DEMOCRACY

DEMOCRACY. In the simplest sense, democracy is rule by the ruled. In a democratic political system, government power is legitimized by the consent of the governed. Consent is expressed in a variety of forms, including annual election of government leaders and citizen participation in governing processes. The roots of American democratic culture can be traced to the direct election of many colonial legislatures, as well as the practice of democratic governance in many localities. The American Revolution was animated by the idea that the colonists were defending the principle of democratic self-rule and that the American struggle was analogous to the English Parliament's struggle against the monarchy.

The formal mechanisms of democracy can vary, however, with direct democracy at one pole and representative democracy at the other. Direct democracy allows for unmediated citizen deliberation and decision making on public matters; representative democracy permits citizens to elect representatives who act on their behalf. American democracy is representative in design and function, yet it is clearly influenced by the ideology of direct democracy.

In The Federalist Papers, James Madison argued for representative democracy, because of its power to "refine and enlarge" public opinion and to control the intemperate passions of the people, who—if permitted to make government policy directly—would threaten individual rights. A balance between majority rule and individual liberty could be struck if the people's representatives, at a physical and psychological remove from citizens, ruled on their behalf. Representative democracy was best suited for an "extended Republic"—a large nation with a multiplicity of crosscutting interests. If sufficiently removed from the fray of constituent pressure, legislators would be able to discern a good for the nation that transcended the sum total of voter demands.

While Madison's vision of democracy was ultimately enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, Madison's opponents—the anti-federalists—charged that representative democracy was at too far a remove from citizens. On matters of importance power needed to reside closer to the people, if not exercised by their direct consent. While arguments for representative democracy carried the day, the tension between the two models of democracy is a theme that resonates throughout American political history.

Democracy and the American Party System

The development of democracy is closely related to changes in the American party system. The competition between political parties to win offices often generates interest among the electorate in politics and government policies. Political parties can also pursue demobilization strategies, designed to keep people away from the polls. In the early republic factional differences between rivals were rather quietly resolved in congressional caucus. When intense rivalry between Whigs and Democrats emerged in the 1840s, parties turned their efforts to getting out the vote with speeches, events, and policies tailored to win the long-term loyalty of voters.

The Civil War shifted the party system. Party politics became extremely sectionalized, with Democrats dominating offices in the South and many urban areas elsewhere, and the Republicans consistently winning elections in the East and West. After the election of 1896 Republicans dominated national politics until 1932. Sectionalism and weak competition had the effect of lowering voter turnout as well as general interest in politics. The Great Depression sparked a Democratic Party revival that pulled union members and Roman Catholics, among other groups, into a greater habit of voting and democratic participation than they had practiced previously. In the later decades of the twentieth century party loyalty among the electorate began to wane. Many analysts associated the decline in voter turnout with the loosening of ties between citizens and political parties.

Suffrage

While the theoretical debate over the nature and design of democracy was clearly elucidated during the founding of the United States, the extension of full democratic citizenship came much more slowly. The electorate in the years after the constitutional founding numbered only one out of every thirty Americans. Those without property, African Americans, and women were denied the franchise. Many states dropped the property-holding requirement during the great period of political mobilization and political party growth, the age of Jackson (1820s–1830s). But it was not until 1856 that the last state, North Carolina, eliminated the property-holding requirement. In 1966 the Supreme Court held that the poll tax—a charge levied for voting—was unconstitutional. The poll tax had been commonly used in southern states to deter African Americans from voting.

The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1870) prohibits the denial of the right to vote based on race or color. While many African Americans exercised the new right during the reconstruction period, southern states eventually instituted a regime of legally enforced segregation known as "jim crow," which included laws designed to discourage African Americans from voting. As late as 1960, less than 10 percent of African Americans were registered to vote in Mississippi. A series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its extensions, declared most of the jim crow practices to be unconstitutional.

The right of a woman to vote was most readily accepted in the American West. The Wyoming state government made federal acceptance of women's suffrage in the state a condition of its entrance into the Union in 1890. In 1920 the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment extended voting rights to women nationally. In 1971 the Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen.

