Democracy is one of the most important subjects in the social sciences. From the work of de Tocqueville in the early nineteenth century through the work of the best contemporary scholars, democracy has been studied closely and debated widely (Tocqueville 1969). Democracy has drawn this attention primarily because, in spite of the fact that it is quite rare historically, it has come to have enormous legitimacy in the eyes of many individuals worldwide. This has not always been the case. Democracy has been severely criticized by those on both the political right and left. But few scholars today question whether democracy is a social good.
Democracy is also important because many historically undemocratic countries have adopted it as a system of government. Many such changes have occurred only in the years since the Cold War (Huntington 1991). By 1994, over half the countries in the world had some form of democratic governance, a doubling of the number of nation-states so organized within 25 years (Lipset 1994).
At the core of most discussions of democracy is a common understanding that democracy is a method of governance or decision making for organizations or societies in which the members of that organization or society participate, directly or indirectly, in the decision making of that group. Further, members affect decision making to such an extent that they can be thought of as actually governing that organization or society. In short, democracy is a system of governance in which members control group decision making.
Not all considerations on democracy have shared this understanding. For example, those working in the Marxist tradition saw any state, democratic or not, as the expression of a class struggle. As such, any state was inherently undemocratic, absent the creation of a classless, communist, and hence truly democratic, society (Held 1995). Subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union and its affiliated states, and the full exposure of the failures of those regimes, such an extreme view has been almost entirely rejected.
The common understanding of democracy as participation by members or citizens in the decision making of an organization or society still leaves considerable room for dispute. Two issues are central: First, who are, or should be, considered members of the society? Second, what does, or should, constitute a minimum level of control over decision making by members for a system to be thought of as democratic? In short, how much participation is necessary for a system to be democratic? These questions are not simply matters of empirical observation of the world, but also matters for moral and political philosophy.
Three additional factors add to the difficulty of approaching democracy as a field of sociological research. First, analysts of democracy all too often use different definitions of democracy, or fail to define democracy clearly. Democratic systems of governance can be characterized by many attributes—frequency of member participation, the form of member participation, and so forth. Establishing whether a particular system of governance is democratic, involves making decisions about which attributes are essential to a democratic system. Where there is no specific definition of democracy or where definitions conflict, evaluating research on democracy can be tasking (Macpherson 1972).
A second factor increasing the difficulty of this subject matter is that democracy is a system of governance found in many different kinds of collectivities, including states, formal organizations, and informal groups. It is thus necessary to be cautious in applying models, findings, and relationships across different types of collectivities. When general propositions about democracy are advanced, it is important to evaluate those propositions at multiple levels of analysis.
A third difficulty is that social scientists are interested in democracy not just for its own sake, but also because it is thought to be associated with other critical issues. Many important questions involve considerations of democracy: What is the effect of democracy on the success of organizations and nation-states? Does democracy promote individual liberty? What is the effect of democracy on income inequality and social stratification? What is the relationship between democracy and civil society? Can market economies prosper in the absence of democracy? All these and more force sociologists to consider the consequences, as well as the causes, of democracy.
While the difficulties of studying democracy are daunting, much significant work has been done in this field. Democracy has been studied as an outcome and as a cause, and has been studied at both the level of the nation-state, and at the level of the organization.
To begin with, there is work in the sociology of democracy on the question of who is or should be members or citizens of a democratic polity. Most systems commonly thought to be democratic have throughout history excluded some portion of those subject to the will of the democracy from participation in the decision-making process. Such exclusion has occurred on the basis of race, sex, income, relationship to property, criminal status, mental health, religion, age, and other characteristics. While use of many of these categories as ajustifica-tion for excluding individuals from participation has declined in recent times, others remain, and there is continuing disagreement about the moral and political bases for excluding or including specific groups or categories of individuals. Migrant workers in Western Europe, for example, are subject to the action of the state on a long-term basis and yet remain excluded from full political participation in those states (Brubaker 1989). At the level of the organization, there are individuals affected by the decisions of the organization who may have little or no say in the decisions that affect them. These can include individuals both outside the organization (”stakeholders”) and inside the organization. Regarding affected individuals outside the organization, there are occasional movements to increase the power of stakeholders over the decisions of the organization (Nader, Green, and Seligman 1976). While unsuccessful at a general level, there has been a shift toward permitting stakeholders increased access to legal redress, for example, in class action lawsuits and in environmental litigation. And regarding those within the organization, one way to understand the management trends toward ”total quality management,” participatory management, and economic democracy is that they are attempts to increase democratic participation of workers in decisions that affect them (Jarley, Fiorito, and Delaney 1997).
