What Is Democracy?

Both etymology and history suggest that the primary meaning of democracy — certainly at least its original meaning — relates to a form of government. According to the classical tradition it is government by the many, as contrasted with government by one or a few. Other meanings, as implied for instance by Plato's description of the democratic man, were derived either by extensions of the original meaning to other applications than the political or by applying the term to attributes of existing democracies and their citizens. Herodotus defined it as the "rule of the many" (sometimes translated as "the multitude's rule") and also as a society in which "equality before the law" prevails and where the holder of political office "is answerable for what he does." The OED defines it as "government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them ... or by officers elected by them. In modern use often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or arbitrary differences of rank or privilege."

One of the earliest formulations of the principle behind the more modern usage to which the OED refers was given a famous formulation by Colonel Rainborough in the Putney Debates, when he declared that "the poorest he ... hath a life to live, as the greatest he." Rainborough went on to say that "every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government." Spelled out in modern idiom, the ideals to which this leading Leveller was giving expression in mid-seventeenth-century England were those of the supreme value of the individual and of individual autonomy. These values were attributed to all individuals, without distinction; each must count equally. Moreover, the value, or the "dignity," as it is often called, of the individual demands that, in some sense, he shall be master of his own fate. What is ultimately best for him is for him to decide. Thus the twin democratic ideals of liberty and equality are both derived from the notions of human dignity and autonomy (which, in turn, they imply); and democracy is, in this sense at least, a profoundly individualistic doctrine.

Yet democracy's individualism merges easily with that third element of the democratic triumvirate of values, fraternity. Respect for the worth of each individual, the basic humanism of democracy, means that violence, and indeed all coercion, is considered evil, even when necessary. Decisions affecting the whole group should preferably be made by consensus. Authority should not operate in such a way as to put any member of the society at a political disadvantage because of his economic or social status. Communication should be full and free, regardless of rank and power.

The emphasis on communication is important and calls for some elaboration. Discussion has been said by some to be the essence of democracy. Thus A. D. Lindsay declares that "when men who are serving a common purpose meet to pool their experience, to air their difficulties and even their discontents, there comes about a real process of collective thinking." Again, he remarks, "Observe further that the moment we take discussion seriously, we are committed to the view that we are concerned not primarily to obtain or register consent, but to find something out."

Finally, we must add the element of human development. This idea, frequently articulated by John Dewey, is encapsulated in C. B. Macpherson's statement that the aim of democracy is "to provide the conditions for the free development of human capacities, and to do this equally for all members of the society." As the quotation implies, development may be thought of as so closely connected with liberty as not to require separate enumeration.

This democratic ideal of liberty-cum-equality-and-fraternity (including free and full discussion of common problems and interests), with roots deep in the Judeo-Christian tradition, is, in the popular sense of the term, idealistic; and it shares the vagueness that commonly attaches to ideals. As with ideals generally, it may be approximated in practice in varying degrees. Also it is applicable to all kinds of social relations outside of the realm of politics. At the same time, it has become more basic than the more precise and probably prior meaning of "government by the people." As applied to the polity, then, the definition of democracy as an ideal may be phrased as "government by the people, where liberty, equality, and fraternity are secured to the greatest possible degree and in which human capacities are developed to the utmost, by means including free and full discussion of common problems and interests."

The procedural definition, likewise beginning with "government by the people," renders this phrase more precise by relating it to a set of procedures rather than to certain values. An extreme version of this type of definition is found in the work of Y. Murakami. He defines democracy as "a social decision function consisting of and only of voting procedures." More precisely, he declares, "a social decision function F(D1, D2, ..., Dn) is called a democracy, if the function can be expressed only by voting operators — without any resort to negations and constants — and the function is nondictatorial, where nondictatorship is defined as follows: ... 'A social decision function F(D1 D2, ..., Dn) is called nondictatorial, if there is no individual whose preference is always adopted by the society.'"

A less technical but still fairly precise procedural (or operational) definition of democracy will be adopted here. It runs along the following lines. A democracy is rule by the people where "the people" includes all adult citizens not excluded by some generally agreed upon and reasonable disqualifying factor, such as confinement to prison or to an asylum for the mentally ill, or some procedural requirement, such as residency within a particular electoral district for a reasonable length of time before the election in question. "Rule" means that public policies are determined either directly by vote of the electorate or indirectly by officials freely elected at reasonably frequent intervals and by a process in which each voter who chooses to vote counts equally ("one person, one vote") and in which a plurality is determinative.

It will be noted that this definition includes majority rule in the sense of nonminority rule, which is to say that no...