As we noted at the beginning of this chapter, democracy is now so popular that most political ideologies claim to favor it. Yet these supposedly democratic ideolo-gies are in constant competition and occasional conflict with one another. The best explanation for this oddity is to say that different ideologies do indeed pursue and promote democracy, but they do so in different ways because they disagree about what democracy is. They can do this because democracy is not a single thing, as our brief history of democracy makes clear. Rather than a specific kind of government that must take a definite form, democracy is, instead, an ideal.
To say that democracy is an ideal means that it is something toward which peo-ple aim or aspire. In this respect it is like true love, inner peace, a perfect perfor-mance, or the surfer’s perfect wave. Each is an ideal that inspires people to search or strive for it, but none is easy to find, or even to define. What one person takes to be true love, for instance, is likely to be quite different from another person’s romantic ideal. So it is with democracy. Everyone agrees that democracy is government or rule by the people, but exactly what that means is subject to sharp disagreement.
Who are “the people” who are supposed to rule? Only the “common” people? Only those who own substantial property? Only adult males? Or should everyone who lives in a country—including resident foreigners, children, and convicted felons—
have a formal voice in its government?
How, moreover, are “the people” to rule? Should every citizen vote directly on proposed policies, as the Athenians did, or should citizens vote for representatives, who will then make policy? If they elect representatives, do the people then cease to govern themselves? With or without representatives, should we follow majority rule? If we do, how can we protect the rights and interests of individuals or minori-ties, especially those who say and do things that anger or offend the majority? But
if we take steps to limit the power of the majority—as a system of constitutional checks and balances does, for instance—are we not restricting or even retreating from democracy? The long-standing debate in the United States over term limits for members of Congress poses this problem in a particularly acute form. If we limit the number of terms for which an elected official can hold office, are we making the government more responsive to the people, and therefore more democratic? Or are we making it less democratic by denying a potential majority of voters the chance to reelect a representative they like time and time again?21
Another troubling aspect of American democracy concerns the indirect—and, some critics claim, undemocratic—election of the president. Instead of electing the president directly, American voters elect electors—members of the Electoral College—who are pledged to vote for particular candidates. This system of indirect election effectively disenfranchises many Americans. For example, Democratic voters in a “red” state like Wyoming will be heavily outnumbered by Republican voters, and all three of Wyoming’s electoral votes will therefore be cast for the Republican presidential candidate. Likewise, Republican voters in a “blue” state like New York are effectively disenfranchised in presidential elections. Thus, Democrats in Wyoming and Republicans in New York might as well not even bother to vote in presidential elections, since their states’ electoral votes will not reflect their preferences. More-over, as sometimes happens, the candidate with more popular votes can lose to the one with more electoral votes. This is what happened in the election of 2000 when Al Gore, who received half a million more votes than his opponent, lost the presidential election to George W. Bush, who received more electoral votes. This and other viola-tions of the principle of “one person, one vote” have led some to call for direct elec-tion of the president, which would of course require a constituelec-tional amendment. By way of precedent they point to the provision in the original Constitution (Article I, Section 3) requiring that senators be elected indirectly, by state legislatures. This pro-vision was revoked by the Seventeenth Amendment (1913), which mandates direct popular election of senators. Whether the president should likewise be elected directly by the people remains a controversial question.
Yet another controversial question concerns the limits of the legitimate power of majorities to restrict the alleged rights of minorities. Particularly pointed instances of such majority power can be seen in recent elections in which majorities have voted to amend state constitutions so as to outlaw same-sex marriage. In 2008 California joined other states that had earlier defined marriage as a legal union of “one man and one woman.” Defenders said that they had acted democratically in deciding the issue by majority vote. Critics claimed that no majority may legally and legitimately deprive anyone of the “equal protection” guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution—and afforded by the institution of marriage.
