunger. If the objectives of the rulers; some dictatorships are organised survival of a government is threatened by the with the intention of deifying the government, while prevalence of hunger, the government has an incentive others are only concerned, more modestly, with their to deal with the situation. . . . In democratic countries, enrichment. In a democracy, the objectives of government even very poor ones, the survival of the ruling must take into account the needs and wishes of their government would be threatened by famine, since citizens. Governments are subject to the pressures elections are not easy to win after famines; nor is it associated with electoral politics, and it is probably true easy to withstand criticism of opposition parties and that accountability to a popular electorate creates newspapers. That is why famine does not occur in pressure to respond to their needs. Because governments democratic countries. have to be sensitive to the views and opinions of their electors, the actions of government come to resemble, Some mechanisms are implicit in democratic governance. however imperfectly, the desires of their citizens. May’s It is fairly obvious, for example, that one cannot understanding of democracy as ‘responsive’ government meaningfully talk about the rule of law without the implies that democratic methods are those that lead to legal apparatus to make it possible; it follows that there a correspondence of government action with the wishes must be laws, methods of enforcement and methods of of the people who are affected (May, 1978). adjudication. Held’s (1992) ‘cosmopolitan’ model of This is more plausible than the first conjecture, and democracy is described in terms which link a set of it would be possible to marshal evidence to support it. understandings about the international order with Its strength lies in its flexibility: it is possible for similar policies on security, law enforcement, legal principles, the effects to be produced by a range of alternative settlement of disputes and ‘determinate principles of

Government for the people social justice’. Saward (1998) tries to extend this approach is based partly on the principles of liberal individualism; to argue that education, healthcare and basic income are it is also strongly influenced by the American republican requisite for the conditions of democracy. That seems tradition. The key elements were individual liberty, to me to push the envelope too far, because there are pluralism, and the rule of law and its primacy over identifiable democracies that do not meet those conditions, government. Individual liberty, and to some extent the but it is probably true that the most significant apparatus rights of minorities, is fundamental: a country that of this kind is one which is not commonly thought of oppresses its minorities is generally considered not to as central to democracy: the establishment of transfer be democratic on that account, even if it has the form payments, or redistribution through taxation. Despite of a democratic government in other respects. Pluralism marked variations between countries in the level of is central to the Madisonian concept of democracy: commitment and range of provision, this is generally majority rule is based in the combination of diverse true of all democratic countries. interests, and it is justified if, and only if, there is no There are two reservations to make about taking consistent majority. Madison wrote: redistribution as the basis for an argument on the It is of great importance in a republic not only to substantive elements of democracy. One is that, even if guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, democracy can be used as a justification for redistribution, but to guard one part of the society against the redistribution does not happen just because the majority injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily can vote to take things away from the minority. exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be Societies where this sort of thing happens, like Russia united by a common interest, the rights of the after the revolution, are not generally thought of as minority will be insecure. There are but two methods ‘democratic’. Democratic countries respect property of providing against this evil: the one by creating a rights. The distribution of property does not occur will in the community independent of the majority independently of the social order, and democracy does – that is, of the society itself; the other, by not go beyond the scope of the rule of law. comprehending in the society so many separate The other main reservation is that, despite the descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust preconceptions of many of those who work in the Anglo- combination of a majority on the whole very American tradition, redistribution by the state is not the improbable, if not impracticable. (Federalist 51, characteristic mode of social protection in many 1788: 311) countries. The ‘welfare states’ came relatively late to the provision of social welfare, and most were established The rule of law is required for the protection of rights against a background of pre-existing voluntary, independent and the restraint of government power. and mutualist effort. The general commitment made The liberal democratic model, like representative and by democratic states has not been to universal participative models, still seems to be procedural rather redistribution, but to provision in circumstances where than substantive. However, it provides a route for other methods have failed (Spicker, 2000). An adequate substantive outcomes, in the form of individual rights account of the relationship of democracy and welfare needs and constitutional protections. Some rights are widely to take those elements into account. recognised in the liberal model. They include civil rights – equality before the law, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly – and political rights, including Democracy and rights rights to free speech, the right to vote and participation There are reservations to make about each of the in politics. They do not commonly assume economic conjectures. The problem is not that they are wrong – rights, including free exchange, employment rights or there are tenable arguments to support the second and movement of labour and capital, nor do they include third – but that they cannot account for the general social rights, such as rights to income support, health movement toward social protection. If democracy provides care or housing. And yet rights of this kind, if not social protection, and guarantees the position of the universal, are commonplace in democratic governments. poor, there has to be a mechanism to bring this about. The belief that civil and political rights come before The most likely mechanism is one based on rights. The economic and social ones – found, for example, in argument here is drawn from Sen. Poverty and famines the work of T. H. Marshall (Marshall, 1981) – is based are produced, Sen argues, through lack of entitlement on a strongly Anglo-Saxon perspective, and it is (see Sen & Drèze, 1989). Democracies create entitlements, questionable as a generalisation. Historically, in much of and entitlements are the means by which poverty can continental Europe, civil rights came later than economic be avoided. Those entitlements are manifest in economic and social ones, and democratic procedures have been engagement, political rights and social rights. instituted in a framework that includes such rights. Probably the best known rights-based model of The theoretical link between liberal democracy and democracy is that of liberal democracy. Liberal democracy civil rights rests in the emphasis on liberal principles.

