Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

154
DEMOCRACY TODAY
mate [2] government; accountable [3] government, efficient [4] government
or a government able to solve conflicts without resorting to violence [5] .
While there is little doubt that these benefits are both desirable and
(sometimes) achievable, in the event that participation fails to bring
about good government, what then?
It is in response to this ‘what then?’ that I propose we shift our conception
of participation away from seeing it as a mechanism (whether
think or thin) for the governed to select and control the governors
(and hence to produce legitimacy, responsiveness and accountability).
Instead, I want to consider the value of participation as being categorical,
a conception in which the citizen is considered as a moral entity
rather than one that is purely political.
Although the use of the term ‘categorical’ in this context is (I
think) original (and hence its moral rather than political dimension),
the idea of democracy as having ‘intrinsic’ value (Swift 2006: 203-213)
or ‘non-instrumental’ value (Ober 2007) is not. Adam Swift discusses
three ‘intrinsic’ values of democracy, all of which are linked to political
participation: 1) autonomy; 2) self-realisation; and 3) equality but
interesingly, he considers the ‘intellectual and moral development of
citizens’ (Swift 2006: 218) under the ‘instrumental’ benefits of democracy
(along with ‘good or correct decisions’ and ‘perceived legitimacy’). Swift
argues non-democratic systems are thus ‘infantilising’ because they
‘deprive adults of the chance to develop their intellectual and moral
powers’ (Swift 2006: 218).
2
Since a legitimate government is one that is recognised by others as having the right to
govern, it stands to reason that if the majority of ‘others’, that is, the citizens, has chosen
that government, they recognise this right.
3
In a functioning democracy, the threat of being voted out is usually sufficient to ensure
at least a degree of accountable and responsive government: as Thomas Pempel explains,
‘democracy is predicated on the ability to throw the rascals out’ (1990: 7).
4
A la Condorcet who argued that as the number of people participating in a decision
increases, so too does the probability that the majority decision is correct. Of course the
theorem only holds if we assume that each voter is more likely to vote correctly than not. Be
that as it may, this is often the argument used in supporting broad-based participation.
5
Because of the pluralist nature of most democracies, there is often no powerful decisionmaking
centre: because there is a balance of resources obtained through an overlapping
membership between factions, no single group can achieve a permanent majority and
hence marginalise other groups ad infinitum. Instead of resorting to violence, groups
wanting to advance their interests have only to wait for the next election to do so.