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    Majoritarianism: Democratic Complexity Unveiled
    Majoritarianism: Democratic Complexity Unveiled
    Majoritarianism: Democratic Complexity Unveiled
    Ebook334 pages4 hours

    Majoritarianism: Democratic Complexity Unveiled

    By Fouad Sabry

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    About this ebook

    Unlock a deeper understanding of democracy with "Majoritarianism," a vital addition to the "Political Science" series-In an era dominated by governance and majority rule, this book offers a comprehensive exploration of the principles and challenges of majoritarianism-Whether you’re a professional, a student, or simply passionate about political theory, this book provides insights that extend far beyond basic knowledge.


    1-Majoritarianism-Dive into the core concept of majoritarianism, examining its roots, principles, and implications for democratic governance.


    2-Democracy-Explore the broader context of democracy to understand how majoritarianism fits within the democratic framework.


    3-Election-Understand the critical role elections play in expressing the will of the majority and serving as the cornerstone of democratic legitimacy.


    4-First-Past-the-Post Voting-Delve into this electoral system that exemplifies majoritarian principles, analyzing its advantages and potential pitfalls.


    5-Tyranny of the Majority-Examine the dark side of majoritarianism, where unchecked majority rule can threaten the rights of minorities.


    6-Majority Rule-Gain insights into the mechanisms and justifications of majority rule, balancing governance with fairness.


    7-Minoritarianism-Contrast majoritarianism with minoritarianism, exploring scenarios where minority rights prevail in decision-making.


    8-Concurrent Majority-Investigate this alternative approach to decision-making, where consensus across multiple groups challenges pure majoritarianism.


    9-Politics (Aristotle)-Discover Aristotle’s foundational views on politics and how they influence modern interpretations of majority rule.


    10-History of Democracy-Trace the evolution of democracy, identifying key moments where majoritarian principles shaped political systems.


    11-Landsgemeinde-Learn about this ancient form of direct democracy, offering a unique historical perspective on majoritarian practices.


    12-Majoritarian Democracy-Analyze the specific characteristics and outcomes of political systems built on majoritarian principles.


    13-Counter-Majoritarian Difficulty-Explore the tension between majoritarianism and judicial review, and how this impacts democratic governance.


    14-Liberal Democracy-Compare majoritarianism with liberal democracy, where individual rights and checks on majority power are emphasized.


    15-Criticism of Democracy-Engage with critiques that highlight potential flaws in majoritarian approaches.


    16-Electoral System-Review different electoral systems, evaluating how they support or challenge majoritarian principles.


    17-Types of Democracy-Broaden your understanding by exploring various forms beyond majoritarianism, such as deliberative and participatory democracies.


    18-Majoritarian Representation-Focus on how majoritarian principles shape policy and law in representative government.


    19-Outline of Democracy-Get an overview of key elements that define democratic systems, providing context for understanding majoritarianism’s role.


    20-Epistemic Democracy-Explore where decision-making is informed by expertise rather than just majority opinion.


    21-Mixed-Member Majoritarian Representation-Examine this hybrid system that combines majoritarian and proportional representation, offering a balanced approach to governance.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOne Billion Knowledgeable
    Release dateAug 13, 2024
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      Majoritarianism - Fouad Sabry

      Chapter 1: Majoritarianism

      Political majoritarianism is the belief that a group representing the majority of a demographic (such as a race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or religion) should be accorded special status within a community and should be given the ultimate say in societal matters. This long-held belief is gradually being challenged, and in order to safeguard individuals' basic rights, liberal democracies are instituting checks and balances on the power of the legislative majority.

      Not to be confused with the majoritarian electoral system, which is a straightforward voting method that typically awards a plurality of seats to the party that receives the most votes. It's possible to refer to a legislature chosen in this way as a majoritarian parliament (e.g., the Parliament of the United Kingdom, or the Parliament of India).

      In a majority-ruled democracy, the majority does not have the power to shut out any segment of the population. Opponents of majoritarianism may use terms like ochlocracy and tyranny of the majority to describe it. A majority class governing over a minority class is often termed majoritarianism, while the decision-making process itself is called majority rule. It's the idea that a nation should be governed in whichever manner the majority population desires.

