A tweet recently reminded me of a previous post, which in turn inspired this very simple post. Some of the comments in the post inspired the following. This is also an attempt to create an irregular series underscoring elements of democratic theory (like The “A Republic, not a Democracy” Library or the Democracy and Institutional Design series)
One area of discussion and debate in regard to democratic governance (i.e, self-government by citizens) is the issue of majority rule and minority rights. There is often confusion on this matter. I do not purport to comprehensively cover the subject here, but to simply provide some basics.
Definitionally, democracy ought to be predominantly a system that takes majority preferences more seriously than it does minority preferences. Majority rule, in the main, is a hallmark of democracy. However, this does not mean that democracy is simply the iron rule of 50%+1.
I would argue that as a general matter, majority rule out to be the basic foundation for decision-making, such as legislation. Likewise, the guiding principle of representation should privilege the majority over the minority (and the issue of representativeness being its own issue). However, any democratic system must have protections for minority (indeed, individual) rights.
Protections for minority rights (e.g., rights to freedom of religion, speech, and the press) are requisite for democracy. Allowing the majority to suppress views and beliefs that it does not like (e.g., a minority religious sect) is, definitionally, anti-democratic. Democracy does not mean unfettered majority rule.
Exactly how those rights are created and protected (and how far they go*) is system-dependent.
Minority rule, however, defined as the numeric minority of the population having the ability to govern is antithetical to democracy.**
Side note: parliamentary systems that sometimes have minority governments (i.e., a party, or coalition of parties, with less than a majority of seats is allowed to form the government) still require the acquiesce of a majority in the parliament to allow that government to form (usually through some kind of agreement with parties not in the coalition). Note that even in such circumstances, a majority of votes is needed to pass legislation.
*All rights have some level of limitations. A country may have extensive freedom to worship rights, but that doesn’t mean that ritual human sacrifice has to be allowed to conform to the notion of freedom of religion, to pick an extreme example.
**Sometimes democratic systems have anti-majoritarian features, although the US has more than most. There is no succinct way to address save to note it. A broad example would be that constitutional courts can often act in opposition ti majority sentiment, but that should be connected to the minority rights issue. Further, the way those institutions are appointed is usually not linked to direct majoritarian actions, but those who make the appointments should be linked to majority assent. The degree to which they are not so linked (as one could argue is the case with SCOTUS), is democratically problematic.
