In some longstanding, stable democratic societies, effective popular deliberation may be possible. However, as explained in the previous chapter, there are good reasons to believe that popular deliberation may be impractical in cases of divided societies. Countries that are divided along ethnic or religious lines, and especially those with diaspora populations abroad, often suffer from other circumstances that are unfavourable to deliberation, such as violence, political instability and religious tensions.
105 The challenges posed to accounts of popular deliberation in divided societies have led some scholars to stress the importance of elite modes of deliberation by public representatives.445
The challenges deliberative democracy faces in divided societies derive from a more general problem: the problem of installing a fully-fledged democratic system in societies that are still recovering from years of conflict or despotism. In addressing this problem, one has to consider the crucial role of elites in promoting democracy in divided societies. I will therefore start this chapter by pointing out the positive role that can be played by local elites in establishing and maintaining democracy in divided societies. Understanding the role of elites in promoting democracy will also help to explain their role in promoting a deliberative democracy.
An elite (French for ‘the chosen’) is a potent minority, whose power exceeds its relative size.446 In ancient times these elites included, for example, kings and aristocrats. In
modern democracies, politicians, the judiciary, academics, media and business moguls are all examples of elite groups who exercise power and influence over the lives of ordinary people.
From Ancient Greece through Medieval times and until today, scholars have regarded ruling elites as ‘good guardians’: that is, privileged agents who are more capable of attending to the people’s interests than the people themselves.447 The scepticism about
ordinary people’s ability to participate in the deliberative processes echoes the traditional view of an ‘elitist democracy’ that was forcefully articulated by Joseph Schumpeter during the 1950s.448 Schumpeter viewed democracy as a ‘competitive
struggle for the people's vote’.449 According to his view, in a democracy elite groups
compete for people’s votes, with the winning elite being granted a mandate to rule for a limited period of time. If the public is happy with the current ruling elite, it re-elects that elite. If the public is not satisfied, it elects a different elite. The public’s influence is
445 See Ibid 116.
446 See J.S. Maloy, ‘Elite Theory’, Encyclopedia of political theory (SAGE publications, 2010), Mark Bevir
(ed), 414.
447 Ibid.
448 See Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (Harper, 3d ed., 1950) chapter XXII. 449 Ibid 269.
106 thus limited to choosing the ruling elite by voting for its representatives every few years. This is not merely a descriptive account of democracy, but also a normative one: this account holds that governance and law making duties should be left to the elites because ordinary people are not qualified to carry them out properly.450
Though the Schumpeterian view is less popular today, many scholars still highlight the important role played by elites in facilitating a transition to democracy in undemocratic countries as well as sustaining democracy in democratic countries. Higley, for example, argues that long-lasting democratic regimes usually develop as a result of dominant elite classes who initiate and support them. Higley laments the failure of Western political thought to recognise the elite basis of any stable and liberal democratic political system:
Western political thought has generally failed to recognize the elite basis of democracy. Instead, it has naïvely urged democratic suffrage, free and fair elections, respect for personal liberties, and democratic constitutions on all countries of the world, most of which have deeply disunited elites that are engaged in dog-eat-dog political struggles. Much too blithely, in other words, Western thought has assumed that simply by adopting such measures countries will move from unstable and illiberal regimes to stable and liberal democracies. In particular, assiduous ‘democracy promotion’ efforts have tended to persuade policymakers in the United States and other Western countries that instituting competitive elections where they do not now occur is a relatively sure route to democracy.451
Many examples from the last few decades support Higley’s point. The fall of communism allowed for free elections to be held in many former USSR countries, but holding free and democratic elections did not lead countries like Russia, Georgia and Ukraine to develop liberal democratic societies similar to Western democracies. Similarly, hopes that the Arab Spring would result in the establishment of democracies in the Middle East proved premature. For example, the first free parliamentary and presidential elections held in Egypt in 2011 and 2012 eventually led the country to turn back to dictatorial military rule. Similarly, the first free and democratic elections held in Gaza in 2006 were
450 See Heinrich Best and John Higley (eds), Democratic Elitism New Theoretical and Comparative
Perspectives (Brill, 2010) 3; Christiano, ‘Democracy’, above n 234 [3.1.1]; Nino, above n 2, 80.