      According to proponents of majoritarianism, limiting the ability of the majority to make decisions is antithetical to democracy. If a constitution can only be amended by a two-thirds vote, then the majority of yesterday is being given greater weight than the majority of today. When authority is held by a select few, whether they be aristocrats, judges, priests, warriors, or philosophers, the resulting society is an oligarchy. If a minority can convince a sufficient number of the majority to alter its attitude, then that minority has achieved the only legitimate limitation in a majoritarian system: the present majority has no power to prevent a new majority developing in the future. To be more specific, a majority vote cannot prevent a minority from ever again taking part in a democratic election. As long as a decision is taken by majority rule, it may be changed at any moment by a new majority that forms in the future, therefore majority rule does not exclude representatives from making decisions.

      One argument against majoritarianism is that democracies that don't need a two-thirds vote to alter voting procedures are prone to instability.

      There are several variations on the majoritarian theory of governance. Unicameralism and a unified nation-state are hallmarks of the traditional form.

      The more democratic type of government, qualified majoritarianism, includes varying degrees of decentralization and federalism.

      Multiple safeguards for marginalized communities and encouragement of centrist political parties are included into the framework of integrative majoritarianism.

      Large-scale examples of majority rule are rare in history, with the Athenian democracy and other ancient Greek city-states being the most prominent. Some, however, contend that none of the Greek city-states represented genuine majority rule because of the exclusion of women, non-landowners, and slaves from political participation. Decisions based on the will of the illiterate and uninformed'masses' are not always intelligent or fair, which is why most of the great ancient thinkers were adamantly opposed to majoritarianism. The Republic by Plato is a classic example of this kind of social model since it proposes a three-tiered social order.

      David Graeber, an anarchist anthropologist, provides an explanation for the rarity of majority-elected democracies throughout history. To paraphrase, Majority democracy, we may argue, can only exist when two variables coincide: 1 a belief that everybody should have equal input in determining collective choices and 2 a coercive machinery capable of implementing those decisions. Graeber claims that the confluence of these two conditions is very rare: It is also generally regarded inappropriate to apply systematic coercion in egalitarian communities. In places where coercive mechanisms were in place, nobody gave it a second thought that they were imposing the will of the people.

      Majoritarianism (as a philosophy), like democracy, has frequently been used as an excuse by powerful or aggressive minority to politically subjugate weaker or less engaged majorities (see Richard Nixon's allusion to the Silent Majority, whom he claimed backed his policies).

      This goal is especially common in the religious sphere: Christmas Day, and in certain countries other key dates in the Christian year as well, are recognized as legal holidays, and in some countries the government may officially recognize and financially support a specific religious group (examples include the Church of England in England and the Lutheran Church in the Scandinavian countries). Nearly every nation also designates an official language or languages, often to the exclusion of a local minority that does not speak the designated language(s). Those judgments have seldom been decided in a majority-driven referendum, and even when they have, the existing law cannot be changed by a subsequent majority.

      The Rule of the Masses.... In America, the majority erects strong walls around the freedom of thought; an author is free to write anything he wants as long as he stays within those walls, but he faces dire consequences if he dares to cross them.

      — Alexis de Tocqueville, Liberty and Justice for All, Volume I, Chapter XV (1835)

      Some forms of majoritarianism have been countered by liberal reformers in many countries in recent decades, especially beginning in the 1960s. For example, in the 1963 case Abington School District v. Schempp, the United States Supreme Court ruled that school-led prayer in the nation's public schools was unconstitutional, and many municipalities have since sought to restrict or outright ban religious displays on public property. Pluralism is a term used to describe the social trend toward greater protection of minority rights.

      As a consequence, there has been a pushback from majoritarians who deplore the Balkanization of society as a result of the successes of multiculturalism. Wilmot Robertson voiced these worries in his 1972 book The Dispossessed Majority. On the other side, multiculturalists have claimed that majoritarians are racist and xenophobic.

      {End Chapter 1}

      Chapter 2: Democracy

      Democracy (from Ancient Greek: δημοκρατία, romanized: dēmokratía, dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (direct democracy), or elect officials who will do so (representative democracy).

      The composition of the people and the methods through which power is distributed or delegated among them have evolved over time and at varying speeds in various nations.

