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Is Democratic Theory for Export?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Jacques Barzun
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Abstract

A prominent feature of American political consciousness is a desire to propagate democracy throughout the world. In our enthusiasm to share what we enjoy, Jacques Barzun sees that little attention is paid to exactly what we are trying to distribute. Through a brief historical survey of democracy, he shows that our popular conception of the term does not correspond with any particular definition. U.S. democracy has no central text and is distinctly different, in theory and in practice, from the democracy of other states, both historical and contemporary. Democracy is an abstract ideal that is a function of time. Its present incarnation in the United States emphasizes freedom and equality through the means and language of specific personal rights. Barzun sees an internal tension in this formulation, one that ultimately threatens both freedom and equality if exported to the rest of the world.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 1 , March 1987 , pp. 53 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1987

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References

2 Or, “a great little people.”Google Scholar

3 Madison repeats in The Federalist (nos. 10, 14, 48, 58, and 63) that full or pure democracy is a menace to freedom, and he praises the constitution being proposed to the American people for its “total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity” (no. 63)Google Scholar.

4 See The Adams-Jefferson Letters, 2 volumes, Cappon, Lester J., ed. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1959) 199, 236, 248, 279, 351–52, 456, 519, 550, 598, and passimGoogle Scholar.

5 Bloom, Peter Anthony, “La Leçon des Etats-Unis,” Le Monde (February 28, 1986)Google Scholar.

6 “the right to vote is surely the linchpin of peaceful change.,” says Lloyd N. Cutler, former counsel to President Carter, and he recommends it for South Africa (“Using Morals, Not Money, on Pretoria,”New York Times (August 3, 1986) sec. 4, 23). But change to peace is far from assured. Hitler's example has been imitated again and again by well-led groups aiming at one-party ruleGoogle Scholar.

7 Simon de Montfort anticipated “the English Constitution” by 600 years. The Parliament of 1265 included two delegates from every shire and two burgesses from every town. The aim was that acting as Great Council to the king, they should advise him, supervise the several divisions of government, afford redress, and approve taxes. The king's ministers should be responsible to it. In short, Montfort wanted in 1265 what slowly and painfully became general in Western Europe by the end of the nineteenth century. In 1265 the barons quarreled, resented middle-class participation in government, and resumed a war in which Montfort was conveniently stabbed in the back. But the people of England continued to worship him as a martyr, patriot, and saintGoogle Scholar.

8 Aristotle's treatise on ancient governments influenced such eighteenth-century proponents of free government as Madison in their fear of “democracy,” for Aristotle says it is the corruption of free government, just as tyranny is the corruption of monarchy (Politics, bk. IV, chap. 2)Google Scholar.

9 Osborne, A. M., Rousseau and Burke (New York: Oxford University Press, 1940)Google Scholar.

10 Washington Post (June 28, 1986)Google Scholar.

11 It is worth noting that tsarist Russia and the Communist Soviet Union joined the Western powers in the two World Wars without preventing those powers from proclaiming that they were fighting to put down autocracy and advance the cause of freedom. Theories, theories!

12 The theory of the corporate state, or socialism in the guise of state capitalism, was expounded in France and Germany and promulgated in Italy. It had intellectual adherents for a time; Winston Churchill praised Mussolini, and David Lloyd George, Hitler. The defeat of the Axis powers silenced such advocates, which shows again how dependent on current events theorists areGoogle Scholar.

13 de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America, vol. 1, pt. I, chap. 5Google Scholar.

14 State constitutions are continually being amended. In 1984–85, the last year for which figures are available, 158 of the 338 proposed changes in state constitutions were approved. Many of these proposals dealt with rights and of these, 77.7 percent were approved. Council of State Governments, The Book of the States: 1986–87 (Lexington, KY, 1986) 4Google Scholar.

