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Introduction

The term ‘democracy’ appeared in the 5th century BC, in the Greek city-states, most notably in Athens. ‘Democracy’ referred to a ‘rule of the people’ (δημοκρατία: dēmokratía – dēmos ‘people’ and kratos ‘rule’) as opposed to the traditional system of aristocracy, or ‘rule of an elite’ (ἀριστοκρατία: aristokratía – aristos ‘elite’).  This Greek system was not what we think of as democracy - apart from anything else, the majority of the population were slaves who were not allowed to vote. But it is a useful origin story about an idea which developed into what we have today.

People sometimes talk about democracy as a goal, particularly in the context of foreign policy, where we can see it as our 'duty' to help another country 'achieve democracy'.  Within such discussions, it seems that people are understanding democracy simply as a system in which ‘the people’ are allowed to vote to elect their government.  They often fail to understand that voting is only useful within a certain context - within a certain kind of society. So what else is needed for democracy to work?

This article argues that if you want a democracy in which the votes of the people are translated into a real choice of government, then you need several robust structures within your society, and these structures need to operate within a few basic principles. It’s not rocket science, but neither is it a trivial challenge: these structures and principles cannot be created overnight.

Democracy, as we describe it here, is better understood not as a goal, but as a tool, a means to an end. What we really need is not the right to vote, but a just society: the right to vote is simply one important means to help us achieve that end.

Requirements

Structures

Multiple political parties. The voters need to have a real choice, so multiple independent parties must be allowed to stand and campaign. People interested in politics must be free to participate in or set up new political parties to represent their beliefs.

An elected body. For a limited time only, this body makes (creates, updates and repeals) legislation and appoints an executive.  At the end of its election mandate, the body and executive cease to have any authority until and unless they are elected again.

An executive.  This is ‘the government’, which has the responsibility of running the country, primarily through establishing policies and setting priorities for the civil service. 

A permanent civil service. The work of running the country in accordance with the policies and priorities of the executive is undertaken by trained and competent professionals, not by people appointed by the latest government. The civil service does not make policy, but it must advise the government on the implementation and likely consequences of possible policies.

An independent judiciary. A justice system which works to implement the law, not to keep the government happy.

A free press. In the modern world, this needs to operate through multiple media – print, TV, radio and online. It needs to include the freedom to investigate possible stories and then publish them, even if they attack, criticise or embarrass powerful people and groups, including the government and political parties.

An independent electoral body. There’s a lot of vital administration, such as determining constituencies, registering voters and candidates, managing the polling stations and counting the votes, all of which needs to be kept outside the control of the government, or of any political body.

Principles

Free speech. This is the principle behind both a free press and multiple political parties. But it’s a complicated thing, as we obviously don’t want to allow people to deliberately harm others by spreading falsehood, or to gain goods or money by deception, so speech must have some restrictions. However, apart from those basic exceptions, people must be free to express their thoughts and beliefs.

A secret ballot. This is one of the basic objectives of the independent electoral body. How any individual votes must remain secret, to ensure that no person or group is able to make people vote a certain way through inducement or threat.

The rule of law. This is the fundamental principle behind an independent judiciary. Everyone, including (especially including) the government and the very rich, is subject to the law, and the law must be able to punish all lawbreakers in a meaningful and proportionate way. How the law is applied to the armed forces and the secret services is a challenging issue.

Transparent decision making. The people must be able to hold the government to account, so the people must have sufficient knowledge of what the government is doing in their name – and especially how they are deciding how to spend money, and who is receiving government money. This transparency must extend to the family and friends of decision-makers, and to sub-contractors of the recipients.

Weaknesses

There ae some weaknesses which are inherent - 'baked into' - any democratic system.

Bad government.  Democracy, when it is working, enables you to remove corrupt, bad and incompetent people from government, but it doesn’t stop you from voting for them in the first place. And if you vote for the wrong people, you may not be able to remove them: the experience in far too many newly-independent countries is that they were given a single, limited choice, “one man, one vote, one time”.