Voter Turnout and Political Participation

The simplest form of democratic participation is voting. Since 1828 voter turnout among eligible voters in presidential elections has ranged from a high of 81.8 percent in 1876 (Republican Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Democrat Samuel J. Tilden) to a low of 48.9 percent in 1924 (Republican Calvin Coolidge defeated Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive Robert La Follette). During the period 1960–2000 voter turnout in presidential elections averaged 55 percent. Voter turnout rates are lower in off-year elections between presidential contests, when many congressional contests are held; during the second half of the twentieth century typically only about one-third of the eligible electorate voted in off-year elections. The degree of competition between candidates and parties, the salience of issues being discussed in a campaign, legal barriers that increase the difficulty of voting, and the demographic composition of the electorate all affect voter turnout. Americans also face a blinding blizzard of choices, electing hundreds of thousands of officials from posts ranging in importance from the U.S. president to local city and county representatives and school board members.

In the early 2000s the U.S. rate of voter participation trailed that of the major western European democracies, a cause of concern for those who fear that the legitimacy of the governance system is threatened if too few people vote. Nonvoting is sometimes interpreted as a symptom of widespread disgust with the American two-party system. By 2002 calls had been made for the emergence of alternative political parties and ideologies to capture the interest and passion of the disenchanted, as well as changes in electoral law to make the birth of alternative parties easier. The surprisingly robust third-party candidacy of the businessman Ross Perot in the presidential elections of 1992 and 1996 was to many an example of the power of outsiders to attract politically alienated citizens. (Perot won 19 percent of the vote in 1992.) Perot, like other third-party or independent candidates for president, flourished during a time of economic and social unrest. Among the few independent presidential candidates who captured voter attention were Congressman John Anderson in 1980, Senator Robert La Follette in 1924, and former President Theodore Roosevelt running with Progressive Party support in 1912. Low voter participation has also been interpreted as a sign of contentment with the status quo, a signal that Americans are fundamentally happy with the political order.

Voting is the most formal act of political participation, but not the exclusive form of citizen involvement in the political system. A 1995 study found that 10 percent of Americans were political activists, defined as those who voted, worked in and contributed to political campaigns, and lobbied elected officials; 15 percent limited their activity to voting and helping out in political campaigns; 20 percent voted but limited more extensive involvement in community affairs to nonpolitical matters; 20 percent did no more than vote; and 20 percent did not vote at all. This survey suggests that a few people do most of the work seemingly required for the maintenance of democratic institutions.

In the early 2000s attention was devoted to the loss in the United States of "social capital"—the pool of trust and reciprocity among citizens that can be drawn on to solve collective problems. With Americans working longer hours, watching more television, and more attached to their professional and workplace institutions than to their geographical community, participation in local political and civic organizations dropped off. Many worried that the vitality of democracy was threatened as a result.

Democracy and Trust

Despite America's long democratic tradition and the slow but steady enfranchisement of excluded groups of citizens, public opinion surveys showed that trust in the democratic process declined in the United States in the aftermath of President Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal and the fallout from the Vietnam War. Many called for reforms to renew the trust of citizens in democracy.

Campaign finance reform, aimed at capping the amount that candidates and parties can spend on elections, cycled off and on the public agenda from the 1970s to the early 2000s. In the 1990s many states and localities adopted term limits for elected representatives to en-courage the participation of amateurs in politics. Other suggested reforms proposed using new communications technology to involve more citizens in politics, as well as make voting easier.

Calls for reform that seek to augment representative democracies with more direct forms have a long history. During the Progressive Era (c. 1890–c. 1920), many states adopted initiative and referendum procedures to bring policy proposals directly before citizens by placing proposals on the ballot. Citizens could thereby bypass representative institutions that were often under the control of urban political machines or state legislatures dominated by rural interests. In the 1990s direct democracy procedures were adopted at a fevered pace. By 2002 California's most important policy decisions were usually resolved by referendum vote rather than in the state legislature.

Political movements have also argued for more expansive notions of democracy. During the New Deal era many liberals argued for forms of economic democracy that would recognize the workplace as an important site of power, where citizens in their role as workers traditionally had little control. In the 1960s the New Left linked democratic participation with individual development, asserting that the communal activities of direct democracy fulfill human potential and cultivate virtue.

Within the framework of consensus about democratic ideals, Americans will continue to debate the merits of direct and representative forms of democracy, and contest the inclusiveness of democratic citizenship, as well as its duties and obligations.

DEMOCRACY

Democracy and the American Party System

Suffrage

Voter Turnout and Political Participation

Democracy and Trust

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