Democratic Theory

DEMOCRATIC THEORY In this philosophically sophisticated textbook analysis of democracy, J. L. Hyland explores in depth the concept which has come to reign supreme in the pantheon of political ideas. He examines systematically the major topics and problems of democratic theory: the nature of democracy, majoritarianism, democracy and individual freedom, power and the relationship between socioeconomic factors and political equality. In assessing the work of the major democratic theorists, whose accounts frequently conflict, the author seeks to answer the central questions surrounding the subject: What is democracy? What values does it provide? Can democracy fulfil its promise, or is it an unachievable goal to which we merely pay lip-service? Is democracy always justified? What are the counter-democratic features of modern society? J. L. Hyland is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science, Trinity College, Dublin DEMOCRATIC THEORY The philosophical foundations JAMES L. HYLAND MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS Manchester and New York distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press Copyright ©James L. Hyland 1995 Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400,175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hyland, James L, 1945- Democratic theory: the philosophical foundations /James L. Hyland. p. cm. ISBN 0-7190-3941-X. — ISBN 0-719CM517-7 (pbk.) 1. Democracy I. Title. JC423.H95 1994 321.8'01—dc20 94-16673 CIP ISBN 0 7190 3941 X hardback 07190 4517 7 paperback Photoset in Iinotron Joanna by Northern Phototypesetting Co. Ltd, Bolton Printed in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow Contents Introduction pagel 1 Political philosophy and the tasks of democratic theory 5 2 What is democracy? The question of method 36 3 Democracy and political equality 51 4 The quantitative and the qualitative dimensions: the extent of the franchise and majority rule 76 5 The liberal variant: democracy as rights 101 6 Democracy, anarchism and the liberal democratic synthesis 141 7 Justifying democracy 162 8 Democracy, power and domination 193 9 Democracy and the economy 221 1 The logical limits of democracy 246 0 Notes 265 Index 275 Introduction Although I argue in Chapter 1 that political theory has to be thought of as an integrated synthesis of philosophical, normative and empirical analysis, the primary purpose of this book is to introduce students to a serious treatment of those philosophical and normative problems that lie at the heart of democratic theory and practice. Chapters 1 and 2 are methodological. In Chapter 11 begin by arguing for a conception of political theory that is essentially normative. Political theory should be concerned with the evaluative appraisal of possible forms of political and social organisation and the principles upon which they are based. Such analysis can be neither purely philosophical nor purely empirical. The nature, value and readability of social and political ideals can only be established by means of philosophical reflection, but a philosophical reflection mat is continuously informed by empirical analysis. This conception of political theory immediately raises a major philosophical problem concerning the extent to which the value of social and political ideals can be subject to rational argumentation. At the centre of Chapter 1 is an account of the forms of rational argument that can, I claim, result in conclusions that are important and significant for the justification and choice of political and social ideals. I conclude the chapter by identifying the tasks of a political theory of democracy, those tasks being, in simple terms, to identify what democracy is, to specify the evaluative principles necessary to justify democracy and ask how justifiable those principles are and, finally, to determine the conditions required for die realisation of democratic ideals. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 deal with the question of the nature of democracy. The first problem we encounter in attempting to answer that question is again a methodological one. The main purpose of Chapter 2 is to argue that identifying the nature of democracy should be conceived of neither as an investigation into the timeless 'essence' of democracy nor as an elucidation of some universal and timeless concept of democracy. The appropriate method, I will 2 Democratic theory argue, has to consist in a construction of a concept of democracy, the justification of the specific construction lying partly in the ability of the concept to capture in a coherent manner significant and core elements of previous usages of the term and partly in the manner in which the concept as constructed enables a theorist to deal with the problems and concerns of democratic theory and practice. In Chapter 31 begin to construct an account of democracy as political equality in all the moments of collective decision-making and I argue that we should conceive of this equality as effective equality, involv- ing both equality of procedural entitlements to participate in a decision-making process and adequate access to that wide range of resources that would enable a person to utilise her or his procedural entitlements. I concentrate in this chapter on the problem of how we should conceive of the full range of procedural entitlements and rights that would be required to maximise political equality in any decision-making process. There are two particular problems that emerge in this context that require fairly detailed analysis and I move on in Chapter 4 to the treatment, firstly, of the problem of how far the degree of political equality in a society depends upon the number of people to whom rights of participation are extended and, secondly, how the maximisation of political equality within a decision-making procedure is affected by the technical voting rules. I am, in particular, concerned in this chapter to argue that any restrictions on the extent of the franchise diminish political equality and that the claims of the majority rule procedure to maximise political equality are unfounded. On the contrary, I argue that the realisation of political equality requires both the maximum extent of enfranchisement and the operation of a thoroughly proportional decision-making procedure and distribution of power. My argument up to this point, then, has been that we should conceive of political rule as being democratic to the extent that all those significantly affected by the decisions have equal and effective rights of participation at all levels ofdecision-making, with the understand- ing that this effectiveness is crucially dependent on adequate access to resources necessary to enable full and meaningful participation. The questions we then face are: how justifiable as a political ideal is such a conception of democracy and what are the social conditions required for its realisation? Before approaching these questions directly, however, I exam- ine in Chapter 5 a major alternative to the conception of democracy so far outlined, the conception that I refer to as the juridico-legal variant. There is a very influential tradition of political thought that Introduction 3 argues, firstly, that democracy should be conceived of simply as that complex of juridico-legal rights that constitutes liberal repre- sentative government and, secondly, that the purpose of this complex of rights is not to ensure maximal participation in all levels of political decision-making but rather to preserve maximal individual freedom from governmental control. From this perspective it can be argued that the promotion of active political equality as an ideal will lead to a destruction of those values that democracy is meant to preserve. I argue in this chapter, firstly, that the question is not the semantic, conceptual one concerning which of the two opposing conceptions correctly identifies the real meaning of democracy, but the normative question concerning which of the two ideals is more justifiable. I subject the arguments in favour of the juridico-legal ideal of democracy to critical analysis that, at its heart, raises fundamental questions concerning freedom, autonomy, res- ponsibility, coercion and constraint. Overall, the arguments in this chapter tend to the conclusion that, if the goal is to maximise the freedom and autonomy of everyone in a community, a wide range of collective affairs will need to be brought within the scope of collective decision-making and that, in that context, real ability to fully participate in political decision-making is going to be of critical significance. A central question of modern political theory emerges in this argument, the question of whether there are strict limits to the legitimate scope of collective decision-making determined by inalienable individual rights, the infringement of which would render decisions illegitimate, no matter how democratic they were and no matter how beneficial the collective, aggregate conse- quences might be. I take up this question in Chapter 6 where, firstly, I look at the extreme anarchist position that would deny all legitimacy even to a maximally democratic government and, secondly, I exam- ine the liberal democratic syndiesis that postulates external determinants of democratic legitimacy deriving from individual rights. I argue that the anarchist argument is seriously flawed and that the liberal attempt to specify external determinants of democratic legitimacy is inevitably, in the last analysis, undemocratic. This would constitute a criticism of the liberal democratic synthesis only if it could be shown that in the sphere of collective decision-making democracy was the uniquely justifiable procedure. I move on in Chapter 7 to the question of how a justification of democracy can be constructed. My argument falls into two major sections.

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