CHAPTER 4 Democracy and Legitimacy
‘Democracy is the worst form of government except all the
other forms that have been tried from time to time.’
WI N S T O N CH U R C H I L L , Speech, UK House of Commons (11 November, 1947)
P R E V I E W Although states may enjoy a monopoly of coercive power, they seldom remain in
existence through the exercise of force alone. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau put it, ‘The
strongest is never strong enough unless he turns might into right and obedience
into duty’. This is why all systems of rule seek legitimacy or ‘rightfulness’, allowing
them to demand compliance from their citizens or subjects. Legitimacy is thus the
key to political stability; it is nothing less than the source of a regime’s survival and
success. In modern politics, debates about legitimacy are dominated by the issue of
democracy, so much so that ‘democratic legitimacy’ is sometimes viewed as the
only meaningful form of legitimacy. However, the link between legitimacy and
democracy is both a relatively new idea and one that is culturally speciﬁc. Until
well into the nineteenth century, the term ‘democracy’ continued to have pejorative
implications, suggesting a form of ‘mob rule’; and, in parts of the developing
world, democracy promotion continues to be associated with ‘westernization’.
Nevertheless, there is a sense in which we are all now democrats. Liberals, conservatives,
socialists, communists, anarchists and even fascists are eager to proclaim
the virtues of democracy and to demonstrate their own democratic credentials.
Indeed, as the major ideological systems have faltered or collapsed since the late
twentieth century, the ﬂame of democracy has appeared to burn yet more strongly.
As the attractions of socialism have faded, and the merits of capitalism have been
called into question, democracy has emerged as perhaps the only stable and enduring
principle in the postmodern political landscape.
K E Y I S S U E S How do states maintain legitimacy?
Are modern societies facing a crisis of legitimation?
Why is political legitimacy so often linked to the claim to be demo-
cratic?
What are the core features of democratic rule?
What models of democratic rule have been advanced?
How do democratic systems operate in practice?
LEGITIMACY AND POLITICAL STABILITY
The issue of legitimacy, the rightfulness of a regime or system of rule, is linked
to the oldest and one of the most fundamental of political debates, the problem
of political obligation. Why should citizens feel obliged to acknowledge the
authority of government? Do they have a duty to respect the state and obey its
laws? In modern political debate, however, legitimacy is usually understood less
in terms of moral obligations, and more in terms of political behaviour and
beliefs. In other words, it addresses not the question of why people should obey
the state, in an abstract sense, but the question of why they do obey a particular
state or system of rule.What are the conditions or processes that encourage them
to see authority as rightful, and therefore underpin the stability of a regime? This
reﬂects a shift from philosophy to sociology, but it also highlights the contested
nature of the concept of legitimacy.
Legitimizing power
The classic contribution to the understanding of legitimacy as a sociological
phenomenon was provided by Max Weber (see p. 82). Weber was concerned to
categorize particular ‘systems of domination’, and to identify in each case the
basis on which legitimacy was established. He did this by constructing three ideal
types (see p. 20), or conceptual models, which he hoped would help to make
sense of the highly complex nature of political rule. These ideal types amount to
three kinds of authority:
traditional authority
charismatic authority
legal–rational authority.
Each of these is characterized by a particular source of political legitimacy
and, thus, different reasons that people may have for obeying a regime. In the
process, Weber sought to understand the transformation of society itself,
contrasting the systems of domination found in relatively simple traditional
societies with those typically found in industrial and highly bureaucratic ones.
Weber’s ﬁrst type of political legitimacy is based on long-established customs
and traditions (see p. 82). In effect, traditional authority is regarded as legitimate
because it has ‘always existed’: it has been sanctiﬁed by history because earlier
generations have accepted it. Typically, it operates according to a body of
concrete rules: that is, ﬁxed and unquestioned customs that do not need to be
justiﬁed because they reﬂect the way things have always been. The most obvious
examples of traditional authority are found amongst tribes or small groups in
the form of patriarchalism (the domination of the father within the family, or
the ‘master’ over his servants) and gerontocracy (the rule of the aged, normally
reﬂected in the authority of village‘elders’). Traditional authority is closely linked
to hereditary systems of power and privilege, as reﬂected, for example, in the
survival of dynastic rule in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Morocco. Although it is of
marginal signiﬁcance in advanced industrial societies, the survival of monarchy
(see p. 292), albeit in a constitutional form, in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 81
CONCEPT
Legitimacy
Legitimacy (from the
Latin legitimare, meaning
‘to declare lawful’)
broadly means
‘rightfulness’. Legitimacy
therefore confers on an
order or command an
authoritative or binding
character, thus
transforming power (see
p. 5) into authority (see
p. 4). Political
philosophers treat
legitimacy as a moral or
rational principle; that is,
as the grounds on which
governments may
demand obedience from
citizens. The claim to
legitimacy is thus more
important than the fact
of obedience. Political
scientists, however,
usually see legitimacy in
sociological terms; that
is, as a willingness to
comply with a system of
rule regardless of how
this is achieved.
82 P O L I T I C S
and Spain, for example, helps to shape political culture by keeping alive values
such as deference, respect and duty.
Weber’s second form of legitimate domination is charismatic authority. This
form of authority is based on the power of an individual’s personality; that is, on
his or her ‘charisma’ (see p. 83). Owing nothing to a person’s status, social position
or ofﬁce, charismatic authority operates entirely through the capacity of a
leader to make a direct and personal appeal to followers as a kind of hero or
saint. Although modern political leaders such as de Gaulle, Kennedy and
Thatcher undoubtedly extended their authority through their personal qualities
and capacity to inspire loyalty, this did not amount to charismatic legitimacy,
because their authority was essentially based on the formal powers of the ofﬁces
they held. Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler (see p. 47), Ayatollah Khomeini (see p.
167), Fidel Castro and Colonel Gaddaﬁ are more appropriate examples.
However, charismatic authority is not simply a gift or a natural propensity;
systems of personal rule are invariably underpinned by ‘cults of personality’ (see
p. 302), the undoubted purpose of which is to ‘manufacture’ charisma.
Nevertheless, when legitimacy is constructed largely, or entirely, through the
power of a leader’s personality, there are usually two consequences. The ﬁrst is
that, as charismatic authority is not based on formal rules or procedures, it often
has no limits. The leader is a Messiah, who is infallible and unquestionable; the
masses become followers or disciples, who are required only to submit and obey.
Second, so closely is authority linked to a speciﬁc individual, that it is difﬁcult for
a system of personal rule to outlive its founding ﬁgure. This certainly applied in
the case of the regimes of Napoleon, Mussolini and Hitler.
Weber’s third type of political legitimacy, legal–rational authority, links
authority to a clearly and legally deﬁned set of rules. In Weber’s view, legal–
rational authority is the typical form of authority operating in most modern
states. The power of a president, prime minister or government ofﬁcial is determined
in the ﬁnal analysis by formal, constitutional rules, which constrain or
limit what an ofﬁce holder is able to do. The advantage of this form of authority
over both traditional and charismatic authority is that, as it is attached to an
ofﬁce rather than a person, it is far less likely to be abused or to give rise to injustice.
Legal–rational authority therefore maintains limited government and, in
Max Weber (1864–1920)
German political economist and sociologist. Following a breakdown in 1898, Weber
withdrew from academic teaching, but he continued to write and research until the
end of his life. He was one of the founders of modern sociology, and he championed
a scientific and value-free approach to scholarship. He also highlighted the importance
to social action of meaning and consciousness. Weber’s interests ranged from
social stratification, law, power and organization to religion. He is best known for the
thesis that the Protestant ethic encourages the development of capitalism, and for his
analysis of bureaucracy. Weber’s most influential works include The Protestant Ethic
and the Spirit of Capitalism (1902), The Sociology of Religion (1920) and Economy and
Society (1922).
CONCEPT
Tradition
Tradition may refer to
anything that is handed
down or transmitted
from the past to the
present (long-standing
customs and practices,
institutions, social or
political systems, values
and beliefs, and so on).
Tradition thus denotes
continuity with the past.
This continuity is usually
understood to link the
generations, although the
line between the
traditional and the
merely fashionable is
often indistinct.
‘Traditional’ societies are
often contrasted with
‘modern’ ones, the former
being structured on the
basis of status (see p.
152) and by supposedly
organic hierarchies, and
the latter on the basis of
contractual agreement
and by democratic
processes.
addition, promotes efﬁciency through a rational division of labour. However,
Weber also recognised a darker side to this type of political legitimacy. The price
of greater efﬁciency would, he feared, be a more depersonalized and inhuman
social environment typiﬁed by the relentless spread of bureaucratic (see p. 361)
forms of organization.
Although Weber’s classiﬁcation of types of legitimacy is still seen as relevant,
it also has its limitations. One of these is that, in focusing on the legitimacy of a
political regime or system of rule, it tells us little about the circumstances in
which political authority is challenged as a result of unpopular policies, or a
discredited leader or government. More signiﬁcantly, as Beetham (1991) pointed
out, to see legitimacy, as Weber did, as nothing more than a ‘belief in legitimacy’
is to ignore how it is brought about. This may leave the determination of legitimacy
largely in the hands of the powerful, who may be able to ‘manufacture’
rightfulness through public-relations campaigns and the like.
Beetham suggested that power can only be said to be legitimate if three
conditions are fulﬁlled. First, power must be exercised according to established
rules, whether these are embodied in formal legal codes or in informal conventions.
Second, these rules must be justiﬁed in terms of the shared beliefs of the
government and the governed. Third, legitimacy must be demonstrated by an
expression of consent on the part of the governed. This highlights two key
features of the legitimation process. The ﬁrst is the existence of elections and
party competition, a system through which popular consent can be exercised (as
discussed below in connection with democratic legitimacy). The second is the
existence of constitutional rules that broadly reﬂect how people feel they should
be governed (which are examined in Chapter 15).
Legitimation crises and revolutions
An alternative to the Weberian approach to legitimacy has been developed by
neo-Marxist (see p. 64) theorists. While orthodox Marxists were inclined to
dismiss legitimacy as bogus, seeing it as nothing more than a bourgeois myth,
modern Marxists, following Gramsci (see p. 175), have acknowledged that capitalism
is in part upheld by its ability to secure political support. Neo-Marxists
such as Jürgen Habermas (see p. 84) and Claus Offe (1984) have therefore focused
attention not merely on the class system, but also on the machinery through which
legitimacy is maintained (the democratic process, party competition, welfare and
social reform, and so on). Nevertheless, they have also highlighted what they see
as the inherent difﬁculty of legitimizing a political system that is based on
unequal class power. In Legitimation Crisis (1973), Habermas identiﬁed a series
of ‘crisis tendencies’ within capitalist societies that make it difﬁcult for them to
maintain political stability through consent alone. At the heart of this tension, he
argued, lie contradictions and conﬂicts between the logic of capitalist accumulation,
on the one hand, and the popular pressures that democratic politics
unleashes, on the other.
From this perspective, capitalist economies are seen to be bent on remorseless
expansion, dictated by the pursuit of proﬁt. However, the extension of political
and social rights in an attempt to build legitimacy within such systems has
stimulated countervailing pressures. In particular, the democratic process
has led to escalating demands for social welfare, as well as for increased popular
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 83
CONCEPT
Charisma
Charisma was originally a
theological term meaning
the ‘gift of grace’. This
was supposedly the
source of the power that
Jesus exerted over his
disciples. As a
sociopolitical
phenomenon, charisma
refers to charm or
personal power: the
capacity to establish
leadership (see p. 300)
through psychological
control over others.
Charismatic authority
therefore includes the
ability to inspire loyalty,
emotional dependence
and even devotion.
Although it is usually
seen as a ‘natural’
capacity, all political
leaders cultivate their
charismatic qualities
through propaganda,
practised oratory and
honed presentational
skills.
84 P O L I T I C S
participation and social equality. The resulting expansion of the state’s responsibilities
into economic and social life, and the inexorable rise of taxation and
public spending, nevertheless constrain capitalist accumulation by restricting
proﬁt levels and discouraging enterprise. In Habermas’ view, capitalist democracies
cannot permanently satisfy both popular demands for social security and
welfare rights, and the requirements of a market economy based on private
proﬁt. Forced either to resist popular pressures or to risk economic collapse, such
societies would ﬁnd it increasingly difﬁcult, and eventually impossible, to maintain
legitimacy. (The implications for political stability of economic and ﬁnancial
crises are discussed in Chapter 6.)
A very similar problem has been identiﬁed since the 1970s in the form of
what is called government ‘overload’. Writers such as Anthony King (1975) and
Richard Rose (1980) argued that governments were ﬁnding it increasingly difﬁcult
to govern because they were subject to over-demand. This had come about
both because politicians and political parties were encouraged to outbid one
another in the attempt to get into power, and because pressure groups were able
to besiege government with unrelenting and incompatible demands.
Government’s capacity to deliver was further undermined by a general drift
towards corporatism (see p. 251) that created growing interdependence between
government agencies and organized groups. However, whereas neo-Marxists
believed that the ‘crisis tendencies’ identiﬁed in the 1970s were beyond the
capacity of capitalist democracies to control, overload theorists tended to call for
a signiﬁcant shift of political and ideological priorities in the form of the abandonment
of a ‘big’ government approach.
In many ways, the rise of the New Right since the 1980s can be seen as a
response to this legitimation, or overload, crisis. Inﬂuenced by concerns about a
growing fiscal crisis of the welfare state, the New Right attempted to challenge
and displace the theories and values that had previously legitimized the progressive
expansion of the state’s responsibilities. In this sense, the New Right
amounted to a ‘hegemonic project’ that tried to establish a rival set of pro-individual
and pro-market values and theories. This constituted a public philosophy
that extolled rugged individualism, and denigrated the ‘nanny state’. The success
of this project is demonstrated by the fact that socialist parties in states as differJürgen
Habermas (born 1929)
German philosopher and social theorist. After growing up during the Nazi period,
Habermas was politicized by the Nuremburg trials and the growing awareness after
the war of the concentration and death camps. Drawn to study with Adorno
(1903–69) and Horkheimer (1895–1973), he became the leading exponent of the
‘second generation’ of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Habermas work ranges
over epistemology, the dynamics of advanced capitalism, the nature of rationality,
and the relationship between social science and philosophy. During the 1970s, he
developed critical theory into what became a theory of ‘communicative action’.
Habermas’ main works include Towards a Rational Society (1970), Theory and Practice
(1974) and The Theory of Communicative Competence (1984, 1988).
Fiscal crisis of the welfare
state: The crisis in state
finances that occurs when
expanding social expenditure
coincides with recession and
declining tax revenues.
ent as the UK, France, Spain, Australia and New Zealand have accommodated
themselves to broadly similar goals and values. As this happened, a political
culture that once emphasized social justice, welfare rights and public responsibilities
gave way to one in which choice, enterprise, competition and individual
responsibility are given prominence.
However, legitimation crises may have more dramatic consequences. When
faltering support for a regime can no longer be managed by adjustments in
public policy or a change in leadership, legitimacy may collapse altogether,
leading either to a resort to repression, or to revolution. While evolutionary
change is usually thought of as reform, revolution involves root-and-branch
change. Revolutions recast the political order entirely, typically bringing about
an abrupt and often violent break with the past. Although there is considerable
debate about the causes of revolution, there is little doubt that revolution has
played a crucial role in shaping the modern world. The American Revolution
(1776) led to the creation of a constitutional republic independent from Britain
and gave practical expression to the principle of representation. The French
Revolution (1789) set out to destroy the old order under the banner of ‘liberty,
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 85
Revolution: A popular
uprising, involving extra-legal
mass action, which brings
about fundamental change (a
change in the political system
itself) as opposed to merely a
change of policy or governing
elite.
Reform: Change brought
about within a system, usually
by peaceful and incremental
measures; reform implies
improvement.
Focus on . . .
Why do revolutions occur?
Why do regimes collapse? Should revolutions be understood
primarily in political terms, or are they more a
reflection of deeper economic or social developments?
Contrasting theories of revolution have been advanced
by Marxists and non-Marxists. In Marxist theory, revolution
emerges out of contradictions that exist at a
socio-economic level. Marx (see p. 41) believed that
revolution marks the point at which the class struggle
develops into open conflict, leading one class to overthrow
and displace another. Just as the French
Revolution was interpreted as a ‘bourgeois’ revolution,
the Russian Revolution was later seen as a ‘proletarian’
revolution that set in motion a process that would
culminate in the establishment of socialism and, eventually,
full communism. However, revolutions have not
come about as Marx forecast. Not only have they
tended to occur in relatively backward societies, not (as
he predicted) in the advanced capitalist countries, but
Marxist revolutions were often coup d’états rather than
popular revolutions.
A variety of non-Marxist theories of revolution have
been advanced. Systems theorists have argued that
revolution results from ‘disequilibrium’ in the political
system, brought about by economic, social, cultural or
international changes to which the system itself is incapable
of responding – the ‘outputs’ of government
become structurally out of line with the ‘inputs’. The
idea of a ‘revolution of rising expectations’ suggests that
revolutions occur when a period of economic and social
development is abruptly reversed, creating a widening
gap between popular expectations and the capabilities
of government. The classic statement of this theory is
found in Ted Gurr’s Why Men Rebel (1970), which links
rebellion to ‘relative deprivation’.
The social-structural theory of revolution implies that
regimes usually succumb to revolution when, through
international weakness and/or domestic ineffectiveness,
they lose their ability, or the political will, to maintain
control through the exercise of coercive power. Theda
Skocpol (1979) explained the outbreak of the French,
Russian and Chinese revolutions in these terms, but
they could equally be applied to the swift and largely
bloodless collapse of the Eastern European communist
regimes in the autumn and winter of 1989 (see p. 44).
