Liberalism and Democracy

GORDON GRAHAM
Princeton Theological Seminary

Abstract
Political liberalism and the democratic ideal together supply the foundation of almost all contemporary
political thinking. This essay explores the relation between them. It argues that, despite common
parlance, there is an inevitable tension between the two. Furthermore, attempts to resolve this tension
by showing that democracy is a good thing in its own right, or that it is the inevitable development of
liberal aspirations, or that it is conceptually connected to fundamental liberal ideas, all fail. The
conclusion to be drawn is that liberalism requires a pragmatic rather than a principled approach to
democratic aspirations.

Do liberals have good reason to be a democrats? That is to say, must a free society also be a
democratic one? Nowadays the ideas of freedom and democracy are so closely allied in the phrase
'liberal democracy' that it is difficult even to raise this question. How could there be a tension between
them? we are inclined to think. And yet it was not always so. To begin with, the two ideas have different
origins. Liberalism is a relatively modern theory of the state, democracy an ancient conception of a form
of government. Moreover, the two have not always been allied. Benjamin Constant, one of the principal
theorists of modern European liberalism expressly contrasts the modern, liberal conception of freedom,
with the ancient democratic one.
The ancients aimed at a distribution of power among all the citizens of a given state, and they
referred to this as freedom. For the moderns, the goal is security in their private possessions. For them,
liberty refers to the guarantees of these possessions afforded by their institutions.[1]
And for Tocqueville one major question, perhaps the central question, of political theory was
'Can liberty survive, and how can it survive, in a democratic society?'[2] Even today some liberal
theorists are careful to draw a distinction. F A Hayek, for instance, says:
Liberalism requires that all power, and this must include the power of the majority, must be
circumscribed. Democracy, by contrast, tends to the view that the opinion of the majority constitutes
the sole limit to the powers of the government. The difference between the two principles is clearly
apparent when we recall that the opposite of democracy is authoritarianism, and the opposite of liberty
totalitarianism.[3]
 My contention in this essay is that, despite common parlance, there is indeed a necessary
tension between the fundamental ideals of liberalism and those of democracy. Further, the exploration
of this tension will show that true liberals must temper their enthusiasm for democracy. One difficulty in
the way of showing this lies in the fact that precisely what beliefs a true liberal must hold is a matter of
considerable dispute. Arguably in fact, there is no one set of distinctively liberal beliefs or policies[4].
This does not mean, however, that liberalism can be anything at all - it would be eccentric to describe as
liberal a theory which gave pride of place to the collective accomplishments of the state and took no
interest in the promotion or protection of individual liberties. From this we may infer that any form of
liberalism must be concerned with the freedom of the individual within the state.
Even if this is generally agreed, however, there are still a great many matters on which
disagreement between liberals is possible, and about which disputes are in fact quite familiar. Why is
individual liberty to be protected? Is it because liberty maximizes utility (Mill[5]), or is it because such
liberties belong to individuals by natural right (Locke[6]), or because such protection is demanded by the
moral requirement to treat people as ends in themselves (Kant[7])? And how is the sphere of individual
liberty to be delimited? By appeal to natural right, the operation of the categorical imperative or Mill's
one simple, if somewhat mundane principle of preventing harm to others? Even if one of these answers
were fixed upon, there is the possibility of further disagreement about just what things are rights and
harms. Are there welfare rights? Should the state prevent moral harm to others? And so on.
All these are issues of the greatest importance in the philosophical examination of liberalism.
But they are issues which in the main it is possible to avoid, if what concerns us is the relationship of
liberalism, in whatever way we understand it, to other political conceptions. And though I shall have to
return to the question, for the moment I shall assume that whatever its basis, liberalism must offer us
reasons to prefer a state which makes its principal role the promotion and protection of individual
liberty, however these are to be specified. Consequently, any liberal will approve a political constitution
whose provisions reflect this concern, and this I shall call a 'liberal constitution'. The question then
becomes : Is there any reason to think that a liberal constitution must be democratic?