      Freedom of assembly is a common feature of democracies, association, property rights, Liberty of Conscience and Expression, citizenship, acceptance by the governed, voting rights, liberation from arbitrary state interference with fundamental freedoms, rights of minorities.

      There has been a lot of development in the concept of democracy throughout time. Direct democracy, in which communities make choices by public assembly, has a long and storied history. Representative democracies, in which individuals elect government officials to rule on their behalf, such as in parliamentary or presidential democracies, are now the most common kind of democracy. It is generally agreed that city-states like Classical Athens and the Roman Republic were the cradle of Western democracy, as opposed to earlier forms of democracy, where different schemes and degrees of enfranchisement of the free male population were observed before the form disappeared in the West at the start of late antiquity. Almost always, democracies have limited voting rights to a select group of individuals before opening them up to the whole population. This was accomplished in most contemporary democracies via suffrage campaigns in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

      The opposition between democracy and other forms of government in which power is held by a single person, such as autocratic systems like absolute monarchy, and between democracy and other forms of government in which power is held by a small number of people, such as an oligarchy, is rooted in ancient Greek philosophy.

      Democracy is often associated with elections, but the term may also refer to systems in which citizens have a say in policymaking via a system called direct democracy.

      Upward control (sovereignty residing at the lowest levels of authority), political equality, and social norms by which individuals and institutions only consider acceptable acts that reflect the first two principles are, according to one theory, the three fundamental principles necessary for a democracy to function. Democracy is usually associated with a governmental system, but its guiding principles may be applied just as easily to non-governmental organizations.

      Although there are a variety of democratic decision-making processes, majority rule is the most common. Political minority may be subjected to the tyranny of the majority without adequate compensation, such as legal safeguards of individual or collective rights. Since majority rule is a more adversarial form of government than consensus democracy, it is essential that elections and, more broadly, policy debates, be fair in both substance and process. Freedom of political expression, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and online democracy are all valued in various nations to help citizens make educated decisions at the polls. In classical times, republic might refer to either a democracy or an aristocracy. The current definition of a republican government is one without a king or queen. As a result, democracies, like the United Kingdom, can take the form of either a republic or a constitutional monarchy.

      The existence of democratic assemblies may be traced back to the dawn of our species, Democracies aren't the only governments that have been labeled proto-democratic in hindsight.

      Democracy was originally used in classical antiquity, in the political and philosophical writings of ancient Greeks centered on the city-state of Athens.

      While much of medieval Europe was governed by clergy or feudal lords, there was one province that was controlled by a monarch, Several voting or assembly-based systems existed, Despite only affecting a tiny percentage of the overall population,.

      In Scandinavia, Freemen under the leadership of a lawspeaker made up the bodies known as things.

      It was the job of these councils to resolve political disputes, and variants included the Althing in Iceland and the Løgting in the Faeroe Islands.

      Ragusa, or its Republic, founded in 1358 with Dubrovnik as the capital, limited its political participation and representation to its male nobility.

      Many Italian states and municipalities were organized as republics.

      For instance, Florence's Republic, first recorded use: 1115, members of the Signoria, who ran the show, were selected using a lottery system.

      Around the years 1000-1500 in Frisia, a civilization that is clearly not feudal, the ability to vote in municipal elections and for county authorities was proportional to land area.

      The Kouroukan Fouga established a system of hereditary aristocracy in the Mali Empire with the institution of a supreme council (Gbara).

      However, Because of the charter, Mali resembles a constitutional monarchy rather than a democratic republic.

      Magna Carta (1215), which limited the authority of monarchs, provided explicit protection for some rights of the King's people and implied support for what became the English writ of habeas corpus, which ensured the right to be free from illegal incarceration and to appeal a conviction.

      There was a revival of curiosity around Magna Carta in 17th-century England. His model of liberal democracy dominates the political landscape even now.

      In the Cossack republics of Ukraine during the 16th and 17th centuries, the holder of the highest rank of Hetman was chosen by delegates from the country's regions under the auspices of the Cossack Hetmanate and Zaporizhian Sich.