86 P O L I T I C S
Consent: Assent or
permission; in politics, usually
an agreement to be governed
or ruled.
equality and fraternity’, advancing democratic ideals and sparking an ‘age of
revolution’ in early nineteenth-century Europe. The Russian Revolution (1917),
the first ‘communist’ revolution, provided a model for subsequent twentiethcentury
revolutions, including the Chinese Revolution (1949), the Cuban
Revolution (1959), the Vietnamese Revolution (1975) and the Nicaraguan
Revolution (1979). The Eastern European Revolutions (1989-91) and the rebellions
of the Arab Spring (2011) (see p. 88) nevertheless re-established the link
between revolution and the pursuit of political democracy.
Democratic legitimacy
Modern discussions about legitimacy are dominated by its relationship to
democracy, so much so that democratic legitimacy is now widely accepted as the
only meaningful form of legitimacy. The claim that a political organization is
legitimate is therefore intrinsically linked to its claim to be democratic. The next
main section examines competing models of democratic rule and debates how
democracy operates in practice, but this section considers the nature of the link
between democracy and legitimacy. Democracy can be seen to promote legitimacy
in at least three ways. In the first place, it does so through consent.
Although citizens do not explicitly give their consent to be governed, thereby
investing political authority with a formal ‘right to rule’, they do so implicitly
each time they participate in the political process. In this respect, democracy
underpins legitimacy by expanding the opportunities for political participation,
most importantly though the act of voting, but also through activities such as
joining a political party or interest group or by engaging in protests or demonstrations.
Political participation, in this sense, binds government and the people,
encouraging the latter to view the rules of the political game as rightful and so
to accept that they have an obligation to respect and obey those in authority.
Second, the essence of democratic governance is a process of compromise,
conciliation and negotiation, through which rival interests and groups find a way
of living together in relative peace, rather than resorting to force and the use of
naked power. The mechanisms through which this non-violent conflict resolution
takes place, notably elections, assembly debates, party competition and so
forth, thus tend to enjoy broad popular support as they ensure that power is
widely dispersed, each group having a political voice of some kind or other.
Third, democracy operates as a feedback system that tends towards long-term
political stability, as it brings the ‘outputs’ of government into line with the
‘inputs’ or pressures placed upon it. As democracy provides a mechanism
through which governments can be removed and public policy changed, it tends
to keep ‘disequilibrium’ in the political system to a minimum, enabling legitimation
crises to be managed effectively and substantially undermining the potential
for civil strife, rebellion or revolution.
Nevertheless, the notion of an intrinsic link between legitimacy and
democracy has also been questioned. Some, for example, argue that the high
levels of political stability and low incidence of civic strife and popular rebellion
in democratic societies can be explained more persuasively by factors
other than democracy. These include the fact that, having in the main
advanced capitalist economies, democratic societies tend to enjoy widespread
prosperity and are effective in ‘delivering the goods’. Democratic legitimacy
may therefore be less significant than ‘capitalist legitimacy’. A further factor is
that democratic societies tend to be liberal as well as democratic, liberal
democracy (see p. 270) being the dominant form of democracy worldwide.
Liberal societies offer wide opportunities for personal freedom, self-expression
and social mobility, and these may be as important, or perhaps more important,
in maintaining legitimacy than the opportunities that democracy offers
for political participation.
Even if democracy is accepted as the principal mechanism through which
legitimacy is promoted, there are reasons for thinking that its effectiveness in this
respect may be faltering. In particular, mature democratic societies appear to be
afflicted by growing political disenchantment or disaffection. This has been most
evident in declining electoral turnouts and in the falling membership of mainstream
political parties. For some, this ‘democratic malaise’ is a product of the
tendency within democratic systems for politicians to seek power by promising
more than they can deliver, thereby creating an expectations gap. As this gap
widens, trust in politicians declines and healthy scepticism about the political
process threatens to turn into corrosive cynicism. The issue of political disenchantment
is examined in greater detail in Chapter 20.
Non-democratic legitimacy?
If democracy is taken to be the only genuine basis for legitimacy, this implies that
non-democratic regimes are, by their nature, illegitimate. Nevertheless, some
authoritarian regimes survive for many decades with relatively little evidence of
mass political disaffection, still less concerted opposition. Clearly, this can very
largely be explained through the use of coercion and repression, fear rather than
consent being the principal means through which citizens are encouraged to
obey the state. However, non-democratic regimes rarely seek to consolidate their
hold on power through coercion alone. They typically adopt a two-pronged
approach in which political control is exercised alongside claims to legitimacy.
But, in the absence of democracy, what means of legitimation are available to
such regimes?
Three key forms of non-democratic legitimation have been used. First, elections,
albeit one-party, sometimes non-competitive or ‘rigged’ elections, have
been used to give a regime a democratic façade, helping both to create the
impression of popular support and to draw people into a ritualized acceptance
of the regime. This legitimation device was used in Nazi Germany and Fascist
Italy, and has also been used African one-party states and communist regimes.
Second, non-democratic regimes have sought performance legitimation based
on their ability to deliver, amongst other things, rising living standards, public
order, improved education and health care, and so forth. Communist regimes
thus emphasize the delivery of a package of socio-economic benefits to their citizens,
a strategy that continues to be practised by China through its ability to
generate high levels of economic growth.
Third, ideological legitimation has been used, either in an attempt to uphold
the leader’s, military’s or party’s right to rule, or to establish broader goals and
principles that invest the larger regime with a sense of rightfulness. Examples of
the former include Gamal Abdel Nasser’s portrayal of the Egyptian military as the
‘vanguard of the revolution’ after its 1952 coup, and Colonel Gaddafi’s proclamaD
E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 87
CONCEPT
Trust
Trust means faith, a
reliance on, or confidence
in, the honesty, worth
and reliability of another
person. It is therefore
based on expectations of
others’ future actions.
Political trust consists in
the level of confidence
people have in one
another in discharging
their civic responsibilities
and, crucially, the
confidence citizens have
that politicians generally,
and leaders in particular,
will keep their promises
and carry out their public
duties honestly and fairly.
In liberal theory, trust
arises through voluntary
contracts that we uphold
through mutual
self-interest. In
communitarian theory,
trust is grounded in a
sense of social duty and a
common morality.
88 P O L I T I C S
Events: The ‘Arab Spring’ (also known as the ‘Arab
revolutions’ or the ‘Arabic rebellions’) was a revolutionary
wave of demonstrations and protests that
swept through North Africa and parts of the Middle
East during 2011, toppling four dictators. The process
was initiated by Tunisia’s ‘Jasmine’ revolution, in
which a growing wave of anti-government rallies in
early January turned into a nationwide revolt due to
incidents of police repression. On 14 January,
President Ben Ali fled the country, bringing an end to
his 23-year rule. Inspired by events in Tunisia,
Egyptian demonstrators took to the streets on
January 25, calling for the removal of President
Hosni Mubarak; Tahrir Square, in Cairo, becoming the
centre of protests. Under growing pressure from the
Egyptian military and after 18 days of protests,
Mubarak resigned on 11 February. In Libya, the 42-year
rule of President Muammar Gaddafi was brought to an
end by an eight-month civil war, in which rebel forces
were supported by NATO aerial attacks, thanks to a no-fly
zone imposed by the UN Security Council. Gaddafi’s death
on October 22 signalled the final collapse of his regime.
Other significant popular uprisings in the Arab world
occurred in Yemen (where President Saleh was forced from
power in November 2011), in Syria (against President
Assad) and in Bahrain.
Significance: There are significant debates about both the
causes and consequences of the Arab Spring. Why did the
uprisings occur? Clearly, as with the 1989 East European
Revolutions, demonstrators were inspired, inflamed or
emboldened by developments elsewhere, creating a chain
reaction of protest, in this case often facilitated by the
internet and social networking sites such as Facebook. The
underlying factors were nevertheless common to much of
the Arab world: poor living standards, widening inequality,
rampant unemployment (particularly affecting the young),
police violence and a lack of human rights. Ethnic and religious
tensions were also significant in countries such as
Syria, Libya and Bahrain. Nevertheless, such circumstances
did not always translate into successful revolutions, or
even, as in cases such as Sudan and Saudi Arabia, popular
uprisings. Where these revolutions succeeded, three
factors were significant. A broad section of the population,
spanning ethnic and religious groups, and socio-economic
classes, were mobilized; the loyalty of key elites, and especially
in the military, started to fracture; and international
powers either refused to defend embattled governments
or gave moral and, in the case of Libya, military support to
opponents of the regime.
What kind of political change will the Arab Spring bring
about? Three possibilities offer themselves. The first is a
transition to democratic rule, giving the lie to the view
that, being mired in ‘backward’ cultural and religious
beliefs, the Arab world is not ready for democracy.
Certainly, the key demands of protestors were for the
introduction of western-style democratic reforms, notably
free and competitive elections, the rule of law and protections
for civil liberties. Moreover, where regimes collapsed,
this was invariably accompanied by the promise to hold
free elections, as duly occurred during 2011 in Tunisia in
October and in Egypt in November–December. The second
possibility is that the hope for a smooth transition to
stable democracy will be disappointed as some kind of
recast authoritarianism emerges once the post-revolutionary
honeymoon period ends. This scenario is supported by
the crucial role still played by the military, especially in
Egypt, and by the likelihood that, as divisions start to
surface within the former-opposition, a perhaps lengthy
period of political instability and policy reversals may
develop. The third possibility is that, although the revolutions
were strongest in the relatively secular Arab
republics of North Africa, the long-term beneficiaries of
the Arab Spring will be Islamist radicals, who initially
appeared to play a marginal role. Not only are Islamist
groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, generally better
organized than their rivals, but post-revolutionary chaos
and uncertainty offer fertile ground for advancing the
politics of religious regeneration.
POLITICS IN ACTION . . .
The Arab Spring: democracy comes to the Arab world?
tion of a ‘Green revolution’ after seizing power in Libya in 1969. Examples of the
latter include the emphasis on Marxism-Leninism in communist states and the
use of Wahhabism to support monarchical rule in Saudi Arabia. However, when
such strategies fail, all semblance of legitimation evaporates and non-democratic
regimes are forced either to resort to progressively more draconian means of
survival, or else they collapse in the face of popular uprisings. This can be seen in
the case of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011 (see p. 88).
DEMOCRACY
Understanding democracy
Debates about democracy extend well beyond its relationship to legitimacy.
These stem, most basically, from confusion over the nature of democracy. The
origins of the term ‘democracy’ can be traced back to Ancient Greece. Like other
words ending in ‘cracy’ (for example, autocracy, aristocracy and bureaucracy),
democracy is derived from the Greek word kratos, meaning power, or rule.
Democracy thus means ‘rule by the demos’ (the demos referring to ‘the people’,
although the Greeks originally used this to mean ‘the poor’ or ‘the many’).
However, the simple notion of ‘rule by the people’ does not get us very far. The
problem with democracy has been its very popularity, a popularity that has
threatened the term’s undoing as a meaningful political concept. In being almost
universally regarded as a ‘good thing’, democracy has come to be used as little
more than a ‘hurrah! word’, implying approval of a particular set of ideas or
system of rule. In Bernard Crick’s (1993) words,‘democracy is perhaps the most
promiscuous word in the world of public affairs’. A term that can mean anything
to anyone is in danger of meaning nothing at all. Amongst the meanings that
have been attached to the word ‘democracy’ are the following:
a system of rule by the poor and disadvantaged
a form of government in which the people rule themselves directly and
continuously, without the need for professional politicians or public ofﬁ-
cials
a society based on equal opportunity and individual merit, rather than hierarchy
and privilege
a system of welfare and redistribution aimed at narrowing social inequali-
ties
a system of decision-making based on the principle of majority rule
a system of rule that secures the rights and interests of minorities by placing
checks upon the power of the majority
a means of ﬁlling public ofﬁces through a competitive struggle for the
popular vote
a system of government that serves the interests of the people regardless of
their participation in political life.
Perhaps a more helpful starting point from which to consider the nature of
democracy is Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (1863). Lincoln extolled
the virtues of what he called ‘government of the people, by the people, and for
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 89
the people’. What this makes clear is that democracy links government to the
people, but that this link can be forged in a number of ways: government of, by
and for the people. This section explores the implications of these links by
considering three questions. Who are the people? In what sense should the
people rule? And how far should popular rule extend?
Who are the people?
One of the core features of democracy is the principle of political equality, the
notion that political power should be distributed as widely and as evenly as
possible. However, within what body or group should this power be distributed?
In short, who constitutes ‘the people’? On the face of it, the answer is simple:‘the
demos’, or‘the people’, surely refers to all the people; that is, the entire population
of the country. In practice, however, every democratic system has restricted
political participation, sometimes severely.
As noted, early Greek writers usually used demos to refer to ‘the many’: that
is, the disadvantaged and usually propertyless masses. Democracy therefore
implied not political equality, but a bias towards the poor. In Greek city-states,
political participation was restricted to a tiny proportion of the population, male
citizens over the age of 20, thereby excluding all women, slaves and foreigners.
Strict restrictions on voting also existed in most western states until well into the
twentieth century, usually in the form of a property qualiﬁcation or the exclusion
of women. Universal suffrage was not established in the UK until 1928,
when women gained full voting rights. In the USA, it was not achieved until the
early 1960s, when African-American people in many Southern states were able
to vote for the ﬁrst time, and in Switzerland universal suffrage was established in
1971 when women were eventually enfranchised. Nevertheless, an important
restriction continues to be practised in all democratic systems in the form of the
exclusion of children from political participation, although the age of majority
ranges from 21 down to as low as 15 (as in Iranian presidential elections up to
2007). Technical restrictions are also often placed on, for example, the certiﬁably
insane and imprisoned criminals.
Although ‘the people’ is now accepted as meaning virtually all adult citizens,
the term can be construed in a number of different ways. The people, for
instance, can be viewed as a single, cohesive body, bound together by a common
or collective interest: in this sense, the people are one and indivisible. Such a view
tends to generate a model of democracy that, like Rousseau’s (see p. 97) theory,
examined in the next main section, focuses upon the ‘general will’ or collective
will, rather than the‘private will’ of each individual. Alternatively, as division and
disagreement exist within all communities,‘the people’ may in practice be taken
to mean ‘the majority’. In this case, democracy comes to mean the strict application
of the principle of majority rule. This can, nevertheless, mean that democracy
degenerates into the ‘tyranny of the majority’. Finally, there is the issue of
the body of people within which democratic politics should operate. Where
should be the location or ‘site’ of democracy? Although, thanks to the potency of
political nationalism, the deﬁnition‘the people’ is usually understood in national
terms, the ideas of local democracy and, in the light of globalization (see p. 142),
cosmopolitan democracy (discussed in the ﬁnal section of the chapter) have
also been advanced.
90 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Political equality
Political equality means,
broadly, an equal
distribution of political
power and influence.
Political equality can thus
be thought of as the core
principle of democracy, in
that it ensures that,
however ‘the people’ is
defined, each individual
member carries the same
weight: all voices are
equally loud. This can be
understood in two ways.
In liberal-democratic
theory, political equality
implies an equal
distribution of political
rights: the right to vote,
the right to stand for
election and so on. In
contrast, socialists,
amongst others, link
political influence to
factors such as the
control of economic
resources and access to
the means of mass
communication.
Majority rule: The rule that
the will of the majority, or
numerically strongest, overrides
the will of the minority,
implying that the latter should
accept the views of the former.
Cosmopolitan democracy:
A form of democracy that
operates at supranational levels
of governance and is based on
the idea of transnational or
global citizenship.
How should the people rule?
Most conceptions of democracy are based on the principle of ‘government by the
people’. This implies that, in effect, people govern themselves – that they participate
in making the crucial decisions that structure their lives and determine the
fate of their society. This participation can take a number of forms, however. In
the case of direct democracy, popular participation entails direct and continuous
involvement in decision-making, through devices such as referendums (see p.
201), mass meetings, or even interactive television. The alternative and more
common form of democratic participation is the act of voting, which is the
central feature of what is usually called‘representative democracy’. When citizens
vote, they do not so much make the decisions that structure their own lives as
choose who will make those decisions on their behalf. What gives voting its
democratic character, however, is that, provided that the election is competitive,
it empowers the public to ‘kick the rascals out’, and it thus makes politicians
publicly accountable.
There are also models of democracy that are built on the principle of
‘government for the people’, and that allow little scope for public participation
of any kind, direct or indirect. The most grotesque example of this was found
in the so-called ‘totalitarian democracies’ that developed under fascist dictators
such as Mussolini and Hitler. The democratic credentials of such regimes
were based on the claim that the ‘leader’, and the leader alone, articulated the
genuine interests of the people, thus implying that a ‘true’ democracy can be
equated with an absolute dictatorship. In such cases, popular rule meant
nothing more than ritualized submission to the will of an all-powerful leader,
orchestrated through rallies, marches and demonstrations. This was sometimes
portrayed as plebiscitary democracy. Although totalitarian democracies have
proved to be a travesty of the conventional notion of democratic rule, they
demonstrate the tension that can exist between ‘government by the people’ (or
popular participation), and ‘government for the people’ (rule in the public
interest). Advocates of representative democracy, for example, have wished to
conﬁne popular participation in politics to the act of voting, precisely because
they fear that the general public lack the wisdom, education and experience to
rule wisely on their own behalf.
How far should popular rule extend?
Now that we have decided who ‘the people’ are, and how they should rule, it is
necessary to consider how far their rule should extend. What is the proper realm
of democracy? What issues is it right for the people to decide, and what should
be left to individual citizens? In many respects, such questions reopen the debate
about the proper relationship between the public realm and the private realm
that was discussed in Chapter 1. Models of democracy that have been
constructed on the basis of liberal individualism have usually proposed that
democracy be restricted to political life, with politics being narrowly deﬁned.
From this perspective, the purpose of democracy is to establish, through some
process of popular participation, a framework of laws within which individuals
can conduct their own affairs and pursue their private interests. Democratic
solutions, then, are appropriate only for matters that speciﬁcally relate to the
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 91
Totalitarian democracy:
An absolute dictatorship that
masquerades as a democracy,
typically based on the leader’s
claim to a monopoly of
ideological wisdom.
92 P O L I T I C S
community; used in other circumstances, democracy amounts to an infringement
of liberty. Not uncommonly, this fear of democracy is most acute in the
case of direct or participatory democracy.
