Democracy

Democracy and Community

Democracy is a political concept, relating to the exercise of collective authority. A critical feature of such authority is the legitimate use of coercive force in pursuit of shared ends. And although the term democracy is used to describe specific forms of government, the concept is inherently normative: Before asking how a people might rule themselves, we must determine whether [Page 388]or not they should rule themselves, and if they should, how they ought to rule together.

What is the relationship between democracy, as a political and normative concept, and community? The term community generally describes a distinct group of individuals who identify themselves in terms of shared beliefs, traditions, and interests. We might, of course, refer to a community of nations, just as we might think of democracy as applying to several sovereign states (such as the United Nations or the European Union). But community most often refers to a group of individual persons, and the term invokes considerations of psychology and sociology: How do particular individuals come to identify themselves as members of a distinct community? What beliefs, rituals, and interests define this community? How are these ideas and practices sustained over time, despite countervailing forces? How are shared interests satisfied? How are conflicts among community members resolved? The latter sorts of questions raise distinctly political concerns, and from these we are easily moved toward normative considerations: How should members of a community resolve disputes and pursue shared ends? Are there some communities whose members should not rule themselves? To examine the relationship between democracy and community is, then, to explore the political and normative dimensions of community.

The People

If the people rule in a democracy, then we must have some account of who the people are and how they are to rule together. Democracy thus requires an account of citizenship. It is an open and important question whether the people can be defined in a democratic fashion, or whether democracy assumes some prior account of who belongs to the community that is to govern itself. Notice that the question “Who are the people?” cannot be answered by popular vote, for the very act of voting (often thought of as a defining feature of democracy) already supposes that we know who is allowed to vote.

Suppose we have an account of who the people are. Perhaps, like the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), we believe that distinct communities arise through accidents of geography and history, as circumstances bring people together within a given territory. Or we may discover that distinct peoples trace their origins back to considerably less benign patterns of deceit, theft, conquest, and settlement. Given that durable communities have in fact emerged over the course of human history, whether by accident or conquest, how are members to govern themselves? How should they resolve disputes among members, address past injustices, admit new members, maintain features of their shared identity across generations, and defend themselves against internal and external threats?

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