451 John Higley, ‘Democratic Elitism and Western Political Thought’ in Heinrich Best and John Higley (eds),
107 also the last democratic elections to be held in Gaza to date, after the Hamas party won the election and took power. There are also more positive experiences, such as Tunisia and former communist countries such as Poland and Hungary, which managed to establish largely democratic societies soon after overthrowing former undemocratic regimes.452 But these examples only demonstrate that merely conducting a free and
democratic election process is not enough to transform a society into a democratic one. Other factors must be responsible for the fact that some societies transform more smoothly into democratic societies than others. In particular, the role of local elites in such societies should not be underestimated.
This is especially relevant in cases of divided societies or societies with large diaspora populations. Steen and Kuklys argue that in so-called ‘ethnic democracies’, where democracy legitimates the domination of indigenous majorities over ethnically distinct minorities, democratic elitism facilitates the co-option of minority leaders better than other, more participatory forms of democracy.453 Steen and Kuklys provide examples
from Estonia and Latvia, where, similar to other newly independent countries in the post-Soviet era, the re-creation of a national identity has led majority leaders to portray ethnic minorities as disloyal and as endangering political stability. Both countries aimed in their early years of independence to segregate and repatriate Russian speaking minorities. Estonian and Latvian nationalists argued that after decades of what amounted in their eyes to ‘cultural genocide’ under Soviet rule, they had a right to protect their cultural heritages as Estonians and Latvians, respectively, from Russian influence. When these attempts to create a more homogeneous society proved unsuccessful, both countries attempted to reinforce a purer form of national identity by adopting restrictive citizenship laws. However, both countries fell under pressure from international organisations and eventually, the desire to join the European Union and
452 Note however that the current regimes in these countries seem to adopt a much more conservative
interpretation of democratic liberties than Western democracies.
453 Anton Steen and Mindaugas Kuklys, ‘Democracy by Elite Co-Optation: Democratic Elitism in Multi-
Ethnic States’ in Heinrich Best and John Higley (eds), Democratic Elitism: New Theoretical and Comparative
108 NATO led political elites in those countries to pursue less restrictive boundaries of citizenship, despite popular nationalistic views.454
Based on empirical data, including interviews with Estonian and Latvian politicians and public servants, Steen and Kuklys suggest that:
Instead of brusquely excluding minorities, thus raising human rights issues and international opprobrium, and instead of granting minorities full citizenship, thus aggravating majority fears, a middle or ‘third way’ is open to elites. This consists of socializing and co- opting leaders of minority communities into power positions, in effect opening the practices and processes of democratic elitism to selected minority leaders.455
Estonia and Latvia therefore provide an example of the constructive role elites can play in the inclusion of minorities in a divided society.
Landau is another scholar who discounts the role of popular participation in democratisation processes. He argues that in some cases, popular participation in constitution making may hinder rather than help the constitutional process.456 Landau
discusses examples of constitution making in Bolivia and Venezuela, where ‘[h]igh levels of civil society participation did not prevent the constitution from being used to impose a competitive, authoritarian regime’.457
Another theory which recognises the vital role of elites in establishing democracy in divided societies is Lijphart’s ‘consociationalism’. This is a model of democracy that is designed to work even in societies that are deeply divided according to ethnic, religious, or linguistic lines. Lijphart’s model of ‘consociational democracy’ is based on the cooperation of elites from different groups through consociational structures (that is, power sharing structures). In such regimes, each group enjoys wide-ranging autonomy at the local level while state level institutions include representatives from different groups who share the power between them.458 These mechanisms are supposed to
454 Ibid 197. 455 Ibid 198.
456 Landau, above n 262, 934. 457 Ibid 969.
458 See Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration, above n 395. Lijphart later
109 create stable democratic regimes in divided societies. However, while such mechanisms worked in Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, they were less successful in countries such as Lebanon and Iraq.459
In this part I have addressed the positive role elites can play in societies that are in the process of developing democratic institutions. But how do these general problems of democratisation relate specifically to deliberative democratic theory? I will elaborate on this in the next part.