However, an alternative view of democracy is often developed by, for example,
socialists and radical democrats. In radical democracy, democracy is seen not as
a means of laying down a framework within which individuals can go about their
own business but, rather, as a general principle that is applicable to all areas of
social existence. People are seen as having a basic right to participate in the
making of any decisions that affect their lives, with democracy simply being the
collective process through which this is done. This position is evident in socialist
demands for the collectivization of wealth and the introduction of workers’ selfmanagement,
both of which are seen as ways of democratizing economic life.
Instead of endorsing mere political democracy, socialists have therefore called for
‘social democracy’ or ‘economic democracy’. Feminists, similarly, have
demanded the democratization of family life, understood as the right of all to
Focus on . . .
Direct democracy or representative democracy?
Direct democracy (sometimes ‘classical’, ‘participatory’,
or ‘radical’ democracy) is based on the direct, unmediated
and continuous participation of citizens in the
tasks of government. Direct democracy thus obliterates
the distinction between government and the governed,
and between the state and civil society; it is a system
of popular self-government. It was achieved in ancient
Athens through a form of government by mass
meeting; its most common modern manifestation is
the use of the referendum (see p. 201). The merits of
direct democracy include the following:
It heightens the control that citizens can exercise
over their own destinies, as it is the only pure form
of democracy.
It creates a better-informed and more politically
sophisticated citizenry, and thus it has educational
benefits.
It enables the public to express their own views and
interests without having to rely on self-serving
politicians.
It ensures that rule is legitimate, in the sense that
people are more likely to accept decisions that they
have made themselves.
Representative democracy is a limited and indirect
form of democracy. It is limited in that popular participation
in government is infrequent and brief, being
restricted to the act of voting every few years. It is indirect
in that the public do not exercise power themselves;
they merely select those who will rule on their
behalf. This form of rule is democratic only insofar as
representation (see p. 197) establishes a reliable and
effective link between the government and the
governed. This is sometimes expressed in the notion of
an electoral mandate (see p. 200). The strengths of
representative democracy include the following:
It offers a practicable form of democracy (direct
popular participation is achievable only in small
communities).
It relieves ordinary citizens of the burden of
decision-making, thus making possible a division
of labour in politics.
It allows government to be placed in the hands of
those with better education, expert knowledge and
greater experience.
It maintains stability by distancing ordinary citizens
from politics, thereby encouraging them to accept
compromise.
Radical democracy: A form
of democracy that favours
decentralization and
participation, the widest
possible dispersal of political
power.
Economic democracy: A
broad term that covers
attempts to apply democratic
principles to the workplace,
ranging from profit-sharing and
the use of workers’ councils to
full workers’ self-management.
participate in the making of decisions in the domestic or private sphere. From this
perspective, democracy is regarded as a friend of liberty, not as its enemy. Only
when such principles are ignored can oppression and exploitation ﬂourish.
Models of democracy
All too frequently, democracy is treated as a single, unambiguous phenomenon.
It is often assumed that what passes for democracy in most western societies (a
system of regular and competitive elections based on a universal franchise) is the
only, or the only legitimate, form of democracy. Sometimes this notion of
democracy is qualiﬁed by the addition of the term ‘liberal’, turning it into liberal
democracy. In reality, however, there are a number of rival theories or models of
democracy, each offering its own version of popular rule. This highlights not
merely the variety of democratic forms and mechanisms, but also, more fundamentally,
the very different grounds on which democratic rule can be justiﬁed.
Even liberal democracy is a misleading term, as competing liberal views of
democratic organization can be identiﬁed. Four contrasting models of democracy
can be identiﬁed as follows:
classical democracy
protective democracy
developmental democracy
people’s democracy.
Classical democracy
The classical model of democracy is based on the polis, or city-state, of Ancient
Greece, and particularly on the system of rule that developed in the largest and
most powerful Greek city-state, Athens. The form of direct democracy that operated
in Athens during the fourth and ﬁfth centuries BCE is often portrayed as the
only pure or ideal system of popular participation. Nevertheless, although the
model had considerable impact on later thinkers such as Rousseau and Marx (see
p. 41), Athenian democracy (see p. 95) developed a very particular kind of direct
popular rule, one that has only a very limited application in the modern world.
Athenian democracy amounted to a form of government by mass meeting.
What made Athenian democracy so remarkable was the level of political
activity of its citizens. Not only did they participate in regular meetings of the
Assembly, but they were also, in large numbers, prepared to shoulder the responsibility
of public ofﬁce and decision-making. The most inﬂuential contemporaneous
critic of this form of democracy was the philosopher Plato (see p. 13).
Plato attacked the principle of political equality on the grounds that the mass of
the people possess neither the wisdom nor the experience to rule wisely on their
own behalf. His solution, advanced in The Republic, was that government be
placed in the hands of a class of philosopher kings, Guardians, whose rule would
amount to a kind of enlightened dictatorship. On a practical level, however, the
principal drawback of Athenian democracy was that it could operate only by
excluding the mass of the population from political activity. Participation was
restricted to Athenian-born males who were over 20 years of age. Slaves (the
majority of the population), women and foreigners had no political rights
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 93
CONCEPT
Plebiscitary
democracy
Plebiscitary democracy is
a form of democratic rule
that operates through an
unmediated link between
the rulers and the ruled,
established by plebiscites
(or referendums). These
allow the public to
express their views on
political issues directly.
However, this type of
democracy is often
criticized because of the
scope it offers for
demagoguery (rule by
political leaders who
manipulate the masses
through oratory, and
appeal to their prejudices
and passions). This type
of democracy may
amount to little more
than a system of mass
acclamation that gives
dictatorship a populist
(see p. 307) gloss.
94 P O L I T I C S
In modern politics, democracy has come to be so widely accepted that it appears to be almost politically incorrect to
question it. The ‘right’ solution to a political problem is thus the democratic solution; that is, one made either by the
people themselves or, more commonly, by politicians who are accountable to the people. But why is democracy so widely
revered? And are there circumstances in which democratic rule is inappropriate or undesirable?
YES NO
Debating . . .
Is democracy always
the best form of government?
The highest form of politics. The unique strength of
democracy is that it is able to address the central challenge
of politics – the existence of rival views and interests
within the same society – while containing the
tendency towards bloodshed and violence. In short,
democratic societies are stable and peaceful. This occurs
because democracy relies on open debate, persuasion and
compromise. People with rival views or competing interests
are encouraged to find a way of living together in
relative harmony because each has a political voice.
Democracy is therefore a kind of political safety valve,
democratic participation preventing the build up of
anger and frustration and, thereby, containing political
extremism.
Democracy as a universal value. It is now widely argued
that democracy is a human right: a fundamental and
absolute right that belongs to all people, regardless of
nationality, religion, gender and other differences. Rights
of political participation and access to power, especially
the right to vote, are universally applicable because they
stem from the basic entitlement to shape the decisions
that affect one’s own life – the right to self-rule. Indeed,
an equal access to power and the right to political participation
could be viewed not simply as virtues in their own
right, but as preconditions for the maintenance of all
other rights and freedoms.
Keeping tyranny at bay. All systems of rule are apt to
become tyrannies against the people, reflecting the fact
that those in power (and, for that matter, all people) are
inclined to place self-interest before the interests of others.
Governments and leaders therefore need to be checked or
constrained, and there is no more effective constraint on
power than democracy. This is because democratic rule
operates through a mechanism of accountability, which
ultimately allows the public to ‘kick the rascals out’.
Democratic societies are therefore not only the most
stable societies in the world, but also the societies in
which citizens enjoy the widest realm of freedom.
The disharmony of democracy. Far from being a guarantee
of stability, democracy is biased in favour of conflict
and disharmony. This is because democracy sets up an
ongoing electoral battle between opponents who are
encouraged to condemn one another, exaggerating their
faults and denying their achievements. Democratic politics
is often, as a result, noisy and unedifying. While the
disharmony of democracy is unlikely to threaten structural
breakdown in mature and relatively prosperous
societies, democracy in the developing world may
make things worse rather than better (Hawksley, 2009).
‘Democratization’ may therefore deepen tribal, regional or
ethnic tensions, and strengthen the tendency towards
charismatic leadership, thereby breeding authoritarianism.
Democracy as westernization. Rather than being universally
applicable, democracy is based on values and
assumptions that betray the cultural biases of its western
heartland. Democracy is rooted in ideas such as individualism,
notably through the principle of equal citizenship
and ‘one person, one vote’, and notions of pluralism and
competition that are intrinsically liberal in character. The
dominant form of democracy is therefore western-style
democracy, and its spread, sometimes imposed and always
encouraged, to the non-western world can therefore be
viewed as a form of cultural imperialism.
Good government not popular government. Democratic
solutions to problems are often neither wise nor sensible.
The problem with democracy is that the dictates of
wisdom and experience tend to be ignored because the
views of the well-educated minority are swamped by
those of the less well-educated majority. Being committed
to the principle of political equality, democracy
cannot cope with the fact that the majority is not always
right. This is a particular concern for economic policy,
where options, such as raising taxes or cutting government
spending, which may best promote long-term
economic development, may be ruled out simply because
they are unpopular.
whatsoever. Indeed, Athenian citizens were able to devote so much of their lives
to politics only because slavery relieved them of the need to engage in arduous
labour, and the conﬁnement of women to the private realm freed men from
domestic responsibilities. Nevertheless, the classical model of direct and continuous
popular participation in political life has been kept alive in, for instance, the
township meetings of New England in the USA, the communal assemblies that
operate in the smaller Swiss cantons and in the wider use of referendums.
Protective democracy
When democratic ideas were revived in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
they appeared in a form that was very different from the classical democracy of
Ancient Greece. In particular, democracy was seen less as a mechanism through
which the public could participate in political life, and more as a device through
which citizens could protect themselves from the encroachments of government,
hence ‘protective democracy’. This view appealed particularly to early liberal
thinkers whose concern was, above all, to create the widest realm of individual
liberty. The desire to protect the individual from over-mighty government was
expressed in perhaps the earliest of all democratic sentiments, Aristotle’s response
to Plato: ‘who will guard the Guardians?’.
This same concern with unchecked power was taken up in the seventeenth
century by John Locke (see p. 31), who argued that the right to vote was based
on the existence of natural rights and, in particular, on the right to property. If
government, through taxation, possessed the power to expropriate property, citizens
were entitled to protect themselves by controlling the composition of the
tax-setting body: the legislature. In other words, democracy came to mean a
system of ‘government by consent’ operating through a representative assembly.
However, Locke himself was not a democrat by modern standards, as he believed
that only property owners should vote, on the basis that only they had natural
rights that could be infringed by government. The more radical notion of
universal suffrage was advanced from the late eighteenth century onwards by
utilitarian theorists such as Jeremy Bentham and James Mill (1773–1836). The
utilitarian (see p. 353) case for democracy is also based on the need to protect or
advance individual interests. Bentham came to believe that, since all individuals
seek pleasure and the avoidance of pain, a universal franchise (conceived in his
day as manhood suffrage) was the only way of promoting ‘the greatest happiness
for the greatest number’.
However, to justify democracy on protective grounds is to provide only a
qualiﬁed endorsement of democratic rule. In short, protective democracy is but
a limited and indirect form of democracy. In practice, the consent of the
governed is exercised through voting in regular and competitive elections. This
thereby ensures the accountability of those who govern. Political equality is thus
understood in strictly technical terms to mean equal voting rights. Moreover,
this is, above all, a system of constitutional democracy that operates within a set
of formal or informal rules that check the exercise of government power. If the
right to vote is a means of defending individual liberty, liberty must also be guaranteed
by a strictly enforced separation of powers via the creation of a separate
executive, legislature and judiciary, and by the maintenance of basic rights and
freedoms, such as freedom of expression, freedom of movement, and freedom
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 95
Natural rights: God-given
rights that are fundamental to
human beings and are therefore
inalienable (they cannot be
taken away).
CONCEPT
Athenian
democracy
Athenian democracy is
characterized by the high
level of citizen
involvement in the affairs
of the city-state. Major
decisions were made by
the Assembly, or Ecclesia,
to which all citizens
belonged. When full-time
public ofﬁcials were
needed, they were
chosen on a basis of lot
or rota to ensure that
they constituted a
microcosm of the larger
citizenry. A Council,
consisting of 500 citizens,
acted as the executive or
steering committee of
the Assembly, and a
50-strong Committee, in
turn, made proposals to
the Council. The President
of the Committee held
ofﬁce for only a single
day, and no Athenian
could hold this honour
more than once in his
lifetime.
96 P O L I T I C S
from arbitrary arrest. Ultimately, protective democracy aims to give citizens the
widest possible scope to live their lives as they choose. It is therefore compatible
with laissez-faire capitalism (see p. 132) and the belief that individuals should be
entirely responsible for their economic and social circumstances. Protective
democracy has therefore particularly appealed to classical liberals and, in
modern politics, to supporters of the New Right.
Developmental democracy
Although early democratic theory focused on the need to protect individual
rights and interests, it soon developed an alternative focus: a concern with the
development of the human individual and the community. This gave rise to
quite new models of democratic rule that can broadly be referred to as systems
of developmental democracy. The most novel, and radical, such model was
developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In many respects, Rousseau’s ideas mark a
departure from the dominant, liberal conception of democracy, and they came
to have an impact on the Marxist and anarchist traditions as well as, later, on the
New Left. For Rousseau, democracy was ultimately a means through which
human beings could achieve freedom (see p. 339) or autonomy, in the sense of
‘obedience to a law one prescribes to oneself’. In other words, citizens are ‘free’
only when they participate directly and continuously in shaping the life of their
community. This is an idea that moves well beyond the conventional notion of
electoral democracy and offers support for the more radical ideal of direct
democracy. Indeed, Rousseau was a strenuous critic of the practice of elections
used in England, arguing in The Social Contract ([1762] 1913) as follows:
The English people believes itself to be free, it is gravely mistaken; it is only
free when it elects its member of parliament; as soon as they are elected, the
people are enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the
English people makes such use of its freedom that it deserves to lose it.
However, what gives Rousseau’s model its novel character is his insistence that
freedom ultimately means obedience to the general will. Rousseau believed the
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)
UK philosopher, legal reformer and founder of utilitarianism. Bentham developed a
moral and philosophical system that was based on the idea that human beings are
rationally self-interested creatures or utility maximizers, which he believed provided
a scientific basis for legal and political reforms. Using the ‘greatest happiness’ principle,
his followers, the Philosophic Radicals, were responsible for many of the
reforms in social administration, law, government and economics in the UK in the
nineteenth century.A supporter of laissez-faire economics, in later life Bentham also
became a firm advocate of political democracy. His utilitarian creed was developed
in Fragments on Government ([1776] 1948), and more fully in Principles of Morals
and Legislation (1789).
General will: The genuine
interests of a collective body,
equivalent to the common
good; the will of all, provided
each person acts selflessly.
general will to be the ‘true’ will of each citizen, in contrast to his or her ‘private’
or selﬁsh will. By obeying the general will, citizens are therefore doing nothing
more than obeying their own ‘true’ natures, the general will being what individuals
would will if they were to act selﬂessly. In Rousseau’s view, such a system of
radical developmental democracy required not merely political equality, but a
relatively high level of economic equality. Although not a supporter of common
ownership, Rousseau nevertheless proposed that ‘no citizen shall be rich enough
to buy another and none so poor as to be forced to sell himself ’ ([1762] 1913).
Rousseau’s theories have helped to shape the modern idea of participatory
democracy taken up by New Left thinkers in the 1960s and 1970s. This extols the
virtues of a ‘participatory society’, a society in which each and every citizen is
able to achieve self-development by participating in the decisions that shape his
or her life. This goal can be achieved only through the promotion of openness,
accountability and decentralization within all the key institutions of society:
within the family, the workplace and the local community just as much as within
‘political’ institutions such as parties, interest groups and legislative bodies. At
the heart of this model is the notion of ‘grass-roots democracy’; that is, the belief
that political power should be exercised at the lowest possible level. Nevertheless,
Rousseau’s own theories have been criticized for distinguishing between citizens’
‘true’ wills and their ‘felt’ or subjective wills. The danger of this is that, if the
general will cannot be established by simply asking citizens what they want
(because they may be blinded by selﬁshness), there is scope for the general will
to be deﬁned from above, perhaps by a dictator claiming to act in the‘true’ interests
of society. Rousseau is therefore sometimes seen as the architect of so-called
‘totalitarian democracy’ (Talmon, 1952).
However, a more modest form of developmental democracy has also been
advanced that is compatible with the liberal model of representative government.
This view of developmental democracy is rooted in the writings of John
Stuart Mill (see p. 198). For Mill, the central virtue of democracy was that it
promotes the ‘highest and harmonious’ development of individual capacities. By
participating in political life, citizens enhance their understanding, strengthen
their sensibilities and achieve a higher level of personal development. In short,
democracy is essentially an educational experience. As a result, Mill proposed the
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 97
Accountability:
Answerability; a duty to explain
one’s conduct and be open to
criticism by others.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78)
Geneva-born French moral and political philosopher, perhaps the principal intellectual
influence upon the French Revolution. Rousseau was entirely self-taught. He moved
to Paris in 1742, and became an intimate of leading members of the French
Enlightenment, especially Diderot. His writings, ranging over education, the arts,
science, literature and philosophy, reflect a deep belief in the goodness of ‘natural
man’ and the corruption of ‘social man’. Rousseau’s political teaching, summarized in
Émile (1762) and developed in The Social Contract ([1762] 1913), advocates a radical
form of democracy that has influenced liberal, socialist, anarchist and, some would
argue, fascist thought. His autobiography, Confessions (1770), examines his life with
remarkable candour and demonstrates a willingness to expose weaknesses.
broadening of popular participation, arguing that the franchise should be
extended to all but those who are illiterate. In the process, he suggested (radically,
for his time) that suffrage should also be extended to women. In addition, he
advocated strong and independent local authorities in the belief that this would
broaden the opportunities available for holding public ofﬁce.
