The Struggle for Democracy 2016 Presidential Election

Worth the Wait African Americans wait outside a polling station at a rural grocery store in Alabama in order to vote in the 1966 national election, something that was only possible because of the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that invalidated many practices by state governments designed to keep African Americans from voting. Nearly fifty years later, a similarly long line awaited voters in Hartford, Connecticut, on Election Day in 2012.

Are voting rights for African Americans in any danger today? If so, what role should the federal government take in ensuring that voting rights are protected?

Description

But does political equality require that people be equal in ways that go

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beyond having a voice in decision making and treatment by government? In particular, does democracy require that inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth not be too extreme? While many do not think this is the case, thinkers as diverse as Aristotle, Rousseau, and Jefferson thought so, believing that great inequalities in economic circumstances almost always translate into political inequality.21 Political scientist Robert Dahl describes the problem in the following way:

If citizens are unequal in economic resources, so are they likely to be unequal in political resources; and political equality will be impossible to achieve. In the extreme case, a minority of rich will possess so much greater political resources than other citizens that they will control the state, dominate the majority of citizens, and empty the democratic process of all content.22

Later chapters will show that income and wealth are distributed in a highly unequal way in the United States, that the scale of this inequality has become dramatically more pronounced over the past two decades, and that this inequality more often than not translates into great inequalities among people and groups in the political arena. For example, powerful groups representing the most privileged sectors of American society shape elections and legislation more than other Americans do.23 In such circumstances, the political equality benchmark is in danger of being violated.

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Political Equality Under the Flag Although Americans enjoy formal political equality, some Americans, clearly, are more equal than others in their ability to mobilize resources that enable the exercise of real political – influence. A homeless person sleeping on a park bench in Brooklyn, New York, though probably eligible to vote, is less likely than better off Americans to register, cast a ballot, circulate a petition, make a campaign contribution, or petition members of Congress or the administration.

What, if anything, can be done to ensure that policy makers hear from more than a limited number of better-educated and more – affluent Americans?

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Description

Political Liberty A third benchmark of democracy in representative systems, and a necessary condition for popular sovereignty to exist, is political liberty. Political liberty refers to basic freedoms essential to the formation and expression of majority opinion and its translation into public policies. These essential liberties include the freedoms of speech, of conscience and religion, of the press, and of assembly and association embodied in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Philosopher John Locke thought that individual rights and liberties were so fundamental to the good society that their preservation was the central responsibility of any legitimate government and that their protection was the very reason people agreed to enter into a social contract to form government in the first place.

political liberty

The principle that citizens in a democracy are protected from government interference in the exercise of a range of basic freedoms such as the freedoms of speech, association, and conscience.

social contract

The idea that government is the result of an agreement among people to form one, and that people have the right to create an entirely new government if the terms of the contract have been violated by the existing one.

Without these First Amendment freedoms, as well as those freedoms involving protections against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, the other fundamental principles of democracy could not exist. Popular sovereignty cannot be guaranteed if people are prevented from participating in politics or if authorities crush any opposition to the government. Popular sovereignty cannot prevail if the voice of the people is silenced and if citizens are not free to argue and debate, based on their own ideas, values, and personal beliefs, and to form and express their political opinions.24 Political equality is violated if some people can speak out but others cannot. Voting without liberty can lead to elected autocrats such as

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Vladmir Putin in Russia and Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt, an outcome that is clearly undemocratic because opposition voices have been silenced.

For most people today, democracy and liberty are inseparable. The concept of self-government implies not only the right to vote and to run for public office, but also the right to speak one’s mind, to petition the government, and to join with others in political parties, interest groups, or social movements.

Over the years, a number of political philosophers and practitioners have viewed liberty as threatened by democracy rather than as essential to it. It is our position that self-government and political liberty are inseparable, in the sense that the former is impossible without the latter.25 It follows that a majority cannot deprive an individual or a minority group of its political liberty without violating democracy itself.

Objections to Representative Democracy What we have been describing—a system of representative government characterized by popular sovereignty, political equality, and liberty— commonly is called liberal democracy. Not everyone is convinced that liberal democracy is the best form of government. What are the main criticisms that have been leveled against representative, or liberal, democracy as we have defined it?

liberal democracy

Representative democracy characterized by popular sovereignty, liberty, and political equality; see representative democracy.

The Threat of “Majority Tyranny” James Madison and the other Founders of the American republic feared that majority rule was bound to undermine freedom and threaten the rights of the individual. They created a constitutional system designed to protect certain liberties against the unwelcome intrusions of the majority. The

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fears of the Founders were not without basis. What they called the “popular passions” have sometimes stifled the freedoms of groups and individuals who have dared to be different. In the 1950s, for example, many people in the movie industry lost their jobs because of anticommunist hysteria whipped up by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others.26 For a time after the 9/11 attacks on the United States, and after the attack in San Bernadino, California in 2015, Muslims became targets of popular hostility. Mexican American immigrants are routinely derided for taking jobs from others, especially in periods of high unemployment.

