We’ve come a long way from the citizen assemblies of ancient Athens. Some towns in New England still make decisions by getting all the local citizenry together, but that doesn’t work with larger groups of people. The solution—more-or-less standardized since Madison and the gang in Philadelphia (1787)—is “representative democracy.” Having the masses choose which members of the elite would make decisions for the whole society was a way to keep power in the (relatively trustworthy and reliable) hands of those with a mix of education and wealth, while providing a means for the demos to express itself and retain nominal oversight of the process and tools of government.
Many things have changed in the last 250 years in the US and around the world: in terms of the condition of the mass electorate, we have industrialization, an information tsunami, mass education and culture, and a whole lot more people living. While the precise spread between elites and masses have varied over time and across different cultures, the fundamental differential remains. (It’s one of the discrepancies which our current idealization of democracy buries.) In terms of the world, these same factors, particularly the nature and extent of technologies (high and low, material and cultural) have made for a much more complex environment. On top of these phenomenological changes, our knowledge levels (or, at least, our beliefs about what we know) about causation and effects have drastically increased the difficulty of making decisions. Science and experience have made us more aware of the broad implications and longer-term effects of any nominally straightforward policy option. Whether dealing with tariffs, vaccines, immigration, AI regulation, in toting up the pluses and minuses of any potential policy decision we have a lot more entries. Keeping track of them, then weighing them, and sorting through the trade-offs has become a much more difficult process. We can see this in the construction of bureaucracies and administrative regimes (e.g. taxes, Medicare, education policy, and various schemes of discrimination and preference).
What challenges do this increased complexity of life raise for the practice of democracy?
The theory of modern democracy is that informed citizens should deliberate and select representatives who devote sufficient time and intellect to comprehend the issues and resolve the political issues that are inherent in the differing beliefs, interests, and priorities of any large group of people. Elected representatives should, in theory, become experts in sorting policy choices as well as interpreting the values of their constituency and applying them to those policy choices. That’s “normal” politics. However, there are problems with this theory both in terms of the represented and the representatives.
First, the levels of complexity and detail are so great that even most elected representatives (especially at the state and federal levels) can’t begin to cope and, de facto, delegate their decisions to either their party leaders, their colleagues (vote-swapping), or their staff members or the implementing bureaucracy. Each presents its own particular problems and risks of corruption and distortion, but in essence, our representatives are working through representatives, most of whom aren’t elected. This was not so much of an issue in the 18C or early 19C, but has swamped the process since the mid-20C.
However, the more fundamental concern is that the electorate, for all its increased education and access to information, can’t make more than a broadly directional choice when it comes to electing representatives. We’re all different, but there’s only a limited set of possible representatives to choose from. Both politics and policy intersect in different mixes, political parties kinda help alignments, but present their own complications and corruptions. The result, in our over-saturated media age, is decision by sound-bite, charisma, and money.
Representative democracy thus looks inherently problematic and even more so these days. Unfortunately, neither of the two most popular solutions is a real improvement. The more well-established alternative is the popular referendum, allowed in about half the states. As we in California know all too well, this method of popular participation is messy and subject to the same money/media distortions as other modes. One principal problem is that ordinary voters are called on to read through and understand an extensive statutory implementation of some policy scheme. By the time you winnow out those who have the capability to work through these challenging questions (e.g. tax codes, environmental regulation, social benefit eligibility) and those that are not interested enough in public policy and have the economic wherewithal to devote the necessary study hours, you’d end up with a fairly skewed (and self-selected) group of citizens; hardly a representative body.
The same problem undercuts the various proposals to have “ordinary” citizens, usually selected at random, participate either as part of regularly-established legislatures or as a stand-alone “citizens’ assembly” which would have a role in the legislative process). It’s nice symbolism, but I suspect this innovation would merely transfer power to the staffs to explain things and the bureaucracies to implement them.
I have been thinking about this issue in the context of an upcoming lecture marking the tenth anniversary of Brexit, the 2016 decision which propelled the United Kingdom out of the European Union (pretty much of a disaster on all fronts and of which more in a coming posting).
British voters were presented with a nice short “yea-or-nay” question for an immensely complicated situation about which there was no clear understanding of what was likely to ensue.
Still, I think there is a role for referenda, as long as they are relatively straightforward and high-level AND subject to either implementation by the legislature or (unlike Brexit) a further ratification of a final detailed plan. Capping referenda questions at 100 words would likely provide broad policy direction without pretending that the electorate reads the third subclause of the fourteenth section of the proposed law.