Democracy versus Aristocracy

Imagine a country with a liberal constitution but an unelected government, a meritocratic oligarchy
along the lines of Plato's philosopher-kings perhaps[8]. It is a country whose laws protect the rights and
interests of the individual citizen in whatever way our particular brand of liberalism commends. These
laws are faithfully observed by the government and applied by an independent judiciary. Constitutional
arrangements of one sort or another provide a peaceful check upon government power, thus ensuring
that groups and individual citizens are effectively protected from excesses on the part of the executive.
Moreover, with freedom of speech and assembly and by means of a free press, citizens are in fact often
able to influence government decisions, though the oligarchs, let us add, take account of popular
opinion only in so far as this is conducive to freedom, peace and prosperity. There are, however, no
formal arrangements for voting or power sharing. Everyone is appointed to office by existing office
bearers, on the basis of their perceived fitness for government, and for this reason I shall call this
imaginary country an aristocracy, one ruled by the best.
One effect of giving it this name, is to draw attention to its undemocratic character. On the face
of it, however, since ex hypothesi the imaginary country has a liberal constitution, this does not seem to
present a reason for liberals as such to object to it. There are three possible lines of thought which
would call this conclusion into question.
1. It might be argued that democratic institutions are intrinsically good, and consequently there
is good reason for liberals as much as for anyone to object to an aristocracy.
2. It might be argued that, though there is indeed no necessary connection between liberalism
and democracy such that the value of one implies the value of the other, liberal and democratic
institutions are nonetheless contingently related such that in the real world of politics the two
cannot be long held apart.
3. It might be held that there is indeed a conceptual connection between liberalism and
democracy; that appearances in this imaginary country are deceptive, and its non-democratic
nature in fact makes it illiberal.
Let us consider each of these arguments in turn.

Are democratic institutions good in themselves?

It is often thought that the intrinsic goodness of democracy is self-evident. Certainly, many people use
the words 'democracy' and 'democratic' in ways that imply automatic commendation. It is difficult to
imagine any politician in the modern Western world who would publicly question the value of
democracy. Indeed on this score modern politicians show an unusual unanimity, though the unanimity is
not very deep in my view, since important disputes still arise about which countries and institutions are
to be described as democratic. Everyone is in favour of democracy, but it often turns out that
democracy is the name of whatever institutions they favour.
 This tendency for 'democracy' to be used as a mere 'pro' word, serving to commend any and
every political system rather describe a particular one, has often bedevilled the serious discussion of its
merits. What is needed is a rather more descriptive characterization of democracy, one that both
accords with general usage and serves to pick out a distinctive form of government. We can then ask
whether and why we should value it.
How is democracy to be characterized? There is of course Lincoln's celebrated phrase -
"government of the people, by the people and for the people". Since any government, however
absolute and autocratic, could be for the people, as the rule of the King of the Scots was for instance,
i.e.. intended to serve the best interests of those subject to it rather than the interests of the rulers
themselves, it is the first two elements of Lincoln's formula which are important. These two elements -
of the people and by the people - express the idea behind the familiar slogan 'power to the people' and
they may be taken to imply first that in a democracy government at all levels is open to all, and secondly
that power and authority in a democracy rest ultimately with those who are ruled rather than those
who rule. As Article Three of the 1789 French Declaration of Human Rights puts it:

The principle of every sovereignty resides essentially within the nation. No body, no individual, can
exercise authority which does not derive expressly from it.[9]

To appreciate this conception properly, something which its very familiarity makes difficult, we
may contrast democratic rule with, for instance, the rule of the Czars. This rule may have been (and
certainly was thought by at least some of the Romanovs to have been) government for the people, but it
was not government of the people since the Czar was an hereditary ruler. Nor was it by the people,
since the Czar's authority was not dependent upon the will of the mass of his subjects.