On the other hand, Mill, in common with all liberals, was also aware of the
dangers of democracy. Indeed, Mill’s views are out of step with mainstream
liberal thought in that he rejected the idea of formal political equality. Following
Plato, Mill did not believe that all political opinions are of equal value.
Consequently, he proposed a system of plural voting: unskilled workers would
have a single vote, skilled workers two votes, and graduates and members of the
learned professions ﬁve or six votes. However, his principal reservation about
democracy was derived from the more typical liberal fear of what Alexis de
Tocqueville (see p. 245) famously described as ‘the tyranny of the majority’. In
other words, democracy always contains the threat that individual liberty and
minority rights may be crushed in the name of the people. Mill’s particular
concern was that democracy would undermine debate, criticism and intellectual
life in general by encouraging people to accept the will of the majority, thereby
promoting uniformity and dull conformism. Quite simply, the majority is not
always right; wisdom cannot be determined by the simple device of a show of
hands. Mill’s ideas therefore support the idea of deliberative democracy or
parliamentary democracy.
People’s democracy
The term ‘people’s democracy’ is derived from the orthodox communist regimes
that sprang up on the Soviet model in the aftermath of World War II. It is here
used, however, to refer broadly to the various democratic models that the
Marxist tradition has generated. Although they differ, these models offer a clear
contrast to the more familiar liberal democratic ones. Marxists have tended to be
dismissive of liberal or parliamentary democracy, seeing it as a form of ‘bourgeois’
or‘capitalist’ democracy. Nevertheless, Marxists were drawn to the concept
or ideal of democracy because of its clear egalitarian implications. The term was
used, in particular, to designate the goal of social equality brought about through
the common ownership of wealth (‘social democracy’ in its original sense), in
contrast to ‘political’ democracy, which establishes only a facade of equality.
Marx believed that the overthrow of capitalism would be a trigger that would
allow genuine democracy to ﬂourish. In his view, a fully communist society
would come into existence only after a transitionary period characterized by‘the
revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat’. In effect, a system of ‘bourgeois’
democracy would be replaced by a very different system of ‘proletarian’ democracy.
Although Marx refused to describe in detail how this transitionary society
would be organized, its broad shape can be discerned from his admiration for
the Paris Commune of 1871, which was a short-lived experiment in what
approximated to direct democracy.
The form of democracy that was developed in twentieth-century communist
states, however, owed more to the ideas of V. I. Lenin (see p. 99) than it did to
those of Marx. Although Lenin’s 1917 slogan ‘All power to the Soviets’ (the
workers’ and soldiers’ and sailors’ councils) had kept alive the notion of
98 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Parliamentary
democracy
Parliamentary democracy
is a form of democratic
rule that operates through
a popularly elected
deliberative assembly,
which mediates between
government and the
people. Democracy, in this
sense, means responsible
and representative
government.
Parliamentary democracy
thus balances popular
participation against elite
rule: government is
accountable not directly
to the public but to the
public’s elected
representatives.The
alleged strength of such a
system is that
representatives are, by
virtue of their education
and experience, better
able than citizens
themselves to define their
best interests.
Deliberative democracy: A
form of democracy that
emphasizes the need for
discourse and debate to help to
define the public interest.
commune democracy, in reality power in Soviet Russia quickly fell into the
hands of the Bolshevik party (soon renamed the ‘Communist Party’). In Lenin’s
view, this party was nothing less than ‘the vanguard of the working class’. Armed
with Marxism, the party claimed that it was able to perceive the genuine interests
of the proletariat and thus guide it to the realization of its revolutionary potential.
This theory became the cornerstone of ‘Leninist democracy’, and it was
accepted by all other orthodox communist regimes as one of the core features of
Marxism–Leninism. However, the weakness of this model is that Lenin failed to
build into it any mechanism for checking the power of the Communist Party
(and, particularly, its leaders), and for ensuring that it remained sensitive and
accountable to the proletarian class. To rephrase Aristotle, ‘who will guard the
Communist Party?’
Democracy in practice: rival views
Although there continues to be controversy about which is the most desirable
form of democracy, much of contemporary debate revolves around how democracy
works in practice and what ‘democratization’ (see p. 272) implies. This reﬂects the
fact that there is broad, even worldwide, acceptance of a particular model of
democracy, generally termed liberal democracy. Despite the existence of competing
tendencies within this broad category, certain central features are clear:
Liberal democracy is an indirect and representative form of democracy, in
that political ofﬁce is gained through success in regular elections that are
conducted on the basis of formal political equality.
It is based on competition and electoral choice. These are achieved through
political pluralism, tolerance of a wide range of contending beliefs, and the
existence of conﬂicting social philosophies and rival political movements
and parties.
It is characterized by a clear distinction between the state and civil society.
This is maintained through the existence of autonomous groups and interests,
and the market or capitalist organization of economic life.
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 99
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)
Russian Marxist theorist and active revolutionary. As leader of the Bolsheviks, Lenin
masterminded the 1917 Russian Bolshevik Revolution, and became the first leader of
the USSR. His contributions to Marxism were his theory of the revolutionary (or
vanguard) party, outlined in What is to be Done? ([1902] 1968); his analysis of colonialism
as an economic phenomenon, described in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of
Capitalism ([1916] 1970); and his firm commitment to the ‘insurrectionary road to
socialism’, developed in State and Revolution (1917). Lenin’s reputation is inevitably
tied up with the subsequent course of Soviet history; he is seen by some as the father
of Stalinist oppression, but by others as a critic of bureaucracy and a defender of
debate and argument.
Leninist democracy: A form
of democracy in which the
communist party, organized on
the basis of ‘democratic
centralism’, articulates the
interest of the proletariat.
It provides protection for minorites and individuals, particularly through
the allocation of basic rights that safeguard them from the will of the
majority.
Nevertheless, there is a considerable amount of disagreement about the
meaning and signiﬁcance of liberal democracy. Does it, for instance, ensure a
genuine and healthy dispersal of political power? Do democratic processes
genuinely promote long-term beneﬁts, or are they self-defeating? Can political
equality coexist with economic inequality? In short, this form of democracy is
interpreted in different ways by different theorists. The most important of these
interpretations are advanced by:
pluralism
elitism
corporatism
the New Right
Marxism.
Pluralist view
Pluralist ideas can be traced back to early liberal political philosophy, and notably
to the ideas of Locke and Montesquieu (see p. 312). Their ﬁrst systematic development,
however, is found in the contributions of James Madison (see p. 319) to
The Federalist Papers (Hamilton et al., [1787–89] 1961). In considering the transformation
of America from a loose confederation of states into the federal USA,
Madison’s particular fear was the ‘problem of factions’. In common with most
liberals, Madison argued that unchecked democratic rule might simply lead to
majoritarianism, to the crushing of individual rights and to the expropriation of
property in the name of the people. What made Madison’s work notable,
however, was his stress upon the multiplicity of interests and groups in society,
and his insistence that, unless each such group possessed a political voice, stability
and order would be impossible. He therefore proposed a system of divided
government based on the separation of powers (see p. 313), bicameralism and
federalism (see p. 382), that offered a variety of access points to competing groups
and interests. The resulting system of rule by multiple minorities is often referred
to as‘Madisonian democracy’. Insofar as it recognizes both the existence of diversity
or multiplicity in society, and the fact that such multiplicity is desirable,
Madison’s model is the ﬁrst developed statement of pluralist principles.
The most inﬂuential modern exponent of pluralist theory is Robert Dahl (see
p. 250). As described in Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City
(1961), Dahl carried out an empirical study of the distribution of power in New
Haven, Connecticut, USA. He concluded that, although the politically privileged
and economically powerful exerted greater power than ordinary citizens, no
ruling or permanent elite was able to dominate the political process. His conclusion
was that ‘New Haven is an example of a democratic system, warts and all’.
Dahl recognized that modern democratic systems differ markedly from the classical
democracies of Ancient Greece. With Charles Lindblom, he coined the term
‘polyarchy’ (see p. 273) to mean rule by the many, as distinct from rule by all citizens.
The key feature of such a system of pluralist democracy (see p. 101) is that
100 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Pluralism
In its broad sense,
pluralism is a belief in, or
a commitment to,
diversity or multiplicity
(the existence of many
things). As a descriptive
term, pluralism may be
used to denote the
existence of party
competition (political
pluralism), a multiplicity
of moral values (ethical
pluralism), or a variety of
cultural norms (cultural
pluralism). As a
normative term, it
suggests that diversity is
healthy and desirable,
usually because it
safeguards individual
liberty and promotes
debate, argument and
understanding. More
narrowly, pluralism is a
theory of the distribution
of political power. It
holds that power is
widely and evenly
dispersed in society.
Madisonian democracy: A
form of democracy that
incorporates constitutional
protections for minorities that
enable them to resist majority
rule.
competition between parties at election time, and the ability of interest or pressure
groups to articulate their views freely, establishes a reliable link between the
government and the governed, and creates a channel of communication between
the two. While this may fall a long way short of the ideal of popular self-government,
its supporters nevertheless argue that it ensures a sufﬁcient level of
accountability and popular responsiveness for it to be regarded as democratic.
However, the relationship between pluralism and democracy may not be a
secure one. For instance, one of the purposes of the Madisonian system was,
arguably, to constrain democracy in the hope of safeguarding property. In other
words, the system of rule by multiple minorities may simply have been a device
to prevent the majority (the propertyless masses) from exercising political power.
A further problem is the danger of what has been called‘pluralist stagnation’. This
occurs as organized groups and economic interests become so powerful that they
create a log jam, resulting in the problem of government ‘overload’. In such
circumstances, a pluralist system may simply become ungovernable. Finally, there
is the problem identiﬁed by Dahl in later works, such as A Preface to Economic
Democracy (1985); notably, that the unequal ownership of economic resources
tends to concentrate political power in the hands of the few, and deprive the many
of it. This line of argument runs parallel to the conventional Marxist critique of
pluralist democracy, and has given rise to neopluralism (see p. 63).
Elitist view
Elitism (see p. 102) developed as a critique of egalitarian ideas such as democracy
and socialism. It draws attention to the fact of elite rule, either as an
inevitable and desirable feature of social existence, or as a remediable and regrettable
one. Classical elitists, such as Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), Gaetano Mosca
(1857–1941) and Robert Michels (1876–1936), tended to take the former position.
For them, democracy was no more than a foolish delusion, because political
power is always exercised by a privileged minority: an elite. For example, in The
Ruling Class ([1896] 1939), Mosca proclaimed that, in all societies,‘two classes of
people appear – a class that rules and a class that is ruled’. In his view, the
resources or attributes that are necessary for rule are always unequally distributed,
and, further, a cohesive minority will always be able to manipulate and
control the masses, even in a parliamentary democracy. Pareto suggested that the
qualities needed to rule conforms to one of two psychological types: ‘foxes’ (who
rule by cunning and are able to manipulate the consent of the masses), and
‘lions’ (whose domination is typically achieved through coercion and violence).
Michels developed an alternative line of argument based on the tendency within
all organizations, however democratic they might appear, for power to be
concentrated in the hands of a small group of dominant ﬁgures who can organize
and make decisions. He termed this ‘the iron law of oligarchy’ (see p. 232).
Whereas classical elitists strove to prove that democracy was always a myth,
modern elitist theorists have tended to highlight how far particular political
systems fall short of the democratic ideal. An example of this can be found in C.
Wright Mills’ inﬂuential account of the power structure in the USA. In contrast
to the pluralist notion of a wide and broadly democratic dispersal of power,
Mills, in The Power Elite (1956), offered a portrait of a USA dominated by a
nexus of leading groups. In his view, this ‘power elite’ comprised a triumvirate of
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 101
CONCEPT
Pluralist
democracy
The term pluralist
democracy is sometimes
used interchangeably
with liberal democracy.
More speciﬁcally, it refers
to a form of democracy
that operates through
the capacity of organized
groups and interests to
articulate popular
demands and ensure
responsive government.
The conditions for a
healthy pluralist
democracy include: (1) a
wide dispersal of political
power amongst
competing groups,
speciﬁcally the absence
of elite groups; (2) a high
degree of internal
responsiveness, group
leaders being accountable
to members; and (3) a
neutral governmental
machine that is
sufﬁciently fragmented
to offer groups a number
of points of access.
big business (particularly defence-related industries), the US military and political
cliques surrounding the President. Drawing on a combination of economic
power, bureaucratic control and access to the highest levels of the executive
branch of government, the power elite is able to shape key ‘history-making’ decisions,
especially in the ﬁelds of defence and foreign policy, as well as strategic
economic policy. The power-elite model suggests that liberal democracy in the
USA is largely a sham. Elitists have, moreover, argued that empirical studies have
supported pluralist conclusions only because Dahl and others have ignored the
importance of non-decision-making as a manifestation of power (see p. 9).
Certain elite theorists have nevertheless argued that a measure of democratic
accountability is consistent with elite rule. Whereas the power-elite model
portrays the elite as a cohesive body, bound together by common or overlapping
interests, competitive elitism (sometimes called ‘democratic elitism’) highlights
the signiﬁcance of elite rivalry (see Figure 4.1). In other words, the elite, consisting
of the leading ﬁgures from a number of competing groups and interests, is fractured.
This view is often associated with Joseph Schumpeter’s (see p. 141) ‘realistic’
model of democracy outlined in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942):
The democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at
political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means
of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote.
102 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Elitism
Elite originally meant,
and can still mean, ‘the
highest’, ‘the best’, or ‘the
excellent’. Used in an
empirical sense, it refers
to a minority in whose
hands power, wealth or
privilege is concentrated.
Elitism is a belief in, or
practice of, rule by an
elite or minority.
Normative elitism
suggests that political
power should be vested
in the hands of a wise or
enlightened minority.
Classical elitism claimed
to be empirical (although
normative beliefs often
intruded), and saw elite
rule as an unchangeable
fact of social existence.
Modern elitism is also
empirical, but it is more
critical and discriminating
about the causes of elite
rule.
Power elite model: single, coherent elite
Competitive elite model: fractured elite
Elite
Mass
Figure 4.1 Elite models
The electorate can decide which elite rules, but cannot change the fact that
power is always exercised by an elite. This model of competitive elitism was
developed by Anthony Downs (1957) into the ‘economic theory of democracy’.
In effect, electoral competition creates a political market in which politicians act
as entrepreneurs bent upon achieving government power, and individual voters
behave like consumers, voting for the party with the policies that most closely
reﬂect their own preferences. Downs argued that a system of open and competitive
elections guarantees democratic rule because it places government in the
hands of the party whose philosophy, values and policies correspond most
closely to the preferences of the largest group of voters. As Schumpeter put it,
‘democracy is the rule of the politician’. As a model of democratic politics,
competitive elitism at least has the virtue that it corresponds closely to the workings
of the liberal-democratic political system. Indeed, it emerged more as an
attempt to describe how the democratic process works than through a desire to
prescribe certain values and principles – political equality, popular participation,
freedom or whatever.
Corporatist view
The origins of corporatism (see p. 251) date back to the attempt in Fascist Italy
to construct a so-called ‘corporate state’ by integrating both managers and
workers into the processes of government. Corporatist theorists, however, have
drawn attention to parallel developments in the world’s major industrialized
states. In the form of neocorporatism, or liberal corporatism, this gave rise to
the spectre of ‘tripartite government’, in which government is conducted
through organizations that allow state ofﬁcials, employers’ groups and unions to
deal directly with one another. To a large extent, this tendency to integrate
economic interests into government (which was common in the post-1945
period, and particularly prominent in, for example, Sweden, Norway, the
Netherlands and Austria) was a consequence of the drift towards economic
management and intervention. As government sought to manage economic life
and deliver an increasingly broad range of public services, it recognized the need
for institutional arrangements designed to secure the cooperation and support
of major economic interests. Where attempts have been made to shift economic
policy away from state intervention and towards the free market (as in the UK
since 1979), the impact of corporatism has markedly diminished.
The signiﬁcance of corporatism in terms of democratic processes is clearly
considerable. There are those who, like the British guild socialists, argue that corporatism
makes possible a form of functional representation, in that individuals’
views and interests are articulated more by the groups to which they belong than
through the mechanism of competitive elections. What is called ‘corporate
pluralism’ thus portrays tripartism as a mechanism through which the major
groups and interests in society compete to shape government policy. Some
commentators, however, see corporatism as a threat to democracy. In the ﬁrst
place, corporatism only advantages groups that are accorded privileged access to
government. ‘Insider’ groups therefore possess a political voice, while ‘outsider’
groups are denied one. Second, corporatism can work to the beneﬁt of the state,
rather than major economic interests, in that the peak associations that the
government chooses to deal with can be used to exert discipline over their
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 103
Neocorporatism: A
tendency found in western
polyarchies for organized
interests to be granted
privileged and institutionalized
access to policy formulation.
Peak association: A group
recognized by government as
representing the general or
collective interests of
businesses or workers.
members and to ﬁlter out radical demands. Finally, corporatism threatens to
subvert the processes of electoral or parliamentary democracy. Policy is made
through negotiations between government ofﬁcials and leaders of powerful
economic interests, rather than through the deliberations of a representative
assembly. Interest-group leaders may thus exert considerable political power,
even though they are in no way publicly accountable and their inﬂuence is not
subject to public scrutiny.
New Right view
The emergence of the New Right from the 1970s onwards has generated a very
particular critique of democratic politics. This has focused on the danger of what
has been called ‘democratic overload’: the paralysis of a political system that is
subject to unrestrained group and electoral pressures. One aspect of this critique
has highlighted the unsavoury face of corporatism. New Right theorists are keen
advocates of the free market, believing that economies work best when left alone
by government. The danger of corporatism from this perspective is that it
empowers sectional groups and economic interests, enabling them to make
demands on government for increased pay, public investment, subsidies, state
protection and so on. In effect, corporatism allows well-placed interest groups to
dominate and dictate to government. The result of this, according to the New
Right, is an irresistible drift towards state intervention and economic stagnation
(Olson, 1982).
