Conflicts and Coordination in a Democratic Society

This section attempts to assess whether democracy as an institution can implement social choice and ensure some kind of equality, hopefully in a peaceful way, in a situation with different preferences and interests among citizens.

An important objection to democracy can arise from the requirement that we possess knowledge for deciding. According to Plato's ‘Republic', policy decisions should follow the lead of those who know, specifically philoso­phers. Democracy would then be inefficient as a means for determining the right thing to do, as everybody's opinions would be treated equally, disregarding one's knowledge. The implication is that, if - as a group - we want to go to some place, it is not reasonable to assume that everyone has an equally valid opinion of how to get to that place.

This argument is easy to counter. Several assumptions that one can find difficult to accept underlie it. Apart from the notation that philosophers may lack the practical wisdom that can orient policy action, there are certainly areas where technical knowledge is necessary. However, in any case, policy decisions should be the responsibility of the majority of people. The argument of being informed before deciding is relevant, but this is one of the reasons why democracy should be supported by education and discussion in a way that citizens can discover the best course of action.^[131] The process of social choice needs to be dynamic, having this opportunity for the whole people of discovering the way to arrive at better decisions.

Sen develops and clarifies his notion of democracy as public reasoning and emphasises the relevance of issues such as the informational role of democracy, tolerant values, the inescapable plurality of principles and the necessity to connect opportunity freedom and process freedom. The former type of freedom represents the real opportunity to achieve functionings, whereas for the latter what matters is the opportunity to achieve and thus to belong to institutions and to practice democracy. Accordingto Sen (2009:113), it is through public reasoning, education, especially of women, and demand for participation - as required by social-choice theory - that democracy can advance.^[132] This is also a way for ‘basing an adequately articulated idea of social justice on the demands of the social theory of justice and fairness'.^[133]

The issue arising from this conception is whether public reasoning can cope not only with informational differences but also with other sources of conflicts. In our societies, a number of conflicts arise, as in the past, because of different interests or religion or race. Sometimes they are resolved in a peaceful way. Often conflicts lead to some kind of violence or separation of states. Conflicts also can take a violent expression in advanced countries. As to separation, which recurred especially in the 1970s and 1980s, the number of democratic governments has increased threefold in the world, and transition to democracy has witnessed a rise in violent struggles and has led to the oppression of some over other citizens (Reilly 2001 and the references therein).These consequences are not an inevitable characteristic of politics in divided societies but often a reaction to the institutional “rules of the game” under which the democratic competition of the electoral process takes place' (Reilly 2001: 2).

Such rules should not favour the tendency to politicise ethnic demands because politicians in divided societies would have an incentive to play the ‘ethnic card'.

The argument has also been proposed that extreme conflicts can be avoided by democracy through account­ability, as this should temper them. However, account­ability also weakens actions for repressing conflicts and maintaining security. The net effect is uncertain. Collier and Rohner (2008) have examined the topic from an empirical point of view and conclude that the positive effect of accountability tends to become more potent as income rises. A democratic regime would thus be suitable only for developed countries.

Acemoglu et al. (2008) suggest that the correlation between income level and democracy is apparent rather than real. Studies that find such a correlation do not control for factors that simultaneously affect both variables. Survival of dictator­ships is indeed independent of income. By contrast, democra- tisation has a positive effect on growth. It is true that clientelism, the strength of powerful groups, negative exogen­ous shocks and other factors can have an influence on the outcome of democratisation. However, when the effects of democratisation are controlled for these factors, empirical esti­mates show that a country switching from autocracy to democ­racy achieves about 20 per cent higher gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (in addition to the positive effects on the tax- to-GDP ratio and primary school enrolment rates) over roughly thirty years (Acemoglu et al. 2014). Against these possible gains are, however, obstacles to the implementation of democracy. In particular, we should remember that obstacles arise, espe­cially in less developed countries, to removing one of most important determinants of interest groups' action aiming at distorting citizens' preferences, i.e.

Sen (2009: chap. 15) contends that democracy can be implemented only in Western societies or - better - in coun­tries with a higher average income level. On the one hand, he argues that the ideals of ‘political participation, dialogue and public interaction' underlying it have a universal value (2009: 326). On the other hand, one should not assume that a satisfactory level of democracy has been achieved in those countries. Sen's notation seems to be highly remarkable, as in apparently democratic countries subtle ways can be used to create consensus for the dominant groups, as we have seen in Chapter 6.

As to less developed countries - more generally, coun­tries with deep conflicts - a number of suggestions can improve social relations. For this reason, deliberative democracy should be adopted.^[134] This is a form of democ­racy - whose roots can be traced back to Aristotle and J. S. Mill - recently advocated by Habermas (1984) in terms of communicative rationality, which differs from mere voting in that it associates elements of consensus to some majority rule.^[135]

In implementing democracy, one could exploit actions and institutions that can avoid or reduce conflicts. Take concertation among workers, firms and the government, which has proved to be an effective way to avoid conflicts in developed countries. With specific reference to Europe, De Leonardis, Negrelli and Salais (2012) show why and how in a democracy where pluralism is ensured and citizens parti­cipate in collective bargaining, public decision is crucial for its future. Another way to reduce conflicts is by compensat­ing the losers from some policy actions by those who are advantaged. As a matter of fact, welfare-state provisions are an instrument for compensating the losers in the social race.

The issue of the relationships between democracy and justice should be further clarified at this point as a way to introduce the central role of education in a democratic society.

According to some authors, the process of freedom advo­cated by Sen can be of detriment to opportunity freedom, i.e. social justice. In this situation, only those active would enjoy full benefits (hence the objection of ‘athleticism’ referred to in Sen’s theory). Critics say that in addition to activism, or a specific kind of it, some other conditions need to be guaran­teed in order to ensure democracy in unequal societies. In particular, the outcomes of democratic procedures can be distorted for a number of reasons: not only misinformation and ignorance will hit some specific sections of the popula­tion but mainly the power of the rich, who impose distortions.¹1 In his The Idea of Justice, Sen seeks to answer this criticism: he develops and clarifies his notion of democ­racy as public reasoning and emphasises the relevance of issues such as the informational role of democracy, tolerant values, the inescapable plurality of principles and the neces­sity to connect opportunity freedom and process freedom (Bonvin 2005). Education can be a powerful means to this end.

7.4