Power to the people

To the question, What is the democrat's ideal?, we might thus answer : the dispersal of power among
those subject to it. Whereas aristocracy is based upon the principle 'Let those who are most fit to make
the laws, make the laws', democracy is based upon the principle 'Let those who are subject to the laws,
make the laws'. And this is an ideal which does have a certain moral appeal. In illustration of this Brian
Barry introduced the example of smoking in a railway carriage[10]. If, in a given carriage, the choice is
between smoking and no smoking, the fair and reasonable thing seems to be to leave the decision to
those in that carriage, and not, for instance, to involve everyone on the train, still less reserve it to those
in another, first class, compartment.
To make the argument for democracy really effective, of course, the principle of power to the
people would need to be self-evidently superior to any other, and this, in my view, is rather hard to
show. Certainly we know that however it may strike the modern political mind, it has been thought
evidently untrue by most peoples at most times, and it is difficult to know how this difference of opinion
might be settled. But there is in any case a yet more fundamental and perhaps more important question
to be considered which can be made to throw light on the main issue in hand, namely 'How is
democracy to be institutionalized?'
To this further question the railway carriage example readily suggests a twofold answer, namely
'majority rule' and 'universal suffrage'. By themselves, however, these are not enough for the
institutionalization of popular power. It is evident, I think, that a country whose constitution
incorporates universal suffrage where the result is determined by majority rule, would not enjoy popular
sovereignty if its rulers were elected for life, since after such an election the people would be wholly
subject to those rulers and have no authority over them. This is why almost every campaign for
democracy has included a demand for periodic elections, and there may well be many other important
constitutional provisions without which the institutionalization of democracy would be incomplete. But
the two elements with which we began - universal suffrage and majority rule - are sufficient both to pick
out one form of government in a descriptive way, and to allow us to examine something of its merits.
Consider first universal suffrage. There is good reason to hold that this part of the democratic ideal is in
fact unattainable, since in the real world any government will have subjects who are incapable of having
or expressing preferences, but who are nonetheless subject to the state. The commonest examples are
young children, the senile and the insane, though many think that we should add a wide range of
animals as well. Such groups, though just as much ruled by government decisions as other citizens,
cannot in practice be given the vote. Their existence thus makes any actual suffrage less than universal.
If this is correct, we have reason to reject the democratic ideal on the grounds that its aim is
unrealizable.
In response, the democrat could accept the evident truth that some subjects will never be able
to vote, but argue that this does not constitute much of an objection to the belief in universal suffrage,
since we are at liberty to understand it not as a political goal so much as a regulative ideal, the force of
which is to be understood in terms of burden of proof in political argument. On this interpretation, a
belief in the desirability of universal suffrage could be expressed thus: "Everyone subject to the law has
a right to vote unless . . .", where the burden of proof falls on those who wish to exclude certain
categories rather than those who wish to include them.
But of course, to insist that it is those who would exclude who must produce the arguments by
which exclusion is to be justified, is not to imply that no such arguments can he produced. What reasons
can in fact be given for exclusion? The categories just instanced suggest two. Tiny infants and the senile
are very often incapable of voting, and animals certainly are. This seems a good reason for their
exclusion from the voters' roll. Older children and some of the insane, however, are not so much
incapable as incompetent. That is to say, they could enter a polling booth and make a mark according to
instructions, could even understand in a limited way that they were voting perhaps, but their grasp of
the significance of what they were doing would be too slight to allow us to think of them as voting
responsibly. (This is not likely to be true of all older children, or of all those generally classed as insane.)
It seems reasonable to require anyone, however ardent a democrat, to accept at least these sorts of
exclusions, but if incompetence is a sufficient reason to exclude certain persons from the vote, a further
question arises. Where is the line between competence and incompetence to be drawn? Immaturity and
insanity are not the only causes of incompetence. Plain ignorance, or a general unfamiliarity with
political systems may just as readily render people incompetent at the ballot box. Indeed the belief that
this is so explains the common practice of subjecting those who apply for naturalization to political
knowledge tests. It was the same belief which provided the only plausible arguments brought by those
who thought tribal peoples in Africa and elsewhere unfit for democratic institutions.
In any of these examples, the case for exclusion needs to be made out with care of course, because the
possibility of legitimate exclusion is obviously open to abuse. But from the fact that considerations of
this sort will generate some rational exclusions, it follows that the line between competence and
incompetence might exclude quite large numbers of subjects (as it would in any country with a youthful
population, for instance).
More importantly, this means that democracy and its rival aristocracy cannot be so far apart
after all. Once we expressly acknowledge the conditions under which the democratic ideal must
operate, the morally appealing maxim 'Let those who will be subject to political decisions have a say in
them' gives way to the maxim 'Let those who are competent to have a say, have a say', and, though
aristocrats have usually been rather selective in their conceptions of 'fitness', this is not in principle
different from the maxim 'Let those who are fit to govern, govern'. Indeed, the difference seems to be
merely one of expression, for it is plain that in some circumstances both maxims would give us identical
distributions of power.
In short, in attempting to survive the unattainability of universal suffrage as a political goal, the
democrat is compelled to recognize competence as a criterion for power sharing. But acknowledging
this means abandoning the moral idea upon which the appeal of universal suffrage rests, namely that
whatever their merits, those who are subject to the power of the state have a right to a say in its
governance. From this it follows that, in this respect at least, liberal democracy enjoys no moral
superiority over the liberal aristocracy with which we started.

