Improving Democracy

There is a great deal of clamor in the media today regarding the furthering of democracy and an allegiance to freedom. While there is no shortage of people who imply this clamor is only posturing and polemics, the whole issue of how people regard democracy and freedom gets little sincere consideration.

It seems fair to assert that most people in the First World -- the Western democracies, of which the US is the poster child -- would say they support democracy and freedom, and that they vote to exercise their rights as citizens of democratic nations. But as we watch politicians-at-work -- and it is these people who are acting in the people's behest -- it seems few politicians see their task as enhancing democracy and freedom. Rather, most of the time the people's representatives are working vigilantly to extract from our democratic system all that they can obtain in behalf of their constituency, and, not surprisingly, the people who elected them endorse their efforts.

The system of so-called "checks and balances" strives to place the self-serving interests of each constituency in opposition to others with the idea the net result will be the best arrangement for the society overall. This process produces the political processes we all know and see in operation every day, people trying to discredit their political opponents, to outmaneuver their political adversaries, and people aggregating with others in what often are called "un-holy" alliances to push a certain ideology or political agenda. This "food-fight" arrangement constitutes our current politics and shapes how we regard each other.

It seems as though any democracy that arises out of this tumult appears as much by accident as by any intention. So little allegiance to democracy as an institution exists today in political activities, most everyone turns to the founding fathers of society when disputes arise regarding how government should function. There is great distrust of and little energy given to active intentional efforts to improve or refine democracy itself. People regard such an effort as only a scheme to promote someone's secret agenda. Further, to make the task of politics improving our democracy and freedoms often is simply too abstract to have much traction with people who have more immediate and physical concerns and grievances.

So society hobbles along on a framework few would argue is anything but brilliant, all the while seeking to exploit that framework to the advantage of one vested interest or another. And democracy persists as much because of its inherent integrity as by any effort of contemporary political forces.

What if society viewed its task as including an effort to identify all those areas where current government fails to meet some democratic ideal and it then strived to create modifications that moved the structuring of society toward greater freedom and democracy? Across the world, we watch in various countries the spark of democracy and freedom arise, only to be crushed back by dictatorship or some other authoritarian force so we know by those examples how difficult it is to change the status quo. And we also have a current American administration promoting democracy and freedom around the world while it engages in actions many view as anything but promoting freedom and democracy.

Considering this also brings up the issue whether democracy and freedom, or an authoritarian system, is better. And while I suspect most people in the West would argue against authoritarian regimes on principle, it seems most of these same people actively seek to enfranchise their own viewpoint over all others -- in effect they are seeking authoritarian influence over their democratic system of governance. They do this of course to gain themselves a position of benefit, most of the time regardless of what position they currently occupy. So while the system may be democratic, its adherents often aren't. Rather, they are relatively disempowered authoritarianists. Democracy as we know it today consists of the aggregate behaviors of a group of people each of whom is asked (or allowed) to exercise his/her dominion at the ballot box and in all caucus actions greater than voting. It is only that this arrangement invariably pits one group seeking to dominate against another with similar designs that democracy manages to appear. It exists almost as a by-product of the strained embrace of adversaries, each of whom wishes dominion. A democratic system seems more to provide the wrestling ring in which political adversaries can fight.

This is how the current system works today.

What if amid these tensions there flowered a project designed to improve the existing manifestation of democracy and freedom, to improve the ring and its rules? Well, first there would have to be some agreement just what constitutes improvement, and perhaps even some work would be needed to state clearly just what constitutes democracy and freedom. This alone is not a simple task, even if its fruits might bless all of human existence. Further, someone would have to find a way to sell any discovered improvement to the various political adversaries without diluting its benefits. Perhaps an example would be useful at this point.

Every few years, when the census shows us how people are now distributed geographically in our country, voting districts are "reapportioned" to bring back to some standard the number of citizens in each district. This is done, of course, since each district's interests are represented in government by one person, or at most a few people (representatives). As any student of politics knows, a common political strategy is for the political party in power to adjudicate the reapportionment process in their own favor by redrawing districts so they contain favorable amounts of people who support certain political parties. By this scheme, political parties preserve or even gain an "edge" in favor of the incumbent. Also by this scheme, districts frequently acquire bizarre shapes and boundaries.

One entirely non-partisan amendment to this quite important political process of reapportionment would be to impose legally some constraints upon the mathematical features of districts, constraints beyond the current rule that each district must contain the same number of people (within some small variance). Adding a boundary rule that would help lessen what is called gerrymandering (oddly shaped districts favoring one party over another) would place an upper limit upon the ratio of a district's circumference divided by its area. This would add to the constraints already used by whatever agency or system that performs redistricting. Of course there would likely be those states or regions where vested interests would obstruct implementation of such a rule, lest they lose influence. This would only serve to highlight the degree to which these places were against democracy and more interested in a tyranny by a contrived majority (or even possibly by a minority).

This small mathematic would start to add some science to "political science". It might also stimulate a search for other reforms by which democracy and freedom are strengthened. If an index of democracy could be invented -- a measure how much a people or region were functioning democratically -- and/or if an index of freedom could be found -- a measure how much individual freedom existed in a people or region -- then comparisons could be made and both competition and the "shame factor" might further a growth of democratic ideals throughout the world.

One illusion might collide with this effort -- that countries like the US are already fully democratic. To the extent such things as the reapportionment issue exists, it seems fair to assert even in the so-called democratic countries of the world, greater democracy (meaning equality of representation, among other things) could appear. That such a change will not always be welcomed even within existing democratic model-countries only points out the fact human civilization has yet to reach maturity.