This is the year of elections: voters in Bangladesh, Russia, and India have already cast their ballots; voters in South Africa and Mexico do so at the time of writing; and voters in many other countries, including Uruguay and Namibia, and the UK and the US, will have the opportunity later in the year. Not all of these elections will be free and fair, and not all will lead to good outcomes for the citizens: elections are imperfect procedures and voters sometimes have little real choice. At other times, the voters come to regret the choices they made. Nonetheless this year, more people have the chance to vote than in any previous year in human history, and that is something for us to celebrate. (Not so, of course, if you are the loyal scion of an hereditary ruling dynasty, but for the rest of us, modest celebration seems to be in order.)
Dissatisfaction with political outcomes is not new. In the Western tradition, the earliest historians and political philosophers spent considerable time reflecting on why their city states were not better governed, and whether the rulers or the ruled were mostly to blame. When Solon, the famous lawmaker, was asked whether he had given the Athenians the best laws, he replied, the best they would accept. Balancing the optimal with the consensual lies at the heart of politics, and in the long-run, we should expect democracies to achieve this balance more regularly and more sustainably than other forms of government, owing to their improved capacity to learn and innovate. But this does not guarantee that they will be more successful always and everywhere. Democracies are also to be preferred because they tend to exhibit higher respect for law and less deference to rulers.
Continue reading “The rule of law”