A BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATION THEORY AND BEHAVIOR, 14 (4), 514-536 WINTER 2011
A BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND
RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY
Mark J. Kaswan*
ABSTRACT. “Democracy” can be defined in different ways, each of which
offers a different way of looking at the relationship between democracy and
governance. Mark Bevir’s (2010) Democratic Governance offers a
genealogical account of the development of this relationship from the late
19th century, focusing on the role of particular theories of social science,
and raising serious questions about the degree to which contemporary
practices conflict with democratic ideals. Bevir suggests a more radical,
participatory approach as a way of resolving this conflict. Here I extend his
genealogical account to include two thinkers, Jeremy Bentham and William
Thompson, who laid much of the groundwork for modern social science, but
with very different ideas about democracy. Extending the genealogy to
Bentham and Thompson opens the way for a consideration of some aspects
of the relationship between democracy and governance not included in
Bevir’s account, and raises questions as to whether the different models of
democracy can be integrated in the way he suggests.
INTRODUCTION
Mark Bevir has provided a valuable exploration of the nature of
governance in democratic states in his recent work, Democratic
Governance. What I want to do in this essay is draw some closer
attention to the “democracy” part of his topic, particularly with
respect to the significance of different conceptions of democracy that
appear in his work. In doing so I will also extend his genealogy of
social science, which at the beginning of the 19th century was not only
more expressly normative but also centrally concerned with the
nature and meaning of democracy.
--------------------------------
* Mark J. Kaswan, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor, Department of
Government, University of Texas at Brownsville. His primary research areas
are in political theory, including democratic theory, utilitarianism, and the
history of political thought.
Copyright © 2011 by Pracademics PressA BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY 515
Bevir writes in his conclusion that his book has “explored the
nature of the new governance and its implications for democracy,”
noting, in particular, that “the new governance poses dilemmas for
representative democracy.” He discusses ways in which, in his view, a
different model of social science may point toward “a more
participatory and dialogic response” to these dilemmas (p. 252). In
this way, Bevir seems to be attempting to bridge two very different
models of democracy—the mainstream representative model and a
radical participatory and deliberative model. What does not come
across in his discussion, however, is that these two models are, in
fact, based on very different conceptions of democracy. The question
I want to raise in this essay, then, has to do with whether these ideas
about the nature of democracy, its role in government and the
relationship between government and the broader society, make
Bevir’s a kind of “bridge to nowhere”—in other words, I ask whether
the two models can be reconciled.
The idea that there are different ways of conceptualizing
democracy is nothing new. It is no accident that Gallie included
democracy in his essay introducing the notion of “essentially
contested concepts,” specifically drawing a distinction between
representative democracy, or “the power of the majority of citizens to
choose (and remove) governments” and a participatory form involving
“primarily the continuous active participation of citizens in political life
at all levels” (Gallie, 1955-1956, pp. 184-185). What they have in
common is that both are forms of collective self-government, where
rights of participation ensure that the actions of the collective are at
least vaguely an expression of individual preferences, or, in other
words, that collective decisions are at least in some sense the
enactment of the collective self-government of the individuals who
are members of the collective. In both cases, democratic governance
can be understood as the mechanism by which individuals are made
subject to the collective will. Ideally, the will of the individual
members of a society will be, in at least a general sense, in
accordance with the general will. However, while this may, at least to
some degree, pertain to the majority, it cannot be expected with
regard to the minority.
A tension, or aporia, then arises in democratic governance in the
gap between individual self-government and collective self-
government, particularly where the collective engages in what, after516 KASWAN
Foucault, we might call its disciplinary function. A second tension is
associated with the idea that all members within a democratic system
are equal, at least formally. Bevir (2010, p. 29) defines governance
as, “any pattern of rule or coordinated order.” However, there would
appear to be a substantial difference between these two points. The
degree to which any system of governance leans toward a “pattern of
rule” rather than “coordinated order” is the degree to which it
establishes authority, or in other words creates a distinction within
the society between those who make and enforce rules, and those
who are subject to those rules (even if those who make and enforce
the rules are also subject to them, they are still clearly in a privileged
position with regard to the rules). To put these two tensions together,
only in the democratic ideal of self-governing citizens interacting with
one another on the basis of a strong principle of equality would the
tension inherent in democratic governance be resolved.
To be sure, Bevir does not address either of these tensions
directly, although there is a passing reference to the “tension
between governance and democracy” (p. 104). Indeed, democracy
doesn’t receive all that much direct attention in his book; rather, its
primary focus is a genealogical account of the “New Governance.”
