American democracy is going through one of its periodic bouts of self-loathing... there is nothing new about this outburst of disgust with the workings of democracy...Lamenting the failings of democracy is a permanent feature of democratic life, one that persists through governmental crises and successes alike. There is no decade from the past century when it is not possible to find an extended debate among commentators and intellectuals in the democratic West about the inadequacies of democratic politics...Its also true of the prosperous and relatively stable decades as well...for the most part democracy was treated as a cumbersome, careless system of government, in permanent danger of being outwitted... The history of modern democracy is a tale of steady success accompanied by the constant drumbeat of anticipated failure. The intellectual commentator who first spotted this distinctive feature of democratic life (and who did most to explain it) was Alexis de Tocqueville. When he traveled to America, in 1831, Tocqueville was immediately struck by the frenetic and mindless quality of democratic politics. Citizens were always complaining, and their politicians were endlessly throwing mud at one another. The grumbling discontent was frequently interrupted by bursts of outright panic as resentments spilled over. Yet Tocqueville noticed something else about American democracy: that underneath the chaotic surface, it was quite stable. Citizens discontent coincided with an underlying faith that democratic politics would see them right in the end... At any given moment, democracy tends to look a mess: shallow, petty, and vituperative. Democracies are bad at rising to the occasion. What they are good at is chopping and changing course so that no occasion is too much for them...Ordinary citizens get frustrated with the workings of democracy but rarely, if ever, give up on it. The people who tend to lose faith are intellectuals who cant reconcile themselves to the mismatch between the glorious promise of democratic life and its grubby reality... Americans were prone to panics and busts, and they were prey to political charlatans peddling fantasies of rebirth and renewal. Compared with European monarchy, democracy looked like a petulant and childish system of government. Tocqueville achieved instant and lasting fame by insisting that American democracy would not only last, but was in fact the wave of the future. Its energy and adaptability gave democracy the ultimate advantage over any rival system of government... Tocqueville had two fears for democracy. First, he believed that the restless impatience of democracy would lead it to become intolerant and impulsive. Second, he thought that the evidence of democracys long-term advantages would lead democratic societies to become complacent about the risks they run. Underlying faith in democracy, the precondition for its functioning at all, generates unwarranted optimism... DAVID RUNCIMAN is a professor of politics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow at Trinity Hall. He is the author, most recently, of The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis From World War I to the Present (Princeton University Press, 2013). chronicle/article/Democracys-Dual-Dangers/142971/
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 19:32:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015