Notions of Modern Democracy: Beyond Majority Rules

Introduction: What Is Democracy?

"Democracy" is a word that is often bandied about as a term with an inherently positive meaning in the public political discourse of America as well as other Western — and some non-Western — nations. But what constitutes a democratic political system, much less democratic political values, often varies from country to country, almost as much as the definition of democracy has varied from one political epoch to the next. In the introductory chapter of his edited volume, Comparative Democracy and Democratization, Howard J. Wiarda puts forward the idea that rather than forming a singular and universal schema of values, democracy is in fact very particular and based on very different local, regional, and cultural traditions and institutions.

Ancient Athens and Pure Democracy

Technically, of course, neither America nor any modern nation-state is truly a pure democracy. The city-state of ancient Athens in Greece defined itself as a pure democracy. In Classical Athens, all Athenian citizens came together and collectively decided whether, for instance, the nation should go to war. Those who decided the nation should fight would have to take up arms themselves if the majority of their fellow Athenians believed in any particular war. Athens was a pure democracy because it was guided by the fundamental principle of "majority rules." Political offices were rotated and filled by lot.

American Representative Democracy

In America today, in our modern republic of representational democratic values, the populace elects representatives to speak and vote on their behalf. Regional representatives of states and districts speak for the constituents who reside in their respective states and districts. At the level of the executive branch, the president speaks for the nation as a whole. Greece might seem superior in form in that those individuals who fight are the same ones who vote for or against war — whereas in America an individual in Congress may be represented by a politician he or she did not elect.

However, in the supposedly pure democracy that was Athens, citizenship by its very nature was extremely limited to free males residing within the city-state, unlike the more expansive definition of citizenship in the larger modern nation of America. A pure democracy must be small, and often the majority can be just as tyrannical as a minority.

Minority Rights and Democratic Limits

Recognizing this limitation, America has formulated a conception of minority rights. Even members of unpopular minorities hold rights that cannot be infringed upon by the concerns of the majority. This protection against majoritarian tyranny is one of the defining features that distinguishes the American model from a purely numerical conception of democratic rule.

Comparative Democratic Systems

Even today, America's own representative system has received criticism from interpreters of the democratic concept in other countries. America's political environment takes the form, by and large, of a two-party structure. Within European Parliamentary systems — in Italy, Germany, and France, and also in nations such as Israel — diverse political interests are represented by the voices of many political parties. This creates a less stable political environment, but conceptually allows a greater influx of ideas into the public political discourse. Is this more democratic? Some might answer yes.

Even in the relatively more coherent political environment of England, the Parliamentary system results in a less divided form of government. When the people speak through elections, the popular will can be more swiftly enacted in a system with fewer checks and balances built into its structure than America's. Is this more democratic? Again, many might concur.

However, the answer to both questions may be that it is better — in Israel's case, for instance — to have certain democratic forms suited to specific national circumstances that might not be appropriate to all nations. In smaller nations with a great deal of ideological diversity and ongoing debate about what democracy means within that particular context, a multi-party system may be more appropriate. In a nation with few regional bases of political discourse, a more dynamic political environment might be required — one where more voices can speak across a wider variety of ideological registers.