How a Procedural Democrat Can Respond to Critics of "Responsiveness"

 

In my book, I argue that, as it is intrinsically good for an individual to get what she or he wants, so it is also good for a group. And, as I take democracy to be, at root, a political system that is designed to fairly, accurately, and frequently determine what the people within it want and then attempts to deliver it to them, I hold that obtaining a democracy is also intrinsically good. 

There is no shortage of investigators,* however, who do not accept one or both of the following claims:

1. Democracies are best evaluated by their responsiveness to (how closely they reflect) the "will of the people."
2. Responsiveness is measurable in some universally approved, satisfactory way. 

That is, while it may be thought even by someone who agrees that  weighing responsiveness to the desires of the electorate is a sensible way to determine how democratic a system is, there's no good way to do it. Not only are there deep divisions about what sort of voting methods would accomplish this mirroring, it is also insisted that it would be impossible for elections to do anything like that, even if they could be made perfect. 

So, other measures have been considered instead. Perhaps the key to being a good democracy is thought to be how many people vote, or how well the poorest cohort is doing, or how generally peaceful and prosperous the place is, or how high the level of "workers' rights" is. Whatever evaluative measures are chosen, those are pushed instead of responsiveness, either as a way to determine how democratic a place is or as a substitute, because they are thought to matter more than any supposed "level of democracy" ever could. In addition, the critics may demand that more focus be placed on the "getting" and less on the "wanting." For they may point out that people may not only disagree on whether some implementation is really what they have asked for, but can also change their minds at any point subsequent to an election. 

These issues are discussed at some length in my book, but it may be well to take a minute to summarize some reasonable responses to the responsiveness critic here. To simplify, let's not quibble about what should be meant when one uses the term "democracy," but rather simply agree that at the very least it has to require something like the majority "getting what it wants." Of course, if I make that simplifying move, I will have to allow that democracy might not "really" be such a good thing for the people said to be "enjoying" it. There's a trade-off that one must be willing to make here--where no analysis of well-being is provided. In my book, while I accept a definition of "democracy" that involves responsiveness, I also try to show through an analysis of what it means for persons or groups to be well-off, how improvements in group well-being are essentially connected with increases in democracy. 

To answer objection 2 above, it is necessary to have a theory of what votes are and what can make elections the best way to determine what groups want. So, I also attempt that in the book, and I will not try to replicate those arguments here. There is more. To move forward here we will also have to suppose that we've reached some sort of basic agreement on how to make appropriate assessments of what an electorate wants at any given time: that is, we must be all set with the voting rules, the frequency of elections, ease of ballot entry, campaign finance--all the procedural items. (I well understand that all of those matters are controversial!) 

One other thing we'll have to do to make any progress is settle on the fact that in any modern state we'll have to be talking about a representative system, not any sort of direct free-for-all. Only the smallest "city-states" can actually be governed directly, although levels of citizen participation can certainly vary a great deal in representative systems. Finally, if what we've stipulated to so far is to make any sense at all, it must be understood that some sort of rule of law is required. There's no point in saying that voting must be like this or that or that representation must have certain characteristics unless there are at least some rules that simply must be followed. And that in turn requires some area where final, unappealable judicial or other review cannot be undone--even by large majorities. 

So, that is the list of stipulation items that I am forced to request here, and in this blog entry I'll give no additional defense of any of them. I'm afraid, however, that none of this will have been to any avail. For this is the point at which I'd expect the critic of responsiveness to reply, "All these stipulations will do you no good whatever. You won't be able to gauge whether a polity is producing what is wanted because of the huge number of unclarities and ambiguities surrounding your attempt--even given the items you've asked for here. To give just one problem, you insist both that in a democratic regime the electorate may not be against majoritarianism and that, on the contrary they may not oppose a principle that majorities should be able to get whatever they want. How can that not be contradictory? Again, maybe the people want secure-from-majorities protection of various basic rights that the radical democrat does not allow for, or maybe they lean in the other direction and just want a dictator! Either you support radical majoritarianism or you don't--but you want it both ways! Well, so be it--it's your game to make what rules you want. Even then, it will remain the case that you don't tell us what we should infer when voters change their mind after an election. And you don't say what you take to be an acceptable lag time between an election and a requested result--or even how we can tell whether what some government has provided really does satisfy the electoral demands. Are satisfaction polls supposed to be taken? What is worst of all, of course, is that, on your view an extremely poor, unhappy--indeed miserable!--populace can be said to be getting precisely what they want, even when they all insist that they aren't!"

These sorts of objections are also discussed at some length in my book, but some short answers are that if we disallow initiative petitions and focus on the choosing of representatives, questions about whether election results have really produced what is wanted disappear the moment those victors are sworn in. And the concern that the newly minted officials may not actually do what is wanted of them can be handled by the proceduralist by requiring the easy availability of recall of officials, of referendums for repealing enacted laws, and (in limited areas) a way in which the electorate can reverse judicial decisions. Short, renewable terms for officials and campaign finance reforms will, of course, also be necessary. In this way, if the electorate really doesn't like something that its government is doing or has done, they will be provided easy opportunities to undo it. (Not any impeachment nonsense like we've seen twice with respect to Donald Trump, for example). The authentic democrat will say, in a word, that no other sorts of measurements of success are needed.

To continue, exaltation of (responsive) democracy does not allow for the undoing of democratic principles like majoritarianism or free and fair elections even by the people. That is an ineliminable constraint or there will be no democracy. So, contrary to one of the above complaints, authentic democracy does require certain "rights"--the political ones, like speech, assembly, association, and press. Wanting an anti-democratic regime simply doesn't count here. Furthermore, democracy also requires equal protection of all the people and explicit prohibitions against unfair discrimination. All of these simply follow from our democratic axioms: we can't really know what the people want without these guarantees firmly in place. It should not be suggested that the authentic democrat is entirely opposed to "rights" protections, just because it endorses a smaller list of them than a traditional liberal may. If a group wants additional constraints against "majority tyranny" they can vote for representatives who they believe will enact them, but later majorities must be given the power to effectively disagree and repeal any of them not required by any democratic system: such a power of repeal can be allowed to apply to the additional, non-essential "rights" only. 

It exalted as I think the authentic democrat must exalt it, has never been claimed to be a panacea. All it can be correctly be said to do is get the people what they want (at least in the way of representation)--and for exactly so long as they want it. Getting such procedures in place is the most important first step to authentic democracy. And, in my view, pressing for additional requirements--or for the diminution or elimination of those the democrat advocates--do not involve democracy at all, but other things those theorists happen to endorse--like wealth equality or prosperity. I don't deny that such ends may be lovely--I may want them myself--but they are often not democratic ends. They may, in fact, be extremely anti-democratic. At any rate, I have more modest interests myself when I theorize in this area. I say only that if you provide real democracy, though I may personally want other things too, I will promise to declare: Ich habe genug! 

* For an excellent discussion of these matters, see Andrew Sabl, "The Two Cultures of Democratic Theory: Responsiveness, Democratic Quality and the Empirical Normative Divide," Perspectives on Politics, 2015. A summary of earlier literature on these matters can be found in Andrew Roberts, "The Quality of Democracy," Comparative Politics, 2005.