The degree to which a political or social system ignores or suppresses the will of its constituents. Usually applied to nations or unions of nations, it serves equally for any collective established on principles of self-government.
In his famous study of democracies published in 2041,[1] Dr Bambang Chamsyah of Indonesia’s Biak Foundation identified a close correlation between “Democratic Deficit” and population size. According to Chamsyah’s findings, no country with a population of over 20 million is without serious democratic failings - and once a nation exceeds 70 million, the rate of democratic erosion tends to accelerate. Nor are politicians necessarily to blame for the deterioration. Administering democracy in heavily-populated countries presents problems of a different order to those facing governments of small nations. Despite the fact that the giants are invariably more heterogeneous, multi-ethnic and complex, they still have only one president or prime minister and one cabinet - in other words, the same number of senior political decision-makers. At around the 70 million mark, the complexities attendant upon size begin seriously to exceed the capacity of their leaders to understand still less to address them. Moreover, the value of each citizen’s vote decreases in proportion to the size of the electorate: so that in a country of 250 million voters, a ballot carries only one fiftieth of the weight of one where there are only 5 million voters. As populations grow, therefore, governments cease representing ever larger segments of their constituents.
The most common result is increasing political disenchantment and abstentionism, culminating in some cases in attempts to change the system by non-democratic means. Once this process has begun, governments find means to respond with repressive legislation - hence the accelerated democratic erosion that Chamsyah observed.
Drawing on the work of 20th Century anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, Chamsyah recognized the possibility of a variety of sociopolitical responses to excessive population such as the one developed in India where the caste system demands passive acceptance of inequality and disenfranchisement of one social group altogether - the Harijans.[2] Lévi-Strauss summarized the Indian solution - which he called a failure of human organization - as follows:
“...a society that becomes too numerous, survives only by creating servitude. When men start feeling squeezed geographically, socially and mentally, a simple solution may occur to them, namely to refuse to recognize the humanity of a portion of the species.”[3]
Nevertheless, Chamsyah claimed, by effectively setting India’s democratic deficit in concrete the caste system offered a clear demonstration of his central thesis.
His conclusion? Forget world government, break up large countries into federations, disband the European Union, and make the United Nations a people’s forum from which political leaders are excluded.
Dr Chamsyah was assassinated in 2048.
In his famous study of democracies published in 2041,[1] Dr Bambang Chamsyah of Indonesia’s Biak Foundation identified a close correlation between “Democratic Deficit” and population size. According to Chamsyah’s findings, no country with a population of over 20 million is without serious democratic failings - and once a nation exceeds 70 million, the rate of democratic erosion tends to accelerate. Nor are politicians necessarily to blame for the deterioration. Administering democracy in heavily-populated countries presents problems of a different order to those facing governments of small nations. Despite the fact that the giants are invariably more heterogeneous, multi-ethnic and complex, they still have only one president or prime minister and one cabinet - in other words, the same number of senior political decision-makers. At around the 70 million mark, the complexities attendant upon size begin seriously to exceed the capacity of their leaders to understand still less to address them. Moreover, the value of each citizen’s vote decreases in proportion to the size of the electorate: so that in a country of 250 million voters, a ballot carries only one fiftieth of the weight of one where there are only 5 million voters. As populations grow, therefore, governments cease representing ever larger segments of their constituents.
The most common result is increasing political disenchantment and abstentionism, culminating in some cases in attempts to change the system by non-democratic means. Once this process has begun, governments find means to respond with repressive legislation - hence the accelerated democratic erosion that Chamsyah observed.
Drawing on the work of 20th Century anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, Chamsyah recognized the possibility of a variety of sociopolitical responses to excessive population such as the one developed in India where the caste system demands passive acceptance of inequality and disenfranchisement of one social group altogether - the Harijans.[2] Lévi-Strauss summarized the Indian solution - which he called a failure of human organization - as follows:
“...a society that becomes too numerous, survives only by creating servitude. When men start feeling squeezed geographically, socially and mentally, a simple solution may occur to them, namely to refuse to recognize the humanity of a portion of the species.”[3]
Nevertheless, Chamsyah claimed, by effectively setting India’s democratic deficit in concrete the caste system offered a clear demonstration of his central thesis.
His conclusion? Forget world government, break up large countries into federations, disband the European Union, and make the United Nations a people’s forum from which political leaders are excluded.
Dr Chamsyah was assassinated in 2048.
[1] Democracy and the End of Freedom, U. Bambang Chamsyah, Biak Foundation, 2041.
[2] “Children of God”, Gandhi’s graceful term for the “Untouchables”. “Dalits” (the “oppressed”) is now the more favoured term.
[3] “...en devenant trop nombreuse.....une société ne se perpétue qu’en sécrétant la servitude. Lorsque les hommes commencent à se sentir à l’étroit dans leurs espaces géographique, social et mental, une solution simple risque de les séduire: celle qui consiste à refuser la qualité humaine à une partie de l’espèce.” Tristes Tropiques, Librairie Plon, Paris 1955.
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