Mythology and reality of democracy: an illustration

The second round of the French elections, to be held on July 7, brings with it some interesting lessons about democracy. In any description where no candidate received more than 50% of the votes in the first round, those who obtained more than 12.5% ​​are allowed to run for the second round. A political party or coalition whose candidate finished in third place or lower may have an interest (and an informal obligation under election agreements) to pressure him to resign, to prevent the votes from being overturned. two main candidates are divided in case one of them is elected. would be detrimental to her position after the elections in the National Assembly. ‘Centrist’ parties joined the left-wing New Popular Front in an attempt to block the ‘far-right’ National Rally. (I put “far right” in quotes because NR is not undoubtedly further to the right than NPF is to the left, and many of their state proposals are similar.) This strategy led to 224 candidates dropping out of the 577 descriptions. (To see “French elections: 224 candidates have officially withdrawn from the second round,” Le MondeJuly 2, 2024.)

The purpose of a runoff is to increase (or guarantee, depending on the exact format) the chances that the chosen candidate can claim to represent the ‘will of the people’, i.e. 50%+1 of the voters. individuals who form ‘the people’. You might think that removing one option from the voters’ menu would be sinful for a worshiper of democracy. Technically it violates the condition called “neutrality‘in democratic theory, because it favors certain options over others. But in reality, restrictive options presented to voters necessarily happen all the time, in one way or another, if only because there are countless possible collective (political) choices; each voter potentially has their own ideal option.

For each individual voter, the restrictions on voting choice are unimportant because his vote, regardless of the menu, is not decisive. He (and she of course) would stay home and the winner would not change. However, a political strategy of dropping out one candidate can change the collective choice resulting from the election compared to what it would otherwise have been. The contradictions and inconsistencies of democratic mythology are many.

No democratic device can ensure that an election or referendum better expresses ‘the will of the people’. it doesn’t exist anyway. As I noted in an earlier post, different democratic voting methods can produce very different results. Interpretation of the work of Donald Saari (“Millions of election results from a single profile,” Social choice and well-being1992), wrote Gordon Tullock (in Government Failure: An Introduction to Public Choice2002):

Many different voting rules are used in the world and each rule leads to a slightly different outcome. Saari has provided a rigorous mathematical proof that for a given group of voters with unchanged preferences, any outcome can be obtained with at least one voting method.

Combining all this with the Condorcet Paradox and its contemporary extensions, it would be a mistake to look for the untraceable majority. A majority is just one possible majority among many, depending on the voting system and back-office politics, not to mention the frequent bureaucratic influence on the political agenda. As political scientist William Riker would put it, democratic decisions are either dictatorial or “arbitrary nonsense, at least sometimes” (see his Liberalism versus populism1982).

The non-negligible advantage of constitutional democracy (“constitutional” means “limited”) is that, when there are enough of them who are dissatisfied with their rulers, voters are given a cheap means of getting rid of them. Liberal democracy (which in the classical sense means constitutional democracy), writes Riker, allows for “a periodic and sometimes arbitrary popular veto” that can, in a sense, curb “official tyranny.” We should not ask too much of democracy.

While the limitation of the options offered to an electorate is inevitable, the continued limitation of individual choices by collective choices is not the only conceivable state of affairs in the world. It is generally inefficient or immoral, or both. A collective choice removes many options from the possibilities of individuals. It has a direct effect on the choices of all individuals who would have done what is now prohibited. This, and not democratic mythology or gadgets, is the important issue.

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I instructed ChatGPT to “generate an image that illustrates democracy.” I didn’t tell ‘him’ anything else. He described his image (the featured image of this post, shown below) this way: “A vibrant and diverse group of people standing together in a large open space, each holding a different flag representing different countries around the world . In the center is a large, ornate ballot box on a raised platform, symbolizing democracy. A bright sun shines above the scene, casting a hopeful and unifying light over the crowd. The backdrop includes iconic global landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty and the Great Wall of China, which represent international unity and cooperation.” It is a meaningless concept of democracy: democracy is beautiful and good; but it is likely widely shared, as evidenced by the bot’s database. (“He” produced a second image, at the same level of emptiness.)