Not a great overall solution to an increasing problem of democratic governance in the 21C, but worth a shot. We need other ideas of how to balance the complexity of the real world with ensuring all the ordinary folks can help steer the ship.
Many things have changed in the last 250 years in the US and around the world: in terms of the condition of the mass electorate, we have industrialization, an information tsunami, mass education and culture, and a whole lot more people living. While the precise spread between elites and masses have varied over time and across different cultures, the fundamental differential remains. (It’s one of the discrepancies which our current idealization of democracy buries.) In terms of the world, these same factors, particularly the nature and extent of technologies (high and low, material and cultural) have made for a much more complex environment. On top of these phenomenological changes, our knowledge levels (or, at least, our beliefs about what we know) about causation and effects have drastically increased the difficulty of making decisions. Science and experience have made us more aware of the broad implications and longer-term effects of any nominally straightforward policy option. Whether dealing with tariffs, vaccines, immigration, AI regulation, in toting up the pluses and minuses of any potential policy decision we have a lot more entries. Keeping track of them, then weighing them, and sorting through the trade-offs has become a much more difficult process. We can see this in the construction of bureaucracies and administrative regimes (e.g. taxes, Medicare, education policy, and various schemes of discrimination and preference).
What challenges do this increased complexity of life raise for the practice of democracy?
The theory of modern democracy is that informed citizens should deliberate and select representatives who devote sufficient time and intellect to comprehend the issues and resolve the political issues that are inherent in the differing beliefs, interests, and priorities of any large group of people. Elected representatives should, in theory, become experts in sorting policy choices as well as interpreting the values of their constituency and applying them to those policy choices. That’s “normal” politics. However, there are problems with this theory both in terms of the represented and the representatives.
First, the levels of complexity and detail are so great that even most elected representatives (especially at the state and federal levels) can’t begin to cope and, de facto, delegate their decisions to either their party leaders, their colleagues (vote-swapping), or their staff members or the implementing bureaucracy. Each presents its own particular problems and risks of corruption and distortion, but in essence, our representatives are working through representatives, most of whom aren’t elected. This was not so much of an issue in the 18C or early 19C, but has swamped the process since the mid-20C.
However, the more fundamental concern is that the electorate, for all its increased education and access to information, can’t make more than a broadly directional choice when it comes to electing representatives. We’re all different, but there’s only a limited set of possible representatives to choose from. Both politics and policy intersect in different mixes, political parties kinda help alignments, but present their own complications and corruptions. The result, in our over-saturated media age, is decision by sound-bite, charisma, and money.
Representative democracy thus looks inherently problematic and even more so these days. Unfortunately, neither of the two most popular solutions is a real improvement. The more well-established alternative is the popular referendum, allowed in about half the states. As we in California know all too well, this method of popular participation is messy and subject to the same money/media distortions as other modes. One principal problem is that ordinary voters are called on to read through and understand an extensive statutory implementation of some policy scheme. By the time you winnow out those who have the capability to work through these challenging questions (e.g. tax codes, environmental regulation, social benefit eligibility) and those that are not interested enough in public policy and have the economic wherewithal to devote the necessary study hours, you’d end up with a fairly skewed (and self-selected) group of citizens; hardly a representative body.
The same problem undercuts the various proposals to have “ordinary” citizens, usually selected at random, participate either as part of regularly-established legislatures or as a stand-alone “citizens’ assembly” which would have a role in the legislative process). It’s nice symbolism, but I suspect this innovation would merely transfer power to the staffs to explain things and the bureaucracies to implement them.
I have been thinking about this issue in the context of an upcoming lecture marking the tenth anniversary of Brexit, the 2016 decision which propelled the United Kingdom out of the European Union (pretty much of a disaster on all fronts and of which more in a coming posting).
British voters were presented with a nice short “yea-or-nay” question for an immensely complicated situation about which there was no clear understanding of what was likely to ensue.
Still, I think there is a role for referenda, as long as they are relatively straightforward and high-level AND subject to either implementation by the legislature or (unlike Brexit) a further ratification of a final detailed plan. Capping referenda questions at 100 words would likely provide broad policy direction without pretending that the electorate reads the third subclause of the fourteenth section of the proposed law.
Not a great overall solution to an increasing problem of democratic governance in the 21C, but worth a shot. We need other ideas of how to balance the complexity of the real world with ensuring all the ordinary folks can help steer the ship.
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