This is not to say that democracy is ignored, as the ways in which the
new governance interacts with assumptions about democracy in the
social sciences is certainly discussed at length, and Bevir can be said
to be opening up a space with this book for understanding how a
different approach to social science could help support movement
toward a more democratic form of governance. But even here, I think
Bevir’s democratic theory is insufficiently developed, as he focuses,
particularly in the last chapter, on the interaction between interpretive
social science and democracy without offering a clear enough sense
of just what democracy is and what it requires.
My exploration of democratic theory here will take place through
an extension of Bevir’s genealogy, reaching a bit further back in the
history of social science to include two figures important to the history
of its development, Jeremy Bentham and William Thompson.
Bentham’s and Thompson’s ideas are closely related to one another,
yet their views of democracy are substantially different.1 The
differences between Bentham and Thompson go a long way to
making clear the differences between the two versions of democracy,
one of which might be called mainstream, representative or liberalA BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY 517
democracy, and radical democracy. Bentham, in particular, lays the
foundations for understanding the relationship between the public,
elected officials and public officials in a liberal democratic regime.
Thompson, for his sake, largely avoids any discussion of the state or
formal state institutions, placing democratic practices instead in the
context of social institutions in a way that goes quite a bit further than
Bevir in resolving the tension between individual self-government and
collective self-government, and that raises larger questions that Bevir
avoids about the structure of the larger social system within which
governance takes place.
DEMOCRACY IN “DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE”
Bevir (2010, 126) distinguishes between the different models of
democracy as follows:
A liberal representative concept of democracy aims to protect
citizens from the state, and to make sure that the state
pursues policies in the interests of its citizens. . . . A
participatory and pluralist concept of democracy [which is
identified as radical democracy earlier in the text (p. 116)]
aims more at self-rule and emancipation. Citizens should
have as much control as possible over their own daily lives.
In the book, the liberal representative notion receives the bulk of the
attention, as it should: After all, this is the model that predominates in
Britain and the other cases Bevir studies. As he effectively
establishes, public policy today, whether from the right (neoliberal,
rational choice-based) or from the left (quasi-socialist and with a
basis in institutionalism), presumes the representative model. The
model’s general outline starts with the electoral system by which
citizens elect legislative representatives who set budgets and
determine policy which get passed down to public officials who are
responsible for their implementation.2 The public officials are held
accountable by the elected representatives, who are accountable to
the citizenry. The gist of Bevir’s argument is that this model is
untenable in the new models of governance that evolved in the latter
half of the 20th century. While this approach may have worked to a
degree under conditions where the provision of public services was
carried out by large centralized bureaucracies that functioned in a
strictly top-down, command-and-control manner, the provision of518 KASWAN
services has become extremely diffuse. As a result of this diffusion,
the state can do little more than seek to regulate service providers to
ensure adherence to minimal standards of performance (the central
concern for the neoliberal, market-based model), or provide
facilitation and coordination to ensure that services are provided in a
timely and effective fashion by diverse networks of providers (in the
institutionalist model). Both of these models presume that the source
for policy directives comes only indirectly from the people through the
representative body in the legislature, and the people’s role in setting
policy is largely limited to their participation in the electoral process
or, at most and only in rare cases, in making demands to the
legislature.
Bevir (2010, p. 116) describes the alternative as “plural,
participatory, and bottoms-up,” associated with “traditions of radical
democratic theory.” One crucial difference between the radical and
the representative models is that, where the primary values of the
latter center around questions of efficiency, “proponents of more
pluralist and participatory styles of democratic governance justify
their position in more normative, ethical terms, [arguing] that greater
pluralism and participation will promote inclusion, empowerment,
social justice, liberty, and equality.” This model is described as, in
part, a reaction to the failure of collective action to bring about social
justice from within the representative system. The radical model does
not receive as much attention in the book because, at least with
respect to the state, it exists mostly in theory. In fact, Bevir’s book can
be understood in part as an effort to show exactly why it is that the
new governance, despite its rhetoric of “devolution” and “networks,”
remains far from the kinds of participatory models envisioned by
radical democracy theorists. In an earlier essay Bevir says more
directly, “Networks, participation, and inclusion are promoted as
means to these specific ends [making public policies more effective
and more legitimate], not as part of a radical democratic project”
(Bevir, 2006, p. 427).
With his attention to methodologies of social science and its
relation to models of governance, Bevir can be said to be primarily
concerned with the technologies of governance. His story begins with
what he calls the “Rise of Modernism,” which developed out of a
“diverse and evolving stream of comparative-historical scholarship
that had emerged in the mid-nineteenth century.” This is associated,A BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY 519
in particular, with an “evolutionary positivism associated with Auguste
Comte and Herbert Spencer” that by the end of the century had
morphed into a kind of “neopositivism” that, he says, “would come to
exert a major influence on modern social science, especially in the
United States” (2010, p. 18).
If this is the history Bevir concentrates on, then Bentham and
Thompson constitute a kind of pre-history that laid the foundations
upon which positivism was built. By extending the genealogy further
back, I hope to show that the difference between mainstream and
radical democracy is much greater than merely a difference in
approach or the relationship between policy-makers, experts and
citizens, but that these are fundamentally different ways of
understanding the function of democracy and its role in society. The
profound differences between these two ways of thinking about
democracy—including fundamental questions about the organization
of society—raise serious concerns with what might be considered
Bevir’s political project.
BENTHAM AND TRADITIONAL DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE
Bentham’s Elite Theory of Government
Jeremy Bentham is best known for his utilitarianism, or the
promotion of the “greatest happiness of the greatest number” as the
foundation for moral and political reasoning. The primary means
through which he felt this goal could be reached were economics and
law. His approach to governance, then, can be understood as
instrumental, as a way to promote the greatest happiness of the
greatest number. Although he came to be an enthusiastic supporter,
Bentham should not properly be considered a theorist of democracy.
Rather, he offered a theory of government, and only arrived at
representative democracy toward the middle of his career as the
surest means by which to ensure that government conducts itself for
the benefit of the people.
Bentham’s is an elite theory of politics, and his principal concern
is always the means by which those members of society who function
as rulers could be prevented from merely ruling in their own interest.
Ultimately, his answer to this is something he calls “official aptitude”
on the part of public officials, which includes the lack of motivation to
pursue one’s own interest over that of the general public (“moral520 KASWAN
aptitude”); the knowledge and judgment necessary to recognize the
common interest (“intellectual aptitude”); and the conscientious
performance of their duty (“active aptitude”) (Bentham, 1993;
Schofield, 2006, p. 274).3 Bentham came to the conclusion that
representative democracy was the best means by which to develop
moral aptitude. Intellectual aptitude clearly points to the kinds of
specialized knowledge and expertise associated with the rise of the
social sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries. And active aptitude can
be associated with the professionalization and formalization of
governance institutions, although requiring that officials stand for
election would also be a means for ensuring that they do their jobs.
The early phase of Bentham’s career was focused on legislative
reform, and little concerned with constitutional arrangements, as
Bentham assumed that there was no need for radical reform in
Britain (Burns, 1966, p. 98; Dinwiddy, 1975, p. 683). However, as he
found that what he considered to be perfectly rational proposals for
reform of the legal system were largely ignored (particularly the
debacle over his Panopticon prison scheme), and as he became
increasingly aware of elements of corruption in the legal system
(Bentham, 1843b), he came to understand the functions of the
system in terms of what he called “sinister interest,” which refers to
the tendency of groups of people to seek to further the interests of
the group in a way that is contrary to the public interest (Schofield,
2006, p. 125). In effect, this means that the actions of political elites
will tend to serve their own interests, which may or may not include
the interests of those on whom they depend for their power (i.e., the
electors). In a system with a highly restricted franchise, this is clearly
a problem, because rulers are more concerned with furthering their
own, rather than the public, interest. Thus Bentham turned his focus
to constitutional reform, and forcefully at that. Effectively, he came to
see that in order to ensure that the legislators acted so as to promote
the greatest happiness of the greatest number, it was necessary that
the “greatest number” have a means by which they can hold the
legislators accountable—in other words, universal suffrage.4 This
meant quite radical reform, ultimately manifested in his Radical
Reform Bill of 1817. However, the reference to “radical” reform here
should not lead us to think that this has anything to do with radical
democracy as Bevir understands it—for example, Bentham’s radical
reform made little room for the kind of public participation that is
crucial for Bevir (e.g., p. 116). Rather, much of Bentham’s proposedA BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY 521
reforms are now baseline requirements for any system to be
considered democratic: “Secresy [of the ballot], universality [of
suffrage], equality [of the vote], and annuality of suffrage [one-year
terms of office]” (Bentham, 1843c, p. 558).5
From this account it is evident that representative democracy, in
Bentham’s theory, is really only instrumental to good government.
Indeed, democracy is several steps removed from the ultimate object,
the greatest happiness: The greatest happiness requires good laws.
Good laws require official aptitude, or effective legislators who are
concerned with ensuring the greatest happiness. Only then do we
arrive at representative democracy, as the means by which legislators
can be expected to retain the greatest happiness in its proper
position of preeminence.
Note that, although he argues for popular sovereignty, Bentham’s
remains a system of elite rule. As Rosen puts it, “A major thesis
underlying his argument is that all rulers, however they are chosen,
form a class apart by virtue of their wealth and political power and are
potentially at odds with the people whose happiness they are
supposed to secure” (Rosen, 1983, p. 12).6 Nonetheless, in
Bentham’s theory, the people retain sovereignty at the head of a
chain of subordination: the legislature is subordinate to the people,
and the executive is subordinate to the legislature (the judiciary, in
his view, is a branch of the executive). The people’s exercise of their
sovereign rights, however, should largely be limited to the act of
electing or recalling legislators (Bentham, 1983, p. 25–6); other than
this, their only recourse would be to what he calls the “Public Opinion
Tribunal,” or the court of public opinion (Bentham, 1983, p. 35–6),
which has no formal role. The legislature exercises sovereign power
through the instruments of rule. The people hold their legislators to
account through frequent elections. It would be wrong, in this regard,
to consider the acts of the legislature to be an expression of the will
of the people. Rather, the legislature’s actions are based on their
judgment as to the people’s interests. The public opinion tribunal and
periodic elections constitute the means by which the people can
discipline legislators; by these same means legislators can determine
whether their judgments are correct. So, in a way, what is called
“democracy” here has little to do with self-rule, as it remains a system
of elite rule held accountable by the people.522 KASWAN
Extending Bevir’s genealogy to include Bentham, then, reveals
much about the ideology that underlies modernist social science, and
the premises of representative democracy and neoliberal
governance. While Bentham has plenty to say about the development
of the necessary capacities of leaders in the guise of “official
aptitude,” he says nothing at all about the necessary capacity of
those who elect them. Further, while Bentham makes it clear that he
thinks people pursue their self-interest, he also says that no one can
know a person’s interest so well as they do themselves (Bentham,
1931/1802, p. 63). But legislating isn’t about pursuing any one
individual’s interests, rather it is about pursuing the interests of the
entire community, understood as a collection of individual interests.7
To put this in the context of Bevir’s work, the role of the legislator is to
determine the best way to properly “steer” the provision of social
services. But what the Benthamite perspective adds is that this
steering is necessarily a top-down process. Legislators rightly may
view participation by the public with skepticism, not because of their
lack of expertise, but because the public is apt to be overly concerned
with their own private, or individual, interests rather than the interests
of the community. In other words, Bentham’s “sinister interest”
translates into what today is referred to as “special interests”—or call
it “local expertise” if you prefer, the effect is the same. The
Benthamist response is clear: Rather than allowing the well of public
policy to be poisoned by sinister interest, rely on outside, objective,
rational experts to decide what individual members of the public
cannot discern for themselves. The means by which this is
implemented—whether through centralized bureaucracy, marketiza-
tion or networks—is largely irrelevant, as these can best be
understood as particular sorts of vehicles for carrying out the policy,
and, like the policy itself, the choice of the vehicle is best left up to
the experts. Suffice to say that social scientists who analyze the
delivery of services are just the sort of experts one would seek out for
this sort of input or decision-making. This may include advocates of
participatory models. I dare say that some might be inclined to
consult Mark Bevir.
Participation and Policy-Making
This discussion of the role of experts points to something largely
missing in Bevir’s book: A consideration of the distinction between
policy formation and policy implementation.8 The lack of a clearA BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY 523
distinction between these means that Bevir can’t show how they are
related to one another, although this relationship is an important
element of the book. The question here has to do with the locus of
particular kinds of practices, which are significantly different in the
two domains. For example, the application of the rational actor model
in rational choice theory pertains to policy formation in a very
different way from how it pertains to implementation: In policy
formation it takes the form of assumptions about the role of the state
in addressing social problems, whereas in policy implementation it
leads to particular kinds of mechanisms by which the state engages
in fulfilling its role. There is, of course, significant overlap between
these. In particular, assumptions about the appropriate means for
implementing policies will affect decision-making about the nature of
those policies (for example, in the 2009 debate over health care
policy in the U.S.). More often, however, debates about policy occur
separately from debates about policy implementation, and
participatory practices may look different in each of these areas. I
offer two examples of participation that Bevir overlooks, that may
help to illustrate this difference.
Budgeting is often the primary vehicle through which public policy
is adopted. Although the budget may generally be a fairly blunt
instrument for the making of policy (as rulers throughout history have
often found to their dismay—e.g., Charles I), it can also be an
important avenue for the expansion of opportunities for greater public
participation. The best example of this is the “participatory budget”
process most effectively implemented in Porto Alegre, Brazil (Abers,
2000; for an update, see Hilmer, 2010). In fact, the Porto Alegre case
demonstrates both the benefits of participatory practices and some
of the dangers, as those who have superior resources have been able
to take greater advantage of the system than those without (this point
will arise again below). However, once a budget has been adopted,
there is no particular reason why the services it entails must be
implemented in one way or another, and may entail contracting-out,
joined-up governance, public participation or a combination of all
three. In other words, participatory models of policy implementation
are not implicit in participatory models of policy making.
In contrast to budgeting, for which Porto Alegre is an exception to
the normal case, extensive opportunities exist in the U.S. for public
input in both policy-making and policy-implementation processes in524 KASWAN
the form of mandated public comment periods and public hearings.
While these may often involve arcane procedures that require
substantial expertise, and while the role of experts is often given
greater weight than that of the general public, elements of the
process are specifically designed to ensure public access and
response. However, the procedures for making comments, and the
parties holding the hearings, may be quite different, depending on the
stage of the policy process. Whereas the role of the public in the
policy-making process is never more than advisory, in the policy
implementation process, public participation has a bit more of a
formal role. For example, in California, at least (and possibly in other
states), large-scale development projects must go through an
approval process that requires the filing of an Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS) to fulfill requirements of the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) as well as an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to
fulfill requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Both of these require public comment periods as well as public
hearings, and the agency or other responsible party must respond to
each and every comment that is made. The requirement is not trivial,
and in fact these public hearings commonly provide opportunities for
grassroots organizing and are an important avenue for participation
in the policy-making process. Failure to adequately respond to public
comments can result in litigation that can hold up projects for years,
and ultimately lead either to substantial changes or cancellation.9
However, while it has at least some of the markings of open
participation, on both sides of the policy process, public hearings can
also be seen as little more than a participatory veneer for powerful
actors who can merely use the public’s input as a way of deflecting
public concerns rather than really addressing their substance. The
fact that litigation can take years and be extremely expensive may
only serve to benefit more powerful interests. The fact that not all
members of the public can be said to have equal access to the courts
points to an issue that Bevir doesn’t address, to be discussed below,
having to do with the problem of social inequality with respect to
participation.
The existence of participatory budgeting practices and public
hearings suggests ways in which governance may already be more
participatory than Bevir allows. Still, however, and despite all the
challenges to the Westminster model that Bevir outlines in his book,A BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY 525
it is all very state-centric. Institutions based on a model of
representative democracy that Bentham would easily recognize
remain the dominant paradigm through which decisions regarding the
public sphere are made. Indeed, in many ways these participatory
opportunities generally only further reify the distinction between the
public and private spheres that theorists of radical democracy often
challenge. Establishing a more participatory framework for
governance that incorporates the kind of bottoms-up approach Bevir
advocates requires a different approach to democracy altogether, the
kind which is evident in William Thompson’s work.
THOMPSON AND RADICAL DEMOCRACY
Thompson’s approach to the nature of democracy and questions
of governance is radically different from Bentham’s. Indeed, given the
differences between their theories, it is remarkable that Bentham
referred to Thompson as a “disciple” (Bentham, 1989, p. 360), and
that Thompson acknowledged Bentham’s influence in his first major
work (Thompson, 1968/1824, p. 1). But if Bentham would be placed
today solidly within the mainstream of modern democratic theory,
Thompson may be viewed as having articulated one of the earliest
versions of the kind of radical democratic theory Bevir is interested in
advancing.
One of Bevir’s central points is that one’s approach to social
science affects their approach to questions of governance and
democracy. This is certainly the case with Thompson, whose role in
the development of social science is as important as it is
overlooked.10
Poets, including Milton, had used the term “social science” as far
back as the 17th century, but the term did not gain traction until the
1820s. In a brief 1821 essay (which may be a translation of an
earlier work in French), Sismondi referred to social science as “that
theory of universal accommodation, [which] embraces all that human
society can effect for the general advantage and the moral
development of man” (Sismondi, 1821, p. 509).11 Thompson, who
likely knew both Sismondi and Charles Fourier, another French writer
who made use of the term, refers to “the application” of “social
science [as] the art of social happiness” (Thompson, 1968/1824, p.
viii). The pursuit of a social science, he says, is necessary, “to assist
in wiping out the stain from science, noticed thirty years ago by526 KASWAN
Condorcet, but still adhering, that though she had done much for the
glory of mankind, she had done nothing or little for their happiness”
(Thompson, 1968/1824, p. xiv). From this work, the Inquiry into the
Principles for the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human
Happiness (published in 1824), it is apparent what he meant by the
term: The critical examination of the organization of society in order to
ascertain the barriers to individual happiness and to identify the best
means by which social institutions may be organized so as to ensure
it. In other words, social science, in Thompson’s usage, clearly had a
strong normative basis.
It is worth asking whether the social sciences today have retained
anything like the normative basis expressed by Sismondi and
Thompson. It is a common point of critique of rational choice theory
that its supposed lack of ideology or normative claims masks a very
solid and substantial ideology and normative basis, so there is no
need to repeat that critique here. What I want to suggest, however, is
that the nature of the question has changed. Thompson was no less a
believer in rationality—understood as the tendency of individuals to
seek to maximize pleasure (or benefit) and avoid or minimize pain (or
expense)—as was Bentham, although he understood it on somewhat
different terms than Bentham.12 The question, for Thompson, was
how to design social institutions in order to best align this rational
self-interest with the social interest, so as to produce the best
outcome for everyone involved. Social science today, particularly the
rational choice variety, seems to have lost the critical element that
was so central to Thompson. As Bevir clearly expresses, social
institutions are reified, presumed to be just and proper in their
essence if not always in their functioning. But note that this is not a
critique of the rational assumption, weak though that assumption
may be (see Bevir, 2010, p. 259–60); rather it is a critique of its
application.
Thompson’s approach to social science can be described, in
Bevir’s terms, as institutionalist (although the usage is clearly
anachronistic). He can certainly be counted as a founding member of
both the rational choice and the sociological schools, as Bevir defines
these: At one and the same time, Thompson is concerned with “the
effects of norms, laws, and institutions on individuals’ actions,” as
Bevir defines the rational choice school (2010, p. 47), and in the
ways institutions “shape actors’ perceptions of their interests,” asA BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY 527
Bevir defines the sociological school (p. 47). But rather than
concerning himself with the formal institutions of the state (although
he does not ignore them entirely), Thompson is much more
concerned with the effect of a particular institution outside of the
realm of the state: the capitalist economy.
While Bevir acknowledges that “governance expresses a growing
awareness of the ways in which diffuse forms of power and authority
can secure order even in the absence of state activity,” (p. 29, fn.
15), the question of governance outside of state institutions receives
virtually no attention in his book, with the exception of those non-
state institutions that are engaged in the implementation of public
policy within the framework of networks or market-based social
enterprises. Thompson offers two clear arguments as to why this
issue is pertinent, incorporating elements now familiar to
institutionalists and democratic theorists. The first is that structuring
social institutions on the basis of competition for scarce resources
(either customers or wages), as in the liberal capitalist system,
“makes us regard from birth the interests of every one as opposed to
and incompatible with the interest of every other person because it
really puts all interest in opposition to each other. In every happy
face, we now see a successful rival” (Thompson, 1996/1827, p. 65).
This competition sets the terms on which governance takes place.
This might not present a problem in terms of democratic governance
if all members of the society partook in this social coordination (to
use Bevir’s language) on an equal basis. However, Thompson argues,
because the object of competition is the accumulation of wealth,
inequality is inevitable (even if all members of society started from an
equal position). For the winners in the competition, domination of the
political system becomes not only a part of the spoils of success, but
a necessary pursuit as a means of maintaining dominance
(Thompson 1968/1824, p. 218–21).
The inequality engendered by competition, which is no less a
factor today than in Thompson’s time, presents a problem for the
kind of participatory, deliberative procedures Bevir favors, because it
means that not everyone at the table is there on an equal basis, and
some people are fairly well excluded altogether. This perspective
helps to illuminate problems with the marketization of public services
that Bevir discusses. If services are performed by a private-sector
corporation, the profits of the corporation only serve to increase its528 KASWAN
power against and at the expense of the very community it is
supposed to serve. That corporation also enjoys power in that it is
uniquely situated to provide expertise regarding the services it
provides.13 Further, as even Adam Smith recognized, the interests of
the corporation often stand opposed to the interests of the
community (Smith 1976/1776, vol. I, p. 278). But even if the
corporation itself is excluded from the discussion, the very pluralism
that Bevir celebrates may bring with it inequalities in terms of political
efficacy that may undermine the ability of participants to have their
voices heard equally.14 So, however much public workers today may
be envisioned by conservatives as feeding at the trough of the public
purse, the problem is clearly much worse in the case of contracted-
out services.
Thompson’s response to this is to redesign social institutions so
as to largely prevent the establishment of these kinds of
inequalities,15 primarily through the establishment of democratic,
egalitarian and cooperative communities of five hundred to two
thousand people. In declaring that members of these communities
“take no monastic vows of voluntary seclusion from the world,” that
their “sympathies . . . will be enlarged,” and that “they will always
seek to promote the public good” (Thompson 1968/1824, p. 434),
Thompson became among the first—if not the first—to argue that the
implementation of democratic practices within social institutions has
an educative effect that enlightens participants’ sense of self-interest
and provides them with the tools necessary to increase their political
efficacy.
Within these communities, democracy, understood as self-
government, takes on a double meaning. In the first place, it means
that the community governs itself, through the establishment of
representative yet actively participatory institutions as the means by
which they enact collective self-governance. But governance of the
community, understood as a collective entity, operates alongside and,
most importantly, as a complement to individuals’ self-government
within the context of the community in their relations with other
members of the community. An essential characteristic of these
relations is that they are established on the basis of a deep equality:
All members of the community recognize themselves as acting on an
equal basis with all others in the community and, because they
recognize that their own interests are wrapped up in and connectedA BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY 529
to the interests of all, there is no concern that they will act in such a
way as to undermine the community’s happiness. By this means, self-
governance is effectively equated with governance, and the aporia of
“democratic governance” is resolved. Democracy understood on
these terms, then, is less a model for governance as a “pattern of
rule,” and more of a principle of social interaction that serves as the
basis for a “coordinated order.”
Unfortunately, the kind of autarkic community Thompson
envisioned didn’t work out too well—no community based on his plan
was ever founded. That said, the principles he articulated formed the
basis for the cooperative movement, which today, with some 800
million members worldwide, can be understood as the world’s largest
democratic social movement.16 By addressing problems of inequality
and powerlessness, cooperatives have made a real difference in
enabling otherwise excluded members of society to have a
meaningful voice in their governance—precisely by situating
democratic practices outside of the formal political institutions of the
state. But it should be noted that their role in self-governance doesn’t
necessarily have much to do with the state. Rather, it may largely be
limited to the cooperative itself. But if we can imagine the majority of
social institutions organized along cooperative lines, rather than
competitive ones, and if cooperation among cooperatives becomes
normalized and even coordinated in a collective manner, then we
may find that the functions of governance currently managed by the
state could, in fact, be managed by networks of institutional
structures outside of the state itself.17 If this sounds something like
the “joined-up governance” articulated by New Labour, the similarity
ends once the actual structure of the organizations providing the
services is considered, to the extent that the cooperative model
would be designed specifically on democratic principles, whereas
most traditional social enterprises are not.
My reason for discussing cooperatives here is meant to
demonstrate the importance of considering the nature of institutions
outside of the realm of the state in questions of governance. This is
not a matter of making a crude sort of Marxist argument about
structure and superstructure. Rather, it is about recognizing that
many of the problems that need to be addressed by the state—
including the so-called “wicked problems”—have something to do with
the way that the economic system is structured, including in the way530 KASWAN
that it treats both the Earth and all the living things on it (including
the people) in an instrumental manner for the accumulation of
greater and greater amounts of wealth by smaller and smaller groups
of people. The absence of democratic principles goes beyond the
problem of people not having opportunities to participate in decision-
making about public policy. It has to do with the conditions within
which the social coordination Bevir identifies with governance takes
place. These conditions cannot be ignored in the desire to establish
participatory, deliberative democratic procedures and devolve
governance to the people. To make “self-governance” a meaningful
part of people’s lives, rather than something imposed on them by
external forces, requires a fundamental restructuring of social
institutions along more egalitarian lines.
CONCLUSION
The point of Gallie’s essay on essentially contested concepts is
that while two contrasting arguments regarding the same subject may
appear to draw from the same set of ideas, in fact the claims they
make may only relate to one another tangentially, because the
different perspectives may in fact apply different meanings to central
terms in the debate. What I have attempted to show here is that
advocating a greater role for public participation within the context of
a system based on a representative model of democracy is very
different from advocating a radical, participatory system of
democracy, because each is based on a different idea of democracy
and its role in society.
The discussion of Bentham and Thompson illustrates the depth of
the difference between those two models: Bentham’s representative
model is top-down and state-centered, while Thompson’s
participatory model is bottom-up and diffuse, located in institutions
outside of the state itself. It may well be the case that these can co-
exist—and as the example of the cooperative movement shows they
already do to some extent, but only within separate institutional
frameworks. Bevir, however, would like us to consider ways in which
they can co-exist within the same framework of governance. Based on
the discussion I have presented here, I must express my doubt.
While the two models may be incommensurable, this is not to say
that they are entirely incompatible. It is possible to make use of
representative mechanisms within a participatory model (albeit withA BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY 531
care), and it may be possible to enable more opportunities for public
participation within a representative system. But as the discussion of
Bentham’s theory shows, representative models of democracy are
premised on a division between the representatives and the people
that gives preference to elites and expertise, and ultimately no extent
of public participation can overcome that division—ultimately, “the
decider” decides, and it is the elected representative who gets to do
this, not the people themselves. The role of legislators is fiduciary,
precisely to rule on behalf of the people. The discussion of
Thompson’s theory shows that governance itself is understood
differently in a participatory model. This is not to say that there is no
place for the kind of social coordination function fulfilled by the state.
But the primary location of governance (that is, self-governance within
a collective context) is different: it is in the institutions through which
people fulfill all the functions of social interaction, economic and
otherwise. From this perspective, the notion of participatory
democracy within the context of representative institutions is a
chimera, and at worst a flimsy disguise for the exercise of power.