Although there have been instances in our history of majority tyranny, when, as in the South after Reconstruction, the majority has violated the citizenship rights of a minority, there is no evidence that the many consistently threaten liberty more than the few or the one. To put it another way, the majority does not seem to be a special or unique threat to liberty. Violations against freedom seem as likely to come from powerful individuals, from powerful groups, or from government officials responding to vocal and narrow interests as from the majority of the people.

majority tyranny

Suppression of the rights and liberties of a minority by the majority.

Liberty is essential to self-government, and all who value democracy must guard against threats to liberty, whatever their origin. But we firmly reject the view that majority rule inevitably or uniquely threatens liberty. Majority rule is unthinkable, in fact, without the existence of basic political liberties.27

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Fear Can Undermine Democracy Political hysteria has periodically blemished the record of American democracy. Fear of communism, captured in this editorial cartoon, was widespread in the United States for much of the twentieth century and led to the suppression of anti- establishment political groups by federal and state authorities who were acting, in their view, in the name of a majority of Americans.

Why was such hysteria able to take hold in the United States? Can such political hysteria happen again?

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The Threat of the People’s Irrationality and Incompetence Political scientists have spent decades studying the attitudes and behaviors of U.S. citizens, and some of the findings are not encouraging. For the most part, the evidence shows that individual Americans do not care a great deal about politics and are rather poorly informed, unstable in their views, and not much interested in participating in the political process.28 These findings have led some observers to assert that citizens are not well equipped for the responsibility of self-governance and that public opinion (the will of the majority) should not be the ultimate determinant of what government does.

Is the American public uninformed, unsophisticated, and unstable in its views? This is a serious charge that is addressed in various places throughout this book. We suggest that much of the evidence about individual opinions often has been misinterpreted and that the American public is more informed, sophisticated, and stable in its views than it is

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generally given credit for, though there remains considerable room for improvement.

The Threat of Majoritarian Democracy to Minorities We have suggested that, when rendering a decision in a democracy, the majority must prevail. In most cases, the minority on the losing side of an issue need not worry unduly about its well-being because many of its members are likely to be on the winning side in future decisions about other matters. Thus, people on the losing side of one issue, such as welfare reform, may be part of the majority and winning side on another issue, such as how much to spend on education. In most policy decisions in a democracy, what prevents majority tyranny over a minority is that the composition of the majority and the minority is always shifting, depending on the issue.

However, what happens in cases that involve race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation, for example, where minority status is fixed? Many people worry about the possibility that the majority would then pose a threat.29 The worry that unbridled majority rule leaves no room for the claims of minorities has some historical foundations because majorities have trampled on minority rights with alarming frequency. Majorities long held, for example, that Native Americans and African Americans were inferior and undeserving of full citizenship. Irish, Eastern European, Asian, and Latin American immigrants to our shores, among others, have been subjected to long periods of intolerance, as have Catholics, Jews, and now Muslims. Gays and lesbians have sometimes been violently victimized.

As Robert Dahl has convincingly argued, however, no evidence supports the belief that the rights of minorities are better protected under alternative forms of government, whether rule by the few (note the persecution of the Christian minority in China by the Communist ruling party) or by the one (note the persecution of Shia Muslims under the rule of Saddam Hussein in Iraq). Dahl affirms that, given its other benefits, majority rule democracy is to be preferred.30

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In any case, democracy, as we have defined it, requires the protection of crucial minority rights. Recall that majority rule is only one of the defining conditions of popular sovereignty and that popular sovereignty is only one of the three basic benchmarks of democracy, the others being political equality and political liberty. The position of minorities is protected in fully developed representative liberal democracies, in our view, by the requirements of equal citizenship (the right to vote, to hold public office, to be safe from violence, and to enjoy the equal protection of the law) and access to the full range of civil liberties (speech, press, conscience, and association). To the extent that a majority violates the citizenship rights and liberties of minorities, society falls short of the democratic ideal.

So, how democratic are we? After reading this chapter, it should be easy to see how and why the democratic ideal can be used as a measuring stick with which to evaluate American politics. We have learned that the fundamental attributes of liberal representative democracy are popular sovereignty, political equality, and political liberty. Each suggests a set of questions that will be raised throughout this book to encourage critical thinking about American political life.

About popular sovereignty, we should ask:

Do citizens participate in politics?

Can citizens be involved when they choose to be, and are political leaders responsive?

