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Counter-Majoritarian Democracy: Persistent Minorities, Federalism, and the Power of Numbers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2021

ARASH ABIZADEH Open the ORCID record for ARASH ABIZADEH [Opens in a new window]
ARASH ABIZADEH*
Affiliation:
McGill University
*
Arash Abizadeh, Professor, Department of Political Science, McGill University, arash.abizadeh@mcgill.ca
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Abstract

The majoritarian conception of democracy implies that counter-majoritarian institutions such as federalism—and even representative institutions—are derogations from democracy. The majoritarian conception is mistaken for two reasons. First, it is incoherent: majoritarianism ultimately stands against one of democracy’s core normative commitments—namely, political equality. Second, majoritarianism is premised on a mistaken view of power, which fails to account for the power of numbers and thereby fails to explain the inequality faced by members of persistent minorities. Although strict majority rule serves the democratic values of political agency and equality as interpreted by a set of formal conditions, an adequate conception of power shows why in real-world conditions formal-procedural inequalities, instantiated by counter-majoritarian institutions such as federalism, are sometimes required to serve democratic equality.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 115 , Issue 3 , August 2021 , pp. 742 - 756
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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