A Democratic Dilemma: System Effectiveness versus Citizen Participation

Author(s): Robert A. Dahl

Source: Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 109, No. 1 (Spring, 1994), pp. 23-34
Published by: The Academy of Political Science
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A DemocraticDilemma:
System Effectivenessversus
CitizenParticipation

ROBERT A. DAHL
The unexpectedrisein oppositionto the MaastrichtTreaty
in 1992 reflected in part an abrupt heightening of awareness about
possible trade-offs that the designersand supportersof the treaty had
largely ignored. The treaty was intended to create in due time a
common currencyamong the twelve membersof the EuropeanUnion
(EU), common policies on defense and foreign affairs, and greater
authority for the EU over many of the policies- social, economic,
and environmental- of the memberstates. (Before Maastrichtthe EU
had been called the European Community.) Increasingreferencesto
the democraticdeficit in the political arrangementsof the EU revealed
a concern that whatever other benefits might result from the treaty,
they could come at the cost of submerginga national democraticgovernment into a larger and less democratic transnational system.
Maastrichtpresentedcitizensand leaders(in a countrylike Denmark,
for example) with a fundamental democratic dilemma: They could
choose to preservethe authorityof a smallerdemocraticpolitical unit
(Denmark)within which they could act more effectively to influence
the conduct of theirgovernment,even though some importantmatters
ROBERT A. DAHL is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Yale University and a
past president of the American Political Science Association. His most recent book is Democracy
and its Critics.
Political Science Quarterly Volume 109 Number 1 1994

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might remainbeyond the capacityof that governmentto deal with effectively.Orthey couldchooseto increasethe capacityof a largepolitical
unit to deal more effectively with these matters, even if their ability
to influencethe governmentin a democraticfashion were significantly
less in the larger unit (the EU) than in the smaller unit (Denmark).
The dilemmatranscendsMaastrichtand the EU. It exists wherever
and whenever the societies and economies within democratic states
are subject to significant external influences beyond their control. It
has, therefore, existed ever since the idea and practice of democracy
evolved in ancient Greece 2,500 years ago.
Externalactions beyond the capacityof a particularstate to control
can, of course, result from deliberatedecisions like Maastricht, but
they can also result from developments that are not necessarily intended to limit that state'sautonomy. Whenevereconomic life extends
beyond a state'sboundaries, for example, internal choices are limited
by actions taken outside the country. Military and strategic choices
have alwaysbeen constrainedby decisions, or expectationsabout decisions, madeby externalactors. Although economic and strategiclimits
are ancient, only recently have many people realized that actions
having decisive consequencesfor a country's environment cannot be
controlledexclusivelyby people withinthat country. Even the capacity
to control immigration has begun to slip away from the sovereign
control of nation-states.
Transnationalactions affect all democraticcountries in varying degrees. In general, decisions in small democracies like Denmark are
more constrainedby external forces than in large countries, if only
becausetheir economies (in advancedcountries like Denmark, at any
rate) are more dependenton internationaltrade; and ordinarily, too,
they are strategicallymore vulnerable(Switzerlandbeing an exception
only in part). Yet is is obvious that externalactors and actions impose
crucial limits on the choices available even to the people of a large
and powerful countrylike the United States. Indeed, these limits may
be particularlypainful for Americans because of the rather swift
changein the country'sinternationaleconomic position from relatively
high autonomyearlierin this centuryto much greaterinterdependence
as the century comes to a close. Only thirty years ago, for example,
officials in charge of fiscal and monetary policy, and their official
and unofficial advisers, could reflect on the possibility of employing
orthodox Keynesianremediesfor a recession, such as reducinginterest
rates and increasingfederal spending, without giving a great deal of
weight to the responsesof foreign investors. It is hard to imagine them
doing so today.