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Liberal democracy is most directly associated with liberalism and there is a widely held view that liberties, or rights that defend people against intervention. economic freedoms are based in the same kinds of The main economic and social rights that are recognised, liberty, which is the foundation of political rights in a such as freedom of commerce or association, fall into liberal democracy. This link is open to question – some the same category. There are few claim-rights – rights regimes have sought to be politically authoritarian while that imply a correlative duty of action on others – being economically liberal – but the claim is not associated with the model. On the face of the matter, negligible, if only because there is such a strong this falls well short of implying substantive economic historical connection between them. If people are free or social rights. to assemble, to interact and to form relationships, they One has to ask, though, whether the objection is will exchange, and they will do so in diverse ways. fundamental: the interpretation of rights seems unduly Conversely, if people are to engage in trade effectively, constrained. Freedom is more than the absence of they need to interact, to communicate and to be able restraint, it also depends on the capacity to act (see to form agreements. Further, the effect of political Spicker, 2006). Liberal principles have been subject to liberalisation on social mobility has had important some contentious and highly ideological interpretations social effects; arguably it implies promotion on merit, (e.g. Hayek, 1960; Nozick, 1974). The assumption, for and with that it offers greater efficiency in the use of example, that people form governments primarily for human capital. The connection between democracy and security and defence (Nozick’s ‘dominant protection economic freedom is, it seems, indirect. It is not agency’), and that legitimate intervention hinges on this democracy that promotes the economy, but liberalism primary role, is difficult to sustain. There has been a that promotes both democracy and commerce. proliferation of new states in recent years, and they This account seems incomplete, however. First, have not been formed simply to defend their citizens; democracy has had a clear historical impact on the they have been formed to do the kinds of thing that development of economic relationships, providing the other states do. Those things include the development forum for the representation of business interests and the of the economy and the provision of social protection. institutionalisation of new forms of social relationship The role of liberal democracies is not to minimise required for economic development, including free government intervention, but to maximise their association and assembly. Democracy does, then, promote citizens’ capacity to act. ‘Government’, Burke argues, the economy. Second, an emphasis on liberal values ‘is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for leaves little room for the intervention of government in human wants’ (Burke, 1790: 71). economic affairs, although in many cases the role of government, and in particular of macroeconomic manage- ment, has been crucial in promoting development. The substantive elements of democracy Third, it is debatable whether liberalism offers an adequate statement of the social rights that have been part of the Democracy and economic development economic development including, for example, labour As a general proposition, the world’s democracies are rights, employment policy and social protection. also the world’s richest countries. Within the democratic countries, there is no necessary link between the quality The development of social rights of their democracy and the extent of their wealth, but for the most part democracies tend to be industrialised, Welfare provision did not depend on democracy to urbanised and rich, whereas dictatorships tend to be develop, and many undemocratic countries have also developing, only semi-urbanised and poor. Over the had extensive systems for social protection, including course of the last 20 years, a large number of new Nazi Germany, and most of the eastern bloc under or reformed countries have committed themselves Soviet domination. In several cases in Western Europe, to democratic government, as part of a process of the development of social welfare provision preceded seeking to establish prosperity and economic growth. democracy. I do not think that it can be shown that there This could be a misconception, but it is not without is a necessary connection between democracy and social foundation. The issues are intimately connected. Sen protection, or even that one is sufficient to explain the identifies economic development closely with the development of the other. Nevertheless democracy and principles of freedom and the development of capacity economic and social rights have developed at the (Sen, 2001). The extension of the formal economy same time, and the concepts are difficult to separate in ensures that people are integrated into it; integration in practice. the processes of the formal economy builds economic In historical terms, the foundations of democracy lie entitlement. in revolutionary ideals framed in terms of the rights of The link between economic development and citizens – ideals such as liberty, equality and fraternity personal freedom has been made in arguments for (see Spicker, 2006). The idea of fraternity, in particular,

