Please Stop Telling Me, 'This Isn't a Democracy.'
Yes, I know the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic…
Forgive the impatient headline, but so often when I use the word “democracy,” I get something like the following response from conservatives:
“This [America] is NOT a democracy; it’s a constitutional republic.”
Sometimes the statement comes along with several exclamation points, or a schoolmarmish tone as if I am insufficiently educated on American history.
Repeatedly fielding this objection, and answering with some variant of the same reply, is getting old, so I figured I would write up something once and then simply link it as needed.
This objection is of course rooted in the history of the American founding, and so I very much respect the place the objection is coming from. And if one is using the term “democracy” in the narrow sense that the Founders were using it, then it is absolutely true that this is not a democracy.
But in the broader sense of the word, it most certainly is. I will explain, with the aid of a chart at the end.
The Founders used the term “democracy” specifically to describe systems of pure or direct democracy. These are systems in which citizens themselves vote directly on matters of public policy. There are many different types of direct democracy. The Founders’ goal was to make a distinction between those types of democracy and the indirect or representative democracy that they were creating, which they called a republic, and which we today rightly call a constitutional republic because our system is guided by a formal written constitution.
When I use the term “democracy,” by contrast, I am using it in its broadest sense: as a top-level category that describes any system in which decision-making occurs through a system of voting. In our case, the primary democratic mechanism is to vote for representatives who then make decisions (putatively) on the voters’ behalf. (At the local level, we also include a few direct systems, such as ballot initiatives, recalls, and referenda.) As such, our system is most certainly a democracy.
The term democracy is also used to distinguish among terms meant to identify a degree of dispersion of decision-making authority:
Monarchy: one person decides for everyone.
Oligarchy: a small number decide for everyone.
Democracy: (roughly speaking) the majority decides for everyone.
Anarchy: everyone decides for themselves.1
See the chart below for a visual depiction.
In this sense as well, it is absolutely correct to describe America (and every other government of the West) as a form of democracy.
The Founders knew from history that pure democracies are fraught with problems. They understood that majorities can trample the rights of minorities and individuals. So they devised a compromise—a system that blended democratic elements with various structures designed to mitigate the problems associated with democracy:
They went with representative rather than direct democracy. They created two different types of elected representatives, elected in different ways and for different terms. The Senate was intended to act as a deliberative restraint upon the unbridled passions of the majority, and to represent state interests through indirect election (which was of course undone by the 17th Amendment). The states were able to create their own versions of this system, though that too was later undone by Baker v. Carr/Reynolds v. Sims. They created systems designed to slow things down—a long process for passage of legislation, vetos, etc.—so that rash decisions would not be made in the heat of the moment. They established the Electoral College, a layered system of subsidiarity, multiple branches, and all the other checks and balances that every school-child ought to know.
Yet the fact that they sought to create a compromise system does not make it not a democracy. And indirect democracy, yes. A “partial” democracy—sure. But it is still a subset of democracy as a top-level category of political systems. And it is also a subset of democracy as a top-level category describing degree of dispersion of decision-making authority. I have laid a lot of this out in a chart below, to demonstrate the nature of “democracy” as a top-level category in both these ways. As you can see, its focus is on the all-important human question…
Who gets to rule?
and it lays out various systems along a continuum of decision-making power. We can surely discuss the precise placements of various types of systems along the continuum, both in the comments and in future pieces. But for now, it gets the overall point across.
As I hope I have done in this piece.
Though technically correct—“anarchy” does mean “without rulers”—the word is also tainted with connotations of chaos and mayhem, or zombies shambling about an apocalyptic wasteland. I have generally preferred the term “voluntary order” to describe a condition of intentional anarchy in which power is devolved to individuals and private institutions, and order is maintained through voluntary cooperation. However, this morning I woke up toying with the notion that maybe it might be worth giving “nemocracy” (“no one rules”) a try instead. Though it mixes Latin and Greek, it does have the advantage of being a single word with the “-cracy” root—a convention with which people are already familiar.
Chris, I agree with your frustration. If you consult any political science textbook, it is explicitly stated that the term "democracy" in contemporary use is an umbrella term for all forms of representative government. This allows theorists to refer to "democratic socialism," which is exactly like Communism, but with better marketing.
I find this to be the best description off what we currently have.
Ineptocracy - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.