consensus and majoritarian democracy
ABSTSTRACT
Democracy
no doubt is the most common system of government practiced in our time. This is
as a result of the age of enlightenment. Different nations adopt democracy as
their system of government. This democracy is viewed and practiced by different
nations in different ways. For some, it is majoritarian, some others consensus.
The majoritarian system of government practiced by some nations in the name of
democracy, doesn’t really depict the concept of democracy. The fundamental aim
of this paper is to discuss in details, why consensus democracy is more
democratic than majoritarian democracy.
INTRODUCTION
Man is a social and political being. Through
out history different nations, languages, and race has adopted, developed,
transformed, changed into various system of government in other to get the one
that will best suit there time and environment. This include monarchy,
oligarchy, representative, majoritarian, consensus etc. in our present world,
democracy seems to be the common system of government practiced by most of the
nation. this democracy is practiced basically in two different ways; consensus
and majoritarian. This paper is geared towards weighing this two understanding
of democracy, to sieve out the one that contains the real concept of democracy.
To achieve this, we shall first of all look into the history of democracy, the
definition and concept of democracy, majoritarian and consensual democracy, and
shall then look into the majoritarian and consensus to see the one that is more
democratic, after which we shall give a final conclusion.
HISTORY OF DEMOCRACY
The term "democracy" first appeared in ancient
Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity. The word Democracy comes from demos,
"common people" and kratos, strength. Led by Cleisthenes, Athenians established what is generally held as the
first democracy in 508–507 BC. Cleisthenes is referred to as "the father
of Athenian democracy."[1]
Athenian democracy took the form of a direct democracy,
and it had two distinguishing features: the random selection of ordinary citizens to fill the few existing
government administrative and judicial offices, and a legislative assembly
consisting of all Athenian citizens. All eligible citizens were allowed to
speak and vote in the assembly, which set the laws of the city state. However,
Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners, non-landowners, and
males under 20 years old.[2]
The system comprised of three separate institutions: the Ekklesia, a sovereign governing body
that wrote laws and dictated foreign policy; the Boule, a council of representatives from the ten Athenian tribes;
and the Dikasteria, the popular
courts in which citizens argued cases before a group of lottery-selected
jurors.[3]
The Ekklesia: it is the sovereign governing body of Athens. All
citizens, (free male of 18 and above whose parents are both Athenian) was
welcome to attend the meetings of the ekklesia.
At the meetings, the ekklesia made decisions
about war and foreign policy, wrote and revised laws and approved or condemned
the conduct of public officials.
The Boule:The boule was a group of 500 men, 50
from each of ten Athenian tribes, who served on the Council for one year.
Unlike the ekklesia, the boule met
every day and did most of the hands-on work of governance. It supervised
government workers and was in charge of things like navy ships and army horses.
It dealt with ambassadors and representatives from other city-states. Its main
function was to decide what matters would come before the ekklesia. In this way, the 500 members of the boule dictated how
the entire democracy would work.[4]
The Diskasteria: it is the popular courts. Every day,
more than 500 jurors were chosen by lot from a pool of male citizens older than
30. Of all the democratic institutions, Aristotle argued that the dikasteria
“contributed most to the strength of democracy” because the jury had almost
unlimited power. There were no police in Athens, so it was the demos themselves
who brought court cases, argued for the prosecution and the defense, and
delivered verdicts and sentences by majority rule. (There were also no rules
about what kinds of cases could be prosecuted or what could and could not be
said at trial, and so Athenian citizens frequently used the dikasteria to
punish or embarrass their enemies.)[5]
The Roman Republic: it contributed significantly to many aspects of
democracy, only a minority of Romans were citizens with votes in elections for
representatives. The votes of the powerful were given more weight through a
system of gerrymandering, so most high officials, including members of the Senate, came
from a few wealthy and noble families. the Roman model of governance inspired
many political thinkers over the centuries, and today's modern
representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek models because
it was a state in which supreme power was held by the people and their elected
representatives, and which had an elected or nominated leader.[6]
The
Greeks and Romans established the precursors to today’s modern democracy.[7] though the rights of the individual were not secured by
the Athenian constitution in the modern sense, the Athenians enjoyed their
liberties not in opposition to the government but by living in a city that was
not subject to another power and by not being subjects themselves to the rule
of another person.[8]
DEFINITION OF DEMOCRACY
Democracy (Greek: Dēmoskrátos literally
"rule of the people"), in modern usage, is a system of government in
which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among
themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament.
