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Summary Summaries articles
Summaries of all the compulsory articles for the course Comparative politics: Democratisation.
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Summaries articles Comparative Politics: DemocratizationDemocracy and its critics.
R.A. Dahl (1989). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Chapter 6: Justifications: The Idea of Equal intrinsic Worth
To live together in an association, people need a process for arriving at governmental decisions,
which is called a political process
• Hierarchical process → certain leaders make decisions
o Leaders are a small group and selected by an extraordinary degree possessed
qualities of knowledge and virtue
• Democratic process for governing → rule by the people
o Citizen body consisting of members who are considered equals for purposes of
arriving at governmental decisions
Dahl states that democracies meet the criteria of a democratic idea better than other regimes and
because of the political culture that the idea and practices of democracy generate, on the whole are,
with all their imperfections, more desirable than any feasible nondemocratic alternative
The idea of intrinsic equality
• Fundamental belief that at least on matters requiring collective decisions “all Men” (Locke’s
idea) (or all persons?) are, or ought to be considered, equal in some important sense
• In what respects are persons intrinsically equal, and what requirements does their equality
impose on a process for making collective decisions?
o Different notions in utilitarianism:
▪ Locke: no one’s naturally entitled to subject another to his (or, certainly, to
her) will or authority → no one can be subjected to the political power of
another without his own consent
▪ Rawls: human beings intrinsic equality consists rather of the capacity for
having a conception of their good and acquiring a sense of others
▪ Bentham: everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one
▪ John Stuart Mill: might be written under the principle of utility as an
explanatory commentary
o Dahl:
▪ The principle implies that during a process of collective decision-making, the
interests of every person who is subject to the decision must (within the
limits of feasibility) be accurately interpreted and made known
• 2 weaknesses in the Idea of intrinsic equality
o Whatever limits it may set on inequalities are extremely broad → it does not mean
that we are all entitled to equal shares, whether in votes, civil rights, medical care, or
anything else → how do you measure it?
o Nothing in the assumption of intrinsic equality implies that every person is the best
judge of their own good or interests
1
,Advocates of democracy have generally interpreted the most fundamental ‘interests’ or ‘good’ of
human beings in 3 ways
1. Having opportunities to achieve maximum feasible freedom
a. 3 ways democracy is instrumental to freedom
i. General freedom
1. Because certain rights, liberties and opportunities are essential to
the democratic process itself, as long as that process exists then
these rights, freedoms and opportunities must necessarily also exist
a. Rights to free expression
b. Political organization
c. Opposition
d. Fair and free elections etc.
2. As a result of the rights inherently required for the democratic
process, together with a political culture and a broader domain of
personal freedom associated with that process, democracy tends to
provide a more extensive domain of personal freedom than any
other kind of regime can promise
ii. Freedom of self-determination
1. Democracy gives the opportunity for persons to live under laws of
their own choosing, but living together also means that people
sometimes must obey collective decisions that are binding on all
members of the association
2. Democracy maximizes the opportunities for self-determination
among the members of an association → democracy best option
iii. Moral autonomy
1. Moral autonomous person: one who decides on his moral principles
and the decisions that significantly depend on them, following a
process of reflection, deliberation, scrutiny and consideration → to
be morally autonomous is to be self-governing in the domain of
morally relevant choices
2. Because the democratic process maximizes the feasible scope of self-
determination for those who are subject to collective decisions, so it
also maximally respects the moral autonomy of all who are subject
to its laws
2. To develop fully their capacities and potentialities as human beings (instrumental to human
development)
a. Only democratic regimes can provide the conditions under which personal and social
qualities are likely to develop fully
3. To attain satisfaction of all the other interests they themselves judge important, within limits
of feasibility and fairness to others (instrumental to the protection of personal interests)
a. Democracy is essential to the protection of the general interests of the persons who
are subject to the regulations or actions of the officials of a state
i. Freedom and personal development
ii. Broad array of desires, wants, practices and rights that people in a specific
society and historical situation may believe to be important
2
, Chapter 8: A Theory of the Democratic Process
Assumptions of a political order
• People form an association to achieve certain ends or adapt an already existing association
to undertake these tasks → to achieve these ends, the association needs to adopt policies,
with which members will be obliged to act consistently
o Governmental or binding collective decisions
▪ Binding decisions → rule or law that includes penalties for noncompliance
▪ Government → constitutes decisionmakers who make binding decisions
• The process for making binding decisions includes at least 2 analytically distinguishable
stages
o Setting the agenda
o Deciding the outcome → decisive stage
▪ In principle, a stage is decisive if all prior decisions can still be recalled or
reversed
▪ Thus, prior to the decisive stage decisions may be thought of as having been
delegated but not alienated by those who participate in the decisive stage
Assumptions justifying a democratic political order
• Principle of fairness
o Laws cannot rightfully be imposed on others by persons who are not themselves
obliged to obey those laws
o Necessary to self-determination → for laws and rules imposed by an outsider would
violate the self-determination of all those subject to the laws
• Equal consideration → application to all the members
o No adult member of the association (citizens) should ever be required to
demonstrate adequate competence for protecting that member’s own interests
o Presupposes that each member of the association is a better judge of his or her
interests than others would be
Criteria for a democratic process
1. Effective participation
a. Citizens having an adequate and equal opportunity for expressing their preferences
2. Voting equality at the decisive stage → democratic process
a. Each citizen must be ensured an equal opportunity to express a choice that will be
counted as equal in weight to the choice expressed by any other citizen
i. And, these choices should be taken into account at the decisive stage
3. Enlightened understanding
a. Each citizens ought to have adequate and equal opportunities for discovering and
validating the choice on the matter to be decided that would best serve the citizen’s
interests
4. Control of the agenda by the demos
a. The demos must have the exclusive opportunity to decide how matters are to be
placed on the agenda of matters that are to be decided by means of the democratic
process
5. Final control by the demos
a. Delegation → revocable grant of authority, subject to recovery by the demos
3
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