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M ar k E. Wa r r en
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9781107056107c02_p38-59.indd 42
Table 2.1. Domains of democracy
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Governance-Driven Democratization 43
decision making have little relevance. Even when decisions are made
by democratic institutions, there are often disconnected from those
they affect, who may be separated by great distances of space and
time. Naturally, the greater the distance from democratic inclusions,
the less democratic legitimacy accompanies the decision, and the more
likely to generate (rather than address) political complexity.
Another trend is the general post-modernization of culture, particu-
larly in the developed world (Inglehart and Welzel 2005). Generation by
generation, people are becoming less deferential to authority and have
more democratic values (Dalton 2007). This trend can be conceived as
having two facets. One is a general distrust and often disaffection from
the formal institutions of democracy. Among the developed democra-
cies these effects vary by country, with Denmark on one extreme and
the US on the other. But trends are detectable in almost every devel-
oped democracy, and are now well-documented (Newton 2008). But
at the same time, citizens are more likely to volunteer for causes, they
are more interested in self-government, and they are keenly attentive
to their powers over their own futures. They are increasingly likely to
demand specific, even individualized performances from government
in health, education, and other services (Rosanvallon 2011: chaps
1012). These trends are not necessarily contradictory: though citizens
are increasingly critical of government, patterns of activism and asso-
ciation outside of the traditional channels of political participation
suggest not so much disaffection, but rather a disjunction between the
collectivities that make decisions and citizens capacities to control the
social relations that affect their lives (Norris 1999).
We find a related trend in the rapid development of dense civil
societies. Todays societies are increasingly populated by groups with
resources not just wealth and market power, but also social move-
ments, cultural and ethnic groups, and groups that arise spontaneously
in response to issues and policy initiatives. The developed democracies
are populated by associations, organizations, and networks which are
growing exponentially, not only in numbers of associations, but also
in the relative size of civil society sectors (Warren 2001). Advocacy
groups take up and frame almost every imaginable cause. They per-
form key democratic functions insofar as they articulate the prefer-
ences of citizens and support the public spheres through which public
opinion is developed and conveyed to policy-makers. But they also
tend to overwhelm the capacities of electoral institutions to absorb
and Chen 2005). The process was so popular that city officials found
they could not go back to the old ways, for fear of generating pro-
tests. While broad data is not available, some areas in China exhibit
an impressive density of these new ways of conducting politics. In
Wenling City from 1996 to 2000, for example, more than 1,190 delib-
erative and consultative meetings were held at the village level, 190 at
the township level, and 150 in governmental organizations, schools,
and business sectors (Wenling Department of Propaganda 2003: 98).
The Chinese case suggests that the conditions for governance-driven
democratization are broader than deficits in electoral democracy (He
and Warren 2011). In China, attention to governance appears to be
driven by a development agenda, combined with the tendencies of
development to produce multiple actors with credible capacities for
opposition. The Chinese Communist Party is, no doubt, hoping that
these democratic experiments will head off regime democratization in
the Western sense, while like their Western counterparts they hope
to generate legitimacy, policy by policy, in ways that will replace the
long-bankrupt Maoist ideology. Whether the Party will be successful
remains to be seen. The point here, however, is that the China is a
limiting case: if governance-driven democratization shows up here, it
cannot be attributed to regime democratization, and we should look
for causes that are rooted in pluralization, contestation, and social
capacities unleashed by social and economic development rather than
by pressures for electoral democratization or reform. Indeed, from the
perspective of governance complexities rooted in economic and cul-
tural complexities, the China case is more comparable to the devel-
oped democracies than to the less-developed electoral democracies, its
authoritarian regime notwithstanding.