Inadequate manifestos.  In an election, political parties will campaign on the basis of a ‘manifesto’, which may contain a couple of dozen major policies; the winning party will then claim that their manifesto has been chosen and they have a ‘mandate’ to implement all of those policies. But people sometimes vote because they like the person, rather than the policies, and they will often vote because they like some policies in the manifesto and despite disliking others. And, in a first-past-the-post system, people will often vote tactically, on the basis of disliking another party. So the mandate for implementing the policies in the winning manifesto may actually be very weak.

Minority groups.  In every society, there will be minority and marginalised groups. A just society will make appropriate allowances for them: the weak and the ‘other’ must be both protected and accepted, without alienating the majority. This task requires sensitivity, judgement and understanding of specialised concerns and issues, none of which can be fairly represented in an election manifesto.

Short-termism.  Every government is seeking to win the next election, but addressing long term needs requires that money is spent now on a problem which is a long way off – which is never a popular thing to do, when there are always many urgent needs crying out for attention. A democratic system never encourages the government to do what is right, rather than what is popular: they are always driven to pursue measures which will produce results within the current electoral cycle.

Centralised power.  To address minority needs (such as race and disability) and long term needs (such as climate change and pollution) the government needs to move responsibility for significant policy areas from government into the civil service, as they did when the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee was given the power to set the interest rate.  But, if you 'believe' in democracy, you will tend to regard a democratic mandate as the only legitimate basis for the exercise of power, and seek to reduce the power and influence of unelected people and groups.  It is easy to use the promise of 'strengthening democracy' as a pretext for weakening the structures which promote justice and protect freedom.

Manipulation.  There are many minority groups, and they are not all weak. The UK has at least two such groups: the aristocracy, and the ultra-rich. They are both highly involved in the political process, as part of the political party machines, as official advisors, as members of quangos, and as friends of the powerful. They can usually kill or fatally weaken measures to reduce their power and influence, so (in the absence of a revolution) any progress will depend on negotiating change with those who have a vested interest in opposing it. Despite the need for transparent decision making, some politics will inevitably take place behind closed doors.

Concerns

Politics is increasingly being left to politicians, and politicians are increasingly being distrusted and disrespected. It's a nasty feedback loop: good people increasingly don't want to go into politics, because it increasingly looks unlike a place for good people to be. Perhaps we need to rediscover social responsibility? Encourage people to get involved with politics, not because politicians are respected, but because we need good and competent politicians?

Around the world, people are engaging with the democratic political process less and less. Fewer people are voting. Often, the people who are not voting say it is because "voting doesn't change anything". When I vote, I don't get what I want, so there is no point in voting.

That is why it is important that people understand democracy, what it can do, and what it can't.

This subject matters because there is a conflict between those who want to move society in the direction of justice and freedom, and those who want to preserve the status quo, or simply to enhance their own prospects. It matters because people are being sold a lie: they are being told that democracy is not working.

The lie is that you don't have the happiness and success you deserve because democracy has failed you. The simple story is that foreigners and immigrants are taking all the jobs and houses which should be yours - and they can do it because this government is weak, incompetent and gives them too much.  A slightly more sophisticated story is that foreign companies are taking advantage of our lax regulations - they are destroying our industries and ripping off our consumers, again because our weak government allows it.

The lie is that we have to allow these greedy foreigners to do whatever they want, because everyone is equal, and there are a lot more of them than there are of us. Democracy is not working for us - so we need to change it for a more effective system which can deliver what we want, a system which can protect us because our government can exercise real power.

If we misunderstand what democracy is, and what it is capable of delivering, then we might believe the rich and the powerful when they tell us that democracy is failing, and we need to give them more power in order to protect us, and to give them more money so they can make us richer.

If we listen to the misdirection and keep looking in the wrong direction, we will never see what is really causing our problems, and never understand what we can actually do to fix them.

See Also

The BBC produce some excellent material, such as the 2023 Reith Lectures, "Our Democratic Future".