Do institutions, such as political parties, elections, interest groups, and social movements, effectively transmit what citizens want to political leaders?

What is the quality of the public deliberation on the major public policy issues of the day?

Do the news media and political leaders provide accurate and complete information?

Does government do what citizens want it to do?

Does government effectively carry out the policies they have instituted in response to what the people want?

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About political equality, we should ask:

Do some individuals and groups have persistent and substantial advantages over other individuals and groups in the political process?

Is the political game open to all equally?

Do government decisions and policies benefit some individuals and groups more than others?

About political liberty, we should ask:

Are citizens’ rights and liberties universally available, protected, and used?

Are people free to vote?

Can people speak openly and form groups freely to petition their government?

Do public authorities, private groups, or the members of the majority threaten liberty or the rights of minorities?

These questions will help us assess where we are and where we are going as a democracy. They will help us go past superficial evaluations based on the existence or nonexistence of this institution or that institution—for example, an elected legislature—and allow us to raise questions about the quality of democracy in the United States and its prospects. Of popular sovereignty, political equality, and political liberty, none are attainable, of course, in perfect form. They are, rather, ideals to which our nation can aspire and standards against which we can measure everyday reality.

Throughout Struggle for Democracy, we will regularly revisit these topics. And, as a conclusion to each chapter, you will find a formal assessment for weighing how well American government and politics measure up to the democratic ideal. Jump forward to the “Using the Democracy Standard” section at the end of Chapter 2 for a preview.

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How do Government and Politics Work?

1. 1.2 Construct an analytical framework for examining how government and politics work.

In addition to helping you answer questions about the quality and development of democracy in the United States, this text offers an analytical framework for examining how American government and politics work.

Identifying the Factors That Influence Government and Politics If we are to understand why things happen in government and politics— for example, the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act—we must begin with what biologists call taxonomy: placing things in their proper categories. Refer to the analytical framework in Figure 1.1. We believe that each and every actor, institution, and process that influences what our politics are like and what our national government does can be placed into four main categories: (1) structure, (2) political linkage, (3) government, and (4) government action.

Figure 1.1 The Analytical Framework

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Various actors, institutions, and processes interact to influence what government does. Structural factors—the economy, society, the political culture, the international system, and constitutional rules—play a foundational role in shaping government actions. They may influence the government directly, or, as is more often the case, they may exercise influence through political linkage—public opinion, the news media, interest groups, social movements, political parties, and

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elections. In a democratic society, government institutions—the presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the federal bureaucracy—should reflect these influences both in the policies they create and in the actions they take.

Description

Structure Structural factors play key roles in determining what issues become important in politics and government, how political power is distributed in the population, and what attitudes and beliefs guide the behavior of citizens and public officials. This category includes the economy and society, the constitutional rules, the political culture, and the international system. These are the most fundamental and enduring factors that influence government and politics. They form the foundation on which all else is built. They are the most enduring parts of the American system, but they are also the slowest to change.31

Political Linkage Political linkage factors transmit the wants and demands of people and groups in our society to government officials and together help shape what government officials do and what policies they adopt. These include public opinion, political parties, interest groups, the news media, and elections. While not a formal part of government, they directly influence what sorts of people are chosen to be government officials and what these officials do once they are in office.

Government Government factors include all public officials and institutions that have formal, legal responsibilities for making public policy for the United States. These include Congress, the president and the executive branch, the federal bureaucracy, and the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.

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Government Action This is about what government does. This category includes the wide range of actions carried out by government: making laws, issuing rules and regulations, waging war and providing national defense, settling civil disputes, providing order, and more.

Connecting the Factors That Influence Government and Politics: An Application To understand how government and politics work in the United States, we must appreciate the fact that the structural, political linkage, and governmental categories interact with one another in a particular kind of way to determine what actions government takes. One way to see this is to look at these categories in action, using the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act as an example (see Figure 1.2). The Voting Rights Act, which transformed the politics of the South, offered federal protection for African Americans who wished to vote and run for public office. Connecting and considering together the main factors of political life—structure, political linkage, and government—can help explain why government takes certain actions.