Majority rule and individual right

There is second and somewhat more familiar problem which talk of competence and incompetence
raises for the democratic ideal. This relates to its belief in majority rule. In acknowledging that it is
possible to vote incompetently, we are acknowledging that voting is an activity requiring some level of
intelligence and reflection. Voting is not to be thought of as merely a matter of recording felt
preferences, about which the subject cannot be mistaken, (though the role given to political opinion
polling often does construe it in this way). It follows that voting may be better and less well done. If so,
it is possible for a majority, perhaps through self-interestedness, ignorance or prejudice, to vote badly
and to support a disastrous policy or a corrupt set of rulers. In short, odd though it sounds, it is possible
for government by the people to be government against the people.
In such circumstances to work for a less disastrous policy, or to oppose a corrupt but popularly
elected ruler can properly be described as anti-democratic, i.e. contrary to the express will of the
majority freely expressed. At the same time, it can just as properly be described as the wise promotion
of a good cause. Since the requirement to promote a good cause wisely seems as near as anything can
be to a fundamental maxim of practical reason, it follows that, under the circumstances envisaged, it is
irrational to be a democrat.
This is an important conclusion because it effectively destroys the appeal of another idea which lies
behind democracy, namely that the deliverances of democratic institutions express the collective will of
the people as a community. This is I believe the thought that leads Locke to think that the opinion of the
majority necessarily carries greater force. In the Second Treatise he says:

when any number of Men have, by the consent of every individual, made a Community, they
have thereby made that Community one Body, with a Power to Act as one Body, which is only
by the will and determination of the majority. For that which acts any community, being only
the consent of the individuals of it, and it being necessary to that which is one body to move one
 way; it is necessary the Body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is
the consent of the majority.[11]

But even if this were true, it is easy to see that the will of the community, as expressed by the majority,
can be as foolish and harmful to the community itself as the will of any one person is to that person. If
people can harm themselves, then so can the body politic even conceived of as Locke does. It follows
that there is no special reason here to respect the will of the majority. In fact, as Barry himself has
concluded on further reflection[12], even the simple example of the railway carriage can be used to
illustrate this. The 'fairness' of deciding according to a majority of those involved is much less obvious if
we suppose that one of the passengers is a chronic asthmatic whose welfare will be affected much more
adversely than that of the others.
Of course, the argument we have been considering does not show that it is never rational to be
a democrat. What it does show is that there is no reason to think the support of the majority by itself
bestows any value or virtue. To put it bluntly, stupidity is not superior to intelligence because it is in the
majority. Moreover, though the possibility of this sort of conflict is important to anyone who subscribes
to rational principles of action, it is still more important for the liberal, because similar conflicts are
possible with the fundamental principles of a liberal constitution, where what is at issue is not merely
opposition to widespread folly which the populus at large will come to regret, but, as in the railway case,
the protection of the legitimate interests of the individual against those of the majority.
This is one reason why Kant thought that democracy is despotism (though in making this remark
he was thinking principally of democracy in administrative, rather than legislative, matters[13]). Even if
we do not go this far, we must agree that anything plausibly calling itself a liberal theory of government
will require constitutional protection for the individual at least as much as sovereignty of the people. It
is just this, the foregoing argument shows, which is threatened by a thoroughgoing belief in democracy.
The question whether it is rational for the individual, liberal or not, to be a democrat surfaces in other
ways. Some writers have thought that the injunction to be a democrat is paradoxical, since it requires
the minority voter both to commend and renounce the policy he believes to be right[14]. Others have
made arguments which appear to show that since voting is pretty well a cost-free activity, democracy
lends special scope for individual irresponsibility and hence collective folly[15].
Perhaps some of these difficulties can be overcome, but all these lines of thought suggest that,
despite a common assumption to the contrary, democracy is in serious need of defence, since there are
easily imaginable circumstances in which both practical wisdom and a subscription to liberal principles
generates good reason to reject the claims of majority rule. Moreover, if there is a system of
government which does not have these failings, there is reason to prefer it. The liberal aristocracy with
which we began is one such system, and it follows therefore, that the mere fact that it is not democratic
is no objection to it. Let us turn then to the second possible line of thought - that liberalism and
democracy are contingently rather than necessarily connected.

