Different Models of Democracy | PSIR Optional for UPSC

Substantive Democracy 

Introduction

• Substantive democracy can be defined as a form of government in which the outcome of elections is representative of the will of people. In other words, we can say that substantive democracy is a form of democracy that functions in the interest of the governed.
• Substantive democracy is a form of government where everyone has an equal share and where masses i.e the people have the right to participate in the exercise of sovereign power.
  
  • It can also be attributed to a mechanism for choosing the government and authorizing the government to carry out the will of the people at large and to arrive at political decisions.
• Substantive democracy is justified as having intrinsic as well as instrumental value.
  
  • When substantive democracy is valued as being good in itself it is held as having intrinsic value. It is valued as good because it is the fairest way of giving expression to equality among citizens. 
  • On the other hand, democracy may also be valued instrumentally. It is so because it fosters competition among political leaders and provide the people of the country with better choice of leadership.

When democracy is more than a procedure and there is equal footing for all citizens irrespective of caste, creed and any form of differences, it is called substantive democracy. In such a democracy people are truly engaged in politics and are tolerant of different views. They have an equal voice in electing their rulers and in making them accountable. Such a government is always pro-people and tries to upheld the interest of the common people.

Thinkers’ Perspectives

• The critique of procedural democracy is provided by the scholars who study the substantive democracy. In their opinion, it views democracy in a limited way. Electoral democracy is minimal democracy Free and fair elections, universal adult franchise, political parties, pressure groups and avail1ability of constitution etc. are not sufficient conditions for democracy, though they are necessary. Democracy has to be located in the society and taken out of the institutional mode. This alternative view of democracy can be termed as the substantive democracy. Beentham argued for a "social agenda of democratisation". 
• The substantive aspect pertains to socially based value judgements such as equitable income distribution. Dahl (1989,) points out that the substantive aspect of democracy gets strengthened only if desirable results can be obtained through „collective decision-making processes‟. 
• Beentham argued for a "social agenda of democratisation". Democracy has to be grounded in the reality of society, apart from the participation and competition in the elections.
• Civil Society is also an essential ingredient of substantive democracy. In India there are two viewpoints on the civil society. One, it considers all associations and collective actions as civil society, irrespective of the issues they take up; two, only those associations which take up two issues of universal significance, not sectarian, and whose foundation is secular/universal are considered civil society. 

Criticism 

Fareed Zakaria, however, criticises the substantive democracy in that it views democracy in the normative terminology as "good governance", with a wide range of rights; it does not consider the descriptive democracy. 

Conclusion 

• In a substantive democracy, the general population plays a real role in carrying out its political affairs, i.e., the state is not merely set up as a democracy but it functions as one as well. This type of democracy can also be referred to as a functional democracy. There is no good example of an objectively substantive democracy.
• The opposite of a substantive democracy is a formal democracy, which is where the relevant forms of democracy exist but are not actually managed democratically. The former Soviet Union can be characterized in as such, since its constitution was essentially democratic but in actuality the state was managed by a bureaucratic. 

Deliberative Theory

Introduction

• Deliberative democracy affirms the need to justify decisions taken by the citizens and their representatives where both are expected to justify the laws they would impose on one another. In a democracy, leaders should therefore give reasons for their decisions, and respond to the reasons that citizens give in return. But not all issues, all the time, require deliberation.
• Deliberative democracy, school of thought in political theory that claims that political decisions should be the product of fair and reasonable discussion and debate among citizens.
• Deliberative democracy affirms the need to justify decisions taken by the citizens and their representatives.  where both are expected to justify the laws they would impose on one another. In a democracy, leaders should therefore give reasons for their decisions, and respond to the reasons that citizens give in return. But not all issues, all the time, require deliberation. 
• Deliberative democracy makes room for many other forms of decision-making (including bargaining among groups, and secret operations ordered by executives), as long as the use of these forms themselves is justified at some point in a deliberative process. Its first and most important characteristic, then, is its reason-giving requirement.
• The moral basis for this reason furnishing process is common to many conceptions of democracy. Persons should be treated not merely as objects of legislation, as passive subjects to be ruled, but as autonomous agents who take part in the governance of their own society, directly or through their representatives.

In deliberative democracy an important way these agents take part is by presenting and responding, to reasons, or by demanding that their representatives do so, with the aim of justifying the laws under which they must live together.  

• The reasons are meant both to produce a justifiable decision and to express the value of mutual respect.
• A second characteristic of deliberative democracy is that the reasons given in this process should be accessible to all the citizens to whom they are addressed. To justify imposing their will on you, your fellow citizens must give reasons that are comprehensible to you.
• The third characteristic of deliberative democracy is that its process aims at producing a decision that is binding to all for a period of time. 

Features of deliberative democracy

• Concept of deliberative democracy embodies an attempt to reconcile two different models of democratic thought: 'Democracy as a popular rule' and 'Democracy as the bulwark of personal freedom'. 
• Advocates of democracy as a popular rule argue that democratic decision-making should reflect popular will as if people are ruling themselves as free and equal citizens rather than being ruled by the arbitrary will of public officials. 
• On the other hand, advocates of personal freedom argue that democratic decision-making should be the outcome of people's exercise of personal freedom, which implies freedom of thought, speech, press, association and religion, right to hold personal property, freedom to vote and hold public office, freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as defined by the concept of rule of law.

Exponents of deliberative democracy include Michael Walzer (Spheres of Justice; 1983), J. Cohen and J. Rogers (On Democracy: Toward a Transformation of American Society; 1983): Bernard Manin ('On Legitimacy and Political Deliberation', Political Theory; 1987); S.L. Hurley (Natural Reasons: Personality and Polity; 1989); and J.S. Fishkin (Democracy and Deliberation; 1991).

• Deliberative democracy requires that democratic decision-making should embody an element of popular rule. 
• It should be used as a means of encouraging public deliberation on issues that are best understood through open, deliberative processes. 
• Deliberative democracy does not subscribe to the model of politics where each individual is fighting to secure his self-interest. 
• It rather promotes a model of politics where each individual is trying to persuade others to find a reasonable solution of public issues. 

People in a deliberative democracy try to influence each other through an accepted mode of reasoned argument, that is to win their heart through an appeal to the prevalent value system. At the same time it pays due regard to personal freedom of every individual.

To conclude we can say that Deliberative democracy does not rule out division of labour between citizens and professional politicians. While it requires the citizens to participate in deliberation on public issues and thereby supplement the wisdom of politicians, it also demands constant public accountability of politicians.

Thinkers’ Perspective 

Joshua Cohen, a student of John Rawls, outlined conditions that he thinks constitute the root principles of the theory of deliberative democracy, in the article "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy" in the 1989 book The Good Polity. He outlines five main features of deliberative democracy, which include:

• An ongoing independent association with expected continuation.
• The citizens in the democracy structure their institutions such that deliberation is the deciding factor in the creation of the institutions and the institutions allow deliberation to continue.
• A commitment to the respect of a pluralism of values and aims within the polity.
• The citizens consider deliberative procedure as the source of legitimacy, and prefer the causal history of legitimation for each law to be transparent and easily traceable to the deliberative process. 
• Each member recognizes and respects other members' deliberative capacity.

Amy Gutmann and Dennis F. Thompson's definition captures the elements that are found in most conceptions of deliberative democracy. They define it as "a form of government in which free and equal citizens and their representatives justify decisions in a process in which they give one another reasons that are mutually acceptable and generally accessible, with the aim of reaching decisions that are binding on all at present but open to challenge in the future". 

They mentioned deliberative democracy has four requirements, which refer to the kind of reasons that citizens and their representatives are expected to give to one another:

• Reciprocal. The reasons should be acceptable to free and equal persons seeking fair terms of cooperation.
• Accessible. The reasons must be given in public and the content must be understandable to the relevant audience.
• Binding. The reason-giving process leads to a decision or law that is enforced for some period of time. The participants do not deliberate just for the sake of deliberation or for individual enlightenment.
• Dynamic or Provisional. The participants must keep open the possibility of changing their minds, and continuing a reason-giving dialogue that can challenge previous decisions and laws.

Weakness of deliberative democracy 

• A claimed failure of most theories of deliberative democracy is that they do not address the problems of voting. 
• A criticism of deliberation is that potentially it allows those most skilled in rhetoric to sway the decision in their favour. This criticism has been made since deliberative democracy first arose in Ancient Athens.
• The political philosopher Charles Blattberg has criticized deliberative democracy on four grounds: (i) the rules for deliberation that deliberative theorists affirm interfere with, rather than facilitate, good practical reasoning; (ii) deliberative democracy is ideologically biased in favor of liberalism as well as republican over parliamentary democratic systems; (iii) deliberative democrats assert a too-sharp division between just and rational deliberation on the one hand and self-interested and coercive bargaining or negotiation on the other; and (iv) deliberative democrats encourage an adversarial relationship between state and society, one that undermines solidarity between citizens.

Conclusion 

Deliberative democracy values open and public deliberation on Issues of common concern. It starts from the assumption of individuals as autonomous persons, but does not view the social relationships between these autonomous persons as relationships of conflict or interest. Rather, it sees people as relating to each other and seeking to influence each other through reasoned argument and persuasion. For advocates of deliberative democracy, persuasion is the best basis for political power, because it alone respects the autonomy of individuals and values their capacity for self-government. 

Participatory Democracy 

Introduction 

• Participatory democracy is a process of collective decision making that combines elements from both direct and representative democracy: Citizens have the power to decide on policy proposals and politicians assume the role of policy implementation. 
• The electorate can monitor politicians’ performance simply by comparing citizens’ proposals with the policies actually implemented. As a result, the discretion of politicians is severely constrained. 
• In this system, the extent to which citizens can affect policy and determine social priorities is directly aligned with the degree to which they choose to involve themselves in the process.

Participatory Model of democracy 

Traditional theories of democracy were chiefly concerned with democracy as a form of government and they looked for ethical justification of democracy. Contemporary theories of democracy largely focus on the nature of democracy in the light of recent sociological findings, and its ethical critiques.

• Concept of democracy implies that ultimate authority of governance should rest with the people themselves. When this idea is sought to be implemented through the mechanism of representative democracy, it is possible that the people may become inactive after choosing their representatives till the next general elections. 
• Moreover, when the size of a democratic community expands geographically and it includes a large population with a variety of composition in terms of race, religion, language and culture, the distance between the people and their representatives is likely to widen.
  
  • Concept of participatory democracy repudiates this model of democracy as it regards people's political participation as the basic principle of democracy. 
  • In short, political participation denotes the active involvement of individuals and groups in the governmental processes effecting their lives. In other words, when citizens themselves play an active role in the process of formulation and implementation of public policies and decisions, their activity is called political participation.

Deliberative and Participatory democracy interdependence 

Concept of participatory democracy regards people's political participation as the basic principle of democracy. In short, political participation denotes the active involvement of individuals and groups in the governmental processes effecting their lives. 

In other words, when citizens themselves play an active role in the process of formulation and implementation of public policies and decisions, their activity is called political participation.

• Concept of deliberative democracy embodies an attempt to reconcile two different models of democratic thought: 'Democracy as a popular rule' and 'Democracy as the bulwark of personal freedom'. 
• Advocates of democracy as a popular rule argue that democratic decision-making should reflect popular will as if people are ruling themselves as free and equal citizens rather than being ruled by the arbitrary will of public officials. 
• On the other hand, advocates of personal freedom argue that democratic decision-making should be the outcome of people's exercise of personal freedom, which implies freedom of thought, speech, press, association and religion, right to hold personal property, freedom to vote and hold public office, freedom from arbitrary arrest and seizure as defined by the concept of rule of law.

People in a deliberative democracy try to influence each other through an accepted mode of reasoned argument, that is to win their heart through an appeal to the prevalent value system. At the same time, it pays due regard to personal freedom of every individual.

To conclude we can say that Deliberative democracy does not rule out division of labour between citizens and professional politicians. While it requires the citizens to participate in deliberation on public issues and thereby supplement the wisdom of politicians, it also demands constant public accountability of politicians. While on the other hand participatory democracy calls for aware and active political citizens which keen interest in activities of the state done by government, and for always ready to direct, applause and criticize the government.

Thinkers’ Perspective 

• The theory of participatory democracy was developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and later promoted by J. S. Mill and G. D. H. Cole, who argued that political participation is indispensable for the realization of a just society.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), the exponent of popular sovereignty, is regarded the pioneer of participatory democracy. In his classic work, The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau asserted that sovereignty not only originates in the people, it is also retained by the people in spite of their transition from the state of nature to civil society.

In modern large-scale states, the objectives of participatory democracy are sought to be achieved through: 

1. Decentralization of administration in which many decisions are left to local communities, as in the case of expansion of panchayati raj in India.
2. Extensive use of referendum, as in Switzerland.

The present-day champions of participatory democracy argue that representative democracy gives little opportunity to its citizens for any significant participation in the decision-making process. 

• Political participation involves an active interaction between citizens and government. It is a two-way process. One party initiates and the other responds. 
• Conventional participation includes the recognized methods of democratic functioning. 
• Unconventional participation is less ordinary; and sometimes viewed as less accepted.
• Participatory democracy calls for aware and active political citizens which keen interest in activities of the state done by government, and for always ready to direct, applause and criticize the government.

Weakness of participatory model 

• The negative criticisms of participatory democracy generally align with exclusive advocacy for 'minimal democracy'. While some critics, such as David Plotke, call for a conciliatory medium between participatory and representative models, others are skeptical of the overly leftist democratic ideology. 
• Michels rejects the feasibility of participatory models and goes so far as to refute the educative benefits of participatory democracy by delineating the lack of motivations for extensive participation to begin development: "First, the self-interested, rational member has little incentive to participate because he lacks the skills and knowledge to be effective, making it cost effective to rely on officials' expertise." 
• Other concerns largely rest on the feasibility of effectively managing massive political input into an equally meaningful, responsive output. 

Representative Democracy 

Introduction 

• Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy or representative government, is a type of democracy founded on the principle of elected persons representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of representative democracy: for example, the United Kingdom (a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy), India (a federal parliamentary republic), France (a unitary semi-presidential republic), and the United States (a federal presidential republic).
• Representative democracy can function as an element of both the parliamentary and the presidential systems of government. It typically manifests in a lower chamber such as the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, and the Lok Sabha of India, but may be curtailed by constitutional constraints such as an upper chamber and judicial review of legislation. 

Features of Representative Democracy

• Today democracy largely works through various representative institutions. We, are experiencing 'indirect democracy' or 'representative democracy' where government is conducted by the representatives of the people, who are elected at regular intervals. In contemporary era , the term 'democracy' is used as a synonym of 'representative democracy'.
• In a representative democracy, elections are usually held on the basis of universal adult franchise. It means that each man or woman, after attaining the prescribed age (such as 18 years or 21 years) is entitled to vote in the general election, without any discrimination on grounds of gender, caste, creed, region, language, culture, etc. All voters of a community are collectively described as the electorate.
• In a representative democracy, therefore, the political power receives its legitimacy from the people, who are the exclusive holders of sovereignty, but it is subsequently and concretely transferred to a political class who will exercise it.

There are two systems of representation: 

1. Territorial representation:
   Under territorial or geographic representation the whole country is divided into geographical areas of nearly equal population, which are called constituencies. Voters of each constituency are entitled to elect their representative or representatives. This system is simple and convenient. It enables the electorate to know their representative more closely. However, sometimes it may lead to undue prominence of local issues relegating national issues to the background. 
2. Functional representation:
   Functional representation implies that the people belonging to different occupations or functions should be allowed to elect their representatives on this very basis. These representatives should vote on issues relating to their specific functions. For example, people belonging to industrial sector should vote on industrial policy and those belonging to agriculture should vote on agricultural policy.

Thinkers’ Perspective

Mill regarded representative democracy as necessary for progress, as it permitted citizens to use and develop their faculties fully. 

• It allowed the education of the citizens, providing an efficient forum for conducting the collective affairs of the community. 
• It encouraged free discussion, which was necessary for the emergence of the truth. He judged representative democracy on the basis of how far it promotes the good management of the affairs of the society by means of the existing faculties, moral, intellectual and active of its various members and by improving those faculties. 

Mill presents his most sustained defense of representative democracy in Considerations on Representative Government. Here, Mill proposes two criteria for good government. 

• The first is the tendency of the government to promote the common good, understood as promoting the virtue and intelligence of the people. 
• Second is the ability of the government to make use of the capacities of the populace for the common good. 

He then considers what kind of government is best, comparing benevolent despotism, in which the people are ruled by a wise and well-intentioned sovereign, with representative government. 

• Although Mill grants that there are benefits to rule by a benevolent and exceptionally capable individual, he argues that representative government excels benevolent despotism on both criteria. 
• The best government, for Mill, is one in which a body of representatives is elected by universal suffrage. 
• The most serious drawback of despotic government is that, even if is well-intentioned and wise, it produces a passive populace. 
• Intelligence, virtue, and energy are the fruits of activity, and it is only through the exercise of one’s capacities that one can develop them. 
• By doing everything for its citizens, the despotic government deprives them of the opportunity to act for themselves, and thus of the opportunity to develop their higher capacities. 

Representative government has the clear advantage in this regard. 

• The process of selecting representatives, the open debate in parliament, and local participation, all have improving effects on the populace. 
• The very operation of representative government constantly increases the stock of intelligence and virtue upon which government may draw.

The notion of man as a “progressive being” that underlies Mill’s defense of representative government also implies that his defense is only a relative one. 

• According to Mill, there is no form of government that is appropriate in all times and places. Rather, governments must be tailored to the people they are to govern. 
• While representative democracy is best in the civilized world, there are many peoples who are unfit for liberty. 
• Therefore, argues Mill, “despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians provided that the end be their improvement and the means justified by actually effecting that end.” 
• Enlightened despotism can teach the crucial lesson of obedience, thus readying people for the next stage of civilizational development. 
• Liberty only becomes valuable when the people are in a position to benefit from it: “as a principle [liberty] has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.” 
• Thus, Mill’s support of liberty and representative government is tied to a theory of human progress.

Criticism 

• In his book Political Parties, written in 1911, Robert Michels argues that most representative systems deteriorate towards an oligarchy or particracy. This is known as the iron law of oligarchy. 
• Representative democracies which are stable have been analysed by Adolf Gasser and compared to the unstable representative democracies in his book. 
• A drawback to this type of government is that elected officials are not required to fulfill promises made before their election and are able to promote their own self-interests once elected, providing an incohesive system of governance 
• Proponents of direct democracy criticize representative democracy due to its inherent structure. As the fundamental basis of representative democracy is non inclusive system, in which representatives turn into an elite class that works behind closed doors, as well as the criticizing the elector system as being driven by a capitalistic and authoritarian system. 

Conclusion 

To Conclude we can say that representative democracy is a form of indirect democracy in which citizens by exercising their Political rights, elect some one from the state as their collective  representatives , to act on behalf of them on the issues concerned with them. 

Political representation is at the heart of democracy. Whether democracy is understood as popular rule or as effective fate control by the people, representation is the means to realize the democratic idea of giving people a voice in large states. Thus, from a normative point of view, there should be a causal relationship between citizens‟ interests and policy decisions of representatives 

Pluralist theory 

Questions Asked 

• The modern pluralist democracies have posed a great threat to the fabric of nation state. Discuss. (00/60)

Introduction 

Pluralism is an inclusive concept.

• It addresses the interests and rights and the representation of the minorities thus forming the core content of liberal democracy. 
• It affirms the separation of power from state and civil society and also economy from the political power. 
• It offers the scope of institutions for the democratic process in the case of Legislature known as Bicameralism and a form of governance namely Federalism to govern the state through various set of representation. 

Application 

Pluralism paves way for participatory democracy that enables diverse group participation, to protect their rights. In this scheme, political power is distributed and shared to many groups in the society representing diverse interests. 

Pluralism leads to defend their particular interests through government by creating ‘competitive equilibrium’ that intends to benefit large sections of the society for the long run.

• Pluralism suggests that democracy in the system necessitates the conduct of regular elections that encourages political competition among parties, groups and individuals. 
• The thinkers of Utilitarian school were the great advocates of pluralist democracy James Madison, John Stuart Mill and Tocqueville predicted that elections expresses the preferences of divergent competitive groups rather than the wishes of many in the majority group. 
• This also provides the bargaining power to the minority groups to assert their rights and share in power. 
• Pluralist democracy is also termed as Polyarchy, which is a rule by series of minorities within the political framework.

Interest-group pluralism

Advocates of interest-group pluralism regard constitutional norms as `trivial' to the working of a pluralist democracy compared to the social rules and practices that arise from the very character of modern, dynamic, pluralist societies. 

