Democracy is getting increasingly more difficult to define, especially today in the United States. According to a University of Maryland poll, over 80 percent of Americans voters oppose the Federal Communications Commission’s recent repeal of net neutrality rules. A Quinnipiac poll also showed that “less than one-third of Americans approve” of the recently passed Republican tax plan, and despite the United States pulling out of the Paris Accord, a Gallup poll showed that 50 percent of Americans are concerned about climate change. This being said, as a country that prides themselves on being their democratic achievements, it seems as if government needs a hearing aid. Throughout the United States, Americans have increasingly continued to express more progressive views however, based on the previous examples, things simply are not adding up.
In the United States today, trust in politicians, government and democratic institutions are crumbling. Participation in elections, from the school board to the federal level, continue to shrink, and people are leaving political parties in large numbers. Millions of Americans have turned to the streets, protesting the unpopular conservative policies that the government has continued to pass, but to no avail. Increasingly, more Americans have begun to realize that their elected officials are not effectively representing them and as a result, has left the ballot with little meaning. To gauge what a healthy democracy looks like, the current political landscape has shown us what democracy does not look like. A healthy democracy is integral to true progress, but it poses the question: How can we live together in a civil society that is just for all? A democratic polity built on popular sovereignty and proper representation are key requirements to addressing the issues we face today.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s social contract theory seeks to address this issue. Rousseau believes that only through the social contract, one can become fully human. Rousseau was an 18th century philosopher whose political theories during the Enlightenment era came to influence the Founding Fathers in the United States. In On The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right, Rousseau outlines that a healthy government can be best achieved through a “social contract.” Rousseau argues that human beings begin as individuals in a “state of nature,” and when they come together to create a society, they establish a contract agreeing to live together in a “state of society” for the mutual benefit of both parties. Rousseau says, “What man loses through the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything that tempts him and that he can acquire. What he gains is civil liberty and the proprietary ownership of all he possesses” (Rousseau 151). This contract allows for the individual to retain certain natural rights while accepting the restrictions of certain liberties. The social contract is founded on the belief that the state exists only to serve the will of the people, who give all political power to the state. Otherwise, known as popular sovereignty.
In a healthy republic, popular sovereignty would allow for all citizens to engage collectively to voice the general will and the laws of the state. Rousseau defines the general will as a collectively held idea that aims at the common good of the polity. Rousseau believes that the general will is selfless and above one’s private interests. He says, “For since the sovereign is formed entirely from the private individuals who make it up, it neither has nor could have an interest contrary to theirs.” Through the general will, the good of the polity is championed. Rousseau argues that the state is functioning properly when it follows the general will, and that it loses legitimacy when it pursues its own interest as against the will. Rousseau believes that popular sovereignty is “inalienable” and “indivisible.” Meaning at all citizens must participate equally to exercise their sovereignty. Rousseau writes, “I therefore maintain that since sovereignty is merely the exercise of the general will, it can never be alienated, and that the sovereign, which is only a collective being, cannot be represented by anything but itself” (Rousseau 153). We see evidence of popular sovereignty being taken up in the United States Constitution, the document begins with the words, "We the people…" The document outlines the relationship between government and the people, who in the end have sovereignty yielding power over the government.
Although Rousseau’s social contract theory heavily influenced the Founding Fathers and the foundations of American government, instead of a system of direct democracy, The Founders preferred a representative democracy, where citizens elect others to represent their interests in government. However, history has shown that the rule of the people isn’t always necessarily a good thing for the polity, especially to the rights of minority groups. For instance, in the 1940s Nazi rule in Germany was supported by the majority. However, this is not to say that the general will is simply a “blank check” for demagogues and populists leaders to do as they please. Rousseau writes “The general will is always right, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened. It has to be to made to see objects as they are, sometimes as they ought to appear to it, to show it the good road it is looking for and to protect it from the seduction of particular wills.” Rousseau intended this as an invitation “tends, by its nature, to partiality,” with the general will, which tends “to equality.” The U.S. Founders feared that the rule of the people could become the rule of “the Mob” and as a result representative democracy has become a popular practice throughout the world. However, representative democracy has largely been criticized as representatives become the "elites" disconnected from their citizens, rendering representative government ineffective.
However, the Founding Fathers saw representative democracy as a necessity, and greatly feared democratic rule of the people. For instance, The word democracy is never mentioned in either the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution. James Madison, a United States Founding Father and the fourth President of the United States, expressed this fear in the tenth essay of the Federalist papers,“The Same Subject Continued.” Madison proposes a republic as the solution to this problem, he says: “A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking” (CITATION). The Founders preferred a republic to democracy because it the system prevented this mob rule. Through this system, the interests of the people were represented by more knowledgeable or wealthier citizens who could be responsibly represent their people. Madison made clear that a republic varies from pure democracy and says that there are great points of difference between them, he says, “Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose” (CITATION). Throughout American history, representative democracy has accurately accomplished this representation. Every major political stride in the United States has been the result of grassroots action. But in an age where Americans are smarter than ever, and there is greater access to politicians this has not been the case.
Madison acknowledges that perhaps this could become the problem many representative democracies face today, he writes “On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people” (CITATION).