Democracy as a condition of liberalism

One obvious response to the idea of a liberal aristocracy is that it is too good to be true, that, as we say,
it might be fine in theory but wouldn't work in practice. Behind this response lies the thought that there
is a contingent connection between liberalism and democracy such that without democratic institutions
a liberal constitution is inherently unstable. There are two sorts of consideration normally brought in
defence of this contention. The first has to do with the rulers of a liberal aristocracy. Power corrupts
and it is unlikely in the extreme that those who do not need to share power with those who are subject
to them will nevertheless give pride of place to their interests. In other words, it is unlikely that
government which is not by the people will remain government for the people for long. The second has
to do with the subjects themselves. A truly liberal constitution will leave individual citizens in charge of
their own affairs to a very large extent, and it is just as unlikely that citizens who have grown up in a
culture which applauds self-direction and individual responsibility will remain content with exclusion
from political power. The success of liberalism, in other words, generates expectations which only
democratic institutions can fulfil. This is an argument advanced by Brian Barry:

once a society reaches a level of development in which there is widespread education and
where the bulk of the population enjoys independence from grinding poverty and continuous
toil, the choice can only be between repression (including arbitrary action against citizens,
making political prisoners out of critics and tight restraints on freedom of publication, assembly
etc.) and a system of representative government.[16]

