The Basic Democratic Principles
The key democratic principles are those of popular control and political equality. These principles define what democrats at all times and in all places have struggled for – to make popular control over public decision making both more effective and more inclusive; to remove an elite monopoly over decision making and its benefits; and to overcome obstacles such as those of gender, ethnicity, religion, language, class, wealth and so on to the equal exercise of citizenship rights.
These two principles form the guiding thread of a democracy assessment. The more they are present, the more democratic we can judge a system of public decision making to be. As they stand, however, these principles are too general to serve as a precise assessment tool.
The Mediating Values
To consider how far the principles of popular control and political equality shape and inform the institutions and procedures of representative government, we need to define what are here called the ‘mediating values’ through which people have sought to give effect to these principles in a country’s institutional arrangements and practice.
- Participation. Without citizen participation, and the rights, the freedoms and the means to participate, the principle of popular control over government cannot begin to be realized.
- Authorization. The starting point of participation is to authorize public representatives or officials through free and fair electoral choice, and in a manner which produces a legislature that is representative of the different tendencies of public opinion.
- Representation. If different groups of citizens are treated on an equal footing, according to their numbers, then the main public institutions will be socially representative of the citizen body as a whole.
- Accountability. The accountability of all officials, both to the public directly and through the mediating institutions of parliament, the courts, the ombudsman and other watchdog agencies, is crucial if officials are to act as agents or servants of the people rather than as their masters.
- Transparency. Without openness or transparency in government, no effective accountability is possible.
- Responsiveness. Responsiveness to public needs, through a variety of institutions through which those needs can be articulated, is a key indication of the level of controlling influence which people have over government.
- Solidarity. While equality runs as a principle through all the mediating values, it finds particular expression in the solidarity which citizens of democracies show to those who differ from themselves at home, and towards popular struggles for democracy abroad.