Government ‘overload’ can also be seen to be a consequence of the electoral
process. This was what Brittan (1977) referred to as ‘the economic consequences
of democracy’. In this view, electoral politics amounts to a self-defeating process
in which politicians are encouraged to compete for power by offering increasingly
unrealistic promises to the electorate. Both voters and politicians are held
to blame here. Voters are attracted by promises of higher public spending
because they calculate that the cost (an increased tax burden) will be spread over
the entire population. Politicians, consumed by the desire to win power, attempt
to outbid one another by making ever more generous spending pledges to the
electorate. According to Brittan, the economic consequences of unrestrained
democracy are high levels of inﬂation fuelled by public borrowing, and a tax
burden that destroys enterprise and undermines growth. As characterized by
Marquand (1988), the New Right view is that ‘democracy is to adults what
chocolate is to children: endlessly tempting; harmless in small doses; sickening in
excess’. New Right theorists therefore tend to see democracy in strictly protective
terms, regarding it essentially as a defence against arbitrary government, rather
than a means of bringing about social transformation.
Marxist view
As pointed out in relation to people’s democracy, the Marxist view of democratic
politics is rooted in class analysis. In this view, political power cannot be understood
narrowly in terms of electoral rights, or in terms of the ability of groups to
articulate their interests by lobbying and campaigning. Rather, at a deeper level,
political power reﬂects the distribution of economic power and, in particular, the
unequal ownership of productive wealth. The Marxist critique of liberal democ-
104 P O L I T I C S
racy thus focuses upon the inherent tension between democracy and capitalism;
that is, between the political equality that liberal democracy proclaims and the
social inequality that a capitalist economy inevitably generates. Liberal democracies
are thus seen as‘capitalist’ or‘bourgeois’ democracies that are manipulated
and controlled by the entrenched power of a ruling class.
Marxism thus offers a distinctive critique of pluralist democracy. Power
cannot be widely and evenly dispersed in society as long as class power is
unequally distributed. Indeed, in many respects, the Marxist view parallels the
elitist critique of pluralism. Both views suggest that power is ultimately concentrated
in the hands of the few, the main difference being whether the few is
conceived of as a ‘power elite’ or as a ‘ruling class’. However, signiﬁcant differences
can also be identiﬁed. For instance, whereas elitists suggest that power
derive from a variety of sources (education, social status, bureaucratic position,
political connections, wealth and so on), Marxists emphasize the decisive importance
of economic factors; notably, the ownership and control of the means of
production. Modern Marxists, however, have been less willing to dismiss electoral
democracy as nothing more than a sham. Eurocommunists, for example,
abandoned the idea of revolution, embracing instead the notion of a peaceful,
legal and democratic ‘road to socialism’.
Towards cosmopolitan democracy?
The idea of cosmopolitan democracy has received growing attention due to the
advance of globalization and the evident ‘hollowing out’ of domestic democratic
processes focused on the nation-state. If global interconnectedness means that
policy-making authority has shifted from national governments to international
organizations, surely democracy should be recast in line with this? However,
what would cosmopolitan democracy look like, and how would it operate? Two
basic models have been advanced. The first would involve the construction of a
world parliament, a body whose role would be to introduce greater scrutiny and
openness to the process of global decision-making by calling to account established
international organizations, such as the United Nations, the World Trade
Organization, the International Monetary Fund and so forth.Very few advocates
of such an idea contemplate the creation of a fully-fledged world government or
global state; most, instead, favour a multilevel system of post-sovereign governance
in which no body or level is able to exercise final authority. Held (1995)
proposed a package of measures, including the establishment of a ‘global parliament’,
reformed and more accountable international organizations, and the
‘permanent shift of a growing proportion of a nation state’s coercive capacity to
regional and global institutions’. Monbiot (2004), for his part, backed the
creation of a popularly elected world parliament, composed of 600 representatives,
each with a constituency of about 10 million people, many of which would
straddle national borders.
The alternative model of cosmopolitan democracy is less ambitious and
formalized, relying less on the construction of new bodies and more on the
reform of existing international organizations, often linked to the strengthening
of global civil society (see p. 106). This model places its faith in non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) (see p. 248) to reconfigure global power by offering an
alternative to top-down corporate globalization. This idea of ‘globalization from
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 105
Ruling class: A Marxist
term, denoting a class that
dominates other classes and
society at large by virtue of its
ownership of productive
wealth.
Eurocommunism: A form of
deradicalized communism that
attempted to blend Marxism
with liberal-democratic
principles.
below’ amounts to a bottom-up democratic vision of a civilizing world order.
Such an approach would be effective to the extent that NGOs and transnational
social movements could introduce an element of public scrutiny and accountability
to the working of international bodies, conferences, summits and the like,
meaning that global civil society functions as a channel of communications
between the individual and global institutions.
However, the prospects for cosmopolitan democracy are far from rosy. In the
first place, states, and especially major states, are likely to block any trend
towards global democracy, or ensure that any ‘alternative’ bodies that may be
created will lack credibility and remain peripheral to global decision-making. In
a wider sense, the egalitarian thrust implicit in the idea of cosmopolitan democracy
is simply out of step with the deep economic, political and military disparities
of the existing global system. Aside from the obstacles confronting the
transition to cosmopolitan democracy, critics have argued that the project itself
may be profoundly misconceived. In the first place, however structured and
composed, any global institution that is tasked with ensuring public accountability
is doomed to failure. The inevitable ‘gap’ between popularly-elected global
political institutions and ordinary citizens around the world would mean that
any claim that these institutions are democratic would be mere pretence.
Democracy, in this light, is perhaps only meaningful if it is local or national, and
all international organizations, whether these are regional or global, are destined
to suffer from a debilitating ‘democratic deficit’. Second, the democratic credentials
of NGOs and, for that matter, social movements may be entirely bogus.
Large memberships, committed activists and the ability to mobilize popular
protests and demonstrations undoubtedly give social movements and NGOs
political influence, but they do not invest them with democratic authority. Quite
simply, there is no way of testing the weight of their views against those of the
population at large.
106 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Global civil
society
Global civil society refers
to a realm in which
transnational nongovernmental
groups and
associations interact.
These groups are
typically voluntary and
non-profitmaking, setting
them apart from TNCs
(see p. 149). However, the
term ‘global civil society’
is complex and
contested. In its ‘activist’
version, transnational
social movements are the
key agents of global civil
society, giving it an
‘outsider’ orientation, and
a strong focus on
cosmopolitan ideals. In
its ‘policy’ version, NGOs
are the key agents of
global civil society, giving
it an ‘insider’ orientation
and meaning that it
overlaps with global
governance (see p. 432).
SUMMARY
Legitimacy maintains political stability because it establishes a regime’s right to rule, and so underpins the
regime’s authority over its people. Legitimacy may be based on traditional, charismatic or legal–rational
authority. Nevertheless, structural imbalances in modern society may make it increasingly difficult to maintain
legitimacy. Legitimation crises may arise from the conflict between the pressure for social and economic
interventionism generated by democracy on the one hand, and the pressure generated by market economy
on the other.
Democratic legitimacy is now widely accepted as the only meaningful form of legitimacy. However, it has
been suggested that economic and other factors may be more effective than democracy in maintaining legitimacy,
that evidence of growing political disengagement in mature democracies indicates that democracy’s
capacity to deliver legitimacy is declining, and that non-democratic regimes may enjoy at least a measure of
legitimacy.
There are a number of rival models of democracy, each offering its own version of popular rule. Classical
democracy, which is based on the political system of Ancient Athens, is defended on the grounds that it
alone guarantees government by the people. Protective democracy gives citizens the greatest scope to live
their lives as they choose. Developmental democracy has the virtue that, in extending participation, it widens
liberty and fosters personal growth. People’s democracy aims to achieve economic emancipation, rather than
merely the extension of political rights.
There is considerable controversy about how liberal-democratic systems work in practice. Pluralists praise the
system’s capacity to guarantee popular responsiveness and public accountability. Elitists highlight the
tendency for political power to be concentrated in the hands of a privileged minority. Corporatists draw
attention to the incorporation of groups into government. The New Right focuses on the dangers of ‘democratic
overload’. And Marxists point to tensions between democracy and capitalism.
Growing global interdependence has stimulated interest in whether democracy can, and should, operate at a
global or cosmopolitan level, either through the construction of some kind of world parliament, or through a
global civil society. However, major obstacles stand in the way of cosmopolitan democracy, with many rejecting
the idea as unfeasible in principle.
D E M O C R A C Y A N D L E G I T I M A C Y 107
Questions for discussion
Why does power need legitimation?
Are capitalist societies inevitably prone to legitimation
crises?
Is democratic legitimacy the only meaningful form
of legitimacy?
Is direct democracy in any way applicable to
modern circumstances?
Have the virtues of democracy been overstated?
Which model of democracy is the most attractive,
and why?
Do modern forms of representative democracy
deserve to be described as democratic?
What are the major threats to democracy in
modern society?
Is cosmopolitan democracy possible, or desirable?
Further reading
Beetham, D., The Legitimation of Power (1991). A clear
and authoritative introduction to the idea of legitimacy,
which also considers the role of democracy
and other factors in legitimizing power.
Dahl, R., Democracy and its Critics (1991). A wideranging
and thorough discussion of the democratic
ideal and democratic practices.
Gill, G., The Dynamics of Democratization: Elite, Civil
Society and the Transition Process (2000). A clear and
accessible overview of the scale, scope and character
of democratization in the contemporary world.
Held, D., Models of Democracy (3rd edn) (2006). A
rigorous and stimulating examination of rival
models of democracy and the present state of
democratic theory.
CHAPTER 5 Nations and Nationalism
‘Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles
of mankind.’
AL B E R T E I N S T E I N , Letter (1921)
P R E V I E W For the last 200 years, the nation has been regarded as the most appropriate (and
perhaps the only proper) unit of political rule. Indeed, international law is largely
based on the assumption that nations, like individuals, have inviolable rights;
notably, the right to political independence and self-determination. Nowhere,
however, is the importance of the nation more dramatically demonstrated than in
the potency of nationalism as a political creed. In many ways, nationalism has
dwarfed the more precise and systematic political ideologies examined in Chapter
2. It has contributed to the outbreak of wars and revolutions. It has caused the birth
of new states, the disintegration of empires and the redrawing of borders; and it
has been used to reshape existing regimes, as well as to bolster them. However,
nationalism is a complex and highly diverse political phenomenon. Not only are
there distinctive political and cultural forms of nationalism, but the political
implications of nationalism have been wide-ranging and sometimes contradictory.
This has occurred because nationalism has been linked to very different ideological
traditions, ranging from liberalism to fascism. It has therefore been associated, for
instance, with both the quest for national independence and projects of imperial
expansion. Nevertheless, there are reasons to believe that the age of the nation
may be drawing to a close. The nation-state, the goal that generations of
nationalists have strived to achieve, is increasingly beset by pressures, both
internal and external.
K E Y I S S U E S What is a nation?
How do cultural nationalism and political nationalism differ?
How can the emergence and growth of nationalism be explained?
What political forms has nationalism assumed? What causes has it
articulated?
What are the attractions or strengths of the nation-state?
Does the nation-state have a future?
WHAT IS A NATION?
Many of the controversies surrounding the phenomenon of nationalism can be
traced back to rival views about what constitutes a nation. So widely accepted is
the idea of the nation that its distinctive features are seldom examined or questioned;
the nation is simply taken for granted. Nevertheless, confusion abounds.
The term ‘nation’ tends to be used with little precision, and is often used interchangeably
with terms such as ‘state’, ‘country’, ‘ethnic group’ and ‘race’. The
United Nations, for instance, is clearly misnamed, as it is an organization of
states, not one of national populations.What, then, are the characteristic features
of the nation? What distinguishes a nation from any other social group, or other
sources of collective identity?
The difﬁculty of deﬁning the term ‘nation’ springs from the fact that all
nations comprise a mixture of objective and subjective features, a blend of
cultural and political characteristics. In objective terms, nations are cultural entities:
groups of people who speak the same language, have the same religion, are
bound by a shared past and so on. Such factors undoubtedly shape the politics
of nationalism. The nationalism of the Québecois in Canada, for instance, is
based largely on language differences between French-speaking Quebec and the
predominantly English-speaking rest of Canada (see p. 114). Nationalist tensions
in India invariably arise from religious divisions, examples being the struggle of
Sikhs in Punjab for a separate homeland (Khalistan), and the campaign by
Muslims in Kashmir for the incorporation of Kashmir into Pakistan.
Nevertheless, it is impossible to deﬁne a nation using objective factors alone. All
nations encompass a measure of cultural, ethnic and racial diversity. The Swiss
nation has proved to be enduring and viable despite the use of three major
languages (French, German and Italian), as well as a variety of local dialects.
Divisions between Catholics and Protestants that have given rise to rival
nationalisms in Northern Ireland have been largely irrelevant in mainland UK,
and of only marginal signiﬁcance in countries such as Germany.
This emphasizes the fact that, ultimately, nations can only be deﬁned subjectively
by their members. In the ﬁnal analysis, the nation is a psycho-political
construct. What sets a nation apart from any other group or collectivity is that its
members regard themselves as a nation. What does this mean? A nation, in this
sense, perceives itself to be a distinctive political community. This is what distinguishes
a nation from an ethnic group. An ethnic group undoubtedly possesses a
communal identity and a sense of cultural pride, but, unlike a nation, it lacks
collective political aspirations. These aspirations have traditionally taken the form
of the quest for, or the desire to maintain, political independence or statehood.
On a more modest level, however, they may consist of a desire to achieve a
measure of autonomy, perhaps as part of a federation or confederation of states.
The complexity does not end there, however. Nationalism is a difﬁcult political
phenomenon, partly because various nationalist traditions view the concept
of a nation in different ways. Two contrasting concepts have been particularly
inﬂuential. One portrays the nation as primarily a cultural community, and
emphasizes the importance of ethnic ties and loyalties. The other sees it essentially
as a political community, and highlights the signiﬁcance of civil bonds and
allegiances. These rival views not only offer alternative accounts of the origins of
nations, but have also been linked to very different forms of nationalism.
N A T I O N S A N D N A T I O N A L I S M 109
CONCEPT
Nation
Nations (from the Latin
nasci, meaning ‘to be
born’) are complex
phenomena that are
shaped by a collection of
factors. Culturally, a
nation is a group of
people bound together by
a common language,
religion, history and
traditions, although
nations exhibit various
levels of cultural
heterogeneity. Politically,
a nation is a group of
people who regard
themselves as a natural
political community,
classically expressed
through the quest for
sovereign statehood.
Psychologically, a nation
is a group of people
distinguished by a shared
loyalty or affection in the
form of patriotism (see
p. 118).
Ethnic group: A group of
people who share a common
cultural and historical identity,
typically linked to a belief in
common descent.
110 P O L I T I C S
Nations as cultural communities
The idea that a nation is essentially an ethnic or cultural entity has been
described as the ‘primary’ concept of the nation (Lafont, 1968). Its roots can be
traced back to late eighteenth-century Germany and the writings of ﬁgures such
as Herder and Fichte (1762–1814). For Herder, the innate character of each
national group was ultimately determined by its natural environment, climate
and physical geography, which shaped the lifestyle, working habits, attitudes and
creative propensities of a people. Above all, he emphasized the importance of
language, which he believed was the embodiment of a people’s distinctive traditions
and historical memories. In his view, each nation thus possesses a
Volksgeist, which reveals itself in songs, myths and legends, and provides a
nation with its source of creativity. Herder’s nationalism therefore amounts to a
form of culturalism that emphasizes an awareness and appreciation of national
traditions and collective memories instead of an overtly political quest for statehood.
Such ideas had a profound impact on the awakening of national
consciousness in nineteenth-century Germany, reﬂected in the rediscovery of
ancient myths and legends in, for example, the folk tales of the brothers Grimm
and the operas of Richard Wagner (1813–83).
The implication of Herder’s culturalism is that nations are ‘natural’ or
organic entities that can be traced back to ancient times and will, by the same
token, continue to exist as long as human society survives. A similar view has
been advanced by modern social psychologists, who point to the tendency of
people to form groups in order to gain a sense of security, identity and belonging.
From this perspective, the division of humankind into nations reﬂects
nothing more than the natural human propensity to draw close to people who
share a culture, background and lifestyle that is similar to their own. Such
psychological insights, however, do not explain nationalism as a historical
phenomenon; that is, as one that arose at a particular time and place, speciﬁcally
in early nineteenth-century Europe.
In Nations and Nationalism (1983), Ernest Gellner emphasized the degree to
which nationalism is linked to modernization and, in particular, to the process
of industrialization. Gellner stressed that, while premodern or ‘agroliterate’ sociJohann
Gottfried Herder (1744–1803)
German poet, critic and philosopher, often portrayed as the ‘father’ of cultural nationalism.
A teacher and Lutheran clergyman, Herder travelled throughout Europe before
settling in Weimar in 1776, as the clerical head of the Grand Duchy. Although influenced
in his early life by thinkers such as Kant (see p. 410), Rousseau (see p. 97) and
Montesquieu (see p. 312), he became a leading intellectual opponent of the
Enlightenment and a crucial influence on the growth in Germany of the romantic
movement. Herder’s emphasis on the nation as an organic group characterized by a
distinctive language, culture and ‘spirit’ helped both to found cultural history, and to
give rise to a particular form of nationalism that emphasized the intrinsic value of
national culture.
Volksgeist: (German)
Literally, the spirit of the
people; the organic identity of a
people reflected in their culture
and, particularly, their language.
Culturalism: The belief that
human beings are culturallydefined
creatures, culture being
the universal basis for personal
and social identity.
eties were structured by a network of feudal bonds and loyalties, emerging
industrial societies promoted social mobility, self-striving and competition, and
so required a new source of cultural cohesion. This was provided by nationalism.
Nationalism therefore developed to meet the needs of particular social conditions
and circumstances. On the other hand, Gellner’s theory suggests that
nationalism is now ineradicable, as a return to premodern loyalties and identities
is unthinkable. However, in The Ethnic Origins of Nations (1986) Anthony Smith
challenged the idea of a link between nationalism and modernization by highlighting
the continuity between modern nations and premodern ethnic communities,
which he called ‘ethnies’. In this view, nations are historically embedded:
they are rooted in a common cultural heritage and language that may long
predate the achievement of statehood, or even the quest for national independence.