Much the same point is made by the Italian philosopher Norberto Bobbio:
today non-democratic states would be inconceivable, as would non-liberal democratic states.
There are, in short, good reasons to believe that (a) the procedures of democracy are necessary
to safeguard those fundamental personal rights on which the liberal state is based; and (b) those
rights must be safeguarded if democratic procedures are to operate[17].
This sort of argument is not of course a strictly philosophical one. Bobbio's assessment of the
"inconceivable" has to do not with conceptual possibility, but with estimates of historical probability. It
rests upon an assessment of the likely outcome of different political situations and thus relies upon what
we might call political sociology. This in itself is a weakness, because our knowledge in these matters is
limited and uncertain. Barry describes his claim as a "banal generalization" which "seems to stand up
well empirically", but in fact the experience of mankind has been of so great a variety of political
systems each with a very different history that there seems little scope for generalization. Moreover,
even if we can generalize about the recent history of representative government, who can say how a
liberal aristocracy of the sort imagined is likely to develop? It all depends on time, place and
circumstance.
But this reliance on highly uncertain empirical generalizations is in any case something of a sham
since the claim in question tacitly assumes the practical superiority of a democratic system. If democracy
has consequences of a kind agreeable to liberals, as it often has, then it has them only in so far as it is
realized. Institutionalization is not enough. A close analogy will illustrate the difference. Freedom from
arbitrary arrest is, I take it, a benefit which the citizens of many countries would be glad to enjoy. It is
not secured, however, merely by the fact that its desirability is widely perceived to be the case or even
that most people are agreed on what counts as arbitrary arrest. More importantly, neither is it secured
by laws which proscribe it, if these are frequently ignored. It is secured only by the practice of lawful
arrest, i.e. the de facto behaviour of a political community in which arbitrary arrest is relatively rare and
redress actually, and not merely de jure, available. A country in which freedom from arbitrary arrest is
guaranteed by the constitution is, in my terminology, one in which it is institutionalized. A country in
which arbitrary arrest hardly ever and only with difficulty takes place, whatever the provisions of its
constitution, is one in which, again in my terminology, this fundamental freedom is realized. (Britain is a
country in which freedom from arbitrary arrest is realized, though not institutionalized, since there is no
written constitution. Writs of habeas corpus are effective because of long standing practice, not because
of what they secure in themselves.)
Similarly, a country whose rulers accept the value of democracy and whose constitution includes
democratic institutions such as universal suffrage, majority rule and periodic elections, may still be one
in which people do not in practice exercise much control over the behaviour of their rulers, because
these provisions are inadequately observed. And it is important to stress here, that institutional
arrangements may realize their expected benefits as much because of the behaviour of those subject to
them as because of the behaviour of those in charge of them.
Such a country, I shall say, is one in which democracy is institutionalized but not realized. That we need
to make such a distinction if we are to describe the condition of many modern societies properly,
especially post-colonial ones, is evident, but the main point of introducing the terminology here is that it
enables us to see that it is realization, and not merely institutionalization, which makes democratic
institutions valuable, when they are. But what is realization other than the faithful observance of a
constitution's provisions by governors and governed? This means that in declaring democracy to be
successful in securing certain benefits, we are assuming that its constitutional provisions are actually
observed. In fairness, then, the advocate of liberal aristocracy must also be allowed to assume that its
constitutional provisions are observed, an assumption which leaves us no reason to think that it will
inevitably collapse as a result of the causes envisaged.
It might be thought that this reply is effective only with respect to the first part of the objection,
not with the second. True, there is no reason to think that liberal aristocracy will fall foul of corruption if
we assume that its rulers and subjects are not corrupt. But corruption does not come into the picture
when we are thinking of the popular demand for democracy which liberalism engenders, since this is a
wholly legitimate demand. This brings us to the third line of argument against the idea of a liberal
aristocracy, namely that it is not truly liberal.