Government for the people is little referred to nowadays, but the concept is crucial accountable. This gives government a role as a provider to the formation of social rights. In many countries, of last resort. This does not mean that they have to social rights developed not from the action of the state, make welfare provision – the welfare systems of several but through the collective action of mutual associations. countries, including most of the Scandinavian ones, Some of those associations were secret, some were developed independently of government (Ploug & Kvist, illegal. Part of what people did in these associations 1994) – but someone has to provide social protection, was political, and part religious. But part was and where this is not done independently it becomes the concerned with social organisation, and the reason for government’s responsibility (Spicker, 2000). Every the engagement with collective action was solidarity – democratic government has some form of residual, or solidarity, not in the caricatured sense of standing safety net, provision to cover the contingencies where shoulder to shoulder at the barricades, but in the people are not otherwise protected through existing Catholic sense of the acceptance of mutual and collective mechanisms of social support, and the same is not true responsibility as a means of protecting their members. of other, non-democratic governments. When people used rights of assembly, this is the kind The provision made in residual systems is not necessarily of thing they assembled to do. The role of trades unions comprehensive – countries like Germany and the USA in the establishment of social protection is illustrative. have significant gaps in their coverage, most markedly Trades unions in European countries did not simply for people of working age (Smeeding, O’Higgins & press for their political masters to do something; in Rainwater, 1990) – but, over time, it is clear that the several, they engaged in provision, forming mutual pressure has been to make the provision more general. associations to provide for members themselves Because residual systems are administratively inefficient – (Baldwin, 1990). special cases and maintaining boundaries make work – This was not equally true in every country. In the and because there is often a more general pressure UK, the emphasis on the role of the state eroded the to provide social protection, nearly all democratic work of friendly societies and mutual aid (Gladstone, governments have extended the range of provision well 1999); in France, mutual aid societies became illegal beyond the minimum required for residual coverage. after the restoration, and they developed only in the early The boundaries of provision are often unclear; there are 20th century (Join-Lambert et al., 1994). In Northern problems because of lack of equity between those who Europe, by contrast, activity by unions and mutual aid qualify and those who do not. In a democracy, the societies was fundamental to the development of pressure for solidarity is compounded by the need of those countries’ welfare systems, and in Germany, governments to recognise the demands and priorities Bismarck’s scheme of state insurance was intended to of its constituency. In the UK, despite the attempts of redress the growth of socialism by stealing the guilds’ administrators and politicians to restrain expenditure, thunder (Ritter, 1983). the experience of the Poor Law was one of incremental, What happened, as governments developed the expanding commitments to welfare; the suspension of practice of democracy, was that they were required to civil rights of paupers under the Poor Law ceased to be take into account the structures and systems developed viable when voters needed to use the Poor Law hospitals by such mutualist organisations. Some governments (Abel Smith, 1964). Consider, too, the example of simply accepted the status quo ante. In Germany, the America’s ‘reluctant welfare state’, which, despite its social insurance systems passed, largely unaffected, nominally private market foundations, offers health care from early democracy, through dictatorship, to the coverage for elderly people, people on low incomes, constitutional democracy of the post-war Federal veterans and psychiatric patients, and effectively ends Republic (Rosenhaft, 1994). Other governments felt a up paying for nearly half the health care in the USA political imperative to expand the range of provision: (45 per cent in 2006: OECD, 2007b). In every case, the France attempted to complete the network of patchwork role of provider of last resort has proved to be unsustain- services through the extension of arrangements across able, and has been extended or replaced through a all the workforce (Dupeyroux & Ruellan, 1998), gradual expansion of government responsibility. I whereas the British government sought to redress the posed earlier the question of why every democratic deficiencies of the Poor Law by developing a uniform government has a system of welfare provision. The national system with (despite Beveridge’s (1942) best answer is complex, but the pressure to go beyond a efforts) only a supplementary role for mutuals. minimal role seems to imply that they have not been The theoretical views of democracy considered able to act otherwise. earlier have a common implication: that democratic governments are responsible, in broad terms, for the Conclusion welfare of their citizens. Normative principles are combined with the representation of interests and Because democracy is so commonly identified in mechanisms by which governments can be held procedural terms, the procedures have come to stand for

Spicker the points that people actually value. Voting is a Benn S, Peters R (1959). Social principles and the democratic symbol, not the thing itself. The right to vote is state, p. 354. London, Allen and Unwin. Beveridge W (1942). Social insurance and allied services. Cmd procedural, but it is not just procedural; it is about the 6404, London, HMSO. ability to have a say, to hold governments accountable Bobbio N (1987). The future of democracy. Cambridge, Polity. and to assert the rights of citizenship. Charles Taylor Bolderson H, Mabbett D (1995). Mongrels or thoroughbreds: a makes a general point about freedom: that people are cross-national look at social security systems. European Journal of Political Research 28: 119–139. not interested in ‘freedom’ in the abstract. They want Bowles S, Gintis H (1986). Democracy and capitalism. London, to know what they are free to do, and the value of Routledge and Kegan Paul. freedom depends on the value of the action they wish Burke E (1790). 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