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SYSTEM VERSUS CITIZEN EFFECTIVENESS

25

HISTORICAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN DEMOCRACY

Because historical changes in the nature of democratic institutions

have a poignant bearingon the dilemmaI just suggested, a word about
them may be helpful. The history of democracy can be viewed as
consisting of three great transformations. The first occurred during
the first half of the fifth century B.C. in Greece: the transformation
of nondemocratic city-states- typically aristocracies, oligarchies,
monarchies, or mixtures of all three- into democracies. For the next
two thousand years, the idea and practice of democracy were associated almost exclusivelywith small scale city-states, reappearingin the
late middleages in some of the city-statesof Italy.1 In the smallcompass
of the city-state, the central institution was the assembly in which all
citizens were entitled to participate.
But the city-state was made obsolete by the emergenceof the large
scale nation-state, or more accuratelythe national state.2At this point
our story begins to suggestan analogy with the present.For in a second
democratic transformation the idea of democracy was transferred
from the city-stateto the much largerscale of the national state. While
some city-state republicslingered on, increasinglythe autonomy that
cities might once have possessed was curtailedas they became subordinate units of national states. What made the second transformation
possible was an idea and set of practice we now tend to regard as
essentialto democracy- representation.Democracycame to be understood not as assemblydemocracyin the city-statebut as representative
democracyin the national-state. As a consequenceof that transformation in scale and form, a set of political institutions and practices,
which taken as a whole were unknown to the theory and practice of
democracy up to that time, came into existence.
By the late twentieth century, this set of political institutions, which
are generally seen as necessary to democracy (though not sufficient)
on the large scale of a country, have become very familiar: control
over government decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in
elected officials; elected officials are chosen in frequent and fairly
conducted elections in which coercion is comparativelyuncommon;
' Rome might also be cited as part of this trend. Throughoutthe period of the Republic,the
Romaninstitutionsfor citizenparticipationin governmentlargelyremainedthose of the city-state.
governDespitethe vastlyenlargedscaleof Rome,Romansneveradopteda systemof representative
ment in the modernsense.
but the termis unfamiliar
2 It wouldbe even moreaccurate,perhaps,to speakof country-states
and nationalstate will probablydo better.

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practicallyall adults have the right to vote in the election of officials

and have the rightto run for electiveoffices in the government;citizens
have an effectively enforceableright to expressthemselveson political
matters broadly defined, without danger of severe punishment;they
also have effective rightsto seek out alternativesourcesof information
and to form relativelyindependent associations or organizations, including independent political parties and interest groups.3
Although an Athenian in classical Greece would hardly have accepted this constellation of institutions as a democracy- and modern
day advocates of assembly democracy often do not- we need not be
detained by these linguistic, philosophical, and ideological disputes.
For our concern here is with the effects of transnational economic,
social, and political systems on modern democracy as we, if not the
Greeks of classical times, conceive it.
THE PRESENT TRANSFORMATION

The third transformation, then, is the one now taking place. Just as
earlier city-states lost much of their political, economic, social, and
culturalautonomy when they wereabsorbedinto largernational states,
so in our time the development of transnational systems reduces the
political, economic, social, and culturalautonomy of national states.4
The boundariesof a country, even one as large as the United States,
have become much smaller than the boundaries of the decisions that
significantlyaffect the fundamentalinterestsof its citizens. A country's
economic life, physical environment, national security, and survival
are highly and probably increasinglydependent on actors and actions
that are outside the country's boundaries and not directly subject to
its government. Thus the citizens of a country cannot employ their
national government, and much less their local governments, to exercise direct control over external actors whose decisions bear critically
on their lives - for example, foreign investors who choose to invest
theirmoney elsewhere.The resultis somethinglike the secondtransforI I haveusedthe termpolyarchyto differentiatethe institutionalcomplexof moderndemocracy,
not only from assemblydemocracyand other possibleinstitutionalarrangementsbut also from
democracyin the ideal sense. Instead,I usuallyrely here on the readerto graspfrom the context
whichof the multiplemeaningsof democracyI have in mind.
I David Held examinessome of the consequencesof internationalization
for democracyand
providesan extensiveaccountof the limits on the sovereigntyof nation-statesresultingfrom the
worldeconomy,internationalorganizations,internationallaw, and hegemonicpowersand power
blocs. See "Democracy,the Nation-State,and the Global System"in Held, ed., Political Theory
Today(Stanford,CA: StanfordUniversityPress, 1991), 197-235.

