DEMOCRACY

AND
DEMOCRATIC REGIMES
Introduction

Meaning: “demo” – people; “cracy” – rule or power

In 2018, according to a Democracy Index conducted by

Economist Intelligence Unit, among 167 states, 20 (12%)
are full democracies, 55 (32.9%) are flawed democracies,
39 (23.4%) are hybrid regimes and 53 (31.7%) are
authoritarian regimes.
Origin of Democracy (1)

The Athenian experience:

In 500 B.C., in Athens, the Greek city-state, the political system is a
direct democracy;

Citizenship:
free men, excluding slaves, women and foreigners, non-landowners
and males under 20; so it was like an elite class.

The Assembly:
every Athenian citizen participated in discussion of making any law or
policy & cast one vote.
Origin of Democracy (2)

The Council of 500:

Similar to the Executive today: carry out laws and policies.
 By lottery, every citizen was possibly selected as a
councilor with limited terms.
 Councilor lacked the sense of political responsibility.
 Only the rich wanted to join the Council to
manipulate for their own interests and this gradually
reduced the egalitarian principle.

Finally, irresponsibility & inefficiency led to wide-spread

corruption & violence & demagoguery (populism).
Origin of Democracy (3)

At the end, many Greek intellectuals condemn Athenian

democracy.

Aristotle:

Good Bad
Rule by a single person Monarchy Tyranny
Rule by minority Aristocracy Oligarchy
Rule by many Polity Democracy

Finally, Athens was extinguished by Sparta. Democracy

did not develop until 1700 years later in England.
The Development of Representative Democracy (1)

The English Parliament

The Development of Representative Democracy (2)

1700 years after

 the end of the Athenian democracy, the idea of a responsive
govt. reappeared.

John Locke (1632-1704) and

 Edmund Burke (1729-1797) developed the
theory of "representative democracy": people elected representatives into
the Parliament & represented their viewpoints & interests.

A major modern representative democracy emerged from the 17 th century


Britain when the Parliament (nobles and knights) wanted to fight for power
from the king and the democratization process was a continued expansion of
parliamentary power and a decrease of monarchial power.

This later developed into the

 House of Commons & the House of Lords.
The Development of Representative Democracy (3)

In the development of the British democracy, several important

documents:

1) the Magna Charta, 1215

: required consultation between the king & nobles; the beginning
of constitutionalism;

2) the Bill of Rights, 1689

: asserting the authority of Parliament to be equal to the Crown;
also limited government power to protect people’s rights;

3) the Reform Act of 1832

: enfranchised a small portion of the electorate;
The Development of Representative Democracy (4)

4) the Representation of the People Act of 1919

: Ordinary citizens could be elected into the
House of Commons
: All men over 21 & their wives over 30 could vote

  The 1st modern democracy is USA who declared its

independence from the British rule in 1776 and its
Congress ratified the Constitution in 1788.
 Development of the American Democracy(1)

 After the American Revolution, the founding fathers tried

to establish a political system which can be protected
against tyranny.

 Different political groups contributed to the success of the

Revolution.

 A democracy with a division of power was favored. Yet,

parliamentary democracy was unknown at that time
(monarchs still ruled England and France). The founding
fathers had to devise a new system themselves, i.e., the US
presidential system.
Development of the American Democracy(2)

 The setup of the US presidential system is based on the

US Constitution, in essence, an elected government
based on the principles of federalism, separation of
powers and checks and balances and with the obligation
to protect civil liberties.
The 1789 French Revolution

 1792 National Convention elected by all males but the

French Revolution resulted in a “mob rule” and was not a
successful case of democratization.
 Whether a state is a democracy or not, we should not judge
only with its form of government or whether it has election,
e.g., electoral democracy/electoral authoritarianism –
Russia and Iran today.
Principles of Democracy (1)

Popular sovereignty
- This is a fundamental idea of liberal democracy.

- The term means that the only source of the legitimacy

and authority of the state is the people.

- Acknowledgement of popular sovereignty is based on

acceptance of the “social contract theory” (Thomas
Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau) and
repudiation of “divine right of kings”.
Principles of Democracy (2)

Political equality
- The basis of democracy: “all men are created equal” in
US Declaration of Independence.

- Equal before the law; no one has privilege before the law,
regardless of sex, ethnicity and property ownership

- Equal participation in politics: equal right to vote, to

contest elections, to criticize the government
Principles of Democracy (3)

Political liberty
- In democracy, civil liberties and human rights are
stressed and government is asked to guarantee the legal
protection of civil liberties.