      Jamestown, Virginia is credited as the birthplace of representative government in North America, with the election of the House of Burgesses (the precursor of the Virginia General Assembly) in 1619. When English Puritans settled in New England in the 1620s, they set up democratic colonies; After the Acts of Union formally united England and Scotland into a single nation in 1707, the first Parliament of Great Britain was convened. The English Declaration of Right, 1689 (restated in the Bill of Rights 1689) and the Scottish Claim of Right, 1689, both established Parliament as the UK's highest lawmaking body and stated that election of members of Parliament ought to be free. However, the UK's constitution was never formally codified. Commoners without taxable property were not eligible to vote, whereas taxed peasants were represented in parliament.

      A brief experiment with a democratic constitution was the 1755 establishment of the Republic of Corsica (all men and women above age of 25 could vote). While other democracies didn't provide women the right to vote until the 20th century, the Corsican Constitution was the first to be built on Enlightenment ideals.

      Property requirements to vote in Colonial America were identical to those in Britain, and in the years leading up to 1776, when land was plentiful, a sizable portion of the population satisfied them. Nonetheless, the Constitution of 1791 helped kept hopes for regaining independence alive for another century.

      In the United States, non-property-holding white men were granted voting rights for the first time in the 1828 presidential election. The 1830s saw a dramatic increase in voter participation, with over 80% of the adult white male population casting a ballot in the 1840 presidential election.

      There were many waves of democracy in the twentieth century, each one caused by a unique set of factors such as war, revolution, decolonization, religion, or economics. To some extent, the notion of government transition may be traced back to the examples of Austria, Italy, and occupied Japan. The Soviet-controlled part of Germany and the rest of Eastern Europe, however, joined the anti-democratic Soviet bloc.

      Most of the newly independent governments, after the war and decolonization, again had ostensibly democratic constitutions. India has been, and is, the biggest democracy in the world. By 1960, the great majority of nation-states had declared themselves to be democracies, but the vast majority of the world's people still resided in countries that only on paper had free and fair elections (particularly in Communist states and the former colonies.)

      Many countries made great strides toward what has been called the third wave of democracy after a subsequent round of democratization. In the 1970s and 1980s, military dictatorships in South America, Portugal, and Spain all transitioned back to civilian control. East and South Asian nations soon followed in the 1980s. A combination of economic stagnation and anti-Soviet sentiment in the 1980s led to the Soviet Union's demise, the end of the Cold War, and the democratization and liberalization of nations formerly part of the Eastern bloc. The emerging democracies that were the most successful were those that were located and culturally closest to western Europe; these countries are currently either members of the European Union or candidates for membership. After the fall of Asia's most infamous dictatorship in 1986, the Philippines became the region's only democratic state thanks to the ascent of Corazon Aquino, who became known as the Mother of Asian Democracy.

      In the 1990s, the liberal movement extended to various African governments, most notably South Africa. The Indonesian Revolution of 1998, the Bulldozer Revolution in Yugoslavia, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia are all examples of attempts at liberalization from the last few years.

      There were 123 electoral democracies in 2007, according Freedom House (up from 40 in 1972).

      The voting age in many nations was lowered to 18 years old, beginning with the main democracies in Western Europe and North America in the 1970s. Brazil, Austria, Cuba, and Nicaragua are just few of the nations where the voting age has been dropped to 16. A proposal in California in 2004 to lower the voting age to 14 (for a quarter vote) and 16 (for a full vote) was eventually rejected. A measure giving every German citizen the right to vote from birth—to be exercised by their parents until the kid becomes 18—was introduced and tabled in 2008.

      For the last eleven years, worldwide reductions in political rights and civil freedoms have exceeded increases, as reported by Freedom House. This trend began in 2005, Economic disparity and public dissatisfaction were blamed for the decade's democratic backsliding., Aristotle distinguished between popular rule (democracy/timocracy) and elite rule (oligarchy/aristocracy) as well as absolute monarchy/tyranny. He also believed that for every system, there was an ideal and an undesirable variation (he considered democracy to be the degenerate counterpart to timocracy).

      Aggregative democracy, deliberative democracy, and radical democracy are the three competing views of democracy held by contemporary political thinkers.