Sociologists have often focused on the forms of influence and participation that individuals have in decision making. Representative democracy is that form of governance in which members of the organization or polity exercise their control over the organization through the regular election of members of a decision-making body. It is traditional to view representative democracies as democratic because they provide for the expression of interests through the election of representatives. For example, in the United States, citizens directly elect senators and representatives to the U.S. Congress, which in turn makes political decisions about the actions of the federal government. Theorists since the Enlightenment have argued that representative democracy is an appropriate means for conveying participation in decision making in large-size organizations, where individuals are thought not to be able to participate in all decisions (Hobbes 1968; Locke 1980; Mill 1962; Rousseau 1977).
But this view has been attacked by numerous critics, many of them sociologists. One of the most scathing criticisms, building on work by Mosca, is the analysis of democracy by Michels (Mosca 1939). Michels’s argument is that in any large organization (and, by extension, in any nation-state), a democratic system of governance inevitably leads to the rise of an oligarchy, and worse, to an oligarchy whose leaders have interests that differ from those of the ordinary members or citizens (Michels 1949). Why is this inevitable? In every instance of large democratic organization, Michels argues, oligarchy arises as a result of the organization’s requirement for experienced, skilled leaders. Experience in leadership, however, tends to give leaders access to key organizational resources, such as mailing lists, publicity, and greater experience, that are significant resources that the leadership can use to return themselves to office year after year. And as leaders remain in office over an extended time, their interests and attitudes are likely to diverge from those of members. The divergence of interests is a result of the changed work and social experiences that accrue to leaders. Hence Michels, while arguing that formal organization is necessary for social life, and especially for politics, also believes that democracy in such organizations is essentially impossible.
Michels’s analysis has been taken very seriously in the social sciences, and there is some supporting evidence for his propositions. Weber described, and Heclo and Wilson separately concede, that there is a tendency for the civil service and bureaucracy to become unresponsive to the wishes of the people, as their experiences and needs differ from the people (Heclo 1977; Weber 1978; Wilson 1989). Lincoln and Zeitz have shown that as unions tend to get more professional, there is less member participation in decision making (Lincoln and Zeitz 1980). And for both unions and social movement organizations, Michels’s critique is taken so seriously as to generate sometimes drastic proposals for counteracting the oligarchical tendencies in these organizations (Kochan 1980). Piven and Cloward argue that reform movements of the poor should waste few resources on creating long-lasting organizations, but should instead create massive and disruptive protests (Piven and Cloward 1977).
However, Michels is not without his critics. Nyden argues that democratic unions are possible (Nyden 1985). Weber himself, who was Michels’s teacher, was critical of his conclusions. Michels overstated the case, Weber argued, because he insisted on relying upon too pure or strict a definition of democracy. Having started with such an idealistic vision of democracy, Michels was bound to find that reality comes up short (Scaff 1981).
That too pure a definition of democracy can lead to a misplaced understanding of how democracy works, and a failure to appreciate its achievements, is the key assumption behind the most significant defense of democracy in the 1950s and 1960s—the pluralist account of democracy. Dahl’s account defends democracy by admitting its weakness: voting in elections is not a terribly effective system for ensuring that the will of the people will be carried out. Instead, Dahl focuses attention on whether non-electoral forms of influence can yield democratic decision making in keeping with the wishes and interests of the public. Interest groups thus become not the bane, but the hope of democracy. Through lobbying in all its forms, interest groups are able to exert power and influence over decision making beyond elections; if they do this, then the system, with all its flaws, can be considered democratic (Dahl 1961).
A problem with the pluralist view is that not all groups in society may be able effectively to form interest groups to pursue their goals. Olson, in an early effort in what is now known as rational choice theory, argued that individuals must be assumed to be rational, and that rational individuals will not contribute to the formation of interest groups when they will obtain the benefits achieved by the interest group anyway. This is the free rider or collective action problem: if an interest group lobbies for clean air, and a person cannot be denied clean air because he or she does not belong to the interest group, why should that person contribute to the group? Only those interest groups with a particularly small constituency or those interest groups who are able to use ”special” incentives— those available only to members of the group—to attract contributors will be able to form to lobby to advance their interests. Groups representing weak and powerless individuals may be unable to supply such special incentives (Olson 1971).
Olson’s pessimism about the chances for the disadvantaged to gain a voice in decision making has been the focus of much attention. Oliver and Marwell suggest that social movements are more likely to be formed as interest groups grow in size (Oliver and Marwell 1988). Knoke argues that the use of selective incentives may attract apathetic members, whereas a focus on the goal of lobbying may attract highly active members, thereby creating more effective organizations (Knoke 1988). Clemens points out that as interest groups come into existence, they are themselves models or templates for others to imitate. Those templates will then increase the likelihood of the formation of more interest groups (Clemens 1997). These criticisms of Olson’s analysis of the collective action problem may actually serve to strengthen the pluralist account of democracy.
