Who Decides What Is Democratic?

What is "democratic" depends on the values one attaches to democracy. The distinction that determines the answer is between minimalist and maximalist conceptions of democracy. Defending democracy requires a positive, forward-looking program of reform.

What are we defending when we defend "democracy"? The distinction which organizes the answer to the question would be between democracy as a method for processing whatever conflicts may arise within a certain society and democracy as representing values, ideals, or interests of various groups of people wishing democracy to realize. That is the difference between minimalist and maximalist conceptions of democracy, by which I mean a definition that has normative connotations. All definitions of democracy carry normative connotations.

Democracy is a regime in which citizens collectively decide by whom and, to some extent, how they will be governed. This aspect is definitional: a regime is democratic if and only if people are free to choose, including to remove, governments.

While the minimalist criterion is conceptually clear, operational disagreements do arise: It suffices to check how different researchers have classified Russia or Venezuela during the past three decades. Especially slippery are measures that Ozan Varol classifies as "stealth."7 These are seemingly democratic actions that are meant to increase an incumbent's electoral advantage. For example, both Italy's Silvio Berlusconi in 2006 and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2014 made-or in the Turkish case easier-possible for citizens residing abroad to vote in national elections. Each framed his action in democratic language about extending political rights to all citizens, but the obvious motive in both cases was to gain votes. It was only afterwards that it became clear that Berlusconi had shot himself in the foot while Turks in Germany proved to be reliable voters for Erdoğan and his party.8 Such measures are difficult to assess using minimalist criteria either before the fact - by motives - or after - by results. Hence, controversies about measuring democracy abound: Just see the recent special issue of PS: Political Science and Politics on "democratic backsliding."9

In maximalist conceptions, democracy is a method for realizing certain extrinsic values. As Joseph Schumpeter observed, most people value democracy not per se but because they hope it will realize some superior values, ideals or interests that they find desirable. Schumpeter gives examples but does not reduce the list to a fixed set of items:

There are ultimate ideals and interests which the most ardent democrat will put above democracy, and all he means if he professes uncompromising allegiance to it is that he feels convinced that democracy will guarantee those ideals and interests such as freedom of conscience and speech, justice, decent government and so on.10

Indeed, nearly every normatively desirable feature of political life and sometimes even features of social and economic life are ascribed to democracy: representation, accountability, equality, participation, justice, dignity, rationality, security; the list goes on. We are told ad nauseam that "unless democracy is X or generates X, then.". The ellipsis is seldom filled in but what it suggests is that a regime in which governments are elected is not a "democracy" unless X obtains.

Obviously, the more values one attaches to democracy, the less prone one is to find it. Moreover, as their lists indicate, the values that people attach to democracy may differ: This is why I refer to "maximalisms" in the plural. Most importantly, whenever people differ about the values or interests they desire democracy to realize, maximalist conceptions generate conflicts. True, as Lewis Coser emphasized, these conflicts can be "cross-cutting": They need not pit class against class or religion against religion.11 They can be attenuated by an "overlapping consensus" regarding practicalities that is compatible with differences over values.12 The conflicts may also be moderated by public discussions at both the normative and the technical levels. And yet, after all the coalitions have been formed, after all the outlines of practical consensus have taken shape and arguments reached their close, conflicts remain.

The question, then, is what are we defending when we defend the extrinsic values that we attach to democracy, say justice or economic equality. Are we defending democracy itself, or the values that we attach to it? And what is the answer to this question when different people attach different values to democracy?