Democracy and Self-determination

The line of thought we have been considering suggests that individuals brought up under a liberal
constitution would not long remain content with exclusion from power and would soon demand
constitutional changes in the direction of democracy. Just what would be true of such individuals, I have
suggested, is a wholly empirical matter and not something we can hypothesize about with any degree of
certainty. The objection takes a more philosophical turn, however, once we begin to think about the
nature of such a demand, rather than whether or not it would in fact be made.
One reason for thinking that the demand for the introduction of democratic institutions is
legitimate in any liberal society, is to be found in an extension of a familiar theme - the political, as well
as moral, importance of individual autonomy. Any argument about legitimacy which rests upon a liberal
belief in autonomy views the democratic demand as simply an outworking of the underlying liberalism.
Such a suggestion, however, is rather important, because it calls in question the strategy set out at the
start. This aimed to side-step, rather than go more deeply into questions about the basis and content of
liberalism. It can plausibly be argued by the advocate of this third argument for democracy that these
are in fact quite crucial to the issues we are concerned with here.
Both liberalism of the Lockean variety, which appeals to natural or pre-political rights, and
liberalism of the J S Mill variety, which employs the harm to others principle as a test of political
legitimacy, can plausibly be thought compatible with liberal aristocracy, since there is no reason in
principle to suppose than an aristocratic form of government could not uphold those rights, or act
according to that principle. But it is much less obvious that liberalism of a Kantian kind can do this. If we
think of the Kantian liberal state as one whose constitution reflects equal respect for citizens as
autonomous ends in themselves, and agree (as surely we must) that at least some of the actions of the
state both have an effect upon the interests of the individual and are intended to have that effect, we
must conclude that the individual should have a constitutional role in deciding upon those actions,
because to respect autonomy just is to acknowledge that individuals should be able to decide for
themselves upon matters affecting them. The right of all competent adults to a part in collective
decision making is just an extension of the right of each to decide his own destiny. And in this way
democracy itself is a natural extension of political liberalism.
This is the most powerful and interesting line of argument I shall consider, and it is one that
many theorists have found persuasive[18]. Yet, as I hope to show, it succeeds in establishing a
connexion between liberalism and democracy only if we remain unclear about the nature of political
power.
In the first place, even of we agree that respect for the autonomy of individuals gives them a
right to some part in political decision making, we cannot conclude that this makes a system of
democratic election obligatory in a liberal society. This follows only if democratic electoral institutions
are uniquely able to provide the individual with political power, and this is not so. Democracy, in this
sense, is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for political power and influence. It is not
sufficient because in places where there are entrenched majorities and minorities, those in the minority,
though they are governed by a democratic regime, may be quite powerless to affect decisions. Nor is it
necessary, because there is no reason to think that the rulers of a liberal aristocracy must be impervious
to popular opinion and the desires of the individual. Why should aristocrats not give weight to the
express political sentiments and preferences of their subjects? And if they do, those expressions are
playing a causal role in the political decision making process. What the difference comes down to is the
possession of a vote, and it can be shown easily enough that possession of the right to vote is not in
itself equivalent to a measure of power. The idea that democracy guarantees power sharing was
thought by Aristophanes to be one of the ways in which ancient rulers duped the people, a theme
repeated in more modern writers. Brian Barry writes
Those ordinary people who say in response to the surveys asked by political scientists that they
personally could do something to change a national or even a local political decision which they
disapprove of are not so much fine unalientated examples of the democratic citizen as -if the mean it -
sufferers from delusions of grandeur on a massive scale.[19]
An even more telling reply yet to this third line of thought lies in doubting the premise of the
liberal democratic argument - that respect for the autonomy of the individual requires us to
acknowledge his right to a part in political decision making. It is a commonplace of liberal thinking that if
autonomy is to be respected individuals must be left free to act contrary to their own welfare and
interests. Consequently, no demonstration that an individual is misusing his freedom to his own
detriment, however serious, will be sufficient in itself to persuade the true liberal that his freedom
should be curtailed. In a similar fashion, philosophers have often spoken of groups of people in this way
and said that, for instance, a nation must be free to decide its own destiny even if it is likely to make a
mess of it. But what this analogy (sometimes known as the domestic analogy) overlooks is that, though a
collective decision democratically arrived at is more, perhaps, than the mere confluence of individual
decisions, it is not the decision of a single self-determining will. It is rather the outcome of a collectivity
of wills. Despite Lockean talk of a single Body or Community, what this means is that, while it is not
possible for an individual human being to commit a wrong against himself, it is possible for the collective
to commit a wrong against the individuals who have taken part in its decision procedures. It follows
from this that having a say in political decisions cannot unqualifiedly be described as determining one's
own destiny. Consequently, one way in which a nation may make a mess of things is by violating the
rights and impinging upon the legitimate freedom of the individual. If this is a result of democratic
elections, then liberals, precisely because they are required to respect the autonomy of the individual,
have good reason to oppose and abandon those electoral institutions. In other words, it is precisely
concern with the rights of individuals to determine their own affairs that can lead to doubts about
conceding everyone a right to participate in political decision making.
This conclusion, which many liberals find unpalatable, is sometimes resisted in the belief that a
truly democratic institution would guarantee an equal distribution of power (and hence responsibility)
amongst those taking part in it. But this is not so. Though we can easily imagine circumstances in which
power and responsibility for a collective outcome are distributed equally amongst those who brought it
about, we can just as easily imagine contingencies which will deprive any voting procedure whatever of
this property. Indeed the familiar case of entrenched majorities is as good an example as any. Under
such conditions, those interested chiefly in the freedom and welfare of individuals will see good reason
to modify, and sometimes even abandon, democratic institutions. Locke himself concedes that
sometimes we might require more than a majority to approve a measure, a provision included in many
actual constitutions, and when we do we are effectively creating circumstances in which a minority,
rightly, can thwart the will of the majority. The general point was made by Tocqueville long before the
triumph of democratic ideology.

