Tag: democracy

Why freedom is more important than security

… I wish to make it clear that I feel much sympathy with Marx’s hope for a decrease in state influence. It is undoubtedly the greatest danger of interventionism — especially of any direct intervention — that it leads to an increase in state power and in bureaucracy. Most interventionists do not mind this, or they close their eyes to it, which increases the danger. But I believe that once the danger is faced squarely, it should be possible to master it. For this is again merely a problem of social technology and of social piecemeal engineering. But it is important to tackle it early, for it constitutes a danger to democracy. We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security more secure. [ch. 21, 459]

The empty shell of democracy

[Tariq Ali:] What we are witnessing is that democracy is becoming more and more denuded of content. It’s like an empty shell. And this is what is angering young people who feel whatever we do, whatever we vote for, nothing changes.

Informed consent of the governed

State control of information and the ability to manipulate it makes the right to vote largely meaningless. That is why people like Julian Assange are so essential to democratic choice.

Defending the indefensible

Popper setzte dem Neomarxismus Marcuses sein Konzept der „offenen Gesellschaft“ entgegen, deren zentrale Merk­male die freie Diskussion und Institutionen seien, die „den Schutz der Freiheit und der Schwachen“ garantieren. Von einer Unterdrückung oder von antagonistischen Klassengegensätzen in den westlichen Ländern zu sprechen, lehnte er ab. Von seiner positiven Einschätzung der USA rückte er auch angesichts des Vietnamkriegs nicht ab. Er wies viel­mehr darauf hin, dass es die Opposition innerhalb der USA gewesen sei, die die Regierung zu dem Eingeständnis gezwungen habe, dass der Vietnamkrieg ein großer Fehler gewesen sei. Genau dieser Einfluss der Opposition aber weise die USA als eine offene, zur Selbstkorrektur fähige Gesellschaft aus. Popper vergaß auch nicht zu erwähnen, dass es gerade die westliche Demokratie sei, die es den Neomarxisten erlaube, ihre Ideen zu verbreiten. Der von den Marxisten behaupteten Ohnmacht und Determination des Individuums durch gesellschaftliche Verhältnisse setzte er die Überzeugung entgegen, dass der Mensch mithilfe der Vernunft die Gesellschaft verändern kann und dass die poli­tische Macht in der Lage ist, die ökonomische Macht zu kontrollieren. [150]

Tolerating your enemies

Der verfassungsgeschichtliche Standort des Grundgesetzes ergibt sich daraus, daß es unmittelbar nach der – zudem nur durch Einwirkung äußerer Gewalten ermöglichten – Vernichtung eines totalitären Staatssystems eine freiheitliche Ordnung erst wieder einzurichten hatte. Die Haltung des Grundgesetzes zu den politischen Parteien – wie überhaupt die von ihm verwirklichte spezifische Ausformung der freiheitlichen Demokratie – ist nur verständlich auf dem Hinter­grund der Erfahrungen des Kampfes mit diesem totalitären System. Der Einbau wirksamer rechtlicher Sicherungen dagegen, daß solche politischen Richtungen jemals wieder Einfluß auf den Staat gewinnen könnten, beherrschte das Denken des Verfassungsgebers. Wenn das Grundgesetz so einerseits noch der traditionellen freiheitlich-demokra­tischen Linie folgt, die den politischen Parteien gegenüber grundsätzliche Toleranz fordert, so geht es doch nicht mehr so weit, aus bloßer Unparteilichkeit auf die Aufstellung und den Schutz eines eigenen Wertsystems überhaupt zu ver­zichten. Es nimmt aus dem Pluralismus von Zielen und Wertungen, die in den politischen Parteien Gestalt gewonnen haben, gewisse Grundprinzipien der Staatsgestaltung heraus, die, wenn sie einmal auf demokratische Weise gebilligt sind, als absolute Werte anerkannt und deshalb entschlossen gegen alle Angriffe verteidigt werden sollen; soweit zum Zwecke dieser Verteidigung Einschränkungen der politischen Betätigungsfreiheit der Gegner erforderlich sind, werden sie in Kauf genommen. Das Grundgesetz hat also bewußt den Versuch einer Synthese zwischen dem Prinzip der Toleranz gegenüber allen politischen Auffassungen und dem Bekenntnis zu gewissen unantastbaren Grundwerten der Staatsordnung unternommen. Art. 21 Abs. 2 GG steht somit nicht mit einem Grundprinzip der Verfassung in Wider­spruch; er ist Ausdruck des bewußten verfassungspolitischen Willens zur Lösung eines Grenzproblems der freiheit­lichen demokratischen Staatsordnung, Niederschlag der Erfahrungen eines Verfassungsgebers, der in einer bestimm­ten historischen Situation das Prinzip der Neutralität des Staates gegenüber den politischen Parteien nicht mehr rein verwirklichen zu dürfen glaubte, Bekenntnis zu einer – in diesem Sinne – „streitbaren Demokratie“.

