Suchergebnisse

A review essay on books by (1) Nadia Urbinati, Mill on Democracy. From the Athenian Polis to Representative Government (Chicago: U Chicago Press, 2002); & (2) Matt Carter, T. H. Green and the Development of Ethical Socialism (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2003).

The attack on the existence of elites in a democratic society comes from a lack of understanding about the difference between the reality of modern, representational democracy & the notion of democracy presently held. Democracy today is vertical while the ideals of democracy are based on the Greek conception, a direct democracy having no need for a vertical structure. Thus, there is no value support for the present vertical structure since it derives from a horizontal structure. Antielitists ignore the reality of democracy today & assume that Greek ideals are still appropriate. At the core of the disagreement between elitists & antielitists is the concept of equality. If equality is the basis for all values of democracy, then equality must be considered a value principle. Antielitists equate equality with horizontality, ie, one must equalize either up or down with the tendency being down. Michels (The Sociology of the Political Party in Modern Democracy, 1910) suggests that democracy may not be possible under his 'iron law of oligarchy'. As organizations, ie, political parties, grow, the power of leaders grows & a gradual shift to oligarchy occurs. However, does this analysis apply to the American system of nationwide democracy? Is democracy truly based on a matrix of voluntary associations? J. A. Schumpeter (Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, p. 269) suggests that political democracy is a procedure which mediates struggles for sanctioned authority by which some are chosen to be leaders. The model of competitive democracy deals with a chain of reactions, ie, how democracies work, & not with the adding up of many little democracies. One can say that present-day democracy is a procedure which generates open polyarchy where the electoral competition gives power to the people & ensures the responsiveness of the leaders to the governed. It is concluded that: (1) that which makes democracy possible & that which renders it more democratic must be distinguished, (2) failure to do so may result in radical changes in the system, & (3) "the competitive theory of democracy, once established, can & indeed does concern itself with maximizing democracy, thereby reverting also to what the classic theory preached." K. Rotherham.

This article probes the transformation of Kemalism to a xenophobic nation-statism with a strong anti-western animus diluting its self-styled westernism and elitism in response to the rise of the reformist-Islamist ruling JDP and its patchy liberal rhetoric and pro-EU stance. The article points to the novel qualities of the Kemalism of the 2000s but also attests to its inherent anti-elitist, anti-liberal and anti-intellectual nature that reigned in the 1930s given that the Kemalist project in the inter-war period involved the denunciation of the Ottoman establishment with its elite and intelligentsia and its replacement with an intelligentsia of its own that is acquainted with anti-liberalism, anti-cosmopolitism and also anti-intellectualism. Adapted from the source document.

ARE ELITES AND LEADING MINORITIES A NECESSARY EVIL, A LIABILITY, or are they a vital and beneficial asset? Ultimately, the question is: should we downgrade or uplift leadership?The list of authors who speak in favour of the latter view is impressive, both in time and in eminence. For the ancients, it is the major Greek historian, Thucydides, who reminds us that the greatness of Athens reached its height with Pericles precisely because 'by his rank, ability, and known integrity he was enabled to exercise an independent control over the multitude'. After we had begun again, Bryce reviewed the most advanced experience of his time in this concise sentence: 'Perhaps no form of government needs great leaders so much as democracy does'. Fifty years later, in 1937, after the downfall of democracy in Italy, Germany and Spain, de Madariaga wrote : 'Despite appearances, liberal democracies are dependent on leadership even more so perhaps than other, more authoritarian forms of government; for . . . their natural tendency to weaken the springs of political authority must be counterbalanced by a higher level of. . . authority on the part of their leaders'.