On Democracy

Democracy is mainly referred to as a form of politics or a political system in which all people have the right to vote for representatives[1] or in a direct democracy directly vote for decision making. It is based on the idea that everyone’s voice has an equal place within a society. 

*Democracy is not an undisputed term. There has been difficulty to define who ‘the people’ are, as related to the idea of democracy[7], what influences our understanding of what it means to have a non-democratic context, or non-democratic tendencies. Within Democratic theory, the definition of who ‘the people’ are, often has been established through rather undemocratic processes. To be democratic, has shaped itself through the setting of boundaries, or as Sass and Dryzek formulate; ‘’though the ‘we’ in the declaration (subsequently validated as ‘We the people’ in the preamble to the constitution) evokes a people that does not yet exist but rather is created by the declaration itself’.[8] Which can be seen as a performative act in itself. In addition, historically it was not always all people that have been included in these so-called democratic processes, which often excluded (minority) groups such as women, slaves or marginalized people. There seems to be an undemocratic side to democratic principles. 

In the preface of his book, Amartya  Sen has a clear stance on the idea that democracy is associated merely with Europe or the West. He asks himself and his readers the question ‘if public reason is so critically important for the practice of justice, can we even think about justice in the world at large when the art of public reasoning as a part of democracy seems to be, according to the common believe, so quintessentially Western and locationally confined?’’. This idea of the notion of democracy, according to Sen, is ‘ultimately a wrong and superficial diagnosis’. Following this statement, Sen sets out a historical account of the global origins of democracy, both in terms of institutional acts of voting and more broadly speaking in terms of public reasoning and discussion. Focusing mainly on Buddhist India (Buddhist councils), but also on for example Japan (constitution of Seventeen Articles) and examples from South Africa (Mandela’s observations of local public discussions), there is an important lesson found in what Sen calls ‘local democracy’ or ways in which on a local level public debate and reasoning are happening. Understanding democracy in a global manner, requires taking interest in how people have been participating in public reasoning in various parts of the world.

While reflecting on the cases presented in the following, these are possible perspectives to keep in the back of your mind.

Sen writes the following; ‘in this work, democracy is assessed in terms of public reasoning, which leads to an understanding of democracy as ‘government by discussion’ … But democracy must also be seen more generally in terms of the capacity to enrich reasoned argument through enhancing informal availability and the feasibility of interactive discussion. Democracy has to be judged not just by the institutions that formally exist but by the extent to which different voices from diverse sections of people can actually be heard’[3]. This understanding of democracy is very much connected to the idea of ‘enriched reasoned argument’[4] and the need for ‘engagement in reasoning’ or ‘reasoned justification’[5]. Instead of merely accepting that another’s viewpoint is different, something Sen calls ‘disengaged toleration’[6], Sen argues for the need for engaged discussion and reasoning. This is something that can only take place within people’s lives, instead of in largely detached institutional structures. Following Sen, democracy, understood as the capacity to enrich reasoned argument through discussion and the presence of a large variety of voices, plays an important role in the enhancement of justice and just societies.

The articles in this body of knowledge are based on the following approach; undemocratic tendencies and societies are those that do not allow for the presence of all/alternative/critical voices and perspectives within the public and cultural spaces, be it systematically, sporadically or through (indirect) policies. How and in how far these tendencies or systems function, differ per context. Examples include unfair judgement within grant provisions, limiting curational choices, forceful censorship and bans within the cultural sector.

[1] Siaroff 2022a

[2] Ibid.

[3] Sen 2009, xii-xiii

[4] Sen 2009, xiii

[5] Sen 2009, x & 4

[6] Sen 2009, x

[7] Sass and Dryzek 2024

[8] Honig as cited by Sass and Dryzek 2024, 887