Appendices Appendix A: Types of Democracies
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APPENDICES APPENDIX A: TYPES OF DEMOCRaCIES Advocacy Democracy Robert Dahl (1970: 149) once suggested that every elected official should have a citizens’ advisory council, members of which would be chosen by lot. A similar proposal for citizens’ advisory commissions has been spelled out in more detail (Dalton, Bürklin, Drummond 2001, Dalton, Scarrow, Cain 2003: 10–11) in order to forge advocacy democracy, which would broaden what now exists at the local level when citizens are notified of hearings regarding housing developments in their neighborhoods and then attend to give their views before planning commissions. Anticipatory Democracy As coined by Alvin Toffler inFuture Shock (1970), the idea is for policy-making based on credible predictions that are accepted by the public (cf. Bezold 1978). The public should accept expert forecasts while voting, but there is no procedural innovation involved beyond having more public education and more public input. Cellular Democracy Neighborhood councils were set up in American cit- ies during the 1970s so that small communities in big cities could deter- mine policies for each part of town. With that concept in mind, the idea arose to divide a country into districts of about 500 persons, and then ten to twenty districts would form a level 2 council and so forth up to the state level (Foldvary 2002). Such a scheme was favored by Thomas Jefferson, who proposed having small wards as the ideal democratic unit (cf. Young 1996). Some proponents believe that cellular democracy could be the foundation for global democracy. © The Author(s) 2019 317 M. Haas, Why Democracies Flounder and Fail, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74070-6 318 APPEndIX A: TyPEs Of DemOcracIEs Christian Democracy Much of Western Europe has been governed by Christian Democratic parties that subscribe to a social market economy and until recently have been conservative on cultural issues (Sigmund 1996). There is no procedural innovation involved (cf. Driessen 2013). Conservative Democracy Turkey’s ruling party coined the term to describe a brand of rule compatible with Islam that is secular, neoliberal in eco- nomics, with some socially liberal policies, and Western-oriented in for- eign policy (Cagaptay 2006). Morocco and Tunisia have similar types of democracies. However, Turkey has veered away from the model, particu- larly after the abortive coup of 2016. Consociational Democracy Andrew Lijphart (1999) has described a type of democracy in which policy-making is by consensus rather than majority vote. The aim is to enable minority groups and their perspectives to be included as well as to avoid rash decisions that might result in blowback from those not considered. In effect, there is a minority veto. Rather than a majority zero-sum culture, Cabinet positions are carefully selected to represent various veto groups. As a result, legislative compromises, which might be contentious, are superseded by behind-closed-doors bargaining. Lijphart’s prescription is for societies divided by ethnicity, race, or religion to have political parties form a “grand coalition” instead of a minimum winning coalition (cf. Riker 1962). Rather than just a proposal, the model describes how decisions are actually made in parts of Europe (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland) and the State of Hawai’i (Haas 2016). However, consensus decision-making is a major part of Indonesian politics (Haas 2013). Japanese decision-makers follow the practice of consensus decision-making, known as nemawashi, valuing each person equally when decisions are made (Eisenstadt 1996b), though minority groups are not included in the larger political system. Popular Front governments of many political parties, formed during World War II or immediately afterward in Europe, sought to inform the deeply divided masses (who took opposite viewpoints during the conflict) that they would be treated fairly because decisions would emerge from bargaining and consensus, not payback. Controlled Democracy In 1992, a democratic election was held in Algeria, but the military would not accept the results. Ever since, the military and a select group of unelected civilians have made major decisions, such as who should be president (Daoud 2015). The same has applied to Burma APPEndIX A: TyPEs Of DemOcracIE s 319 (now Myanmar), where the military would not accept results of the 1990 election, though recent reforms have introduced democratic legislative elections with reserved seats for the military. Delegative or Liquid Democracy Although members of legislatures today are usually considered to represent those who elect them, some may con- sider themselves delegates—that is, individuals to whom voters have entrusted the power to act based on