Journal of Democracy

Liberal democracy is a great philosophy of inclusion. It is rule of the people, by the people, and for the people, and today the “people” is taken to mean everybody, without the unspoken restrictions that formerly excluded peasants, women, or slaves. Contemporary liberal democracy offers the spectacle of the most inclusive politics in human history. Yet there is also something in the dynamic of democracy that pushes toward exclusion. This was allowed full rein in earlier democracies, as among the ancient republics, but today is a cause of great malaise. I want to explore this dynamic, and then to look at various ways of compensating for it or minimizing it.

What is the source of this thrust toward exclusion? We might put it this way: Democracy is inclusive because it is the government of all the people; but paradoxically, this is also the reason that democracy tends toward exclusion. The exclusion is a by-product of the need, in self-governing societies, of a high degree of cohesion. Democratic states need something like a common identity.

We can see why as soon as we ponder what is involved in self-government. The basic mode of legitimation of democratic states implies that they are founded on popular sovereignty. Now, for the people to be sovereign, it needs to form an entity and have a personality. This need can be expressed in the following way: The people is supposed to rule; this means that its members make up a decision-making unit, a body that takes joint decisions through a consensus, or at least a [End Page 143] majority vote, of agents who are deemed equal and autonomous. It is not “democratic” for some citizens to be under the control of others. This might facilitate decision making, but it is not democratically legitimate.

To form a decision-making unit of the type demanded here, its members must not only decide together but deliberate together. A democratic state is constantly facing new questions, and it aspires to form a consensus on these questions, not merely to reflect the balance of individual opinions. A joint decision emerging from joint deliberation requires that each person’s opinion be able to take shape or be reformed in the light of discussion with others. This necessarily implies a degree of cohesion. To some extent, the members must know one another, lis-ten to one another, and understand one another. If they are not mutually acquainted, or if they cannot really understand one another, how can they truly engage in joint deliberation?

If, for example, a subgroup of the “nation” considers that the others are not listening to it or are unable to understand its point of view, it will immediately consider itself excluded from joint deliberation. Popular sovereignty demands that we should live under laws that derive from such deliberation. Anyone who is excluded can have no part in the decisions that emerge, and these consequently lose their legitimacy for him. A subgroup that is not listened to is in some respects excluded from the nation, but by this same token it is no longer bound by the will of that nation.

Thus, to function legitimately, a people must be so constituted that its members effectively listen to one another, or at least come close enough to that condition to ward off possible challenges to its democratic legitimacy from subgroups. In practice, even more is normally required. Our states aim to last, so we want an assurance that we shall continue to be able to listen to one another in the future. This demands a certain reciprocal commitment. In practice, a nation can only ensure the stability of its legitimacy if its members are strongly committed to one another by means of a common allegiance to the political community. It is the shared consciousness of this commitment which creates confidence on the part of the various subgroups that they will indeed be heard.

In other words, a modern democratic state demands a “people” with a strong collective identity. Democracy obliges us to show much more solidarity and much more commitment to one another in our joint political project than...