The muddled democracy of the Lisbon referendum
I’ve already written here about the mixed messages that come out of the Irish referendum result – and the waters are muddied further by opinion polling (reported by Mark Mardell) that suggests almost three quarters of Irish voters saw the no vote as a the start of a negotiation rather than a final answer. Today, with the dust having settled, and another period of reflection underway, I want to think a bit more about the contesting visions of democracy that the referendum and its aftermath set out.
‘Democracy’ has been one of the most overused words in Lisbon-related newspaper commentary and on blogs. We are told the Irish referendum result is democracy in action (or it is not democracy at all). It’s not democracy if the British people aren’t allowed a referendum, but it’s also not democracy if a hundred thousand Irish voters (the difference between the two sides) can dictate to half a billion Europeans. It’s even, some say, disrespectful for other national governments to ratify the treaty following the Irish no vote.
So what’s the truth? Every democratic system, from the EU down to your local cricket club, has to reach a compromise between the ideals of democracy as the rational form of government (where decisions are based on facts and reason rather than religion or the personal whim of a monarch) and democracy as the expression of the (ever changing and self-contradictory) popular will.
This is not just a question of sly technocrats versus noble democrats. Rationalist models of democracy, like the Westminster parliamentary model, can make a case that they are operating on the basis of a generally-expressed popular will (a sort of ‘popular will averaged over time’) that comes from their election. In this view, the desires expressed during the election campaign are acted upon over their time in office, allowing for consultation with affected parties, and changes resulting from professional and expert opinion. This is not an unreasonable argument on an intellectual level, though it’s hardly populist. Even the archetypal democracy, in Athens, had constitutional provisions preventing established laws being changed on the spur of the moment.
Right at the other end of the spectrum from this rationalist approach is the referendum. Citizens can vote in them without doing any research, for the wrong reasons, or on the basis of completely irrelevant issues, but they are still citizens, and their votes a true reflection of the popular will at that moment. To say that is not to imply, as many have done in the wake of the Irish vote, that referendums are automatically more legitimate and more authoritative than decisions of elected governments. Referendums are snapshots of a view, taken in isolation from other issues, and are different from, not better than elections. Given the media and political structures within which referendums take place, they are not even necessarily better or more honest than elections or the decisions of democratically-elected governments
The Irish referendum vote, and the commentary after it, was an excellent opportunity to see the rationalist and popular-will ideals of democracy go head-to-head.
The EU is perhaps the ultimate example of a rationalist government. All its main arms of government have some democratic element to them, but – as you might expect for an intergovernmental institution – the democracy they contain is at one or more removes, rather than from direct popular support. The Commission is appointed, though by democratically-elected politicians. The Council of Ministers, made up of members of elected Governments, has a form of mandate, but its members in theory act as representatives of national governments rather than as party politicians. Only the Parliament has a direct connection with the popular will, and even that comes from elections that are not fought on Europe-wide campaigns and have low turnouts.
The referendum was not the Irish government’s choice, it was mandated by their constitution, and as the only referendum taking place anywhere in Europe it was freighted with all sorts of expectations, from nationalists in the UK who wanted less Europe to socialists in France who wanted more.
So the Irish referendum was a tussle between two ideals, and looking at the coverage that has followed, it’s clear that the referendum easily won the popular legitimacy contest over parliamentary ratification in the other 26 member states. It’s fair to say that some of the cheering for the referendum result is motivated by partisanship, and comes from newspapers and bloggers who would have praised the wisdom of the coin if the treaty had been decided on a coin-toss. But scorning the result as worthless and the commentators as partisan doesn’t answer the whole question – after all, many general election voters don’t really know what they’re voting for, either.
To leave the pros and cons of the EU aside, and use the Irish vote as a political marker, it provides another example of how rationalist approaches to democracy are losing the battle for legitimacy with more direct forms. This is not to say that people in general want to tear down the Parliaments and distribute power to the people, whatever they say on blog comment pages. Few people would want to be governed solely on the basis of referendums, if it were a realistic prospect. But they should be believed when they indicate - repeatedly - that the current system is not close enough to the popular will.
This is a problem that all governments in the democratic world face, not just the institutions of the European Union. With few exceptions, western democracies rule through rationalism tempered by quadrennial expressions of the popular will. One of the Society’s aims is to create spaces where the popular will can be moulded by rationalism, and rationalist politicians can get an honest unmediated window on the popular will. The Irish referendum, and the reaction to it, shows how pressing that need is.