Smith nevertheless acknowledged that, although ethnicity is the precursor
of nationalism, modern nations came into existence only when established
ethnies were linked to the emerging doctrine of political sovereignty (see p. 58).
This conjunction occurred in Europe in the late eighteenth century and early
nineteenth century, and in Asia and Africa in the twentieth century.
Regardless of the origins of nations, certain forms of nationalism have a
distinctively cultural, rather than political, character. Cultural nationalism
commonly takes the form of national self-afﬁrmation; it is a means through
which a people can acquire a clearer sense of its own identity through the heightening
of national pride and self-respect. This is demonstrated by Welsh nationalism,
which focuses much more on attempts to preserve the Welsh language and
Welsh culture in general than on the search for political independence. Black
nationalism in the USA, the West Indies and many parts of Europe also has a
strong cultural character. Its emphasis is on the development of a distinctively
black consciousness and sense of national pride, which, in the work of Marcus
Garvey (see p. 162) and Malcolm X (1925–65), was linked to the rediscovery of
Africa as a spiritual and cultural ‘homeland’. A similar process can be seen at
work in modern Australia and, to some extent, New Zealand. The republican
movement in Australia, for example, reﬂects the desire to redeﬁne the nation as
a political and cultural unit separate from the UK. This is a process of selfafﬁrmation
that draws heavily on the Anzac myth, the relationship with indigenous
peoples, and the rediscovery of a settler folk culture.
The German historian Friedrich Meinecke (1907) went one step further and
distinguished between ‘cultural nations’ and ‘political nations’. ‘Cultural’ nations
are characterized by a high level of ethnic homogeneity; in effect, national and
ethnic identities overlap. Meinecke identiﬁed the Greeks, the Germans, the
Russians, the English and the Irish as examples of cultural nations, but the
description could equally apply to ethnic groups such as the Kurds, the Tamils
and the Chechens. Such nations can be regarded as ‘organic’, in that they have
been fashioned by natural or historical forces, rather than by political ones. The
strength of cultural nations is that, bound together by a powerful and historical
sense of national unity, they tend to be stable and cohesive. On the other hand,
cultural nations tend to view themselves as exclusive groups. Membership of the
nation is seen to derive not from a political allegiance, voluntarily undertaken,
but from an ethnic identity that has somehow been inherited. Cultural nations
thus tend to view themselves as extended kinship groups distinguished by
common descent. In this sense, it is not possible to‘become’ a German, a Russian
N A T I O N S A N D N A T I O N A L I S M 111
CONCEPT
Cultural
nationalism
Cultural nationalism is a
form of nationalism that
places primary emphasis
on the regeneration of
the nation as a
distinctive civilization,
rather than as a discrete
political community.
Whereas political
nationalism is ‘rational’,
and usually principled,
cultural nationalism is
‘mystical’, in that it is
based on a romantic
belief in the nation as a
unique, historical and
organic whole, animated
by its own ‘spirit’.
Typically, it is a ‘bottomup’
form of nationalism
that draws more on
‘popular’ rituals,
traditions and legends
than on elite, or ‘higher’,
culture.
or a Kurd simply by adopting the language and beliefs of the people. Such exclusivity
has tended to breed insular and regressive forms of nationalism, and to
weaken the distinction between nations and races.
Nations as political communities
The view that nations are essentially political entities emphasizes civic loyalties
and political allegiances, rather than cultural identity. The nation is thus a group
of people who are bound together primarily by shared citizenship, regardless of
their cultural, ethnic and other loyalties. This view of the nation is often traced
back to the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (see p. 97), sometimes seen as the
‘father’ of modern nationalism. Although Rousseau did not speciﬁcally address
the nation question, or discuss the phenomenon of nationalism, his stress on
popular sovereignty, expressed in the idea of the ‘general will’ (in effect, the
common good of society), was the seed from which nationalist doctrines sprang
during the French Revolution of 1789. In proclaiming that government should
be based on the general will, Rousseau developed a powerful critique of monarchical
power and aristocratic privilege. During the French Revolution, this principle
of radical democracy was reﬂected in the assertion that the French people
were ‘citizens’ possessed of inalienable rights and liberties, no longer merely
‘subjects’ of the crown. Sovereign power thus resided with the ‘French nation’.
The form of nationalism that emerged from the French Revolution therefore
embodied a vision of a people or nation governing itself, and was inextricably
linked to the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.
The idea that nations are political, not ethnic, communities has been
supported by a number of theories of nationalism. Eric Hobsbawm (1983), for
instance, highlighted the degree to which nations are‘invented traditions’. Rather
than accepting that modern nations have developed out of long-established
ethnic communities, Hobsbawm argued that a belief in historical continuity and
cultural purity was invariably a myth, and, what is more, a myth created by
nationalism itself. In this view, nationalism creates nations, not the other way
round. A widespread consciousness of nationhood (sometimes called ‘popular
nationalism’) did not, for example, develop until the late nineteenth century,
perhaps fashioned by the invention of national anthems and national ﬂags, and
the extension of primary education. Certainly, the idea of a ‘mother tongue’
passed down from generation to generation and embodying a national culture is
highly questionable. In reality, languages live and grow as each generation adapts
the language to its own distinctive needs and circumstances. Moreover, it can be
argued that the notion of a‘national’ language is an absurdity, given the fact that,
until the nineteenth century, the majority of people had no knowledge of the
written form of their language and usually spoke a regional dialect that had little
in common with the language of the educated elite.
Benedict Anderson (1983) also portrayed the modern nation as an artefact,
in his case as an ‘imagined community’. Anderson pointed out that nations
exist more as mental images than as genuine communities that require a level
of face-to-face interaction to sustain the notion of a common identity. Within
nations, individuals only ever meet a tiny proportion of those with whom they
supposedly share a national identity. If nations exist, they exist as imagined
artifices, constructed for us through education, the mass media and a process
112 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Race
Race refers to physical or
genetic differences
amongst humankind that
supposedly distinguish
one group of people from
another on biological
grounds such as skin and
hair colour, physique, and
facial features. A race is
thus a group of people
who share a common
ancestry and ‘one blood’.
The term is, however,
controversial, both
scientifically and
politically. Scientific
evidence suggests that
there is no such thing as
‘race’ in the sense of a
species-type difference
between peoples.
Politically, racial
categorization is
commonly based on
cultural stereotypes, and
is simplistic at best and
pernicious at worst.
N A T I O N S A N D N A T I O N A L I S M 113
of political socialization (see p. 178). Whereas in Rousseau’s view a nation is
animated by ideas of democracy and political freedom, the notion that nations
are ‘invented’ or ‘imagined’ communities has more in common with the
Marxist belief that nationalism is a species of bourgeois ideology. From the
perspective of orthodox Marxism, nationalism is a device through which the
ruling class counters the threat of social revolution by ensuring that national
loyalty is stronger than class solidarity, thus binding the working class to the
existing power structure.
Whether nations spring out of a desire for liberty and democracy, or are
merely cunning inventions of political elites or a ruling class, certain nations
have an unmistakably political character. Following Meinecke, these nations can
be classiﬁed as ‘political nations’. A ‘political’ nation is one in which citizenship
has greater political signiﬁcance than ethnic identity; not uncommonly, political
nations contain a number of ethnic groups, and so are marked by cultural
heterogeneity. The UK, the USA and France have often been seen as classic examples
of political nations. The UK is a union of what, in effect, are four ‘cultural’
nations: the English, the Scottish, the Welsh and the Northern Irish (although
the latter may comprise two nations, the Protestant Unionists and the Catholic
Republicans). Insofar as there is a distinctively British national identity, this is
based on political factors such as a common allegiance to the Crown, respect for
the Westminster Parliament, and a belief in the historic rights and liberties of the
British people. As a‘land of immigrants’, the USA has a distinctively multi-ethnic
and multicultural character, which makes it impossible for it to construct a
national identity on the basis of shared cultural and historical ties. Instead, a
sense of American nationhood has been consciously developed through the
educational system, and through the cultivation of respect for a set of common
values, notably those outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the US
Constitution. Similarly, French national identity is closely linked to the traditions
and principles of the 1789 French Revolution.
What such nations have in common is that, in theory, they were founded on
a voluntary acceptance of a common set of principles or goals, as opposed to
an existing cultural identity. It is sometimes argued that the style of nationalism
that develops in such societies is typically tolerant and democratic. If a
nation is primarily a political entity, it is an inclusive group, in that membership
is not restricted to those who fulfil particular language, religious, ethnic or
suchlike criteria. Classic examples are the USA, with its image as a ‘melting pot’
nation, and the ‘new’ South Africa, seen as a ‘rainbow society’. On the other
hand, political nations may at times fail to experience the organic unity and
sense of historical rootedness that is found in cultural nations. This may, for
instance, account for the relative weakness of specifically British nationalism
in the UK, by comparison with Scottish and Welsh nationalism and the
insular form of English nationalism that is sometimes called ‘little Englander’
nationalism.
Developing-world states have encountered particular problems in their
struggle to achieve a national identity. Such nations can be described as‘political’
in two senses. First, in many cases, they have achieved statehood only after a
struggle against colonial rule (see p. 122). In this case, the nation’s national identity
is deeply inﬂuenced by the unifying quest for national liberation and
freedom. Developing-world nationalism therefore tends to have a strong anti-
114 P O L I T I C S
Events: Canada is a federation comprising ten
provinces and three territories, the former enjoying
wider political autonomy than the latter. Almost 24
per cent of Canadians are francophones, who speak
French as their first language and largely live (85 per
cent) in the Atlantic province of Quebec. Since the
1970s, Canadian domestic politics has been dominated
by the issue of Quebec’s relationship to
predominantly anglophone Canada. The paramilitary
Quebec Liberation Front, was active during 1963–70;
the separatist political party, Parti Québécois (PQ),
won power in Quebec in 1976; since 1990, PQ has
operated on a federal level through the Bloc
Québécois (BQ). Referendums on independence for
Quebec were held in 1980 and 1995, but both failed,
the latter by a margin of 1 per cent. Attempts to
address the challenge of Quebec nationalism
through constitutional reform, notably through the Meech
Lake Accord of 1987, also failed. However, the principles of
multiculturalism and biculturalism have been enshrined in
law through section 27 of the 1982 Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms and the 1988 Canadian
Multiculturalism Act. In 2006, the Canadian House of
Commons passed a motion recognizing that the
‘Québécois form a nation within a united Canada’.
Significance: The nationalism of the Québécois in Canada
raises important questions about both the nature of
nationalism and the circumstances in which it rises or
falls. From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth
century, Quebec nationalism was distinctively cultural in
orientation, being shaped by conservative clerical allegiances,
centred on the Catholic Church, and reflecting the
rural and familial values of a historically agricultural territory.
However, by the 1960s, this elite version of society
was being unsettled by trends such as urbanization, secularization,
Americanization, and the spread of liberal and
progressive values. In this context, Québécois identity
started to be re-articulated, becoming more selfconfident
and assertive, and expressing itself increasingly
through political demands, especially for independence.
Political factors also facilitated this process. The introduction,
in the early 1960s, of the so-called ‘Quiet Revolution’
by the province’s Liberal government promoted social and
cultural modernization and, by increasing the power of the
provincial government, sparked the growth of popular
demands for secession. Similarly, under the premierships
of Pierre Trudeau (1968–79, 1980–84), the Canadian
government attempted to satisfy Quebec nationalism by
making concessions in terms of language rights and by
adjusting both Canada’s and Quebec’s constitutional
status, which strengthened the tide of nationalism, rather
than containing it.
However, despite the transition from cultural concerns to
political demands, language remained central to Quebec
nationalism, and, in some respects, became more important.
This occurred both because of the perception that
French was being threatened by the spread of English (and
other languages) due to growing immigration (Canada has
one of the highest per capita immigration rates in the
world), and because language was increasingly equated
with identity, and thus became part of a politics of
politico-cultural self-assertion. Nevertheless, following the
failure of the 1995 referendum, the tide started to turn
against secessionist nationalism. In the 2007 provincial
election, PQ was defeated by both the Liberals and the
conservative Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ),
marking the first time since 1973 that the party did not
form either the government or the official opposition. The
reasons for this include a growing recognition of the
economic benefit of remaining within the Canadian federation,
and the fact that progress in securing Quebec’s
cultural and language rights has, over time, weakened the
sense of threat and injustice that had once helped to fuel
secessionist politics. In many respects, multiculturalism
(see p. 167), rather than nationalism, has proved to be the
solution to the ‘Quebec problem’, especially as, since the
1990s, Canada has acknowledged the territorial and selfgovernment
rights of its so-called ‘First Nations’.
POLITICS IN ACTION . . .
Canada: one nation or two?
colonial character. Second, these nations have often been shaped by territorial
boundaries inherited from their former colonial rulers. This has particularly
been the case in Africa. African ‘nations’ often encompass a wide range of ethnic,
religious and regional groups that are bound together by little more than a
shared colonial past. In contrast to the creation of classic European cultural
nations, which sought statehood on the basis of a pre-existing national identity,
an attempt has been made in Africa to ‘build’ nations on the foundations of
existing states. However, the resulting mismatch of political and ethnic identities
has bred recurrent tensions, as has been seen in Nigeria, Sudan, Rwanda and
Burundi, for example. However, such conﬂicts are by no means simply manifestations
of ancient ‘tribalism’. To a large extent, they are a consequence of the
divide-and-rule policies used in the colonial past.
VARIETIES OF NATIONALISM
Immense controversy surrounds the political character of nationalism. On the
one hand, nationalism can appear to be a progressive and liberating force, offering
the prospect of national unity or independence. On the other, it can be an
irrational and reactionary creed that allows political leaders to conduct policies
of military expansion and war in the name of the nation. Indeed, nationalism
shows every sign of suffering from the political equivalent of multiplepersonality
syndrome. At various times, nationalism has been progressive and
reactionary, democratic and authoritarian, liberating and oppressive, and leftwing
and right-wing. For this reason, it is perhaps better to view nationalism
not as a single or coherent political phenomenon, but as a series of ‘nationalisms’;
that is, as a complex of traditions that share but one characteristic –
each, in its own particular way, acknowledges the central political importance
of the nation.
This confusion derives, in part, from the controversies examined above as to
how the concept of a nation should be understood, and about whether cultural
or political criteria are decisive in deﬁning the nation. However, the character of
nationalism is also moulded by the circumstances in which nationalist aspirations
arise, and by the political causes to which it is attached. Thus, when nationalism
is a reaction against the experience of foreign domination or colonial rule,
it tends to be a liberating force linked to the goals of liberty, justice and democracy.
When nationalism is a product of social dislocation and demographic
change, it often has an insular and exclusive character, and can become a vehicle
for racism (see p. 120) and xenophobia. Finally, nationalism is shaped by the
political ideals of those who espouse it. In their different ways, liberals, conservatives,
socialists, fascists and even communists have been attracted to nationalism
(of the major ideologies, perhaps only anarchism is entirely at odds with
nationalism). In this sense, nationalism is a cross-cutting ideology. The principal
political manifestations of nationalism are:
liberal nationalism
conservative nationalism
expansionist nationalism
anticolonial nationalism.
N A T I O N S A N D N A T I O N A L I S M 115
Tribalism: Group behaviour
characterized by insularity and
exclusivity, typically fuelled by
hostility towards rival groups.
Xenophobia: A fear or
hatred of foreigners;
pathological ethnocentrism.
Liberal nationalism
Liberal nationalism can be seen as the classic form of European liberalism; it
dates back to the French Revolution, and embodies many of its values. Indeed,
in continental Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, to be a nationalist meant
to be a liberal, and vice versa. The 1848 Revolutions, for example, fused the
struggle for national independence and uniﬁcation with the demand for limited
and constitutional government. Nowhere was this more evident than in the
‘Risorgimento’ (rebirth) nationalism of the Italian nationalist movement, especially
as expressed by the ‘prophet’ of Italian uniﬁcation, Guiseppe Mazzini.
Similar principles were espoused by Simon Bolívar (1783–1830), who led the
Latin-American independence movement in the early nineteenth century, and
helped to expel the Spanish from Hispanic America. Perhaps the clearest
expression of liberal nationalism is found in US President Woodrow Wilson’s
‘Fourteen Points’. Drawn up in 1918, these were proposed as the basis for the
reconstruction of Europe after World War I, and provided a blueprint for the
sweeping territorial changes that were implemented by the Treaty of Versailles
(1919).
In common with all forms of nationalism, liberal nationalism is based on the
fundamental assumption that humankind is naturally divided into a collection
of nations, each possessed of a separate identity. Nations are therefore genuine
or organic communities, not the artiﬁcial creation of political leaders or ruling
classes. The characteristic theme of liberal nationalism, however, is that it links
the idea of the nation with a belief in popular sovereignty, ultimately derived
from Rousseau. This fusion was brought about because the multinational
empires against which nineteenth-century European nationalists fought were
also autocratic and oppressive. Mazzini, for example, wished not only to unite
the Italian states, but also to throw off the inﬂuence of autocratic Austria. The
central theme of this form of nationalism is therefore a commitment to the principle
of national self-determination. Its goal is the construction of a nationstate
(see p. 124); that is, a state within which the boundaries of government
coincide as far as possible with those of nationality. In J. S. Mill’s ([1861] 1951)
words:
116 P O L I T I C S
National selfdetermination:
The principle
that the nation is a sovereign
entity; self-determination
implies both national
independence and democratic
rule.