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SYSTEM VERSUS CITIZEN EFFECTIVENESS

27

mation writ large on a world scale. Just as the rise of the national
state reduced the capacity of local residents to exercise control over
matters of vital importance to them by means of their local governments, so the proliferation of transnational activities and decisions
reduces the capacity of the citizens of a country to exercise control
over matters vitally important to them by means of their national
government. To that extent, the governments of countries are becoming local governments.
Is democracy in the national state, then, destined to meet the fate
of democracyin the city-state?Will it grow more and more attenuated
until finally it lingers on as little more than a ghostly reminderof its
earliervigorous existence? In the same way that the idea and practice
of democracywere shifted away from the city-stateto the largerscale
of the national state, will democracy as an idea and a set of practices
now shift to the grander scale of transnational governments? If so,
just as democracy on the scale of the national state required a new
and uniquehistoricalpatternof politicalinstitutionsradicallydifferent
from the ancient practicesof assemblydemocracythat the small scale
of the city-state made possible, desirable, and even self-evident, will
democracy on a transnational scale require a new set of institutions
that are different in some respects, perhaps radically different from
the familiarpoliticalinstitutionsof modernrepresentativedemocracy?
CONSEQUENCES FOR DEMOCRACY

I do not propose to say much hereabout what those new supranational

politicalinstitutionsmightbe.5We can be reasonablycertain,however,
about two things. First, they will be of enormousvariety, from associations like the United Nations and the European Union to military
arrangementslike NATO or its successors, economic associations like
the emergentNorth Americaneconomic area, and innumerablead hoc
but enduringarrangementsfor economic, military,environmental,and
other matters. To be sure, the constitutional and political systems of
democratic countries also vary greatly; but all, by definition and in
empiricalreality,aresimilarin havingthe basicset of politicalinstitutions
I mentioned earlier. Second, they will requireconsiderabledelegation
of power to make consequential decisions- de facto if not always de
jure-to officials who are not themselvesdirectlysubject to elections,
though at least nominally they may be subject to officials who are.
I

Held offers some brief speculationsin ibid., 231-234.

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Like the second transformation, then, the third is associated with

a great increase in the scale of the political system. And as with the
second, this third change in scale will have important consequences
for certainvalues. As I have alreadysuggested, the two that compose
the dilemma under discussion here are the ability of the citizens to
exercise democratic control over the decisions of the polity versus
the capacity of the system to respond satisfactorily to the collective
preferences of its citizens.
A persuasiveargumentto classicalGreeksas well as to many modern
democratsis that smallersystemsat least hold out the theoreticalpotential for greater citizen effectiveness than larger systems, even if in
practicethat potentiality is not always realized. Judged from this perspective, as a site for democracy the city-state was clearly superior
to the national state, at any rate in its potentials. Judged from the
perspectiveof system capacity, however, the city-state had some obvious disadvantages,notably in defense but conspicuouslyalso in economic capacities. The parochial and even passionate attachment of
Greeks to their city-states meant that they could unite against aggressors, if at all, only when the aggressorwas on their doorstep. Heroic
though they were, they could not preventsubjugationby the Macedonians and Romans and destructionof the precious autonomy of their
cities. Nor could the Italian republics adequately defend themselves
against the superior forces of national states like France and Spain.
For one example, take Venice. When Napoleon reachedItaly in 1797,
his forces overwhelminglyoutnumberedthose of Venice, which surrendered without resistance. Napoleon then further dramatized the
obsolescence of the city-state by unceremoniously handing over the
ancient republic to Austria.
That largerpolitical systemsoften possess relativelygreatercapacity
to accomplishtasks beyond the capacityof smallersystemsleads sometimes to a paradox. In very small political systems a citizen may be
able to participate extensively in decisions that do not matter much
but cannot participate much in decisions that really matter a great
deal; whereas very large systems may be able to cope with problems
that mattermore to a citizen, the opportunitiesfor the citizento participate in and greatly influence decisions are vastly reduced. Taken to
an extreme but perhaps not wholly fanciful limit, the paradox would
pose a choice betweena tiny unit in which citizenscould exerciseperfect
democratic control over, say, the location and upkeep of footpaths;
or a world governmentnecessary for preservinglife on the planet by
preventingacute environmentaldegradation, but over which citizens
had only symbolic democratic control.