- People are free to express political opinions and engage

in political activities through assembly, association,
movement, voting and speech as well as free from
political intimidation and coercion from the state.
Principles of Democracy (4)

Majority rule
- One basic principle of democracy is majority rule. But how to
avoid “tyranny of the majority” and to protect minority
rights?

- Mechanisms such as federalism, separation of powers, checks

and balance, and consensual democracy are devised to avoid
“tyranny of the majority” and protection of minority rights.

- Most of the democratic voting systems reflect plurality vote,

not majority vote.
Principles of Democracy (5)

Popular consultation
- In modern democracy, people do not just elect their
representatives into the government and then do
nothing until the next time to elect their representatives
again. Their representatives in the government need to
continuously consult people in major law and policy
decision-makings.

- The process of decision-making should involve

consultation with as many people as possible.
Principles of Democracy (6)

- The result of popular consultation in any political decision-

making is trying to satisfied most of the people, not the
majority of the people.

- Popular consultation does not aim at a one-time distinction

between majority and minority. Based on the principle of
pluralism, it aims at building up different majorities in different
time.

- Every time, it is a different alliance of most of the people in

different decision-making. In the process of decision-making,
competition, consultation, negotiation (bargaining), compromise,
accommodation (giving up partial interests and values to
accommodate others) are necessary.
Principles of Democracy (7)

- Pluralism is to fulfill the majority wish but in every

decision, the majority constitutes with different people
and different interests.

- Policy does not necessarily reflect majority preference

but rather a compromise of different interests.

- American pluralist system is best understood as a

system of multiple, competing elites (including
interest groups) that determine public policy through
bargaining & compromise.
Principles of Democracy (9)

Constitutionalism
- The essence of constitutionalism is limited government,
i.e., a government with limited power.

- The power of government is set by the law and govt.

should exercise power according to the law, i.e., “rule of
law”, not “rule by law”

- Constitution is the highest law in any state; following

constitution should not be just following the words but
more importantly, should also be following the spirit.
Principles of Democracy (10)

- People’s basic rights should be stated in the constitution.

- Government structure and their power (limitation of

power) should also be clearly stated in the constitution.

- China in the 1950s to 1970s was under Mao Zedong’s

dictatorship and was not even “rule by law”, but
lawlessness.
The following types of democracies are not exclusive of each other
and can coexist with each other in the same democratic regime.
 
• Direct versus representative democracy

• Direct democracy
 People vote on laws (and policies) directly;
E.g., change constitution, initiatives, referendums, listing and
ousting elective officials;

 Switzerland is one of the few countries which puts direct

democracy as part of the political institution (mainly through
referendums).

 Brexit is an example of direct democracy which testifies the

dominance of changing public opinion and changing emotion
and not making a major public policy based on thorough
consideration and rationality.
Representative democracy
• People elect representatives into government (mostly executive and
legislature, and in some cases, judiciary) and then representatives
make and/or carry out laws (and policies).
 
• People might need to vote, through various mechanisms and time
periods, for different personnel into different level of government and
into different government branches.
 
Majoritarian versus consensual democracy

• The majoritarian democracy works in homogeneous societies

while consensual democracy works in plural societies.

• The practice of consensual democracy is to avoid “tyranny of the

majority”.

• The essence of the Westminster model is “majority rule”.

• The essence of the Consensus model is “rule by as many people

as possible”.
Presidential versus Parliamentary Systems
 
Presidential system: US as example

- According to James Madison, if a group is in the majority for a

sustained period, the group would use its power to oppress the
minority. So, he and the other US founding fathers aimed to make any
majority temporary. Today, we call this theory pluralism.
 
- The US presidential system is designed to divide and frustrate the
majority by using the mechanisms of federalism, separation of powers
and checks and balances.
 - Federalism is to localize rather than nationalize politics, e.g., gives
the political rights and divides up the power into localities.
- Federalism is a way to break up the large population as a permanent majority
and each state is given its own independent and equal power not based on the
size of territory or population (California population: 39 million vs. Wyoming
population: 0.5 million- same electoral rights in the election of 2 senators into
the Senate).
 