b)
The
active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life
Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power
is either held by an individual, as in an absolute
monarchy, or where power is held
by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy.[10]
In the dictionary
definition, democracy "is government by the people in which the supreme
power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their
elected agents under a free electoral system." In the phrase of Abraham
Lincoln, democracy is a government "of the people, by the people, and for
the people."[11]
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THE
PILLARS OF DEMOCRACY
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CONSENSUS DEMOCRACY
Consensus democracy refers to a general model of integrative‐indirect democracy[13], it is characterized by a decision-making structure which involves and
takes into account as broad a range of opinions as possible, as opposed to
systems where minority opinions can potentially be ignored by vote-winning
majorities. Consensus democracy also features increased citizen participation
both in determining the political agenda and in the decision-making process
itself.[14]
a specific version of which can be found in
countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria. Consensus
democracy is built on dissensus, on differences in conviction and outlook on
life, which need to be carefully integrated.[15] Citizens play the role
of, primarily, spectator and, secondarily, that of consulted party. [16] The term consociational state is used in political science to
describe countries with such consensus based political systems. An example of
such a system could be the Dutch Poldermodel.[17]
MAJORITARIAN DEMOCRACY
Majoritarian is a traditional political
philosophy or agenda that asserts that a majority (sometimes categorized by religion, language, social class, or some other identifying factor) of the
population is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the
right to make decisions that affect the society. [18]
Under a democratic majoritarian political
structure, the majority would not exclude any minority from future
participation in the democratic process. Majoritarianism is sometimes pejoratively referred to by its opponents as "ochlocracy" or "tyranny
of the majority".[19]
Advocates of majoritarianism argue that majority decision making is intrinsically
democratic and that any restriction on majority decision making is
intrinsically undemocratic. If democracy is restricted by a constitution which cannot be changed by a simple majority decision then yesterday's majority is
being given more weight than today's. If it is restricted by some small group,
such as aristocrats, judges, priests, soldiers, or philosophers, then society becomes an oligarchy.[20]
The only restriction acceptable in a majoritarian system is that a current
majority has no right to prevent a different majority emerging in the future
(this could happen, for example, if a minority persuades enough of the majority
to change its position).[21]
In particular, a majority cannot exclude a minority from future participation
in the democratic process. Majoritarianism does not prohibit a decision being
made by representatives as long as this decision is made via majority rule, as
it can be altered at any time by any different majority emerging in the future.[22]
majoritarian
systems no doubt may be better and faster at policy formulation and
implementation, and governing, but consensus democracies are better at
integrating opponents, and representing minorities.[23]
Consensus provides kindler and gentler system of government[24]
and when it comes to ‘softer’ political issues, consensus democracy provides
the best.[25]
REASONS WHY CONSENSUAL DEMOCRACY IS MORE DEMOCRATIC THAN
MAJORITARIAN
Majoritarian
regimes fail to incorporate minorities into government, encouraging excluded
communities to resort to alternative channels to express their demands, ranging
from violent protest to outright rebellion and state failure.[26]
WHILE Consensus democracies aims to be inclusive, and endeavors to find
compromises between different groups in society.
In
majoritarian democracy, the team selected by a majority of the voters are given
unfettered control over policy,[27]
and also Under majoritarian rules, without any guarantees of a regular swing of
the electoral pendulum between government and opposition parties, losing
factions face certain limits to their power, potential threats to their
security, and possible risks to their existence.[28]
While the consensus democracy provides inclusive power sharing between all
significant political forces but no ethnically based minority vetoes or segmental autonomy. The electoral
system encourages the growth of multi-ethnic political parties based on ideology rather than
ascriptive communal traits.[29]
And There is reserved positions for ethnic minorities.[30]
Majoritarian
democracies are hardly suitable for integrating opposition parties, or the adversarial minorities.[31]
It disregards the minority, and also does not have a mechanism to integrate
reliably those who lose out from a vote or decision.[32] WHILE
Consensus democracies as a group, perform better than majoritarian democracies
in the protection of minorities, voter turnout, income equality and democratic
quality ratings.[33]
Majoritarian
democracy may fail to perform well in a society deeply divided into segments,[34]
as their will be a continuous unrest and violence as a result of the minorities
fighting for their right.
The
implementation costs of majoritarian democracies often exceed those of
negotiation democracies. [35]This
is largely because of the costs involved in excluding minority interests from
the process of policy deliberation and decision making. However, the excluded
interests tend to articulate their views at a later stage of the political
process and this tends to inhibit or impede political performance and types of
democracy.[36]
WHILE in consensual democracy Government includes the representatives of all
significant groups and revolves around inter-ethnic cooperation and log rolling.