• The crucial determinant in their view is the distribution of power, interpreted as the capacity to control another's responses. 
• Power so conceived rests on a variety of different kinds of resource and the relative share of them held by those involved. 
• Their central claim is that liberal democracy depends upon and helps reinforce a distribution of different forms of power amongst a plurality of agents and agencies such that everyone enjoys a piece of the action. 
• Democratic societies are in essence `polyarchies', to employ Robert Dahl's term.

Criticism 

• The principal objection to the pluralist interpretation is that it overstates the opportunities to use political resources. Certainly all kinds of resources are potentially available, but some appear to be superior to others. Money, for instance, is a resource that can buy many others. The chief executive officer of a corporation like Rockwell International or DuPont can purchase information, free time, advisers, access, prestige--the very things, in short, that make one successful in politics and that many people have difficulty acquiring. 
• Second criticis is  the severe inequality in the distribution of resources. 
• The top layers of society, according to pluralism's critics, have a distinct advantage. 
• Popular participation is reduced to the manageable task of choices in elections. This kind of participation is, at best, a pale and rather pathetic version of the responsible and active participation which was the aspiration of classical democracy.

Conclusion 

• Pluralism is not just a problem within liberal democracies, it challenges the very practices and ideals of liberal democracy. 
• Liberal principles cannot be treated as a consensual framework within which democratic trading can take place. 
• Nor can particular cultural differences be hived off into separate liberal democratic units. 
• Rather, differences have to be continually and democratically negotiated with compromise not consensus as the goal. 
• Instead of freedom from interference, the citizens of such a political system enjoy the civic liberty of non-domination which makes the politics of mutual recognition possible. 
• Many find the endless negotiation that accompanies pluralism tiresome. For good or ill, however, it is the price one pays for liberty and diversity.

Elitist theory 

• The term 'elite' is used to refer to a minority among a group of people who are in advantageous position in that community due to some fact or whatever they may be. Elites are usually those minorities who stand out in a society for their pre-eminence in the distribution of authority. The political elite is composed of a 'minority of specialized leaders who enjoy a disproportionate amount of power in the community's affairs', according to Presthus.
• The elite theory has as its main premise the belief that society consists of two kinds of people-the special selected few or the ‘Elite’ and a vast mass of people. The special people always rise to the top because they are the best and have the qualities. 
• The elite, particularly the political elite performs all political functions, monopolizes power and enjoys the advantages that power brings. The numerically vast and larger non-elite is ruled by the elite and directed and controlled in a manner that is essentially arbitrary. It is always the organized minority that rules over the unorganized majority.

Main features of elitist theories of democracy are: 

• People are not equal in their abilities and so the development of an elite and a non-elite is inevitable.
• The elite can control power and command influence because of their superior abilities
• The group of elites is not constant and there is constant entry of new people and exit of old people from the group
• The majority of the masses who constitute the non-elite are apathetic, lazy and indifferent and so there is a need for a capable minority to provide leadership and
• Ruling elite in the modern times are mainly either intellectuals, industrial managers or bureaucrats.

Thinkers’ perspective 

The Elite theory arose after the Second World War and the main contributors have been Vilfredo Pareto, Geatano Mosca and Robert Michels and American authors like James Burnham and C.Wright Mills. 

Vilfredo Pareto: The circulation of elite is a theory of regime change described by Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923). Changes of regime, revolutions, and so on occur not when rulers are overthrown from below, but when one elite replaces another.The role of ordinary people in such transformation is not that of initiators or principal actors, but as followers and supporters of one elite or another.

Two class of population in society: 

1. Elite / Upper class and.
2. Non- elite / Lower class.

Criticism 

• It is conservative theory. 
• This theory gives undue importance. 
• Lack of faith in common people. 
• This theory gives no importance to ideology. 
• What should be the basis of political elite. 
• This theory is against the principle of social and economic equality. 
• This theory gives no importance to man. 

Procedural theory 

Procedural democracy is a term used to denote the particular procedures, such as regular elections based on universal suffrage, that produce an electorally-legitimated government, procedural democratic theory deals with the making and implemention of those plans.