Fourth, it follows from the policy-focused nature of governance-
driven democratization that constituencies may come into existence
in ways that are quite distinct from electoral democracy. In electoral
democracy, the people are those who live within the boundaries of a
state, and they are represented (typically) through territorial constit-
uencies. Territorial constituencies, however, limit the reach of democ-
racy whenever the collective issues and decisions that affect people fail
to coincide with those territories, as is the case with many economic,
environmental, and security issues. Likewise, peoples defined by one
territory often make decisions that off-load costs or damages onto
people outside of their constituency, in such a way that decisions made
stages for those with axes to grind. As one-off events, such processes
can often be quite destructive, sometimes devolving into shouting
matches, failing to produce actionable proposals, and increasing public
cynicism about politics. From a democratic perspective, open forums
are often suspect, since they often fail to represent those affected by
decisions. A second kind of challenge is closely related: policy makers
increasingly convene stakeholder meetings, seeking to engage groups
and interests potentially affected by policies. For strategic reasons, pol-
icy-makers often gravitate toward those stakeholders with obstruction
potential that is, those sufficiently organized or otherwise powerful
to create governance problems if they are not at the table. By default,
those stakeholders without organization or other resources for voice
or pressure are left out of the processes, undermining the democratic
representativeness of the process. In both kinds of cases, selection pro-
cesses tend to be biased in favour of those with intense preferences
and high levels of organizational resources. Their effects are undem-
ocratic to the extent that these kinds of interests crowd out the inter-
ests of affected but unorganized populations. In general, increasing
opportunities for political participation tends to bias voice in favour
of the well-organized (Cain, et al. 2003a). Thus, a key challenge for
democratic theorists will be to identify alternative forms of represen-
tation that would balance these tendencies, and then figure out why
elites should want to adopt them (Saward 2010). But the very fact
that governance-driven democratization is elite-led provides opportu-
nities for such correctives. Processes can be designed for the purposes
of democratic representation in the initial selection process: random
selection and targeted recruitment of participants are two devices that
can be used to correct representative biases that are typically part of
open forum and stakeholder processes.
A fourth opportunity offered by governance-driven democratization
is that of deliberative leadership by ordinary citizens of a kind that
exists neither in the electoral arena nor in the less structured sphere of
public discourse. In electoral democracy, deliberation is often under-
cut by the strategic features of campaigns, elections, and party poli-
tics. Public sphere deliberation runs the gamut of possibilities, and is
essential to public opinion formation. But public discussion is often
poorly linked to the incremental learning, problem-solving, and sus-
tained attention necessary for policy decisions. Both limitations can
be mitigated by designed minipublics, of which deliberative polls,
2000, chap. 6). Second, civil society capacities are unevenly distrib-
uted, in such a way that any general policy to, say, deliver services in
cooperation with civil society organizations, is likely to favour those
areas and segments of society where civil society is robust (Warren
2001: chap. 7).
In conclusion, I am not making an argument so much as drawing
attention to an emerging landscape, which I am calling governance-
driven democratization. If there is an argument, it is both optimistic
and cautious, very much in keeping with the overall approach of this
volume. On the optimistic side, there are radically democratic poten-
tials in this emerging phenomenon. Governance can inject into mod-
ern societies and government democratic ideals that have thought to be
impossible in large scale, complex, mass societies: more citizen partic-
ipation, more government responsiveness, better representation, more
deliberation (Warren 2002). On the cautious side, these are potentials,
not necessities. For this reason, we shall need to approach this emerg-
ing landscape with a critical eye: we need to look at these emerging
institutions and practices, and ask about their immanent potentials.
To identify these potentials, we will need to use a two-step strategy of
analysis. The first involves abstracting democratic norms in such a way
that they are not necessarily identified with any particular set of insti-
tutions. We should not identify democratic norms with any specific
political mechanisms, such as elections, majority rule, deliberation,
or even participation. These institutions and practices are ways and
means, not ends. Rather, in keeping with the overall message of this
volume, we should identify as democratic any set of arrangements
and practices that enables collectivities to make common decisions
that support the self-development and self-government of individuals.
The second step will involve looking for ways in which democratic
norms find life in new institutional forms, and to keep an open mind
about how these might evolve into practices that contribute to self-
development and self-government including those new institutions
devised by policy-makers in response to political and policy gridlock
(Fung 2007, Smith 2009).
There is also a more specific kind of theoretical task. Sorting out
the good from the bad in these policy-defined arenas of governance
means that we will probably need to develop a somewhat complex
middle-level body of theory to help guide more local analyses and
critical assessments particularly those that might distinguish more