Yet many sociologists remain deeply critical of the pluralist account. Domhoff argues that pluralism is flawed not because the collective action problem retards the capacity of the disadvantaged to organize. Rather, pluralism is flawed because in the United States, and in other industrialized democracies, there is a governing class (Domhoff 1998). This governing class is composed of elites from business, the social upper class, and those in charge of organizations, both within and outside government, that are powerfully involved in the formation of public policy. While Domhoff admits that there is some conflict within these groups, he views them as cohesive in their opposition to the interests of the poor and the working class. Through their control of important organizations, through the strength of their social ties, and through the use of agenda-setting, the governing class achieves enormous power. And, Domhoff argues, the governing class is able to use that power consistently to defeat the interests of the majority.
Other critics of the pluralist account have drawn attention to the relationship between social class and voting. For some years, it appeared that class-based voting in the United States appeared to be declining (Clark, Lipset, and Rempel 1993; Manza, Hout, and Brooks 1995). Yet some scholars believe that class remained a significant factor in voting behavior (Burnham 1981). Piven and Cloward argued that the pluralist account failed because there was a systematic pattern to who voted and who did not. Because the poor and the working classes disproportionately failed to vote in elections, they were inadequately represented in the competition between interests; hence the poor were excluded from the pluralist democracy (Piven and Cloward 1988). It has been shown that class remains a powerful determinant of how people vote, even if the working class no longer votes for the Democratic party in the United States with as great a frequency as it did in the years immediately after WWII (Hout, Brooks, and Manza 1995).
Researchers in the 1970s and 1980s criticized pluralism for adopting a definition of democracy that was too satisfied with the status quo of only limited participation in decision making. These participatory democratic theories emphasized that as members participate in decision making, they learn more about the criteria that need to be used in effective decision making and become better at making decisions. But members also, it was argued, become better at evaluating the choice of candidates where representatives must be elected. Accordingly, empirical researchers began to investigate the causes and consequences of increased participation in decision making (Finley 1973; Pateman 1970).
In keeping with this view, researchers increasingly moved to consider cases of participation throughout society (Alford and Friedland 1975). Participation in decision making in unions, community organizations, municipalities, and protest groups has been analyzed and touted (Gans 1989; Cole 1975). In organization theory, research on different forms of worker participation in organizational decision making has gained increasing prominence. Total quality management, participatory management, and worker control all have been studied closely, not just for improvement in productivity and quality, but also for democracy. Much of this research emphasizes how democracy is consistent with both effectiveness and the improvement of the condition of workers (Jarley, Fiorito, and Delaney 1997). Some have even come to see the spread of democratic management as inevitable, although this is almost certainly exaggerated (Collins 1997). Yet many have worked to show that democratic systems of management are more broadly possible than has been thought, although the conditions under which such systems of decision making can be created and maintained remain under debate (Burawoy 1982; Kanter 1983).
Renewed definitions of democracy beg a central question in democratic research: Where do democracies come from? The question has been most closely studied for nation-states. Lipset identifies a set of central conditions that are associated with the rise of democracy in nation-states. The presence of a market economy appears to be a necessary, although not a sufficient, condition for democracy. A minimum level of economic development is associated with democracy, although a key debate is the extent to which development leads to democracy (Bollen and Jackman 1995; Muller 1995). Also associated with democracy is a political culture in which the tolerance for the rights of others is recognized. Finally, countries with Protestant religious traditions have been more likely to be democratic, though the significance of that effect may be fading in the recent transition to democracy (Lipset 1994).
One of the most significant contributions to the account of the origins of democracy is that by Moore (Moore 1966). His analysis, standing in contrast to a Marxist emphasis on the role of the working class as a force in history, identified the relationship between peasant and lord prior to capitalism as the critical factor in determining whether a society became democratic or autocratic. In countries such as China, France, Japan, or Germany, repressive control over peasants by a dominant class led either to revolution or to continued autocracy. In China, revolution led to Communist autocracy; in France, because of the existence of a commercial class, revolution led, through fits and starts, to democracy. In Japan and Germany, the failure or absence of revolution led to continued dominance of repressive classes, leading to the rise of fascist regimes. Moore argued that in a country such as England, however, the greater status of labor, coupled with the nobility’s increasing dependence on market-based agriculture, led to an eventual democratic solution to social conflict.
