POLI 1003

Making Sense of Politics

Dr. Lu XIA, Harold
Honorary Associate Professor
Department of Politics and
Public Administration
The University of Hong Kong
Lecture 4
We the People: The Virtues and Defects
of Democracy
Living in a time of democracy
 Today, almost every country in the world calls itself a
“democracy”, although dubious adjectives are occasionally added
in front of it…

1. Popular
2. Consultative
3. Guided They tend to
4. Socialist add adj b4
democracy
5. Bourgeois
6. Constitutional
… Sukarno, the inventor of “Guided Democracy”,
a term he himself might not have well understood…
No one dare to argue the democracy as the
gov is strong.
Juan Peron, and his wife Evita, appears
at a public event in Buenos Aires, 1950s

Evita, the Hollywood film (1996) on the

life of Evita Peron 
 North Korean authority officially calls itself
“The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”…
Political Rights
1. Is the head of state and/or head of government or other chief authority elected through free and fair
elections?
2. Are the legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections?
3. Are there fair electoral laws, equal campaigning opportunities, fair polling, and honest tabulations of
ballots?
4. Are the voters able to endow their freely elected representatives with real power?
5. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political
groupings of their choice and is the system open to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings?
6. Is there a significant opposition vote, de facto opposition power, and a realistic possibility for the
opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections?
7. Are the people free from domination by the military, foreign powers, totalitarian parties, religious
hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group?
8. Do cultural, ethnic, religious, and other minority groups have reasonable self-determination, self-
government, autonomy, or participation through informal consensus in the decision-making process?
9. (Discretionary) In traditional monarchies that have no parties or electoral process, does the system provide
for consultation with the people, encourage discussion of policy, and allow the right to petition the ruler?
10. (Discretionary) Is the government or occupying power deliberately changing the ethnic composition of a
country or territory so as to destroy a culture or tip the political balance in favor of another group?
Civil Liberties
1. Is there freedom of assembly, demonstration, and open public discussion?
2. Is there freedom of political or quasi-political organization, including political parties, civic organizations, and
so on?
3. Are there free trade unions and peasant organizations or equivalents and is there effective collective
bargaining? Are there free professional and other private organizations?
4. Is there an independent judiciary?
5. Does the rule of law prevail in civil and criminal matters? Is the population treated equally before law? Are
police under direct civilian control?
6. Is there protection from political terror, unjustified imprisonment, exile, or torture, whether by groups that
support or oppose the system? Is there freedom from war and insurgencies?
7. Is there freedom from extreme government indifference and corruption?
8. Is there open and free private discussion?
9. Is there personal autonomy? Does the state control travel, choice of residence, or choice of employment? Is
there freedom from indoctrination and excessive dependency on the state?
10. Are property rights secure? Do citizens have the right to establish private businesses? Is private business
activity unduly influenced by government officials, the security forces, or organized crime?
11. Are there personal social freedoms, including gender equality, choice of marriage partners, and size of
family?
12. Is there equality of opportunity, including freedom from exploitation by or dependency on landlords,
employers, union leaders, bureaucrats, or other types of obstacles to a share of legitimate economic gains?
Democracy in the city-states of ancient Greece:
The Athenian Democracy
• The Assembly:
• The central events of the Athenian democracy were the meetings of the assembly. Unlike a parliament, the assembly's
'members' were not elected, but attended by right when they chose. Greek democracy created at Athens was a direct,
not a representative democracy: any adult male citizen of age could take part, and it was a duty to do so. The officials
of the democracy were in part elected by the Assembly and in large part chosen by lottery.
• The assembly had at least four functions: it made executive pronouncements (decrees, such as deciding to go to war or
granting citizenship to a foreigner); it elected some officials; it made laws; and it tried political crimes.
• The courts:
• The judicial system are based on the participation of jurors, who got selected by lot.
• The Procedure of Ostracism:
• Each year the Athenians were asked in the assembly whether they wished to hold an ostracism. The question was put
in the sixth of the ten months used for state business under the democracy (January or February in the modern
Gregorian Calendar). If they voted “yes”, then an ostracism would be held two months later. In a roped-off area of the
agora, citizens scratched the name of a citizen they wished to expel on potshards, and deposited them in urns. The
presiding officials counted the ostraka submitted; if a minimum of 6000 votes were reached, then the ostracism took
place: the officials sorted the names into separate piles, and the person receiving the highest number of votes was
exiled for 10 years.
• The person nominated had ten days to leave the city — if he attempted to return, the penalty was death. Notably, the
property of the man banished was not confiscated and there was no loss of status. After the ten-year period he was
allowed to return without stigma. It was possible for the assembly to recall an ostracized person ahead of time; like, if
there was a urgent need of a general during a war, someone on exile could be recalled by the assembly.
• The Citizen Initiator:
• The institutions sketched above — assembly, officeholders, council, courts — are incomplete without
the figure that drove the whole system, any qualified citizen, he who wishes, or anyone who wishes.
• In Athens, citizens had the right to take the initiative: to stand to speak in the assembly, to initiate a
public law suit (that is, one held to affect the political community as a whole), to propose a law
before the lawmakers or to approach the council with suggestions. Unlike officeholders, the citizen
initiator was not vetted before taking up office or automatically reviewed after stepping down — it
had after all no set tenure and might be an action lasting only a moment. But any stepping forward
into the democratic limelight was risky and if someone chose (another citizen initiator) they could be
called to account for their actions and punished.
• The degree of participation among citizens varied greatly, along a spectrum from doing virtually
nothing towards something like a fulltime committment. But for even the most active citizen the
formal basis of his political activity was the invitation issued to everyone (every qualified free male
Athenian citizen) by the phrase "whoever wishes". There are then three functions: the officeholders
organized and saw to the complex protocols; qualified citizen initiator was the proposer of content;
and finally the people, massed in assembly or court or convened as lawmakers, made the decisions,
either yes or no, or choosing between alternatives.
 Middle Ages

Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis

Inquiry on Heretical Perversity

The Origins of Modern Democracy (1): Rights

The Poorest may in his

cottage bid defiance to all the
force of the crown. It may
be frail, its roof may shake,
the wind may blow through
it. The rain may enter. The
storms may enter but the
King of England may not
enter. All his forces dare not
cross the threshold of the
ruined tenement.
The Magna Carta (1215) --William Pitt, 1760
The Origins of Modern Democracy (2): Reason

The Age of Reason

 The Origins of Modern Democracy

• the rising consciousness of natural rights;

• the Enlightenment Movement that advocated reason as the
primary source and legitimacy for authority;.
 Charles Tilly:
Four Approaches of Defining Democracy…
1.Constitutional Approach (legal code proclaim)
2.Substantial Approach (practices and outcome)
3.Procedural Approach (election or not)
4.Process-oriented Approaches (official, election, expression, information, autonomy,
citizenship)
· Constitutional definitions focus on whether a country’s legal code (e.g. constitution) proclaims the country
democratic and purports to support democratic practices. The advantage of this definition is that it is easy to
operationalize. The disadvantage is that what exists on paper may not exist in practice. Here Tilly uses the
example of Kazakhstan.
· Substantive definitions of democracy focus on the people’s life conditions and political practices (e.g. human
welfare, individual freedom, security, equity, social equality, public deliberation, and peaceful conflict
resolution). The advantage is that it measures democracy more accurately. However, how do we handle trade-
offs among indicators? Also, its focus on outcomes doesn’t explain how democracy delivers these outcomes
better than other regime types.
· Procedural definitions are exemplified by Schumpter and, to a lesser extent, Freedom House. Here the focus
is on specific practices, especially elections (free and fair, competitive, large voter turnout) and alternation.
Again, easy to measure. However, the definition is very narrow.
· Process-orientated definitions differ significantly from the three. They identify some minimum set of
processes that must be continuously in motion for a situation to qualify as democratic. It is exemplified by
Robert Dahl (1998). He identifies 5 processes that must be continually in place: effective participation, voting
equality, enlightened understanding, control of the agenda, and inclusion of all adults. He also identifies 6
democratic institutions: elected official; free, fair, and frequent elections; freedom of expression; alternative
sources of information; associational autonomy; and inclusive citizenship. The disadvantage of this definition
is that it’s all or none and doesn’t allow for degrees of democracy.
 Charles Tilly: Democracy’s four features
(in terms of the relations between the state and its citizens)

1. Breadth
2. Equality
3. Protection
4. Mutually binding
consultation

A typical town meeting…

Continues process-matter of degree
 Robert Dahl: Polyarchy
—the ideal model for a perfect democracy…
1. Institutional guarantees are required for the opportunity to:
1) Formulate Preferences
2) Signify Preferences
3) Have preferences weighted equally in conduct of government.
2. Polyarchy requires high level of:
1) Public Contestation
2) Participation (Inclusiveness)
High degree of opposite
public
contestation but
low degree of
inclucisiveness
 Phillipe C. Schmitter & Terry Lynn Carl:
What Democracy Is?

Modern political democracy is a system of

governance in which rulers are held
accountable for their actions in the public realm
by citizens, acting indirectly through the
competition and cooperation of their elected
representatives.
 The Virtues of Democracy:

1. Accountable Governance
2. Checks and Balances
3. Transparency
4. Correcting Errors
5. Adaptability
6. Peaceful Transfer of Power
7. Protection of basic rights
and freedoms

Government by the Consent of the Governed

 What Democracy Can NOT Guarantee?
(Schmitter & Carl)
1. Economic growth in the short run
2. Administrative Efficiency; Consensus
3. Immediate Political Order and Stability
4. Open Economy
The Potential Dangers of Democracy (1):
The Tyranny of the Majority
The term used in Classical and Hellenistic Greece for corrupted democracy was
ochlocracy ("mob rule"), while tyranny meant simply an absolute monarchy.
The phrase "tyranny of the majority" originates with Alexis de Tocqueville in
his Democracy in America, where it is the name of an entire section (1835,
1840) and was further popularized by John Stuart Mill, who cites de
Tocqueville, in On Liberty (1859); the Federalist Papers frequently refer to the
concept, though usually under the name of "the violence of majority faction,"
particularly in Federalist 10.

Lord Acton also used this term, saying:

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather
of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in
carrying elections.
—The History of Freedom in Antiquity, 1877
Alexis de Tocqueville
(1805-1859)
The Potential Dangers of Democracy (2):
Mob Rule
Lynching mob
 Abraham Lincoln and his
“Perpetuation Speech” (1838)
• I hope I am over wary; but if I am
not, there is, even now, something
of ill-omen amongst us. I mean the
increasing disregard for law which
pervades the country; the growing
disposition to substitute the wild
and furious passions, in lieu of the
sober judgment of Courts; and the
worse than savage mobs, for the
executive ministers of justice.
Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865)
----Abraham Lincoln
Liberal Democracy: Democracy, Liberty and
the Rule of Law
 The Rule of Law

For as in absolute
governments the king is
law, so in free countries the
law ought to be king; and
there ought to be no other.
----Thomas Paine,
Common Sense

Thomas Paine
1737-1809
 The Rule of Law

1. Set up and enforce the rules of democratic game

 The Rule of Law

2. Maintain social order; ensure equal justice for all.

 The Rule of Law

3. Protect freedoms and rights; place certain matters beyond the reach of
majority rule; protect minority rights
 Towards a new century of
Liberal (Constitutional) Democracy: