Democracy Beyond The Nation State
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Democracy Beyond the Nation State Author: Ralf Dahrendorf |
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Democracy has arguably become a debased word in the language of politics. Not only was it used to label nearly the opposite of its original intent when communist dictatorships called themselves "people's democracies", but more recently the use of the word has been stretched so far as to rob it of all definition. When twenty-three hereditary Liberal Democrat peers elect three from their midst to remain in the "transitional" House of Lords, the winners are described as "democratically elected". It is an unfortunate mistake to confuse elections - all and any elections – with political democracy. On the other hand, when "democracy" is brought to formerly authoritarian parts of the world, the term is used to imply the whole gamut of modern values - liberty, certainly; equality, which Tocqueville first called, democracy, and more recently, fraternity too; Jürgen Habermas's unconstrained discourse or even Amitai Etzioni's communitarian love world. Democracy becomes a synonym for the good society, and that too is an unfortunate mistake. In my argument about democracy and the nation-state I want to avoid such mistakes and use, with the help of Karl Popper and John Stuart Mill, clearly defined terminology. The simplest definition of democracy is ... |
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