And, not least, in modern representative democracies like that of the United States, money is a major factor in electoral politics. To run for public office—or, before that, to even be nominated to run—is enormously expensive. The vast ma-jority of Americans cannot afford to run for any but the most local of offices, such as the school board or the library board. And those who do run for higher office must either be wealthy or rely heavily or even exclusively on financial donors. These donors—especially the wealthiest and most generous ones—typically expect
something in return for their largesse; and what they expect is access to the office-holder once he or she is elected. Senators, representatives—and presidents—are expected to “return the favor” by supporting legislation, policies, and pet pro-grams that further the donors’ financial or other interests. And this, say critics, is clearly undemocratic since, in a democracy, all citizens’ interests ought to be given equal consideration. Critics contend that, as things now stand, matters are quite otherwise, as can be seen in the Supreme Court’s decisions in several landmark cases, including Citizens United (2010). In that case the Court ruled that cam-paign contributions are a form of free speech and are therefore protected under the First Amendment, and that corporations are persons with full free-speech rights, including the right to donate unlimited amounts of money to candidates whose campaigns they choose to support. Beginning in 2011 an increasing number of Republican-controlled state legislatures also began passing laws requiring voters to show photo IDs at the polls, outlawing early voting and same-day voter registra-tion, and other legislation to effectively restrict the right to vote. The justification offered for these laws is that they would curtail allegedly widespread voting fraud.
Critics responded by noting that such fraud is rare and that the intended effect of these laws is to discourage or even disenfranchise voters who are poor, black and/or Hispanic and who tend to vote Democratic.22
What are the likely effects of these developments on American democracy? Will they be benign, beneficial, or—as critics contend—harmful? Several effects became evident in the course of the 2012 elections. Some voters, especially in poorer precincts, stood in long lines for up to eight hours. Those without required voter IDs were made to cast provisional ballots, which would be counted only if the voter returned days later with proof of identification. Another evident effect is the record amounts spent on the presidential and congressional campaigns. For the first time ever, secretive
“Super PACs” (political action committees) were allowed to contribute money with-out disclosing the identities of the contributors. This set off the electoral equivalent of an arms race: when one side raises large amounts of money, the other side tries to match or exceed that amount, to which the first responds by raising even more money, and spending spirals ever upward. Not surprisingly, the 2012 election campaigns were the costliest ever. Nearly $6 billion were spent, with almost one-third—$1.75 billion—
going to the presidential race alone. Many millions more were spent on campaigns at the state and local level, and on ballot initiatives regarding gay or same-sex marriage, genetically modified food labeling, and a host of other issues placed before the voters.
How does “big money” affect American politics? And what are the likely long-term effects of these and other developments on American democracy? These are troubling questions for anyone who claims to be a small-d democrat. As our brief history of democracy suggests, questions about the vitality and even the viability of democracy have been raised repeatedly and answered in very different ways over the centuries. Such questions have also led a number of political thinkers to worry about the instability of democracy, with a particular concern for its supposed tendency to degenerate into anarchy and despotism. This concern has been largely responsible for the creation of an alternative form of popular government: the republic. But the popularity of republicanism has waned as democracy has gained acceptance; where republicanism survives, it is mostly in the hybrid form of democratic republicanism.23
This is especially evident in the United States, where a democratic commitment to universal suffrage is carried out within the republican institutional framework de-vised by the Founding Fathers and enshrined in the Constitution.
Despite the difficulties of defining it, the democratic ideal of “rule by the peo-ple” remains attractive to those who seek to promote freedom and equality, because democracy implies that in some sense every citizen will be both free and equal to ev-ery other. But exactly what freedom and equality are, or what form they should take and how the two relate to each other, is open to interpretation.
This is where political ideologies enter the picture. Whether they accept or reject it, all ideologies must come to terms with the democratic ideal. “Coming to terms”
in this case means that political ideologies have to provide more definite notions of what democracy involves. They do this by drawing on their underlying conceptions of human nature and freedom to determine whether democracy is possible and de-sirable and, if so, what form it should take.
To put the point in terms of our functional definition of ideology, we can say that an ideology’s explanation of why things are the way they are largely shapes its attitude toward democracy. If an ideology holds, as fascism does, that society is often in turmoil because most people are incapable of governing themselves, it is hardly likely to advocate democracy. But if an ideology holds, as liberalism and socialism do, that most people have the capacity for freedom and self-government, then the ideology will embrace the democratic ideal—as most of them have done in one way or another. The ideology that does so will then evaluate existing social ar-rangements and provide a sense of orientation for individuals based largely on how democratic it takes these arrangements to be. If the individual seems to be an equal partner in a society where the people rule in some suitable sense, then all is well; but if he or she seems to be merely the pawn of those who hold the real power, then the ide-ology will encourage people to take action to reform or perhaps to overthrow the social and political order. This, finally, will require a program for change in what the ideology takes to be a democratic direction.
Every political ideology, then, offers its own interpretation of the democratic ideal. This ideal it interprets or defines according to its particular vision. In turn, the men and women who promote political ideologies will use their vision of democracy to try to inspire others to join their cause.