Moore’s work has provoked considerable criticism and extension (Ross et al. 1998). Downing has shown conclusively that the nature of military conflicts affects the success of democracy in a country. How a nation fights its wars, and how often it must fight, is critically determinative of the need for repression in the mobilization of men and weapons to fight. England’s peculiar move toward democracy is thus critically dependent on its position as an island nation, free from the necessity to fight long-term, massive land wars on the continent of Europe, and the necessity to maintain a state and military administrative structure capable of that task (Downing 1992). Friedman has shown that former British colonies tend to be democratic, whereas countries ruled by Leninist parties tend to remain autocratic (Friedman 1998).
Students of social movements have tended to argue that social movements are significant sources of democracy (Giugni, McAdam, and Tilly 1998). There is evidence that social movements can push the transition to democracy faster (Hipsher 1998; Sandoval 1998). Certainly this is consistent with Tilly’s theoretical model of democratization, in which he argues that social conflict, as embodied in social movements, and where mediated by third parties, can lead to the creation of rights essential for democracy (Tilly 1998). But surely the effects of social movements on democracy are contingent on many factors, and sociologists must be careful not to assume that the outcome of social protest will be democratization (Melucci and Lyyra 1998). Clearly this has not always been the case.
The sources of democracy in organizations is an understudied area. Two findings are worth noting. Knoke has argued that in the present-day United States, a minimum level of democratic procedure is just a part of the institutional building blocks from which organizations are constructed; in short, organizations such as unions may have democratic procedures simply because everybody expects them to have those procedures (Knoke 1990). And, returning to the tension between democracy and effectiveness identified by Michels, Jarley has found that the causes of democratic procedures in unions are independent of those which drive bureaucratization (Jarley, Fiorito, and Delaney 1997). Yet much more systematic work needs to be done in this area.
The other side of the coin in the study of democracy is the question of the relationship between democracy and other core subjects of sociological interest. The relationship between democracy and equality is a central issue and has been a focus of research since de Tocqueville (Tocqueville 1969). In recent years, research has centered around this specific question: Does democracy promote or retard income inequality in nation-states? There is some evidence that democracy does not increase inequality, at least directly, and it might lead to increased equality (Bollen andJackman 1985; Mul-ler 1988).
Another question is whether democracies can be effective. The central issue, echoing Michels, is whether or not organizations, such as unions or parties or, for that matter, businesses, can be successful in competitive environments against organizations that are autocratically run. The evidence is conflicting. Some argue that democracy and effectiveness are in conflict in the context of unions (Lipset, Trow, and Coleman 1959; Piven and Cloward 1977). Others argue that democracy leads to effectiveness in achieving goals (Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin 1994). As yet, there seems to be no definitive answer, and the issue certainly merits more research.
Finally, the subject of democracy has been intimately tied in the 1990s to two related subjects.
The first is the subject of globalization. As the world has become more closely connected, as communications technologies radically change again, and as the world economy has grown larger, some have raised questions about the implications of this trend for democracy. Held, for example, has argued that decisions that affect citizens are increasingly being made at a level beyond that of the nation-state; in supra-national organizations and in the international economy. As a consequence of this globalization, the extent of democratic control over decisions is seen to have weakened (Held 1995). Others have criticized this argument, and the subject is still very much subject to research and debate (Hirst and Thompson 1996).
The second related subject is civil society. A focus of scholarly attention in part because of the demands for it from those who have emerged from socialist rule, civil society is commonly conceived as space for associational activity between the state and the individual (Gellner 1994). Many now see organizations and associations, independent of the state, as crucial to democracy, constituting a critical element of democratic society (Streeck and Schmitter 1985). Certainly, they are not the same: as Hall puts it, ”Democracy can be decidedly uncivil” (Hall 1995). But democracy depends on civil society (Somers 1993). This view echoes Tocqueville’s assertion that the knowledge of how to combine is fundamental to democracy (Tocqueville 1969). Already attracting significant attention, much room remains to answer questions about the relationship between civil society and democracy.
In conclusion, it is well to remember that there are many forms of democracy: those with weaker or stronger civil liberties; those with weaker or stronger civil societies; those with weaker or stronger tolerance for diversity. Nor can it be assumed that these different forms are internally consistent: the rights of the community to choose what it wishes to be, and the rights of the individual to live as he or she wishes, are not easily reconciled.
It is also well to remember that democracy is not inevitable (Berger 1992). Neither, we should also recall, is democracy a simple outcome that, once achieved, is a permanent condition (Friedman 1998). Democracy can be strengthened; democracy can be weakened. And it can, as it has in the past, disappear. While democracy is today in the ascendant, the lessons of the French Revolution and of Weimar Germany should not be forgotten; although in both instances democracy was regained, it was not regained quickly or without cost. And in Germany, as in Japan, democracy was not regained from within, but imposed from without. History should teach us that we still have much to learn about democracy.