15 For example, when budget cuts forced the Library of Congress to reduce its hours of service, readers staged protests by various forms of obstruction. Arrests were made, and so were concessions. Again, acting in behalf of eleven monkeys, a group of simophiles camped outside the National Institutes of Health and commanded attention. Such sequences have come to be called civil disobedience, but they are not always civil and they bypass the traditional procedures guaranteed by the Bill of Rights—peaceful assembly and petition. It is felt, no doubt justly, that the old devices presuppose a different society, less hurried, better integrated, and used to articulate communicationGoogle Scholar.

16 The latest “initiative” in Switzerland proposes to abolish the Swiss army. So radical a change will doubtless elicit a large turnout at the polls, but usually no more than a quarter of the electorate votes on the initiatives, of which there is usually a large backlogGoogle Scholar.

17 “Pillarization” was made official in 1917 to satisfy the demands of the Catholic, Protestant, and “Humanist” factions that divided the Dutch professions, trade unions, sexes, and ideological groups. Each permutation of these combining allegiances was recognized as a pillar of the state and given a place on the ballot. In the last ten years, a demand has grown for more comprehensive parties, but it has not yet made headwayGoogle Scholar.

18 In addition to the deliberate evasion or twisting of the rules, their administration is inevitably slow and poor. This evil is only partly the fault of the bureaucrats who are so readily blamed. The art of administration has not been brought up to date; no one has thought about it since Frederick the Great and Napoleon, or, it often seems, since Charlemagne. Although courses and certificates are offered on every conceivable activity of the modern world, administration is ignored. There are courses in management, but they take it for granted that psychologizing and manipulating people is the sole avenue to efficiencyGoogle Scholar.

19 As one listens to any current campaign or “debate,” one cannot help comparing its quality and methods with those of Lincoln and Douglas in 1858, or even of later presidential aspirants, such as Woodrow Wilson, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, or John F. Kennedy. One difference is in the span of attention required. Its dwindling is suitably met by the use of “30-second spots” on the airGoogle Scholar.

20 See, for example, two sections in A Casual Commentary by Macaulay, Rose (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1925)Google Scholar—“Problems for the Citizen” and “General Elections.” In the second, the author suggests a nationwide refusal to vote, which would result in “a ridiculous little parliament that could be ignored,” to everybody's advantage.

21 Democracy in America, vol. 2, pt. II, chap. 5Google Scholar.

22 It is not uncommon, for example, that after a strenuous debate in committee, a vote of seven to five will prompt a chairman to say, “This business needs further thought; we should not go ahead divided as we are.”Google Scholar

23 The latest of these to arouse angry debate is “language rights,” aimed at making the United States officially multilingual. It is not said how many languages other than English would be included under these rights; at the moment Spanish is the one contender. See the arguments on each side in Bikales's, Gerola “Comment,” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 60 (1986) 77–85Google Scholar.

24 The disruption of others' speech, coupled with the claim to free expression for oneself, seems to be triggered by something besides unpopular views, namely holding office. Members of the cabinet or of the diplomatic corps have been assailed at colleges (and at a writers' conference) even before they spoke, and university officials have apologized for issuing the invitations. Faculty members doing “government research” or aiding intelligence agencies are suspect. These symptoms of disaffection may not be grave, but they indicate something less than support for the American form of governmentGoogle Scholar.

25 Democracy in America, vol. I, pt. II, chap. 7Google Scholar.

26 Tocqueville again has something to say on the subject: “If social conditions, circumstances, and laws did not confine the American mind so closely to the search for comfort, it might be that when the Americans came to deal with immaterial things, they would act with more maturity and prudence and would keep themselves more readily in hand. But they feel themselves to be imprisoned within bounds that they are seemingly not allowed to escape, so that once they have broken through these barriers their minds do not know where to settle down and they often rush heedlessly far beyond the limits of common sense,”Democracy in America, vol. 2, pt. II, chap. 12Google Scholar.

27 Students of government in the United States report that it is in the counties that flexible adaptation to modern circumstances is most visible and innovative. See Griffin, Howard L., “Stasis and American County Governments—Myth or Reality?” Address to the American Studies Association of Texas, Huntsville, TX (November 15–17, 1984)Google Scholar.