Liberal Democracy

Government of the people?

Indirect or representative democracy has generally operated within the context of liberal democracy. This means democracy is qualified by values and principles of liberalism. One may argue that in this, ‘liberal’ may dominate over the ‘democratic’. This is the charge, radical democrats make against liberal democracy. It further leads to the doubt: whether problems of democracy are, in fact, problems of liberalism.

Indirect or representative democracy was philosophically legitimised by the concepts of social contract, natural rights and consent of the people. In Locke, government becomes a trust of the people while the latter retains political supremacy. Government is representative of the people to protect the natural rights and is limited by this scope. As such, government must be representative of the people, their rights and based on their consent.

Liberal democracy combines liberal and democratic elements. Liberalism is based on the notion of individual liberty and to this end, a limited state and authority. Authority should not interfere with the activities and conducts of individuals. Scope of liberty is defined as coterminous with absence of interference from the authority and the state. Liberal elements in liberal democracy include:

1. Principle of individual liberty and natural and inherent rights are given primacy. This results in charter of liberties and rights of the individual including right to private property, as Indian Fundamental Rights, American Bill of Rights, etc.,
2. Limited government is considered important, as government is seen as a ‘necessary evil’. This means, government should be constitutionally limited through separation of powers, checks and balances and defined charter of individual rights.

A limited state with individual liberty and economic freedom is the basis of liberalism. Locke was cautious in balancing individual liberty and scope of government. However, laissez faire theorists and early economists such as Smith, Ricardo and Malthus, Spencer and libertarian and New Right theorists such as Hayek, Friedman, Berlin and Nozick, support minimalist state and give primacy to individual liberty. Democracy has operated and is operating in the context of such liberal background. On the other hand, democratic elements in liberal democracy include:

• Supremacy of people’s political power is underlined. The Indian Constitution starts with the word ‘We, the people’ signifying supremacy of the people as the sole source of legitimate power,
• Participation and popular consent of the people through elections,
• Electoral practice as means of expressing consent based on universal suffrage, and
• Popular, periodic, open and multi-party competitive elections as the only source of governmental power and legitimacy

Democracy is identified with universal adult suffrage, free and fair elections, multi-party competition and participation by the people to express their consent and selection or affirmation of leaders. Liberal features of basic liberties of speech, discussion, assembly and other rights including the right to property are required for realization of the democratic practices. Combined with this, constitutional elements such as the rule of law, separation of powers and independent judiciary and bill or charter of rights are considered requisites of liberal democracy. Thus, in the Western sense, liberal democracy combines the features of liberalism, democracy and constitutionalism.

Universal suffrage is based on the principle of political equality and Benthamite principle of ‘one person, one vote’. Periodic, open and competitive elections mean election held on regular intervals, openly conducted by impartial agency (like the Election Commission) and observers and based on multi-party competition. Liberal democracy is characterised by a combination of the liberal and democratic elements as mentioned above. It appears that the adjective, liberal defines the noun, democracy; we generally hear about liberal democracy but hardly about democratic liberalism.

Liberal democracy in its operational aspect is based on the following philosophical and theoretical grounds:

Popular government based on supremacy of the people: Social contract theory places political power in the hands of the people and makes them source of all power to be exercised and enjoyed by governments. Except Hobbes, who makes the people surrender all their power to the Leviathan, other contractualists, Locke and Rousseau, retain supremacy in the hands of the people. For Locke, civil society retains the ‘supreme power’ and for Rousseau, ‘General Will’ is absolute and all-powerful. Its implication is that government must be accountable and responsible to the people. Rousseau was opposed to representative democracy, but Locke provided it’s justification. Democracy is a form of government in which the ultimate power rests with the entire community and that community gives its consent as to who should represent them.

Supremacy of people is associated with popular sovereignty. The latter, in turn, relates to participatory democracy. However, it is said that popular sovereignty in itself has no necessary connection with democracy.²⁶ The doctrine that all power should rest with the people does not necessarily mean that this power is to be delegated. In Rousseau, for example, there is no possibility of representation or delegation of power or consent. Rousseau’s General Will does not allow possibility of a representative democracy. Democracy can be a useful tool in controlling and limiting authority, which is also the purpose of popular sovereignty. Popular will, Andrew Vincent opines, can be check on centralised authority, but it can be equally dominating. Popular sovereignty is required to check arbitrary deviations

Consent and representation: The doctrine of social contract is an explicit acceptance of government based on consent. Locke’s theory of government as ‘trust’ derives from the principle that people has consented to live under a governmental authority. Principle of consent assumes that an individual is not obligated to follow or obey an authority unless personally consents to its authority. Thus, consent provides basis for political legitimacy. Elected delegates carry this consent and form government, decide policies and enact legislations. Government that carries such legitimacy requires people to follow its authority. This form of government is called representative democracy because representatives who constitute government carry consent of the people. Democratic government functions as the trust of the people and accountability of the government to the people is ensured. In liberal view, government and authority is generally seen as opposed to individual liberty. However, a government constituted as per the consent of the individual and representative of her or his interests, wishes and will, is not inimical or opposed to liberty. Representative democracy becomes a mechanism with which authority of the government is limited. The core of the liberal value that individual is the sole decision-maker and rational chooser reflects in his/her choice of who should represent. It also implies absence of this consent when the very interests, wishes and wills of the people is violated by the representative government. This may result in protests, agitations and even violent mass movements.