Democracy should not be seen merely a set of instituition – e.g. free and fair elections, legislative assemblies and constitutional governments arising out of these. This view of democracy is described as procedural democracy as:

• It emphasises only the procedures and institutions of democracy.
• It fails to see that notwithstanding formal political equality, some citizens may be more equal than others, and may enjoy a greater voice than others in the determining of decisions. 
• It would be the poorer, less educated and the socially disadvantaged group who would be unable to fully practice their democratic rights. 

The theory begins with the distinction between the two conflict resolution objectives of "justice" and "truth." We contend that in most instances one or the other of these objectives is dictated by the subject matter of the dispute, or more specifically by the outcome relationship that exists between the individual parties to the conflict.

Thinkers’ perspective

• Procedural democratic theory is concerned with processes by which ordinary citizens exert a relatively high degree of control over leaders - Robert dahl
• Free competition for a free vote- Schumpeter 
• During the first fifteen years following Independence, scholars like Rajni Kothari, M. Franda, Paul R Brass, Field and Myron Wiener used the survey method to conduct election studies. All kinds of factors crime, caste, religion, etc., become effective in elections. 

Conclusion

For procedural democrats, the aim of democracy is to embody certain procedural virtue. Procedural democrats are divided among themselves over what those virtues might be, as well as over which procedures best embody them. 

But all procedural democrats agree on the one central point: for procedural democrats, there is no "independent truth of the matter" which outcomes ought track; instead, the goodness or rightness of an outcome is wholly constituted by the fact of its having emerged in some procedurally correct manner. 

Social Democracy

Social democracy, as opposed to liberal democracy, is a theory of democracy which overcomes the contradiction between the theoretical articulation of political and human rights and the means necessary to realise them in the world whereas liberal theory provides a framework for civil and human rights, its internal logic by no means makes demands on the state to provide the means necessary – material and otherwise – to make these rights concrete in the world.

Thinkers’ perspective

Thomas Meyer’s “The Theory of Social Democracy” (written with Lewis Hinchman) is an attempt to organise a theory of social democracy which will speak to the new concerns over globalisation and the threats it poses to social democratic practice.

• It is a continuation of the notion, also espoused by Bernstein, that liberalism needs to be transcended while also being incorporated into a broader theory of democracy.
• For Meyer, social democracy differs from this theoretical paradigm by seeking to overcome two core philosophical contradictions existing within political liberalism: the linking of freedom with property and the distinction between negative and positive liberty.

Cosmopolitan Democracy

Cosmopolitan Democracy seeks to understand the factors underlying conflicts over human rights so as to implement positive forms of pressure to resolve them. It is compiling a political and ethical plan. 

• As an ethical plan “it seeks to establish (among other things) the extent of content of and justification for moral obligation”.
• As a contemporary political project, “it is intimately connected with debates about the appropriate form of political community and the practices of democracy and globalization”.

One basic element in the outlook of Cosmopolitan Democracy is peace and security whereby individuals and communities will not be threatened by war, oppression, and other morbid situations and there will be peaceful and mutually acceptable means for resolving differences.

Thinkers’ perspective 

Writers advocating cosmopolitan democracy include Immanuel Kant,David Held, Daniele Archibugi,Richard Falk, and Mary Kaldor. Archibugi says “Cosmopolitan Democracy is based on the assumption that important objectives- control of the use of force, respect for human rights, self – determination- will be obtained only through the extension and development of democracy”.

Cosmopolitan democracy continues to take upon itself the risks that attend to proposing the implementation of a democratic society within, among and beyond states.

Criticism 

• Criticisms of cosmopolitan democracy have come from realist, marxist, communitarian and multicultural perspectives. 
• Democratic theorist Robert Dahl has expressed his doubts about the possibility of expanding democracy in international organizations to any significant degree, as he believes that democracy diminishes with size. 
• Opponents of Dahl's approach point to the fact that bigger countries are not necessarily less democratic. 
  
  • For example, there is no correlation between voters' turnout and population size; in fact it is smallest in countries with fewer than 100,000 citizens.

Conclusion 

The basic idea behind cosmopolitan democracy is to globalize democracy while, at the same time, democratizing globalization. It was never intended to provide a single recipe, but rather to serve as a unifying framework for a plethora of proposals and campaigns that, in different ways, aim to develop global governance in a democratic direction.