Omnipotence in itself seems a bad and dangerous thing . . . there is no power on earth in itself
so worthy of respect or vested with such a sacred right that I would wish to let it act without
control and dominate without obstacles. So when I see the right and capacity to do all given to
any authority whatsoever, whether it be called people or king, democracy or aristocracy, and
whether the scene of action is a monarchy or a republic, I say: the germ of tyranny is there, and I
will go look for others laws under which to live.[20]

Conclusion
We must conclude, then, that there is nothing about democracy itself, or about its relations with
liberalism, which make it especially attractive or uniquely valuable. Many will think that this conclusion
is without much practical consequence. Democracy is too widely acclaimed a political ideal to be called
into question by philosophical argument, and there is every reason to think that democratic institutions,
where they exist, are here to stay. Conversely, whatever the merits of liberal aristocracy it is not an ideal
likely to have much appeal in the modern world.
In one way, these comments are themselves of no consequence. The argument, if sound, has
shown what it aimed to - that political liberalism has no fundamental connection with democracy - and
since it is widely thought that it does, this is a conclusion not without interest. But in fact there are
practical implications which in conclusion it is worth commenting upon.
Though democracy is an ideal with which we are extremely familiar, it is doubtful if it has ever
been realized. Certainly it is not realized in any of the countries that are commonly thought of as models
of the democratic system. In a representative democracy like Britain, the will of the majority is not
sovereign. At best it is the will of the majority of representatives that is sovereign. Even this is not the
case, however. Who runs what ministry is decided by appointment, often on merit, and individuals for
whom no vote has ever been cast may be given offices which carry enormous political and legal powers.
Whole areas of the country (such as Scotland after the 1987 election) may be run by the appointed
representatives of a minority party. To many observers this state of affairs is highly objectionable and
should be altered, since it is unquestionably undemocratic. But to describe it thus is only to condemn it
if we have good reason for thinking that the undemocratic is itself objectionable. What I hope to have
shown is that those who are convinced of the virtues of political liberalism need not make this
assumption, and can proceed to investigate the merits of such a political system in other, more
pragmatic, and perhaps more fruitful ways.
References
[1]Benjamin Constant The Liberty of the Ancients , quoted in Norberto Bobbio Liberalism and
Democracy trans. Martin Kyle and Kate Soper, (London, Verso,1990), p.38 p.2
[2]Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America Vol.1 p. 8
[3]F von Hayek 'Liberalismo' in Enciclopedia del Noecento, Rome 1978. Quoted in Bobbio, p.82
[4]On this see David Manning Liberalism, (London, Dent. 1975)
[5]J S Mill (1859) On Liberty ed. Stefan Collini, Cambridge University Press, 1989.
[6]John Locke (1689) Two Treatises of Government ed. Peter Laslett, Cambridge University Press, 1960.
[7]Immanuel Kant Political Writings ed. Hans Reiss and trans. H B Nisbet, Cambridge University Press.
[8]Plato Republic Bks V-VII
[9]See Ian Brownlie, Basic Documents on Human Rights, (Oxford, Clarendon Press,1981)
[10]Barry Political Argument , (London, Routledge, Kegan, Paul, 1965), p.312
[11]Locke Second Treatise para.96
[12]'Is democracy special?' in Brian Barry Democracy, Power and Justice , (Oxford, Clarendon Press.
1989), pp.24-60
[13]Kant Perpetual Peace
[14]Richard Wollheim 'The Paradox of Democracy' in P Laslett (edited, with W G Runciman)
Philosophy, Politics and Society (Second series) (Oxford, Basil Blackwell.1962)
[15]G Brennan and L L omasky Democracy and Decision, Cambridge University Press, 1990)
[16]Barry 'Is democracy special?' loc. cit p. 56
[17] Norberto Bobbio Liberalism and Democracy trans. Martin Kyle and Kate Soper, (London,
Verso,1990), p.38
[18]see for instance Keith Graham The Battle of Democracy, (Brighton, Wheatsheaf Books
1986)
[19]'Is it Better to be Powerful or Lucky?' in Brian Barry Democracy, Power and Justice , (Oxford,
Clarendon Press. 1989), p.301
[20]Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America trans. G Lawrence, (London, Fontana 1968)., vol.1 p.311