One of the significant challenges to demarchy is in Burnheim’s perspective of citizens’ democratic engagement. To demonstrate this, I will first explore commentators’ objections to the idea that citizens are willing and able to participate in the manner demarchy requires. I will then explore Burgh’s response to this, as he argues that demarchy itself can be used as a learning process.
Demarchy does far more than rearrange democratic processes to make them more effective and efficient; it requires a significant change to the way people participate as well as a dramatic increase to the number of people willing to participate. This problem is not explored in detail in the
literature, as Mansbridge (1988), Pettit (1988) and Ajzenstat (1986) all allude to the difficulties involved in improving the quality and character of participation. Mansbridge (1988) argues that insufficient attention has been paid to inequalities that exist in democratic systems, stating that
“negotiations usually convert power into settlements that reflect the relative strength of the
negotiating powers. When negotiators themselves explicitly confront and worry about this problem, Burnheim neglects it, perhaps because he may envision his scheme taking place in a ‘genuinely classless society’” (p. 656). Pettit (1988) views demarchic participation as too strongly entrenched within an adversary conception of politics. Demarchy “will have some force only for those who accept the dominant, adversarial conception of political life. It will carry no weight with those who endorse the alternative, republican conception …” (p. 106). For Pettit, the demarchic process distils adversarial politics into a more potent form but does not improve the quality of deliberation and inquiry. He seeks a democratic process that looked beyond self-interest to the common good, contending that demarchy would only bring about improvements to the common good incidentally.
One of the advantages of electoral democracies is that they do not require that the citizenry
participates to any great extent. Not all citizens are required to understand issues, listen to others or even vote in their own self-interest. Lynch (1989) argues that a difficulty with Burnheim’s
conception is the utopian view of citizenship. For Lynch, “persons do not generally enter the realm of public policy discussions entirely given over to the desire to discover and support the best argued decision” (p. 117). He is concerned about both the quality and character of political participation, as
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he implies that bringing together participants through demarchic processes would not create
superior deliberation. A cynical (but likely realistic) view of participation would be that the average voter shows up to their polling place once every few years and votes for the most charismatic individual. Those in power are the ones who negotiate, compete and cooperate to create laws and determine the usage of public resources. Deliberation and inquiry requires participants to have communicative competencies, and elites are those who develop these skills to a high level. In countries with millions of citizens, the ability to create competent political elites is not a difficult task.
Demarchy, however, creates a new problem. In a decentralised committee that uses a random
selection process to choose its membership, there is no guarantee that the layperson will be up to the task of governance and decision-making. Burnheim (1985) argues that the process itself would be instructive, and that members would rapidly gain the competence needed to do the job (pp. 127-128). This notion of developing competence through participation has significant merit (I explore this in detail in chapter 5) but was met by some resistance by commentators such as Walker and Burgh, philosophers of education who both see the learning potential in demarchy but argue for some changes to its conception. Walker (1987) argued that a demarchic society would have significant benefits, but would require that citizens hold many habits of mind and democratic qualities in order for demarchy to function:
Burnheim implicitly acknowledges as much in pointing out that one of the empirical conditions for demarchy is a well-educated population that is reasonably democratic and tolerant in its social attitudes. Other empirical conditions include ample productive technology, a willingness to participate in matters that interest one and to leave alone those that do not, and a desire to avoid rigidity and concentrations of power. As Burnheim observes, these conditions are reasonably secure in the advanced countries.
(p. 328)
Walker argues that demarchy requires that citizens have a number of dispositions in order to work well, and this may not be feasible in a number of contexts. If deliberation is conditioned upon these qualities already existing in participants, then demarchy would be ineffective in any society which did not strongly develop these democratic dispositions. Walker’s contention is that “demarchism remains a theory of the kind of political boat we require, not the boat we are in” (p. 329). A
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different type of education, politics and social interaction is needed for demarchic success as people must develop certain types of democratic skills and dispositions in order to bring about Burnheim’s ideal. Overlooking demarchy as a democratic learning process misses the opportunity to improve the quality of deliberations, citizen engagement and outcomes for the democracy.
Burgh (1996) contends that demarchy can be a democratic learning process in itself. A fully realised demarchic structure is to be used as a democratic way of life. Burgh views demarchy through its functionally decentralised processes as a method of developing citizens’ capacities. He says:
“Needless to say, an important component in the restructuring and maintenance of a demarchic society is the fostering of the democratic character of the citizenry. It is vital, therefore, that children within democratic communities learn to behave democratically” (p. 242). In his attempt to create a superior structure for democracy, Burnheim (1985) has neglected an essential component: the education of the people within it. As Walker and Burgh have pointed out, demarchy does not necessarily improve the deliberative capacities of participants; the processes may enhance the quality of decision-making, but not the character of deliberation.
Democracy is not merely a decision-making mechanism; it allows people to communicate ideas, collectively problematise issues, and deliberate on possible outcomes. The character of the
interaction is of greater importance than the outcome; when the citizenry is poorly-informed, their ability to participate meaningfully is negligible. Democracy should exist as a learning process for citizens to develop an understanding of issues, the interests of others, and reflect on themselves and their own involvement. However, this in itself is a near impossible task without some amount of education. Carson and Martin (2003) favour the use of demarchy as a more participatory and deliberative democracy. They have a more optimistic appraisal of demarchy’s ability to develop citizens’ capacities; their assessment of functionally decentralised deliberative bodies, based on cited studies and small experiments, came more than a decade later than most critics of Burnheim.
They state that experiences “with policy juries and planning cells suggest that demarchy would generate a high level of citizen participation” (p. 5). While Carson and Martin are also cautious in the use and implementation of demarchy, they do argue that setting up these functionally
decentralised committees could provide greater opportunities to develop a more engaged and informed citizenry.
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Many critics make similar comments; that demarchy is heuristic (see Mansbridge, 1988; McGaw, 1988; Walker, 1987), providing opportunities for citizens to become more competent at decision-making over time. Ensuring that participants meaningfully contribute is a challenging aspect to demarchy as any citizen with a legitimate material interest and sufficient education will participate, but many who ought to, such as those who must dedicate their time to earning a living, are not able to. As I discussed in the introductory chapter, the discourse on deliberative and participatory democracy has shifted direction since the time of the 1985 edition of Is Democracy Possible? If demarchic structures do prove to increase the amount of participants in the political process, greater attention needs to also be given to the quality and character of their participation. I agree with Mansbridge’s (1988) characterisation of demarchy as an adversarial system and that there needs to be a move towards a model that emphasises deliberativeness. A crucial aspect of deliberative
democracy is in the development of citizens’ capacities to engage in genuine inquiry. Demarchy has potential to operate as a deliberative democracy, but several specific processes within Burnheim’s model may stifle deliberation rather than enhance it.