Making democracy more reflective

Here I shall be attempting to identify deliberative democratic methods for evoking more reflective preferences as inputs into the political process. Properly crafted deliberative processes can produce preferences which are more reflective, in the sense of being:

  • more empathetic with the plight of others;
  • more considered, and hence both better informed and more stable; and
  • more far-reaching in both time and space, taking fuller account of distant periods, distant peoples and different interests.

The key innovation I shall be offering is, in the first instance, a theoretical one. What is required is a new way of con­ceptualizing democratic deliberation—as something which occurs internally, within each individual’s head, and not exclusively or even in an interpersonal setting. [7]

Conferring legitimacy on democratic inputs

In fixating in these ways on ‘the simple act of voting’, political scientists are not alone. In many ways, they thereby mimic longstanding concerns of democratic theory itself. Voting has long been regarded as the consummate act of democratic citizenship. For literally centuries, extending the franchise was the great democratic project. ‘Free and fair elections’ remain among its greatest contemporary aspirations. An inclusive franchise and regular elections are rightly regarded as sine qua non of liberal democratic politics worldwide.

All of those are undeniably indispensable elements of democratic rule. All of my discussions presuppose them; none of my mechanisms can claim any democratic legitimacy without them. But in such ays on those simple acts of voting and aggregating votes can blind us to important cognitive processes that precede and shape those ultimate political acts. …

Here I shall try to refocus democratic theory, at least in part, on processes preceding the vote. More unconventionally still, I shall be concerned primarily with the processes that occur within the heads of individual voters, rather than within the formally political realm. Various elements of the democratic process (free speech, free association, free entry of new parties, and such like) have always been regarded as essential elements of the democratic competition. What are less often noticed, and to which I shall here direct most of my attention, are the more ‘internal reflective’ concomitants of democratic political discussions. [11]

Robinson Crusoe democracy

One of my central arguments in this book is that inputs themselves can be more democratic or less democratic. To the extent that people practise ‘democratic deliberation within’, their own inputs will encapsulate the concerns of many other people as well. A person who has internalized the perspectives of others, balancing them with her own, will have already partially performed the bottom-line democratic aggregation inside her own head. Her own input will therefore be ‘more democratic’, even just in the standard vote-aggregating sense of the term. [10]

How do we get everybody to participate?

If we want to make the deliberative ideal practical in those circumstances, we apparently face an unpalatable choice. Either we have to reduce the number of people deliberating, thus involving less than the entire community; or else we have to reduce the breadth or depth of the deliberation, thus making the deliberation less meaningful in some sense or another. Representative institutions (parliaments or citizens’ juries or deliberative polls or planning cells) are flawed in the first respect. Mechanisms channelling public attention (such as mass media or referenda) are flawed in the second.

Thus, the problem with which democratic elitists began at the turn of the last century returns to haunt democratic theory in its most recent incarnations. How can we constructively engage people in the public life of a mass democracy, with­out making wildly unrealistic demands on their time and attention?

That problem becomes particularly acute when we appreciate that we are inevitably dealing with people who often take no direct interest in political affairs, as such. Furthermore, they have no rational reason to do so, at least from a narrowly instrumental perspective. After all, the odds are minuscule that any one person’s vote or voice will make any great dif­ference to the ultimate outcome among a large group of people; so it is perfectly rational for voters not to go to any great trouble or expense informing themselves. [5]

Deliberative democracy

The final decade of the second millennium saw the theory of democracy take a strong deliberative turn. Increasingly, democratic legitimacy came to be seen in terms of the ability or opportunity to participate in effective deliberation on the part of those subject to collective decisions. (Note that only the ability or opportunity to participate is at issue; people can choose not to deliberate.) Thus claims on behalf of or against such decisions have to be justified to these people in terms that, on reflection, they are capable of accepting. The reflective aspect is critical, because preferences can be transformed in the process of deliberation. Deliberation as a social process is distinguished from other kinds of commu­nication in that deliberators are amenable to changing their judgements, preferences, and views during the course of their interactions, which involve persuasion rather than coercion, manipulation, or deception. The essence of democ­racy itself is now widely taken to be deliberation, as opposed to voting, interest aggregation, constitutional rights, or even self-government. The deliberative turn represents a renewed concern with the authenticity of democracy: the degree to which democratic control is substantive rather than symbolic, and engaged by competent citizens. [1]