- Under the principle of federalism, the US Constitution is difficult to ratify. It
needs three-fourths of the states to pass ratifications. In the past 200 years, only
27 amendments, among which the first 10 amendments (collectively known as
the Bill of Rights) were amended in 1791, two years after the first pass of the
Constitution.
- Separation of powers is to divide up the whole power and entrust
into different governmental branches: executive, legislature and
judiciary. Not a single branch can gain too much power and dominate
the others. Each branch is given its own separate and distinct powers
(i.e., making, carrying out and interpretation of laws).
- Checks and balances refers to power of each branch checked by the other
branches, e.g., the legislature controls the purse and approves personnel
appointment and dismissal of the other 2 branches; the executive appoints judges
and veto laws; the Supreme Court can declare any law and executive action
unconstitutional.
- Donald Trump has appointed Supreme Court judges:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Donald+Trump+appointment+of+supreme+cou
rt+judges+&&view=detail&mid=9D3C2CDDA5210583F0D49D3C2CDDA5210583F0
D4&&FORM=VRDGAR
 
- Congress not fully agree with Trump’s trade war:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=trade+tariff+Congress+check+against+Trump&
&view=detail&mid=D50484FEB7C8B22B718BD50484FEB7C8B22B718B&&FORM
=VRDGAR
 
- The United States is an example of a mixed majoritarian-consensual type of
democracy.

- Majoritarian elements: concentration of executive power in the hand of the

president, two-party system, single-member-district electoral system.

- Consensus elements: separation of powers, balanced bicameralism, federalism,

minority veto on the written constitution.
Parliamentary system: UK as an example

UK is a unitary system. Central vs. local governments; bicameral

– House of Lords vs. House of Commons
 
Political principles are Parliamentary sovereignty, fusion of
powers and executive-legislature-judiciary harmony.
Palace of Westminster
Fusion of powers
• Executive (cabinet) is part of the legislature (Parliament);
personnel (prime minister, cabinet members and Parliament
members) and roles (making vs. carrying out laws) are
overlapping; the Supreme Court/Privy Council (final appeal
court, supreme court, no power of constitutional review) is also
part of the Parliament.
The Westminster Model:
Nine Majoritarian Elements

1. Concentration of executive power: one-party and bare-majority

cabinets:
 The cabinet is composed of members of the party that has the
majority seats in the House of Commons.
 
2. Fusion of power and cabinet dominance:
 The nearly complete fusion of the executive and legislative
powers.
 The cabinet and the majority of the Parliament come from
members of the majority party.
 
3. Asymmetric bicameralism:
 The House of Commons has almost all powers.
 The House of Lords retains the power to delay legislation.
 British asymmetric bicameralism may also be called near-
unicameralism.
4. Two-party system:
 The two major parties, Labour and Conservative Party,
govern in rotation.
 
5. One-dimensional party system:
 British society is basically homogeneous.
 The two major parties diverge only in socioeconomic issues.
 
6. Plurality system of elections:
 Single-member-district system according to plurality method.
 The winner is the one with majority vote or the largest
minority vote (plurality vote).
7. Unitary and centralized government:
 Local governments financially and functionally depend on
the central government.
 
8. Unwritten constitution and parliamentary sovereignty:
 Britain has an “unwritten” constitution.
 Parliament is the ultimate authority and there is no formal
restriction on the power of the House of Commons.
 
9. Typical representative democracy:
 The institutional design has little room for direct
democracy such as referendum.
 British democracy is a typical representative democracy.
British deviations in recent decades from
the Westminster Model

1. Minority cabinet or coalitional cabinet (2010-15 was a coalitional

government by Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats).

2. Emerge of the third party (and others) threatens the two-party

system.

Cameron and Clegg

 Teresa May Boris Johnson

3. Increased parliamentary defeats of important proposals

introduced by cabinets (not that harmonious anymore).

4. A change from bicameralism to near-unicameralism and is in

the direction to complete unicameralism.

5. In the past, social class is the only dimension of differentiation;

today, ethnicity and religion are also major cleavages.

6. Increasing argument over the single-member district electoral

system.
7. High autonomy of Northern Ireland; independence of Republic of Ireland;
and increasing autonomy of Scotland and Wales.

8. The British parliamentary sovereignty is challenged by Britain’s entry into

the European Union and now, Brexit.

9. In 1975, there was a national referendum (i.e., direct democracy) voting to

keep Britain in the European Economic Community (Common Market) ; in
Sept. 2014, a failed referendum held in Scotland to let the Scottish decide
whether Scotland would separate from the UK (55% vs. 44%); in June 2016,
the Brexit had decided that the UK
withdrew from the EU.
 
THE END