To enjoy continuous consent of the people and their wishes and wills, representatives need to be in touch with the electorate. This requires eliciting public opinion and maintaining channels of communication with the people. Media, pressure and interest groups and political parties perform the functions of building public opinion and highlighting variety of interests. They also bring together scattered interests and themes present in public opinion and mould them in the perspective of policy-making. For example, there was a need for people knowing about the operations, decisions and impacts of governmental activities on social, economic and political life of individuals. Public opinion in favour of such an act which can provide people the right to get information from the government was debated, discussed and brought to the focus in such a manner that it resulted in the form of the Right to Information Act, 2005.

Limited and constitutional government: If we combine the principle of people’s supremacy and source of power with principles of consent and representation as the basis of government, it implies that the ruler should be chosen by the ruled, should be accountable to them and should work in their interests. In other words, ruler should be ‘obliged to justify their actions to the ruled and be removable by the ruled.’²⁷ Locke, Bentham and Mill sought to provide their yardsticks for ensuring government’s accountability to the people. In Locke, we find the trio of natural rights of life, liberty and property as the limiting factor; in Bentham the Utilitarian principle of maximum happiness of the maximum number, and in Mill the sanctity and inviolability of individual conduct. Thus, government requires to be limited by the purpose it serves. This limitation is ensured by constitutionally available checks such as separation of powers and checks and balances, independent judiciary checking legislature and executive, and legislature checking and balancing executive; bicameral legislature, one house checking the other, and Bill or Charter of individual rights limiting the scope of interference in areas thus protected for individual conduct. Electorally and politically, the government has limited mandate for a specified time and in a competitive multi-party system, availability of the alternative party further works as limit.

Garner has summarised the benefit and philosophy of representative government as an accountable government and says ‘The theory is that, being freely chosen by their fellow citizens, ordinarily for short terms, and accountable to them for the manner in which they exercise their trust, those who are called to govern will be the most representative, the most competent, and the most worthy of the public confidence’.²⁸ Thus representativeness comes from popular responsibility and control of those who govern.

It is generally agreed that democracy serves the purpose of limiting government by putting its control in the hands of the people. However, some observers have doubted that democracy can be taken as a tool of constitutionally limited government. Sidgwick has pointed out that democracy bears no connection with responsibility. A. G. Sidgwick in his study on American democracy, ‘The Democratic Mistake’ (1912), points out that ‘one of its chief defects lies in the lack of adequate means for securing an enforceable responsibility.’²⁹ We can ask ourselves, as Sidgwick does, whether means such as popular elections, periodic elections, rotation in office, etc. have proved to be adequate to ensure responsibility of and control over the representative government in India. What means people have to check the behaviour of their representatives once they have been elected? Further, there is an intrinsic problem in democracy. What happens when through the same democratic process, racist, criminals, and those who spread hatred are also elected? This was the concern Richard Halbrooke, the American diplomat raised about Yugoslavia in 1990s when he said, ‘suppose elections are free and fair and those elected are racists, fascists, separatists.’³⁰ We have examples of democracy resulting in undemocratic and irresponsible rulers, as in Hitler. It appears that democracy may not be enough check to ensure a responsible government.

Majority principle: Principle of majority is the operative part of consent and representation. In liberal democracy, my consent is to be represented by some one and that too in association with the consent of others in society. This means along with my interests, interests of all must be represented. When we grapple with the issue of how to make the interests of all be represented by one delegate, the principle of majority comes in. By its very nature representative democracy, requires a formula through which representatives are elected. In a bipolar situation having two candidates contesting for the vote in a constituency, absolute majority becomes the basis of election. In a multi-party situation, relative majority prevails. Ironically, in both the cases, even though some of the electorates remain unrepresented, we still call it a representative democracy. This is because, each individual has been given equal political right to choose having one value for his/her vote. Every body having exercised their choices, the candidates securing the majority, either absolute or relative, becomes the representative of the whole geographical constituency. It means once the principle of majority is applied to select a representative, s/he becomes representative of all. Lincoln’s formulation of government of the people and for the people (though not by the people) becomes relevant. Once chosen, the representatives constitute the parliament and from amongst them the government. Government thus constituted must work in the interest of all and not merely the majority. Edmund’s formulation that a representative should not be a mere ambassador of particular interests but a member of the parliament serves an important guide for overcoming the limitation of the majoritarian principle. Political observers and psephologists have pointed out that in India most of the governments in fact, have been minority governments. This is because in a multi-party contest, relative majority elects candidates. This, in turn, makes a party secure majority of seats despite minority of total votes. Most of the Governments though had majority of seats, they scored less than 50 per cent of votes.

While Locke found majority principle useful operational concept, Mill apprehended that ‘simple majority voting system … allowed the dominance of a ignorant majority over minorities.’³¹ Mill favoured proportional representation to safeguard the interests of all and not to allow any group to dominate on the other. In terms of threat of majority on individual liberty both Mill and Tocqueville were apprehensive and suggested that majoritarian tyranny should be checked lest individual liberty will be jeopardised.

As a safeguard against the majority principle becoming inimical to minority interests, it has been suggested to provide for proportional representation. Proportional representation means allocation of seats and public offices in proportion to the number of votes polled. This may ensure that the defect of majority principle, in which the interests of the political minority is constructed as part of the majority itself, is taken care of. In India, principle of proportional representation for example is applied in the election of the President of India.