The aporia of democratic governance, then, does more than
simply pose “dilemmas for representative democracy.” Resolving this
aporia requires a different way of thinking about democracy itself, in
terms of its requirements, its locations and its relationship to
governance. Addressing the gap between individual self-governance
and collective self-governance requires a much greater degree of
equality than we currently enjoy. This refers not only to formal equality
with respect to the state, and not only to economic conditions. It also
refers to the structure of our relationships within the social
institutions that shape our interactions outside of the state—where we
work and where we live. When we are self-governing in all of our
relationships, and not just in our relationship to the state, then we
can be said to have achieved democratic governance.
NOTES
1. Bentham’s work is well known, although his democratic theory
receives somewhat less attention than other aspects of his work.
Thompson, a figure who has been largely overlooked in the
history of political thought despite the influence he had on figures
such as Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill, is particularly significant
here not only because he articulates a theory of democracy that532 KASWAN
shares important features with contemporary radical democratic
theory, but also because the meaning and even the presence of
the term “social science” in the English lexicon owes much to
him.
2. Bevir mostly is concerned with policy, not budgeting. I think this is
a not-insignificant omission, as I will discuss below.
3. Schofield refers to official aptitude as the culmination of
Bentham’s legal and political thought (p. 275).
4. Excluding women, of course, although including prisoners and the
insane (Bentham 1843d, p. 599; 1843c, p. 559-560). This is not
the place for an extensive discussion about Bentham’s attitude
toward the inclusion of women, but the short version is to say that
he supported their inclusion but was afraid that insisting on it
would doom all attempts at reform (Bentham, 1843a: 108–109).
5. Granted, few today promote annual elections, but the notion of
having elections frequently enough so that elected officials have
a sense of accountability for their actions is generally accepted.
6. Note that “elite” here does not refer to economic class, but rather
to the idea that those who are selected as rulers can be
understood as a distinct class of persons who hold a particular
sort of power with respect to the larger society. That they also
tend to be from the upper classes in an economic sense
(especially in Bentham’s time) is a quite separate matter.
7. It should be noted that Bentham considers the interest of the
community to be “the sum of the interests of the several
members who compose it” (Bentham 1996: 12)—understood as
an aggregate, in other words, not as a collective entity.
8. Differences between the American and British systems may
account for at least some of Bevir’s lack of attention to the
difference discussed here. Parliamentarism more clearly
establishes that the executive is subordinate to the legislature
than does a presidential system. The American system, in
particular, is established on the basis of three co-equal branches
of government that check and balance one another rather than
the chain of subordination.
9. I write based on my own experience. In the late 1980s and early
1990s I was an active participant in a grassroots organizing effortA BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: CONNECTING REPRESENTATIVE AND RADICAL MODELS OF DEMOCRACY 533
that successfully opposed a proposed major expansion of military
facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area.
10. That Thompson is all but ignored—check that, entirely ignored—by
radical democratic theorists is no surprise, because his position
in the history of political thought has generally if not quite so
completely been overlooked. The only people, it seems, who pay
attention to him are scholars in the history of socialism, the
history of economic thought and an occasional feminist scholar.
See, e.g., Beer, 1940; Stark, 1976/1943; Claeys, 1986; 1987;
Pateman, 1988; Pankhurst, 1991/1954; Dooley 1996; Hunt,
2002.
11. My recent discovery of this work by Sismondi means that Claeys’
claim that Thompson is responsible for the appearance in English
of “social science” can no longer be accepted (Claeys, 1986).
12. Space does not allow a discussion of this point, but I will say that
it has to do with how they conceptualize happiness: Bentham
understands it experientially, as occurring in the moment,
whereas Thompson associates it with well-being, to be
understood over an extended period of time.
13. The frequency with which corporate executives or industry
lobbyists in the U.S. take positions in federal agencies that are
supposed to be regulating those same industries has received no
small amount of attention over the years.
14. Although primarily concerned with participation in the electoral
process, Verba, Schlozman and Brady’s study said much about
the question of the determinants of this inequality (Verba et al.,
1995).
15. Thompson recognized that some types of inequality, such as
experience or aptitude, could not be addressed.
16. The historical, social, economic and political significance of
cooperatives has been recognized by the U.N. in designating
2012 the International Year of the Cooperative.
17. Thompson hints at something like this in a brief discussion about
how the functions of the state could be managed by a national
network of cooperative communities (Thompson, 1996). A more
modern version, going by the name of the “cooperative534 KASWAN
commonwealth,” was articulated in the 1930s on both sides of
the Atlantic (Mercer, 1936; Warbasse, 1942).
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