      According to proponents of the notion of aggregative democracy, the purpose of democratic processes is to collect people' preferences and then use those choices collectively to establish the social policies that should be implemented. Therefore, those who share this perspective argue that voting should be the central focus of democratic participation, with the policy receiving the most votes being enacted.

      There is more than one kind of aggregative democracy. Minimalists define democracy as a form of governance in which voters regularly give one or more political parties control of the government. Citizens cannot and should not rule under this minimalist approach since, for the most part, they do not have strong opinions on most topics. This important viewpoint was written by Joseph Schumpeter in his book Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. William H. Riker, Adam Przeworski, and Richard Posner are just a few modern minimalists.

      However, proponents of direct democracy argue that voters should have a say in legislation without going via intermediaries like elected officials. Many different arguments are made by those who want direct democracy. Participation in politics may be beneficial because it brings people together, educates them, and helps keep strong elites in check. Moreover, until people have a say in shaping laws and policies, they will not govern themselves.

      Governments are most likely to enact policies and legislation that are centrist, with around half the population supporting more liberal policies and almost the same number supporting more conservative ones. This is a bad result since it shows that unaccountable political leaders are acting in their own self-interest to win over voters. To operate as a go-between for the people and the state, ideological political parties are essential, according to Anthony Downs. In his 1957 book, An Economic Theory of Democracy, Downs outlined this perspective.

      The premise of deliberative democracy is that citizens should be able to weigh in on public policy decisions. Deliberative democracy, in contrast to aggregative democracy, insists that genuine debate, and not just the tally of votes, comes before any democratic decision. Deliberation that is genuine occurs when those involved in making decisions are not influenced by the imbalance of political power that exists in our society.

      The foundation of radical democracy is the recognition of structural inequalities in power. By fostering debate and opposition in democratic decision-making, democracy exposes and challenges these power dynamics.

      When a country's political system undergoes a period of transition from an authoritarian to a democratic one, this is known as a democratic transition (or vice versa).

      The decline of democracy, also known as autocratization, Transitioning to a more democratic political system, with concrete political reforms in the direction of democracy, is what is meant by democratization or democratisation..

      Quantitative and comparative analyses of the degree to which democracy exists are what democracy indices are all about. Because of their qualitative character, democracy indicators lend themselves to statistical methods for investigating the factors that underlie regime shifts.

      The breadth of core democratic institutions, the competitiveness and inclusiveness of polyarchy, freedom of expression, various aspects of governance, democratic norm transgressions, co-option of opposition, electoral system manipulation, electoral fraud, and popular support for anti-democratic alternatives are all measured in different ways by various democracy indices.

      Limitations exist in quantifying and econometrically measuring the potential effects of democracy or its relationship with other phenomena—whether inequality, poverty, education, etc., or accountability—because democracy is an overarching concept that includes the functioning of diverse institutions that are not easy to measure. Some indices of democracy include additional factors, such as judicial independence or the quality of the election system, while others do not.

      There are many different conceptualizations and implementations of democracy. It's true that certain forms of democracy provide their inhabitants greater freedom and representation than others.

      There is no necessary relationship between the following varieties of democracy: specifics of many different things that are completely autonomous and may coexist in the same system have been specified.

      There are many other kinds of democracies, but the two most fundamental kinds have to do with how the collective body of all eligible individuals carries out its will. The term direct democracy refers to a system of government in which all eligible individuals have a say in political decision making by, for instance, casting a vote on proposed policy changes. Representative democracies describe the system through which political power is exerted indirectly via elected representatives rather than directly by the whole body of eligible voters.

      In a direct democracy, people have a direct voice in policymaking, as opposed to indirect participation via representatives or intermediaries. The people who participate in a direct democracy have the authority to:

      Constitutional Law Reform, Propose initiatives, referenda, and legislative amendments, Initiate legal action against a politician for violating a campaign pledge, or revoke their office before the end of their term.

      Referendums, citizens' initiatives, and recall elections are examples of direct democracy used within contemporary representational governments.

      Some forms of direct democracy, like the Athenian variety, employ a lot system to elect officials. Citizens are randomly selected to undertake crucial governmental and administrative roles in this system.

      In a representative democracy, citizens vote for their leaders directly into office. If the president is also chosen by the people, we speak of a democratic republic..

      Instead of having an elected president serve as both head of state

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