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72)
Italian nationalist and apostle of liberal republicanism. Mazzini was born in Genoa,
Italy, and was the son of a doctor. He came into contact with revolutionary politics
as a member of the patriotic secret society, the Carbonari. This led to his arrest and
exile to France and, after his expulsion from France, to Britain. He returned briefly to
Italy during the 1848 Revolutions, helping to liberate Milan and becoming head of
the short-lived Roman Republic. A committed republican, Mazzini’s influence thereafter
faded as other nationalist leaders, including Garibaldi (1807–82), looked to the
House of Savoy to bring about Italian unification. Although he never officially
returned to Italy, Mazzini’s liberal nationalism had a profound influence throughout
Europe, and on immigrant groups in the USA.
When the sentiment of nationality exists in any force, there is a prima facie
case for uniting all members of the nationality under one government, and a
government to themselves apart. This is merely saying that the question of
government should be decided by the governed.
Liberal nationalism is, above all, a principled form of nationalism. It does not
uphold the interests of one nation against other nations. Instead, it proclaims
that each and every nation has a right to freedom and self-determination. In this
sense, all nations are equal. The ultimate goal of liberal nationalism, then, is the
construction of a world of sovereign nation-states. Mazzini thus formed the
clandestine organization Young Italy to promote the idea of a united Italy, but he
also founded Young Europe in the hope of spreading nationalist ideas throughout
the continent. Similarly, at the Paris Peace Conference that drew up the
Treaty of Versailles, Woodrow Wilson advanced the principle of selfdetermination
not simply because the break-up of European empires served US
national interests, but because he believed that the Poles, the Czechs, the
Yugoslavs and the Hungarians all had the same right to political independence
that the Americans already enjoyed.
From this perspective, nationalism is not only a means of enlarging political
freedom, but also a mechanism for securing a peaceful and stable world order.
Wilson, for instance, believed that World War I had been a consequence of an
‘old order’ that was dominated by autocratic and militaristic empires bent on
expansionism and war. In his view, democratic nation-states, however, would be
essentially peaceful, because, possessing both cultural and political unity, they
lacked the incentive to wage war or subjugate other nations. In this light,
nationalism is not seen as a source of distrust, suspicion and rivalry. Rather, it
is a force capable of promoting unity within each nation and brotherhood
amongst nations on the basis of mutual respect for national rights and charac-
teristics.
There is a sense, nevertheless, in which liberalism looks beyond the nation.
This occurs for two reasons. The ﬁrst is that a commitment to individualism (see
p. 158) implies that liberals believe that all human beings (regardless of factors
such as race, creed, social background and nationality) are of equal moral worth.
Liberalism therefore subscribes to universalism, in that it accepts that individuals
everywhere have the same status and entitlements. This is commonly
expressed nowadays in the notion of human rights. In setting the individual
above the nation, liberals establish a basis for violating national sovereignty, most
clearly through ‘humanitarian intervention’ (see p. 424) designed to protect the
citizens of another country from their own government. The second reason is that
liberals fear that a world of sovereign nation-states may degenerate into an international
‘state of nature’. Just as unlimited freedom allows individuals to abuse
and enslave one another, national sovereignty may be used as a cloak for expansionism
and conquest. Freedom must always be subject to the law, and this
applies equally to individuals and to nations. Liberals have, as a result, been in
the forefront of campaigns to establish a system of international law supervised
by supranational bodies such as the League of Nations, the United Nations and
the European Union. In this view, nationalism and internationalism are not rival
or mutually exclusive principles; rather, from a liberal perspective, the latter
compliments the former.
N A T I O N S A N D N A T I O N A L I S M 117
CONCEPT
Internationalism
Internationalism is the
theory or practice of
politics based on
transnational or global
cooperation. It is rooted
in universalist
assumptions about
human nature that put it
at odds with political
nationalism. The major
internationalist traditions
are drawn from liberalism
and socialism. Liberal
internationalism is based
on individualism reflected
in the assumption that
human rights have a
‘higher’ status than
claims based on national
sovereignty. Socialist
internationalism is
grounded in a belief in
international class
solidarity (proletarian
internationalism),
underpinned by
assumptions about a
common humanity.
Feminism and green
politics have also
advanced distinctively
internationalist positions.
Universalism: The theory
that there is a common core to
human identity shared by
people everywhere.
Human rights: Rights to
which people are entitled by
virtue of being human;
universal and fundamental
rights (see p. 342).
Criticisms of liberal nationalism tend to fall into two categories. In the ﬁrst
category, liberal nationalists are accused of being naive and romantic. They see
the progressive and liberating face of nationalism; theirs is a tolerant and
rational nationalism. However, they perhaps ignore the darker face of nationalism;
that is, the irrational bonds of tribalism that distinguish ‘us’ from a foreign
and threatening ‘them’. Liberals see nationalism as a universal principle, but they
have less understanding of the emotional power of nationalism, which, in time
of war, can persuade people to ﬁght, kill and die for ‘their’ country, almost
regardless of the justice of their nation’s cause. Such a stance is expressed in the
assertion: ‘my country, right or wrong’.
Second, the goal of liberal nationalism (the construction of a world of
nation-states) may be fundamentally misguided. The mistake of Wilsonian
nationalism, on the basis of which large parts of the map of Europe were
redrawn, was that it assumed that nations live in convenient and discrete
geographical areas, and that states can be constructed to coincide with these
areas. In practice, all so-called ‘nation-states’ comprise a number of linguistic,
religious, ethnic and regional groups, some of which may consider themselves
to be ‘nations’. This has nowhere been more clearly demonstrated than in the
former Yugoslavia, a country viewed by the peacemakers at Versailles as ‘the
land of the Slavs’. However, in fact, it consisted of a patchwork of ethnic
communities, religions, languages and differing histories. Moreover, as the
disintegration of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s demonstrated, each of its
constituent republics was itself an ethnic patchwork. Indeed, as the Nazis (and,
later, the Bosnian Serbs) recognized, the only certain way of achieving a politically
uniﬁed and culturally homogeneous nation-state is through a programme
of ethnic cleansing.
Conservative nationalism
Historically, conservative nationalism developed rather later than liberal nationalism.
Until the latter half of the nineteenth century, conservative politicians
treated nationalism as a subversive, if not revolutionary, creed. As the century
progressed, however, the link between conservatism and nationalism became
increasingly apparent; for instance, in Disraeli’s ‘One Nation’ ideal, in Bismarck’s
willingness to recruit German nationalism to the cause of Prussian aggrandisement,
and in Tsar Alexander III’s endorsement of pan-Slavic nationalism. In
modern politics, nationalism has become an article of faith for most, if not all,
conservatives. In the UK, this was demonstrated most graphically by Margaret
Thatcher’s triumphalist reaction to victory in the Falklands War of 1982, and it
is evident in the engrained ‘Euroscepticism’ of the Conservative right, particularly
in relation to its recurrent bogey: a ‘federal Europe’. A similar form of
nationalism was rekindled in the USA through the adoption of a more assertive
foreign policy; by Ronald Reagan in the invasion of Grenada (1983) and the
bombing of Libya (1986), and by George W. Bush in the invasion of Afghanistan
(2001) and Iraq (2003).
Conservative nationalism is concerned less with the principled nationalism
of universal self-determination, and more with the promise of social cohesion
and public order embodied in the sentiment of national patriotism. Above all,
conservatives see the nation as an organic entity emerging out of a basic desire
118 P O L I T I C S
Ethnic cleansing: The
forcible expulsion or
extermination of ‘alien’ peoples;
often used as a euphemism for
genocide.
Euroscepticism: Opposition
to further European integration,
usually not extending to the
drive to withdraw from the EU
(anti-Europeanism).
CONCEPT
Patriotism
Patriotism (from the
Latin patria, meaning
‘fatherland’) is a
sentiment, a
psychological attachment
to one’s nation (a ‘love of
one’s country’). The
terms ‘nationalism’ and
‘patriotism’ are often
confused. Nationalism
has a doctrinal character
and embodies the belief
that the nation is in
some way the central
principle of political
organization. Patriotism
provides the affective
basis for that belief.
Patriotism thus underpins
all forms of nationalism;
it is difficult to conceive
of a national group
demanding, say, political
independence without
possessing at least a
measure of patriotic
loyalty.
of humans to gravitate towards those who have the same views, habits, lifestyles
and appearance as themselves. In short, human beings seek security and identity
through membership of a national community. From this perspective, patriotic
loyalty and a consciousness of nationhood is rooted largely in the idea of a
shared past, turning nationalism into a defence of values and institutions that
have been endorsed by history. Nationalism thus becomes a form of traditionalism.
This gives conservative nationalism a distinctively nostalgic and backwardlooking
character. In the USA, this is accomplished through an emphasis on the
Pilgrim Fathers, the War of Independence, the Philadelphia Convention and so
on. In the case of British nationalism (or, more accurately, English nationalism),
national patriotism draws on symbols closely associated with the institution of
monarchy. The UK national anthem is God Save the Queen, and the Royal
Family play a prominent role in national celebrations, such as Armistice Day, and
on state occasions, such as the opening of Parliament.
Conservative nationalism tends to develop in established nation-states rather
than in those that are in the process of nation-building. It is typically inspired by
the perception that the nation is somehow under threat, either from within or
from without. The traditional ‘enemy within’ has been class antagonism and the
ultimate danger of social revolution. In this respect, conservatives have seen
nationalism as the antidote to socialism: when patriotic loyalties are stronger
than class solidarity, the working class is, effectively, integrated into the nation.
Calls for national unity and the belief that unabashed patriotism is a civic virtue
are therefore recurrent themes in conservative thought.
The ‘enemies without’ that threaten national identity, from a conservative
perspective, include immigration and supranationalism. In this view, immigration
poses a threat because it tends to weaken an established national
culture and ethnic identity, thereby provoking hostility and conflict. This fear
was expressed in the UK in the 1960s by Enoch Powell, who warned that
further Commonwealth immigration would lead to racial conflict and
violence. A similar theme was taken up in 1979 by Margaret Thatcher in her
reference to the danger of the UK being ‘swamped’ by immigrants. Anti-immigration
campaigns waged by the British National Party, Le Pen’s National Front
in France, and far-right groups such as the Freedom Party in Austria and the
Danish People’s Party also draw their inspiration from conservative nationalism.
National identity and, with it, our source of security and belonging, is
threatened in the same way by the growth of supranational bodies and by the
globalization of culture. Resistance in the UK and in other EU member states
to a single European currency reflects not merely concern about the loss of
economic sovereignty, but also a belief that a national currency is vital to the
maintenance of a distinctive national identity.
Although conservative nationalism has been linked to military adventurism
and expansion, its distinctive character is that it is inward-looking and insular. If
conservative governments have used foreign policy as a device to stoke up public
fervour, this is an act of political opportunism, rather than because conservative
nationalism is relentlessly aggressive or inherently militaristic. This leads to the
criticism that conservative nationalism is essentially a form of elite manipulation
or ruling-class ideology. From this perspective, the ‘nation’ is invented, and
certainly deﬁned, by political leaders and ruling elites with a view to manufacturing
consent or engineering political passivity. In crude terms, when in
N A T I O N S A N D N A T I O N A L I S M 119
trouble, all governments play the ‘nationalism card’. A more serious criticism of
conservative nationalism, however, is that it promotes intolerance and bigotry.
Insular nationalism draws on a narrowly cultural concept of the nation; that is,
the belief that a nation is an exclusive ethnic community, broadly similar to an
extended family. A very clear line is therefore drawn between those who are
members of the nation and those who are alien to it. By insisting on the maintenance
of cultural purity and established traditions, conservatives may portray
immigrants, or foreigners in general, as a threat, and so promote, or at least legitimize,
racialism and xenophobia.
Expansionist nationalism
The third form of nationalism has an aggressive, militaristic and expansionist
character. In many ways, this form of nationalism is the antithesis of the principled
belief in equal rights and self-determination that is the core of liberal
nationalism. The aggressive face of nationalism ﬁrst appeared in the late nineteenth
century as European powers indulged in ‘the scramble for Africa’ in the
name of national glory and their‘place in the sun’. Nineteenth-century European
imperialism (see p. 427) differed from the colonial expansion of earlier periods
in that it was fuelled by a climate of popular nationalism in which national prestige
was linked to the possession of an empire, and each colonial victory was
greeted by demonstrations of popular enthusiasm, or jingoism. To a large extent,
both world wars of the twentieth century resulted from this expansionist form
of nationalism. When World War I broke out in August 1914, following a
prolonged arms race and a succession of international crises, the prospect of
conquest and military glory provoked spontaneous public rejoicing in all the
major capitals of Europe. World War II was largely a result of the nationalistinspired
programmes of imperial expansion pursued by Japan, Italy and
Germany. The most destructive modern example of this form of nationalism in
Europe was the quest by the Bosnian Serbs to construct a ‘Greater Serbia’ in the
aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
In its extreme form, such nationalism arises from a sentiment of intense, even
hysterical, nationalist enthusiasm, sometimes referred to as ‘integral nationalism’,
a term coined by the French nationalist Charles Maurras (1868–1952),
leader of the right-wing Action Française. The centrepiece of Maurras’ politics
was an assertion of the overriding importance of the nation: the nation is everything
and the individual is nothing. The nation thus has an existence and meaning
beyond the life of any single individual, and individual existence has
meaning only when it is dedicated to the unity and survival of the nation. Such
fanatical patriotism has a particularly strong appeal for the alienated, isolated
and powerless, for whom nationalism becomes a vehicle through which pride
and self-respect can be regained. However, integral nationalism breaks the link
previously established between nationalism and democracy. An ‘integral’ nation
is an exclusive ethnic community, bound together by primordial loyalties, rather
than voluntary political allegiances. National unity does not demand free debate,
and an open and competitive struggle for power; it requires discipline and
obedience to a single, supreme leader. This led Maurras to portray democracy as
a source of weakness and corruption, and to call instead for the re-establishment
of monarchical absolutism.
120 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Racialism, racism
The terms racialism and
racism tend to be used
interchangeably.
Racialism refers to any
belief or doctrine that
draws political or social
conclusions from the idea
that humankind is
divided into biologically
distinct races (a notion
that has no, or little,
scientific basis). Racialist
theories are thus based
on that assumption the
cultural, intellectual and
moral differences
amongst humankind
derive from supposedly
more fundamental
genetic differences. In
political terms, racialism
is manifest in calls for
racial segregation
(apartheid), and in
doctrines of ‘blood’
superiority and inferiority
(Aryanism and anti-
Semitism).
Jingoism: A mood of public
enthusiasm and celebration
provoked by military expansion
or imperial conquest.
This militant and intense form of nationalism is invariably associated with
chauvinistic beliefs and doctrines. Derived from the name of Nicolas Chauvin, a
French soldier noted for his fanatical devotion to Napoleon and the cause of
France, chauvinism is an irrational belief in the superiority or dominance of
one’s own group or people. National chauvinism therefore rejects the idea that
all nations are equal in favour of the belief that nations have particular characteristics
and qualities, and so have very different destinies. Some nations are
suited to rule; others are suited to be ruled. Typically, this form of nationalism is
articulated through doctrines of ethnic or racial superiority, thereby fusing
nationalism and racialism. The chauvinist’s own nation is seen to be unique and
special, in some way a ‘chosen people’. For early German nationalists such as
Fichte and Jahn (1783–1830), only the Germans were a true Volk (an organic
people). They alone had maintained blood purity and avoided the contamination
of their language. For Maurras, France was an unequalled marvel, a
repository of all Christian and classical virtues.
No less important in this type of nationalism, however, is the image of
another nation or race as a threat or enemy. In the face of the enemy, the nation
draws together and gains an intensiﬁed sense of its own identity and importance,
achieving a kind of ‘negative integration’. Chauvinistic nationalism therefore
establishes a clear distinction between ‘them’ and ‘us’. There has to be a
‘them’ to deride or hate in order for a sense of ‘us’ to be forged. The world is thus
divided, usually by means of racial categories, into an ‘in group’ and an ‘out
group’. The ‘out group’ acts as a scapegoat for all the misfortunes and frustrations
suffered by the ‘in group’. This was most graphically demonstrated by the
virulent anti-Semitism that was the basis of German Nazism. Hitler’s Mein
Kampf ([1925] 1969) portrayed history as a Manichean struggle between the
Aryans and the Jews, respectively representing the forces of light and darkness,
or good and evil.
A recurrent theme of expansionist nationalism is the idea of national rebirth
or regeneration. This form of nationalism commonly draws on myths of past
greatness or national glory. Mussolini and the Italian Fascists looked back to the
days of Imperial Rome. In portraying their regime as the ‘Third Reich’, the
German Nazis harked back both to Bismarck’s‘Second Reich’ and Charlemagne’s
Holy Roman Empire, the ‘First Reich’. Such myths plainly give expansionist
nationalism a backward-looking character, but they also look to the future, in
that they mark out the nation’s destiny. If nationalism is a vehicle for reestablishing
greatness and regaining national glory, it invariably has a militaristic
and expansionist character. In short, war is the testing ground of the nation. At
the heart of integral nationalism there often lies an imperial project: a quest for
expansion or a search for colonies. This can be seen in forms of pannationalism.
However, Nazi Germany is, again, the best-known example.
Hitler’s writings mapped out a three-stage programme of expansion. First, the
Nazis sought to establish a ‘Greater Germany’ by bringing ethnic Germans in
Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland within an expanded Reich. Second, they
intended to achieve Lebensraum (living space) by establishing a German-dominated
empire stretching into Russia. Third, Hitler dreamed of ultimate Aryan
world domination.
N A T I O N S A N D N A T I O N A L I S M 121
Pan-nationalism: A style of
nationalism dedicated to
unifying a disparate people
through either expansionism or
political solidarity (‘pan’ means
all or every).
CONCEPT
Anti-Semitism
‘Semites’ are by tradition
the descendants of Shem,
son of Noah. They include
most of the peoples of
the Middle East. AntiSemitism
is prejudice or
hatred specifically
towards Jews. In its
earliest form, religious
anti-Semitism reflected
the hostility of the
Christians towards the
Jews, based on their
alleged complicity in the
murder of Jesus and their
refusal to acknowledge
him as the son of God.
Economic anti-Semitism
developed from the
Middle Ages onwards, and
expressed distaste for
Jews in their capacity as
moneylenders and
traders. Racial antiSemitism
developed from
the late nineteeth
century onwards, and
condemned the Jewish
peoples as fundamentally
evil and destructive.