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SYSTEM VERSUS CITIZEN EFFECTIVENESS

29

Judgments about trade-offs are no easy matter. On balance, few

people today would regretthat our predecessorsgave up the potentialities of democracy in smaller city-states for the enhanced system capacity of the national state. Our successorsmay one day conclude that
on balance it was worthwhileto trade off the potentials for democracy
in countries and national states for the enhanced capacity of supranational associations. I do not need to make these judgments here. I
need only observe that just as the inclusion of a village, town, or city
in the economy, society, and polity of a country reduces the relative
importanceof strictlylocal decisions and increasesthe relativeimportance of decisions made outside the smaller unit, so too as a country
becomes more and more a part of a vaster social, economic, cultural,
and political world, the ability of citizens to make their own decisions
autonomously is diminished.
We can examine the matter more concretely by considering the effects of internationalizationon the potentialities of a country for approximating several of the criteriawe might use to assess democratic
performance. I have alreadystressedthe extent to which internationalization means that many crucialdecisions are made by persons outside
a country, without the political participation of citizens within the
country, or at most perhapsonly a tiny minority. This exclusion from
participation,it might be objected, comes about becauseof the absence
(or weakness) of transnationalpolitical institutions. If these were created along democraticlines then citizens could participatein transnational decisionsjust as they now can in nationaldecisions.I shall ignore
the fact that such institutionsdo not now exist and seem exceedingly
remotein most of the world;even if they wereto come about the opportunitiesand importanceof participationwould stillbe greatlydiminished.
While Jean Jacques Rousseau was wrong, I think, about some important issues, he was on target in emphasizingthat the opportunities
for (and importanceof) citizen participationdecreasewith the number
of citizens. To oversimplify, if citizens were truly equal in influence,
then the influence of an average citizen would necessarily shrink as
the number of citizens increasedfrom a hundredto a thousand; from
a thousand to a hundredthousand; and so on. Or if we take theoretical
opportunities to participate at any stage in a decision process- for
example, by engaging in discussion with all other citizens or for that
matter with one's representativein the parliament- then clearly these
shrink linearly with numbers. A simple arithmetical exercise would
demonstrate how the amount of time for each citizen to engage in

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discussionrapidlyapproachesinsignificanceas the numberof persons

who participateincreases. Thus even if transnationaldemocraticinstitutions are created, they cannot overcome the limitations imposed by
scale and time.
Turn now to the matter of equality in voting at the decisive stage
of collective decisions, as for example in elections. In the absence of
supranationalpolitical institutionsconstructedmore or less according
to democraticprinciples,the criterionis essentiallyirrelevant.But even
if nominally democratic political institutions are created (as in the
European Union), they are likely to violate the principle even more
extensively than decision making at the national level in democratic
countries. For example, federal systems typically, perhapsinvariably,
violate the criterionof voting equality, because representationin parliament (or in one house) is not proportionalto population or citizens,
but on the contrarygives disproportionateweight to states, provinces,
or regionswith smallerpopulations. (Nevada and Californiaboth have
two senators, for example.) I presumethat internationalpolitical institutions, formal and informal, would tend to follow the same principle,
though perhapsnot to the extreme of one country-onevote, as in the
UN General Assembly.
If we take political realities into account, as we must, then just as
the realitiesimposed by political life and institutions profoundly limit
the extent to which the criterion of voting equality is actually met
even in democratic countries, so too these realities will attenuate the
principlein internationallife, but, I believe, to an even greaterextent.
As one illustration among many, in a democratic country the mere
fact of representationmeans in practicethat the personal preferences
of a representativewill almost inevitably carry far more weight than
those of an averagecitizen; and we know how greatlyall the additional
influences broughtto bear on a representativetend to violate the criterion.of voting equality even further. But if this is true in democratic
countries, does not, and will not, internationalizationcause even more
massive violations?
Consider enlightenedunderstanding.In introducingthis ratherambiguous criterion I simply want to recognize that democracy cannot
be justified merely as a system for translating the raw, uninformed
will of a popular majority into public policy. It is foolish and historically false to supposethat enlightenmenthas nothing to do with democracy. It is foolish because democracy has usually been conceived as
a system in which "rule by the people" makes it more likely that the

