I mean, Prof. Charles Beitz of Princeton wants more and better democracy, and I want more and better democracy. He says our system is badly broken, and I agree. We both think Blacks, Latinos, and the poor are discriminated against in electoral proceedings. You'd think that would be sufficient to produce a close alliance. Furthermore, my tendency to quibble with distinguished political scientists over similar matters is hard to deny. Perhaps a dozen of my "Hornbook" reviews focus on the same stuff. Am I the problem?
The thing is, the many agreements between all these poli-sci mavens and me hide a basic disagreement regarding just what democracy is--and why anybody should want it in the first place. I generally want more democracy, while my adversaries, seeing many of the same current flaws, often claim that additional Madisonian constraints will provide the solution.
FWIW, I've lately come to think that the best way of determining (through my own idiosyncratic dark glass) who are and who are not authentic democrats, rather than supporters of new constraints on representative majoritarianism, is whether the subject can support a robust recall provision. If they think such provisions "would likely cause more trouble than they're worth," I am likely to conclude that they have a problem with majority rule, generally. If they say that recall is actually contrary to democracy, because it allows for the overturning of fair elections, they seem to me not to have considered that constitutional provisions can (and should be) changed precisely to remove any such alleged contradictions by beginning to explicitly contemplate recall. Why is this crucial? Because people change their minds, and when they do, democracy requires that those alterations in citizen desires have real effects on government. No congruence or responsiveness--no democracy.
Anyhow, God bless the early 20th Century Progressives, who got more of this stuff right than anybody has since.
