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Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Elections, not an Election

Tod Lindberg writes about what a democracy really means:

Would-be tyrants and freedom fighters alike take note: The essence of democracy is not simply an election. It's an election held in the expectation that there will be a subsequent election. In a mature democracy during election season, each side campaigns as hard as it can. But each side does so in the knowledge that, win or lose, victory or defeat is subject to reversal at the polls in the next election. Youwin some,you lose some. The profound implication of this is that the stakes of the political game are diminished for the players. Conduct a thought experiment by imagining a contrary scenario: one final election, in which we would settle once and for all who makes political decisions. If you are looking for a way to return politics to its status as literally a matter of life and death for participants, this is surely how. If everything is at stake, then "fighting" is no longer merely a metaphor for political conflict.
I would add to this, that along with a future election, a true democracy needs to have guarantees of basic rights that elected officials cannot take away (or at least not take away easily.) These limits on power of government are also crucial in reducing the stakes of any given election.

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