Figure 1.2 Applying the Framework: Passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act

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Description

A conventional analysis of the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act might look solely at government, focusing attention on Congress and its members, on President Lyndon Johnson (who was the most vigorous proponent of the legislation) and his advisers, and on the Supreme Court,

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which was becoming increasingly supportive of civil rights claims in the mid-1960s. Knowing these things, however, would not tell us all that we need to know. To understand why Congress, the president, and the Court acted as they did in 1965, we would want to pay attention to the pressures brought to bear on them by political linkage actors and institutions: public opinion (increasingly supportive of civil rights), the growing electoral power of African Americans in states outside the South, and most important, the moral power of the civil rights movement inspired by people like Robert Moses and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Even knowing these things, however, would not tell us all. Our inquiry into the 1965 Voting Rights Act would have to go deeper to include structural factors: economic, cultural, and social change; constitutional rules; and the international position of the United States. For example, economic changes in the nation over the course of many decades had triggered a “great migration” of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. Over the long run, this population shift to states with large blocs of Electoral College votes, critical to the election of presidents, increased the political power of African Americans. Cultural change increased the number of Americans bothered by the second-class citizenship of African Americans, even as combat service in World War II and the Korean War led many black Americans to insist on full citizenship rights. Finally, the Cold War struggle of the United States against the Soviet Union played an important role. Many American leaders, recognizing the contradiction between asking for the support of people of color in Third World countries in the struggle against communism while treating African Americans in the United States as second-class citizens, sought an end to the system of official segregation in the South (known as Jim Crow).32

Jim Crow

Popular term for the system of legally sanctioned racial segregation that existed in the American South from the end of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century.

We see, then, that a full explanation of why the 1965 Voting Rights Act happened (government action) requires that we take into account how governmental, political linkage, and structural factors interacted with one another to bring about significant change in American politics. Modeling complex government actions can be a challenging task, but application of

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an analytical framework can help. The framework developed for Struggle for Democracy (see Figure 1.1) is just such a tool.

Understanding Government and Politics Holistically This way of looking at things—that what government does can only be understood by considering structural, political linkage, and governmental factors—will be used throughout this bookand will help bring order to the information presented. We will suggest that action by public officials is the product not simply of their personal desires (although these are important), but also of the influences and pressures brought to bear by other governmental institutions and by individuals, groups, and classes at work in the political linkage sphere. Political linkage institutions and processes, in turn, can often be understood only when we see how they are shaped by the larger structural context, including such things as the national and global economies and the political culture.

Keep in mind that, as in all complex systems, influence sometimes flows in the opposite direction, from government to political linkage actors and institutions to structural factors. For example, federal tax laws influence the distribution of income and wealth in society, government regulations affect the operations of corporations, and decisions by the courts may determine what interest groups and political parties are able to do. We will want to pay attention, then, to these sorts of influences in our effort to understand how the American political system works.

Keep in mind as well that government actions do not necessarily hold for all time. Even laws can change, whether by passage of new laws or reinterpretation of existing ones. For example, after the Supreme Court in 2013 overturned an important section of the Voting Rights Act, a number of states controlled by Republicans quickly passed laws that shortened the period for early voting and required IDs for access to the ballot in the name of stopping voter fraud. Critics pointed out that these statutes would lower turnout among the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, and younger voters, all of whom tend to vote for Democrats. The courts in 2016 sided with the critics of these restrictive laws in a series of decisions in the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Circuit Courts of Appeal.

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Do not worry about remembering exactly which actors and influences belong to which category in our model; the book’s chapters are organized into sections corresponding to the categories. Do not worry, either, about exactly how the people and institutions in different categories interact with one another. This will become clear as you become more familiar with the American political process.

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Chapter 1 Review the Chapter

What is Democracy? 1. 1.1 Explain democracy as the standard by which American

government and politics can be evaluated.

Democracy is a system of rule by the people, rooted in three fundamental principles: popular sovereignty (meaning that the people ultimately rule), political equality (meaning that each person has an equal say in determining what government does), and political liberty (meaning that the people are protected from government interference in exercising their rights).

Ensuring that all three aspects of democracy are available and practiced has played an important role in American history and remains an important theme in our country—as well as many other parts of the world—today.

The United States is a liberal representative democracy—meaning that the people do not rule directly but through elected representatives and have broad civil and political rights, but the majority does not always get its way.

Because democracy holds a very special place in Americans’ constellation of values and is particularly relevant to judging political processes, it is the standard used throughout this text to evaluate the quality of our politics and government.

How do Government and Politics Work?

1. 1.2 Construct an analytical framework for examining how government and politics work.

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The organizing framework presented in this chapter visualizes the world of American politics as a set of interrelated actors and influences— institutions, groups, and individuals—that operate in three interconnected realms: the structural, political linkage, and governmental sectors. This way of looking at American political life as an ordered, interconnected whole will be used throughout the remainder of the book.

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Learn the Terms 1965 Voting Rights Act

A law that banned racial discrimination in voting across the United States; it gave the federal government broad powers to register voters in a set of states, mostly in the South, that had long practiced election discrimination, and required that such states pre-clear any changes in its election laws with the Department of Justice.

anarchist

One who believes that people are natural cooperators capable of creating free and decent societies without the need for government.