Tuck’s Democracy

Tuck’s Democracy

Description

Richard Tuck argues in chapters 1 and 2 that modern democracies are really no such thing. Most, he says, have followed Abbé Sieyès in adopting a form of government, based on elected representatives, in which the “effective” citizenship is reserved to a small fraction of the people who have the political rights or capacities to play an active role in government. The rest remain passive citizens who enjoy some security and welfare and protection of civil rights, but whose role in government is confined to periodic (and not very frequent) elections. He traces Sieyès’s legacy through Hegel, Guizot, and Mill and, in our own day, to Joseph Schumpeter and others who defend what many have called minimal or “elitist” versions of democracy. Bernard Manin has described this system in detail in his book on representative government, and many defend it as the best feasible kind of democracy for a modern state. Moreover, at least since World War II, modern states have increasingly adopted rigid, judicially enforceable constitutions with the effect of guaranteeing the protection of the rights of both passive and active citizens, and specifically against the actions of the majority. Tuck regards modern Sieyèsian government, constitutional representative government, as profoundly undemocratic and argues in favor what he calls radical (majoritarian) democracy—advancing a theory of what he calls a “Rousseauian” kind against its modern critics. Tuck builds his theory on a novel conception of “active citizenship” in which, he claims, individuals can see themselves as causally responsible in some way for the laws—or at least the newly enacted laws. Insofar as most people can think of themselves plausibly as active citizens in this way, Tuck says that the laws will be legitimate because the people would be living under laws they “made.” Active citizenship, he argues, is both an attractive and feasible idea for the modern democratic state. If citizens embraced this self-conception, individuals would be amply motivated to exercise their political rights as active citizens and in that respect, live under laws of their own making. Tuck also insists that everyone who lives (legally?) in the country and is subject to its laws, must be allowed a genuine role in making them. Each (adult) resident— male, female, alien, or native—must therefore be enfranchised in order to make law with others on equal terms. Tuck recognizes that by permitting the vote to all legal residents, there would have to be regulation of movement at the borders and an immigration policy that assures that those who come are committed to living together with others on equal terms. This policy, he hopes, will be as liberal as possible, but if I understand his conception correctly, I am not sure how liberal it can be. Tuck allows that we may, for practical reasons, choose to elect representatives to parliament so that they may (perhaps?) debate and develop legislative proposals and may (in the end) formally enact the laws. But these representatives, he argues, ought to be instructed delegates, whose duty is to execute the instructions conveyed to them by their constituents. He seems to agree with Rousseau that laws should be general, more like constitutional provisions rather than ordinary legislation. Besides, construing laws as pertaining to constitutional essentials—which might be few in number and general in scope—makes plausible the notion that ordinary people would have views on those matters and that representatives could be instructed to act on those views. If there is a chance that representatives may stray from their remit, perhaps instructions would need to backed up with recall elections (as in California) but Tuck seems not to require this. These institutional ideas are not really developed much here beyond hints from and an implicit reliance on Rousseau’s political works to help fill in the blanks. Tuck’s institutional principles seem to be these: 1. (generality) Each person should be treated equally by the law (as a subject); laws are general/abstract “constitutional” provisions. 2. (democracy in one country) Each (adult legal) resident should have an equal role in lawmaking activity, subject to legal residence being regulated at the borders. 3. (radical democracy) Laws (principle 1) are made either by direct majority vote among those eligible to vote (principle 2) or by elected representatives acting according to instructions given them by their constituents (principle 2). These principles are consistent with and supported by what seems to be a moral principle: 4. (active democracy) Each person regards him- or herself as obliged to exercise his or her right to vote actively by playing the part of an agent in making the laws together with others. I have several questions. In section I, I ask whether Rousseau’s institutional prescriptions provide much help for Tuck’s radical democracy project. First, despite what French revolutionaries may have thought, it is very hard to see Rousseau as committed to either to equality in voting or to democratic government. While the sovereign must approve any law by voting, it is not clear that the voting rule would weigh each vote equally. Second, It is not clear to me that the Rousseaian institutional principles 1 and 3 actually constrain the government from acting arbitrarily. If laws must be general and abstract, as Rousseau and Tuck demand, government officials must retain authority to interpret laws in order to apply or follow them. Moreover, the sovereign, as such, seems to lack any “legal” way of responding to particular governmental acts by, for example, striking down offending decrees. Such an action would necessarily be particular rather than general. Moreover, while elected representatives are to be restricted to following instructions in making general laws, are they also restricted in any way when undertaking magisterial activity (enacting day-to-day particular legislation and appropriations and decrees, which form most of the activity of a modern parliament)? In section II, I explore Tuck’s agentic view of politics and argue that what makes Tuck’s radical democracy attractive is its foundation in the moral principle of active agency. Unless people see themselves as having the obligation to take an active responsibility for the laws in the way that principle 4 requires, radical democracy seems more dangerous than alluring. Section III concerns diversity and the treatment of minorities both outside the country (seeking residence) and inside (seeking protection against repression). How is principle 2 supposed to work? Presumably the state must have the authority to restrict entry to assure that those who enter are suitably committed to common purposes. This may be a very demanding and potentially quite illiberal requirement. Potential entrants might need to show they are morally worthy of citizenship. Rousseau’s recommendations as to how Poland should treat its serfs may provide some guidance. He recommends treating them as supplicants asking for admission and not as rights-bearers. Moreover, is state policy to be restricted only to admitting (some of) those people who appear to be committed to active citizenship of the kind Tuck recommends? Or may the failure to conform to the morality of active citizenship also justify expulsions of those already in the community? Then, whatever law the people, as sovereign, enact concerning immigration, how does that actually constrain governmental interpretation and enforcement either at the border or when considering the treatment of historically oppressed minorities (the Polish serfs again)?

Source Publication

Active and Passive Citizens: A Defense of Majoritarian Democracy

Source Editors/Authors

Richard Tuck

Publication Date

2024

Tuck’s Democracy

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