Minority rights are protected through minority vetoes.[37]
Consensus
democracies creates a kind of representative institution so as to satisfy to
some extent, the preferences of as many voters as possible.[38]
Institutions are designed to maximize the representation of all views found in
society and to make sure that decisions reect consideration of minority views.[39]
CONCLUSION
Rule by the majority is not
necessarily democratic: No one, for example, would call a system fair or just
that permitted 51 percent of the population to oppress the remaining 49 percent
in the name of the majority, and no system of government which fails to
incorporate the people both majority and minority can boast of being
democratic. The sense of democracy is all emcompasing, integrating all and not
just the majority. Majoritarian government is simply the government of some
people, by some people and for some people, while consensual democracy is the
government of the people, by the people and for the people. With this, we can
conclude that true democracy is consensual.
REFERENCE
DOORENSPLEET,
RENSKE. (2013) Which type of democracy
performs best? Acta Politica . ISSN 0001-6810 (In Press) European
Journal of Political Research 41:
147–163, 2002 147
HISTORY,
ANCIENT GREEK DEMOCRACY,http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/ancient-greece-democracy
KELLOGG INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES. The Characteristics Of Majoritarian And
Power-Sharing Democracy https://kellogg.nd.edu
KIM
ANN ZIMMERMANN, Human Nature, What Is
Democracy? Definition, Types And History.http://www.livescience.com/20919-democracy.html
Matt
Golder & Sona Golder, Consequences of
Democratic Institutions, Pennsylvania State University. Permanent WRAP url: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/52073
Political performance and types of democracy:
Findings from comparative studies MANFRED G. SCHMIDT
Institute for Political Science, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Power-sharing institutions and good governance in
plural societies: Reexamining the links
Pippa Norris McGuire
Lecturer in Comparative Politics John F. Kennedy
School of Government Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138 Pippa_Norris@Harvard.edu www.pippanorris.com
WIKIPEDIA,
Consensus Democracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_democracy.
Last edited 2ND JUNE, 2017
WIKIPEDIA,
Majoritarianism, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majoritarianism.
Last edited 9th Of June, 2017
[2]
Ibid.
[5]
ibid
[10]
Ibid.
[18] ibid
[19] ibid
[20] ibid
[21]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majoritarianism
[22] Ibid.
[24] Doorenspleet,
Renske. (2013) Which type of democracy performs best? Acta Politica . ISSN
0001-6810 (In Press)
Political performance and types of democracy:
Findings from comparative studies MANFRED
G. SCHMIDT Institute for Political Science, University of Heidelberg,
Germany
[26] Power-sharing institutions and good
governance in plural societies: Reexamining the links Pippa Norris McGuire
Lecturer in Comparative Politics John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138
Pippa_Norris@Harvard.edu www.pippanorris.com
[27] Consequences of
Democratic Institutions, Matt Golder & Sona Golder, Pennsylvania State
University
[28] Power-sharing institutions and good
governance in plural societies: Reexamining the links Pippa Norris McGuire
Lecturer in Comparative Politics John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138
Pippa_Norris@Harvard.edu www.pippanorris.com
[29] THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MAJORITARIAN AND
POWER-SHARING DEMOCRACY Majoritarian Democracy Power-Sharing Democracy
[30] THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MAJORITARIAN AND
POWER-SHARING DEMOCRACY Majoritarian Democracy Power-Sharing Democracy
[31] European
Journal of Political Research 41:
147–163, 2002 147 Political performance and types of democracy:
Findings from comparative studies MANFRED G. SCHMIDT Institute for
Political Science, University of Heidelberg, Germany
[32] European
Journal of Political Research 41:
147–163, 2002 147 Political performance and types of democracy:
Findings from comparative studies MANFRED G. SCHMIDT Institute for
Political Science, University of Heidelberg, Germany
[33] European
Journal of Political Research 41:
147–163, 2002 147 Political performance and types of democracy:
Findings from comparative studies MANFRED G. SCHMIDT Institute for
Political Science, University of Heidelberg, Germany
[34] ibid
[35] ibid
[36] ibid
[37] THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MAJORITARIAN AND
POWER-SHARING DEMOCRACY Majoritarian Democracy Power-Sharing Democracy
[38] Consequences of
Democratic Institutions, Matt Golder & Sona Golder, Pennsylvania State
University
[39] ibid
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