their superior experience, judgment, and knowledge—and thus do not necessarily mirror views expressed in public opinion polls. Edmund Burke (1854: vol. I: 446–48) famously lost his seat in parliament when he explained to the electors of Bristol in 1774 that he was their delegate, not their representative. Based on the tradi- tional concept of delegate, some theorists have developed a more flexible though complex system in which knowledgable citizens might serve as delegates in various issue-areas (Paulin 2014). When laws give consider- able discretion to bureaucrats, they in effect become delegates. Deliberative Democracy Nowadays, legislators often pass measures with a minimum of debate, but not so in Athens, town-hall democracies, and conceptions of the legislature by Edmond Burke (1854: 446–48) and James Madison (Dryzek 2010: 21). In deliberative democracy, authentic deliberation must occur for laws to be legitimate. Various rules have been developed to define what “authentic” means in practice (Bessette 1980; Fishkin 2011). After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, delib- erative democracy describes how citizens came together to determine budget allocations (ibid.: preface; Ross 2011: chap. 3). Demarchy As proposed by John Burnheim (1985), government would be divided into small, independent groups, with each group responsible for a different function. Volunteers within each group would be selected by lot to serve on the higher decision-making council. Direct or Pure Democracy As in the classic case of Athenian democracy, the people vote directly. No intermediate bodies are involved. Swiss cantons did so in the late Middle Ages, inspiring Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762). During the Spanish Civil War, direct decision-making by supporters of the Spanish Republic impressed George Orwell to write Homage to Catalonia (1938). Today, with home and office computers, “direct digital democracy” or “e-democracy” is possible if everyone is on the same website (Jafarkarimi et al. 2014). 320 APPEndIX A: TyPEs Of DemOcracIEs Economic Democracy Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1846) saw no alter- native but the establishment of economic equality to provide justice after the advent of the industrial age. However, the term “economic democ- racy” has also been used by libertarians to argue that the market is the ultimate equalizer between consumers and producers (Mises 1931). Between the two variants, many theorists have tried to find a way to even the terrain between the rich and the poor with or without economic redis- tribution by governments. Worker self-management is one way at the micro-level (Schweickart 2002: 47–49). Public cooperatives and con- sumer cooperatives can augment the reform (MacLeod 1997). Gar Alperovitz (2013) goes further, urging the formation of a Pluralist Commonwealth of public banks and social enterprises. Social Credit polit- ical parties in Canada, following the line of thinking that assumes robots will take over most industrial jobs (Cook 2008; cf. Douglas 1933: 4–9), argue for government-guaranteed individual income in the form of cash stipends, wiping out poverty. Yet another example is the income received by each Alaskan from revenue derived from taxing petroleum production (Barnes 2006). Such ideas have been supported by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968: 164) and others (cf. Dahl 1985). Empowered Democracy Roberto Unger (1987) has proposed several spe- cific government reforms to overcome policy gridlock. Under the umbrella of empowered democracy, he would refocus the economy on small busi- ness, reform education to encourage creativity, establish a government department to handle problems for the disadvantaged, allow subnational jurisdictions to opt out of national policies in order to experiment with reforms, and encourage all citizens to play active roles in both the produc- tive and caring economies. Similar changes would improve social democ- racy (described below). Ethnic Democracy In contrast with ethnocracy, in which one ethnic group dominates all others, Sammy Smooha (1989) favors a situation in which the main ethnic group has more power and political rights than minority groups but the latter nevertheless retain basic civil rights. His model applies to Israel, and he finds parallels in Estonia, Latvia, Malaysia, and Slovakia. Fiji, similarly, has sought to ensure that the indigenous group will not be outvoted. APPEndIX A: TyPEs Of DemOcracIE s 321 Grassroots Democracy Rather than top-down central control over locali- ties, grassroots democracy favors considerable power at the local level, where decisions can be made through direct democracy (Kaufman and Alfonso 1997). Most contemporary examples of grassroots democracy are local movements to stop developments that compromise the environment, in which