Democracy

Democracy

Introduction

Today, almost everyone is in favor of democracy. Nearly every measure undertaken by our government, whether foreign or domestic, is legitimated by invoking the term 'democracy'—whether it be the invasion of another country or the privatization of social security. Similarly, the economic marketplace is often spoken of as 'democratic', with consumers 'voting' their preferences with their dollars. Likewise, the expansion of stock ownership through pension systems and IRAs is sometimes claimed to represent the democratization of capitalism. Opportunity for upward social mobility is likewise spoken of as democratic. Even fast food chains that allow you to have your hamburger 'your way,' suggest that such 'free choice' is democratic. It seems that everything is being marketed as 'democratic' these days. In other words, it is a much abused concept.

Discussion

Specifically, I want to sort out two of the main, competing concepts of democracy now current. One is the concept of popular or participatory democracy; the other is elitist democracy. The first is the classical idea suggested in the original Greek word which referred to the rule or power, cratos, of the people, demos. In this sense, 'democracy' means people's power (Yarbrough, Dick, 2004).

But in the contemporary world, 'democracy' has come to mean rule by a political elite so long as it has been elected by popular vote. In presenting this competing definition this way I am not just loading the deck against it. In fact, I am simply reflecting the way advocates of this concept themselves understand it. An elitist theory of democracy has become the canonical idea among US political scientists, politicians, journalists and other opinion-makers (Westheimer, Joel; Kahne, Joseph, 2003). For them, 'democracy' means the selection of political decision-makers from among competing elites by means of popular elections. Most accept Joseph Schumpeter's definition of 'democracy' as “that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people's vote.” As he put it, the role of the people is simply to produce a government. The people are sovereign only on election day. Once they have done their job, they should go back to their private affairs and leave governing to the elite they have selected (Drisko, John, 1993).

It is because of this dim view of the citizen that he limits their role to producing a government. One might ask, given what he takes to be these weaknesses of 'human nature', why he would entrust even this to the citizenry. In any case, the sooner political power can pass to the elite, who are presumably immune to these weaknesses, the better. Democracy is then simply the institutional arrangement to carry that transfer out through a very limited kind of consent (Hughey, Gary, 2004).

The elitist theory of democracy draws heavily from the early 20th century Italian social theorists Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto as well as Roberto Michels. Mosca's massified people were in need of rule by an elite (Hughey, Gary, ...