122 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Colonialism
Colonialism is the theory
or practice of establishing
control over a foreign
territory and turning it
into a ‘colony’.
Colonialism is thus a
particular form of
imperialism (see p. 427).
Colonialism is usually
distinguished by
settlement and by
economic domination. As
typically practised in
Africa and Southeast Asia,
colonial government was
exercised by a settler
community from a
‘mother country’. In
contrast, neocolonialism
is essentially an
economic phenomenon
based on the export of
capital from an advanced
country to a less
developed one (for
example, so-called US
‘dollar imperialism’ in
Latin America).
Anticolonial and postcolonial nationalism
The developing world has spawned various forms of nationalism, all of which
have in some way drawn inspiration from the struggle against colonial rule. The
irony of this form of nationalism is that it has turned doctrines and principles
ﬁrst developed through the process of ‘nation-building’ in Europe against the
European powers themselves. Colonialism, in other words, succeeded in turning
nationalism into a political creed of global signiﬁcance. In Africa and Asia, it
helped to forge a sense of nationhood shaped by the desire for ‘national liberation’.
Indeed, during the twentieth century, the political geography of much of
the world was transformed by anticolonialism. Independence movements that
sprang up in the interwar period gained new impetus after the conclusion of
World War II. The overstretched empires of Britain, France, the Netherlands and
Portugal crumbled in the face of rising nationalism.
India had been promised independence during World War II, which was eventually
granted in 1947. China achieved genuine unity and independence only after
the 1949 communist revolution, having fought an eight-year war against the
occupying Japanese.A republic of Indonesia was proclaimed in 1949 after a threeyear
war against the Netherlands. A military uprising forced the French to withdraw
from Vietnam in 1954, even though ﬁnal liberation, with the uniﬁcation of
North and South Vietnam, was not achieved until 1975, after 14 further years of
war against the USA. Nationalist struggles in Southeast Asia inspired similar
movements in Africa, with liberation movements emerging under leaders such as
Nkrumah in Ghana, Dr Azikiwe in Nigeria, Julius Nyerere in Tanganyika (later
Tanzania), and Hastings Banda in Nyasaland (later Malawi). The pace of decolonization
in Africa accelerated from the late 1950s onwards. Nigeria gained
independence from the UK in 1960 and, after a prolonged war fought against the
French, Algeria gained independence in 1962. Kenya became independent in
1963, as did Tanzania and Malawi the next year. Africa’s last remaining colony,
South-West Africa, ﬁnally became independent Namibia in 1990.
Early forms of anticolonialism drew heavily on ‘classical’ European nationalism
and were inspired by the idea of national self-determination. However,
emergent African and Asian nations were in a very different position from the
newly-created European states of the nineteenth century. For African and Asian
nations, the quest for political independence was inextricably linked to a desire
for social development and for an end to their subordination to the industrialized
states of Europe and the USA. The goal of ‘national liberation’ therefore had
an economic as well as a political dimension. This helps to explain why anticolonial
movements typically looked not to liberalism but to socialism, and
particularly to Marxism–Leninism, as a vehicle for expressing their nationalist
ambitions. On the surface, nationalism and socialism appear to be incompatible
political creeds. Socialists have traditionally preached internationalism, since
they regard humanity as a single entity, and argue that the division of
humankind into separate nations breeds only suspicion and hostility. Marxists,
in particular, have stressed that the bonds of class solidarity are stronger and
more genuine than the ties of nationality, or, as Marx put it in the Communist
Manifesto ([1848] 1967): ‘Working men have no country’.
The appeal of socialism to the developing world was based on the fact that
the values of community and cooperation that socialism embodies are deeply
established in the cultures of traditional, pre-industrial societies. In this sense,
nationalism and socialism are linked, insofar as both emphasize social solidarity
and collective action. By this standard, nationalism may simply be a weaker form
of socialism, the former applying the ‘social’ principle to the nation, the latter
extending it to cover the whole of humanity. More speciﬁcally, socialism, and
especially Marxism, provide an analysis of inequality and exploitation through
which the colonial experience could be understood and colonial rule challenged.
In the same way as the oppressed and exploited proletariat saw that they
could achieve liberation through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism,
developing-world nationalists saw ‘armed struggle’ as a means of achieving both
political and economic emancipation, thus fusing the goals of political independence
and social revolution. In countries such as China, North Korea,
Vietnam and Cambodia, anticolonial movements openly embraced Marxism–
Leninism. On achieving power, they moved to seize foreign assets and nationalize
economic resources, creating Soviet-style planned economies. African and
Middle Eastern states developed a less ideological form of nationalistic socialism,
which was practised, for example, in Algeria, Libya, Zambia, Iraq and South
Yemen. The ‘socialism’ proclaimed in these countries usually took the form of an
appeal to a unifying national cause or interest, typically championed by a powerful
‘charismatic’ leader.
However, nationalists in the developing world have not always been content
to express their nationalism in a language of socialism or Marxism borrowed
from the West. Especially since the 1970s, Marxism–Leninism has often been
displaced by forms of religious fundamentalism (see p. 53) and, particularly,
Islamic fundamentalism. This has given the developing world a speciﬁcally nonwestern
– indeed an anti-western, voice. In theory at least, Islam attempts to
foster a transnational political identity that unites all those who acknowledge the
‘way of Islam’ and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad within an ‘Islamic
nation’. However, the Iranian revolution of 1979, which brought Ayatollah
Khomeini (1900–89) to power, demonstrated the potency of Islamic fundamentalism
as a creed of national and spiritual renewal. The establishment of an
‘Islamic republic’ was designed to purge Iran of the corrupting inﬂuence of
western materialism in general, and of the ‘Great Satan’ (the USA) in particular,
through a return to the traditional values and principles embodied in the
Shari’a, or divine Islamic law. By no means, however, does Islamic nationalism
have a uniﬁed character. In Sudan and Pakistan, for example, Islamiﬁcation has
essentially been used as a tool of statecraft to consolidate the power of ruling
elites.
A FUTURE FOR THE NATION-STATE?
Since the ﬁnal decades of the twentieth century, it has become fashionable to
declare that the age of nationalism is over. This has not been because nationalism
had been superseded by ‘higher’ cosmopolitan allegiances, but because its task
had been completed: the world had become a world of nation-states. In effect,
the nation had been accepted as the sole legitimate unit of political rule.
Certainly, since 1789, the world had been fundamentally remodelled on nationalist
lines. In 1910, only 15 of the 193 states recognized in 2011 as full members
N A T I O N S A N D N A T I O N A L I S M 123
of the United Nations existed. Well into the twentieth century, most of the
peoples of the world were still colonial subjects of one of the European empires.
Only 3 of the current 72 states in the Middle East and Africa existed before 1910,
and no fewer than 108 states have come into being since 1959. These changes
have been fuelled largely by the quest for national independence, with these new
states invariably assuming the mantle of the nation-state.
History undoubtedly seems to be on the side of the nation-state. The three
major geopolitical upheavals of the twentieth century (World War I, World War
II and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe) each gave considerable
impetus to the concept of the nation as a principle of political organization.
Since 1991, at least 22 new states have come into existence in Europe alone (15
of them as a result of the disintegration of the USSR), and all of them have
claimed to be nation-states. The great strength of the nation-state is that it offers
the prospect of both cultural cohesion and political unity. When a people who
share a common cultural or ethnic identity gain the right to self-government,
community and citizenship coincide. This is why nationalists believe that the
forces that have created a world of independent nation-states are natural and
irresistible, and that no other social group could constitute a meaningful political
community. They believe that the nation-state is ultimately the only viable
political unit. This view implies, for instance, that supranational bodies such as
the European Union will never be able to rival the capacity of national governments
to establish legitimacy and command popular allegiance. Clear limits
should therefore be placed on the process of European integration because
people with different languages, cultures and histories will never come to think
of themselves as members of a united political community.
Nevertheless, just as the principle of the nation-state has achieved its widest
support, other, very powerful forces have emerged that threaten to make the
nation-state redundant. A combination of internal pressures and external threats
has produced what is commonly referred to as a ‘crisis of the nation-state’.
Internally, nation-states have been subject to centrifugal pressures, generated by
an upsurge in ethnic, regional and multicultural politics. This heightened
concern with ethnicity and culture may, indeed, reﬂect the fact that, in a context
of economic and cultural globalization (see p. 142), nations are no longer able to
provide a meaningful collective identity or sense of social belonging. Given that
all nation-states embody a measure of cultural diversity, the politics of ethnic
assertiveness cannot but present a challenge to the principle of the nation,
leading some to suggest that nationalism is in the process of being replaced by
multiculturalism (see p. 167). Unlike nations, ethnic, regional or cultural groups
are not viable political entities in their own right, and have thus sometimes
looked to forms of federalism (see p. 382) and confederalism to provide an alternative
to political nationalism. For example, within the framework provided by
the European Union, the Belgian regions of Flanders and Wallonia have achieved
such a degree of self-government that Belgium remains a nation-state only in a
strictly formal sense. The nature of such centrifugal forces is discussed more fully
in Chapter 17.
External threats to the nation-state have a variety of forms. First, advances in
the technology of warfare, and especially the advent of the nuclear age, have
brought about demands that world peace be policed by intergovernmental or
supranational bodies. This led to the creation of the League of Nations and, later,
124 P O L I T I C S
CONCEPT
Nation-state
The nation-state is a
form of political
organization and a
political ideal. In the first
case, it is an autonomous
political community
bound together by the
overlapping bonds of
citizenship and
nationality. In the latter,
it is a principle, or ideal
type (see p. 20), reflected
in Mazzini’s goal: ‘every
nation a state, only one
state for the entire
nation’. As such, the
nation-state principle
embodies the belief that
nations are ‘natural’
political communities. For
liberals and most
socialists, the nationstate
is largely fashioned
out of civic loyalties and
allegiances. For
conservatives and
integral nationalists, it is
based on ethnic or
organic unity.
N A T I O N S A N D N A T I O N A L I S M 125
Nationalism is based on two core assumptions: first, that humankind is naturally divided into distinct nations and,
second, that the nation is the most appropriate, and perhaps only legitimate, unit of political rule. This is why nationalists
have strived, wherever possible, to bring the borders of the state into line with the boundaries of the nation. But is
humankind ‘naturally’ divided into distinct nations? And why should the national communities be accorded this special,
indeed unique, political status?
YES NO
Debating . . .
Are nations ‘natural’ political communities?
‘Natural’ communities: For primordialist scholars,
national identity is historically embedded: nations are
rooted in a common cultural heritage and language that
may long predate statehood or the quest for independence
(Smith, 1986). In this view, nations evolve organically
out of more simple ethnic communities, reflecting
the fact that people are inherently group-orientated,
drawn naturally towards others who are similar to themselves
because they share the same cultural characteristics.
Above all, national identity is forged by a
combination of a sense of territorial belonging and a
shared way of life (usually facilitated by a common
language), creating deep emotional attachments that
resemble kinship ties.
Vehicle for democracy: The nation acquired a political
character only when, thanks to the doctrine of nationalism,
it was seen as the ideal unit of self-rule, a notion
embodied in the principle of national self-determination.
Nationalism and democracy therefore go hand-in-hand.
Bound together by ties of national solidarity, people are
encouraged to adopt shared civic allegiances and to
participate fully in the life of their society. Moreover,
democratic nations are inclusive and tolerant, capable of
respecting the separate identities of minority groups.
Nationality, thus, does not suppress other sources of
personal identity, such as ethnicity and religion.
Benefits of national partiality: Nationalism inevitably
implies partiality, the inclination to favour the needs and
interests of one’s ‘own’ people over those of other
peoples. This, as communitarian theorists argue, reflects
the fact that morality begins at home. From this perspective,
morality only makes sense when it is locally-based,
grounded in the communities to which we belong, and
which have shaped our lives and values. National partiality
is thus an extension of the near universal inclination
to accord moral priority to those we know best, especially
our families and close friends. There is no reason, moreover,
why national partiality should preclude a moral
concern for ‘strangers’.
‘Invented’ communities: Rather than being natural or
organic entities, nations are, to a greater or lesser extent,
political constructs. Nations are certainly ‘imagined
communities’, in the sense that people only ever meet a
tiny proportion of those with whom they supposedly
share a national identity (Anderson, 1983). Marxists and
others go further and argued that ruling or elite groups
have ‘invented’ nationalism in order to bind the working
class, and the disadvantaged generally, to the existing
power structure (Hobsbawm, 1983). National anthems,
national flags and national myths and legends are thus
little more than a form of ideological manipulation.
‘Hollowed-out’ nations: The nation has had its day as a
meaningful political unit and as a basis for democracy
and citizenship. Nations were appropriate political
communities during an industrial age that was shaped
though the development of relatively discrete national
economies. However, the growth of an interdependent
world, and the transfer of decision-making authority
from national governments to intergovernmental or
supranational bodies, has seriously weakened the political
significance of the nation. Not only have nations been
‘hollowed-out’ in terms of their political role, but the
seemingly remorseless trends towards international
migration and cultural diversity has fatally compromised
the nation’s organic unity (if it ever existed).
Miniaturizing humanity: National identity encourages
people to identify with part of humanity, rather than
with humanity as a whole. As such, it narrows our moral
sensibilities and destroys our sense of a common humanity.
Worse, nationalism breeds inevitable division and
conflict. If one’s own nation is unique or ‘special’, other
nations are inevitably seen as inferior and possibly
threatening. Nationalism therefore gives rise to, not a
world of independent nation-states, but a world that is
scared by militarism, aggression and conquest. For
humankind to progress beyond struggle and war, nationalism
must be abandoned and treated like the infantile
disease it has always been.
the United Nations. Second, economic life has been progressively globalized.
Markets are now world markets, businesses have increasingly become transnational
corporations (see p. 149), and capital is moved around the globe in the
blink of an eye. Is there a future for the nation-state in a world in which no
national government can control its economic destiny? Third, the nation-state
may be the enemy of the natural environment and a threat to the global ecological
balance. Nations are concerned primarily with their own strategic and
economic interests, and most pay little attention to the ecological consequences
of their actions. The folly of this was demonstrated in the Ukraine in 1986 by the
Chernobyl nuclear accident, which released a wave of nuclear radiation across
Northern Europe that will cause an estimated 2000 cancer-related deaths over 50
years in Europe.
Finally, distinctive national cultures and traditions, the source of cohesion
that distinguishes nation-states from other forms of political organization, have
been weakened by the emergence of a transnational, and even global, culture.
This has been facilitated by international tourism and the dramatic growth in
communications technologies, from satellite television to the ‘information
superhighway’. When US ﬁlms and television programmes are watched throughout
the world, Indian and Chinese cuisine is as popular in Europe as native
dishes, and people can communicate as easily with the other side of the world as
with their neighbouring town, is the nation-state any longer a meaningful entity?
These and related issues are discussed in greater depth in Chapter 8.
126 P O L I T I C S
SUMMARY
Nations are deﬁned by a combination of cultural and political factors. Culturally, they are groups of people
who are bound together by a common language, religion, history and traditions. Ultimately, however, nations
deﬁne themselves through the existence of a shared civic consciousness, classically expressed as the desire to
achieve or maintain statehood.
Distinctive cultural and political forms of nationalism can be identiﬁed. Cultural nationalism emphasizes the
regeneration of the nation as a distinctive civilization on the basis of a belief in the nation as a unique,
historical and organic whole. Political nationalism, on the other hand, recognizes the nation as a discrete
political community, and is thus linked with ideas such as sovereignty and self-determination.
Some political thinkers portray nationalism as a modern phenomenon associated with industrialization and
the rise of democracy, while others trace it back to premodern ethnic loyalties and identities. The character of
nationalism has varied considerably, and has been inﬂuenced by both the historical circumstances in which it
has arisen and the political causes to which it has been attached.
There have been a number of contrasting manifestations of political nationalism. Liberal nationalism is based
on a belief in a universal right to self-determination. Conservative nationalism values the capacity of national
patriotism to deliver social cohesion and political unity. Expansionist nationalism is a vehicle for aggression
and imperial conquest. Anticolonial nationalism is associated with the struggle for national liberation, often
fused with the quest for social development.
The most widely recognized form of political organization worldwide is the nation-state, which is often seen
as the sole legitimate unit of political rule. Its strength is that it offers the prospect of both cultural cohesion
and political unity, thus allowing those who share a common cultural or ethnic identity to exercise the right
to independence and self-government.
The nation-state now confronts a number of challenges. Nation-states have been subject to centrifugal pressures
generated by the growth in ethnic politics. Externally, they have confronted challenges from the
growing power of supranational bodies, the advance of economic and cultural globalization, and the need to
ﬁnd international solutions to the environmental crisis.
N A T I O N S A N D N A T I O N A L I S M 127
Questions for discussion
Where do nations come from? Are they natural or
artiﬁcial formations?
Why have national pride and patriotic loyalty been
valued?
Does cultural nationalism merely imprison a nation
in its past?
Why has nationalism proved to be such a potent
political force?
Does nationalism inevitably breed insularity and
conﬂict?
Can nationalism be viewed as a form of elite
manipulation?
Are nationalism and internationalism compatible?
Is the nation-state the sole legitimate unit of
political rule?
Is a postnationalist world possible?
Further reading
Brown, D., Contemporary Nationalism: Civic,
Ethnocultural and Multicultural Politics (2000). A
clear and illuminating framework for understanding
nationalist politics.
Hearn, J., Rethinking Nationalism: A Critical Introduction
(2006). A comprehensive account of approaches to
understanding nationalism that draws on sociology,
politics, anthropology and history, and develops its
own critique.
Hobsbawm, E., Nations and Nationalism Since 1780
(2nd edn) (1993). An analysis of the phenomenon
of nationalism from a modern Marxist perspective.
Spencer, P. and H. Wollman (eds), Nations and
Nationalism: A Reader (2005). A wide-ranging and
stimulating collection of mainstream and less mainstream
writings on nationalism.