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"people"will get what they want, or what they believe is best, rather
than alternativesystems in which an elite determineswhat is best. But
to know what they want or what is best the people must be enlightened,
at least to some degree. Because advocates of democracyhave invariably recognized this, they have also placed great stress on the means
to an informed and enlightened citizenry, such as education, discussion, and public deliberation.
What the criterion is intended to require, then, is that alternative
procedures for making decisions ought to be evaluated according to
the opportunitiesthey furnish citizens for acquiringan understanding
of means and ends, of one's interests and the expected consequences
of policies for interests, not only for oneself but for all other relevant
persons as well. Thus the criterionmakes it hard to justify procedures
that would cut off or suppress information which, were it available,
might well cause citizensto arriveat a different decision; or that would
give some citizens much easier access than others to information of
crucial importance; or that would present citizens with an agenda of
decisions that had to be decided without discussion; and so on.
Here again, the absence of transnational political systems constructed on democratic principlesmakes the criterionvirtually irrelevant to the international decisions and actions that nowadays, and
probably increasingly, bear heavily on the lives of citizens in democratic countries. Even if attempts were made to create transnational
"democratic"systems, the burdens of information, knowledge, and
understandingthey would place on their citizens would, I believe, far
exceed those of national democratic systems- which, heaven knows,
impose burdens that may already be excessive.
Likewise, if the weakness of citizens in exercising final control of
the agenda of collective decision making is already a problem of the
utmost seriousnessin all democraticcountries,then surelyinternationalizationvirtuallynullifies the possibility. In the absenceof democratic
transnational institutions, at best only a tiny minority of citizens in
any country can exercise direct control, and often not much indirect
control either, over the agenda of the transnationaldecisions, actions,
choices, and influences that so profoundly affect their opportunities
and life chances. But even if democratictransnationalinstitutions are
created, all the difficulties of exercisingfinal control that alreadyexist
in democratic countries will be compounded.
Finally, there is the question of inclusion. Once again, the criterion
is largelyirrelevantin the presentworld, since except for the European

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Union no transnationalstructuresexist with even the semblance of a

democraticprocess. At best, decisionsare made by unelecteddelegates
appointedby national governments,many of which, and in some cases
most of which, are not themselves dependent on elections. But often
crucialdecisions are not made even by official internationalorganizations but by official and unofficial actors largely or wholly outside
the purviewof the official internationalorganizations-banks, multinational firms, investors, governmentagencies, and so on. To propose
that all persons significantly affected by these decisions should be
included in the process would be seen as fanciful; that they should be
included as political equals, democratic citizens if you like, seems an
even more utopian claim.
ADAPT?
CAN DEMOCRACY
These reflections suggest several ways by which the democratic idea
might be adapted to the new change in scale.6The most obvious is to
duplicatethe second transformationon a largerscale: from democracy
in the national state to democracyin the transnationalstate. However,
the historical analogy is too imperfectto allow that facile conclusion.
For in the countrieswhere modern democraticinstitutions developed,
the structuresand consciousness of nationhood were already rather
fully developed, but transnationalpolitical structuresand consciousness are likely to remain weak in the foreseeable future. Only the
EuropeanUnion shows much sign of harboringa supranationalgrowth
gene. There the incipient institutions of a "democratic"transnational
political community are faintly visible in the form of the European
Parliament. A sort of transnationalpolyarchy might graduallycome
into existence. Though its citizen body would be massivelylargerthan
that of the United States, democratic ideas and practices applied to
the Union as a whole might graduallytake hold. Yet even in this case
it seems fanciful to expect that the EuropeanParliamentin Strasbourg
would everbecome as responsiveto the citizensof the EuropeanUnion
(whateverthe membershipof the EU may ultimately turn out to be)
as the existingnational parliamentsof the presentmembersof the EU.
Except for the European Union, the prospects for even moderately
"democratic"governments of transnational political associations are
6 This section is adapted from my Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1989), 320-321.

