Mature Enough to Disobey Jurors, Women, and Radical Enfranchisement in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

While many have pointed to Tocqueville’s admiration of the jury system as a schoolhouse for civic participation, I argue that Tocqueville sets up, but forgoes, the opportunity to make jurors empowered enough to counter the ills of democracy that he enumerates, specifically the tyranny of the majority and soft despotism. The education of American women, Tocqueville remarks, prepares them to be independent, confident and astute observers of social conditions, but these characteristics are eclipsed by their domestic responsibilities as wives and mothers. Juxtaposing two sections of Democracy in America that are normally thought of separately (juries and women), I show that Tocqueville falters in his perception of the radical enfranchisement of jurors and women because of his fears about the instability of democracy (with its delusions of equality) just as he provides some of the best arguments for the importance of their political interventions.

Election

The chapter examines the corruption, disintegration, and renewal of democracy in relation to election. Taking issue with two canonized views on election, it shows that neither the liberal nor the republican version captures its emancipatory spirit; how it tames and shapes the essential uncertainties of the future equally. What makes election democratic is that it gives institutional body to the principle of emancipation, and secures our freedom to begin anew. On this basis, the chapter elaborates on the meaning of democratic corruption. It distinguishes between three democratic “tyrannies” in electoral politics based on distinction, virtue, and emancipation respectively: the tyranny of the majority, the tyranny of the minority, and the tyranny of novelty. It ends by discussing the future role of election as path to democratic disintegration, on the one hand, and democratic renewal, on the other.

Deep Ecology Gone Wrong: J.-C. Rufin’s Globalia and Le Parfum d’Adam

In Globalia and Le Parfum d’Adam J.-C. Rufin explores what could go wrong with the environmentalist movement, if it were co-opted by unwise or greedy leaders. Globalia is the sole country in a dystopian world governed according to the principles of deep ecology: vegetarianism, strict protection of forests and animals, and zero population growth. It is a sterile, climate-controlled world, covered by domes. “Non-zones” outside the domes are homes to mobsters, warring tribes, and resistants. They constitute a feared outside enemy which serves to unite most Globalians in support of their totalitarian government. This novel echoes Alexis de Tocqueville’s fear that a “tyranny of the majority” might someday rule the United States. Le Parfum d’Adam is a thriller about ecoterrorists who, obsessed by the deep ecology principle that world population must decrease, plot to contaminate the water system of a huge favela of Rio de Janeiro. They believe that poor people—too busy surviving to think about ecology—are destroying the planet.

Direct Democracy in Education: How Ballot Initiatives Challenge Equal Opportunity and Risk Tyrannizing Underrepresented Students

States have increasingly used ballot initiatives to legislate education policy in recent years, although the consequences for educational equity and justice have been underexamined. This article investigates the extent to which ballot initiatives disproportionately affect traditionally minoritized students, with particular attention to two phenomena: tyranny of the majority and racial threat hypothesis. Results across models consistently find that minority-targeted education initiatives pass at significantly higher rates than those that do not target minoritized students, and they garner considerably more yes votes regardless of passage. For states with more people of color, this effect is magnified, suggesting the potential for tyranny of the majority may increase when there are greater proportions of people of color within a state. This research contributes to the body of literature regarding the impact of state-level policy on education and sheds light on the benefits and potentially negative consequences of the ballot initiative process as an education policy making tool, particularly for our nation’s most disadvantaged students.

The Democratic Federalist System

This paper will explore the dimensions of federalism and democracy, in which it will become apparent, that the two are intertwined. As will be explored, federalism enhances the principles of democracy by creating accountable governments, increasing political participation, and protects against the tyranny of the majority. Federalism enhances democracy and thus, goes hand in hand.

The Political Saturation of Social Space

This chapter begins to develop the book’s diagnostic argument. Overdoing democracy is partly the result of a widespread social phenomenon identified as the political saturation of social space. Politics has permeated our lives enough to guide where we shop, what we wear, even what we drink (Starbucks latte versus Dunkin’ Donuts coffee). Our social spaces are increasingly sorted and segregated according to our political allegiances, while our political allegiances are increasingly constitutive of our broader social identities. The result is that we are more than ever enacting democratic citizenship, but almost always under conditions that are themselves politically homogeneous. Until citizens are open to each other’s arguments, we cannot plausibly see democratic political rule as consistent with each citizens’ status as an equal, and thus more than merely the tyranny of the majority.