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poor. Even if transnationalpolitical systems are greatly strengthened,

for a long time to come decisions are likely to be made by delegates
appointed by national governments. Thus the link between the delegates and the citizens will remain weak; and the democratic process
will be even more attenuatedthan in existingpolyarchies.With respect
to decisions on crucialinternationalaffairs, the dangeris that the third
transformation will not lead to an extension of the democratic idea
beyond the national state but to the victory in that domain of de facto
guardianship.
This emergingpossibility meansthat in orderto maintainthe vitality
of the democratic process, democratic institutions within countries
would need to be improved. Stronger democratic institutions would
provide whatever democratic control may be possible over the authority delegated to transnational decision makers and thus help to
prevent delegation from becoming in effect a total and permanent
alienation of control. What form these might take is hard to say,
but they might well include new and more effective institutions for
enhancing citizen understanding,deliberation, and informed participation.7 Stronger democratic institutions would also help to provide
a healthy democratic political life within the large sphere of relative
autonomy that democraticcountrieswill still possess. Here the experience of the smallerEuropeandemocraciesis encouraging. Just as they
maintaineda vigorous and self-confident political life in the very process of adapting to their internationalvulnerabilityand dependence,
so in the future all democraticcountrieswill be challengedto discover
ways of maintainingand strengtheningthe democraticprocess as they
adapt to transnationalforces. In this way, while freedom and control
might be lost on one front, they could yet be gained on others.
In addition, democratic life in smaller communities below the level
of the national state could be enhanced. The larger scale of decisions
need not lead inevitabilityto a widening sense of powerlessness, provided citizens can exercise significant control over decisions on the
smallerscale of mattersimportantin theirdaily lives: education, public
health,town and city planning,the supplyand qualityof the local public
sector from streetsand lightingto parksand playgrounds,and the like.8
7 For some suggestions along these lines see James Fishkin, Democracy and Deliberation (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1991); Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1984), 261ff; and my "The Problem of Civic Competence," Journal of Democracy
3 (October 1992): 45-59.
8 A useful analogy is furnished by attempts to democratize the workplace. A substantial body
of research shows that in economic enterprises, arrangements by which workers are entitled to

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What is more, citizens in democratic countries should insist that

extensive information be provided and wide-rangingpublic deliberation, discussion, and debate take place before they yield significant
autonomy to transnationalinstitutions. Becausethe problemof tradeoffs in democratic values resulting from changes in scale has been
largely ignored, the opponents of drastic increases in the size of a
democratic unit have little to fall back on except sentiment, attachments, loyalties. Over the long span of history, they have won some
rear-guardskirmishes and lost the deciding battles- a fate that may
well await them in the coming century.
The burden of proof should be placed squarelyon the advocates to
show that the trade-offs definitely support the values of a majority
of citizens. Fearfulthat discussionmay easily arouse adversereactions
among citizens who may insufficiently understand the advantages
claimed for transnationalarrangements(advantagesthat will often be
long-run, uncertain,and supportedonly by counterfactualtheoretical
arguments)when faced with a choice between wider public discussion
or less, leaders favoring such moves may be tempted to avoid the
pitfalls of widespreadpublicdeliberation.Yet becauseof the education
of citizensthat public deliberationhelps to promote and the possibility
of forming a more securelong-runconsensusfor or againsta proposed
change, to avoid extensive public deliberation would be, I believe,
both morally and politically wrong.
For these reasons, by initiallyrejectingMaastrichtin their 1992referendum, engaging in further public discussion and debate, bringing
about a reconsiderationand renegotiationof some parts of the treaty
to preserve greater Danish autonomy on certain matters, and then
adoptingthe revisedtreatythroughdemocraticproceduresthat insured
greater consensus for this historic move, I believe that the Danish
people made a positive contribution both to democratic values and
the European community. The people of a democraticnation are not
only fully entitled to explore the trade-offs between system effectiveness and citizen effectiveness, but I believe that commitmentto democratic values obliges them to do so.

participate in decisions are more highly valued at the level of the shop floor than at higher levels
in the firm.

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