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This holds equally true in a multiparty parliamentary democracy where no party gains a majority, since a government must still be formed in coalition by a majority of parliament members. For the majority, ensuring the minority's rights is a matter of future self-interest, since it will have to utilize the same rights when it finds itself in the minority seeking again to become a majority. The minority, therefore, must have the right to seek to become the majority and possess all the rights necessary to compete fairly in elections - speech, assembly, association, petition - since otherwise there would be perpetual rule and the majority would become a dictatorship.
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This right is the people's supreme authority.
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For one, a defining characteristic of democracy is the people's right to change the majority - and the policies of government - through elections. Thus, while it is clear that democracy must guarantee the expression of the popular will through majority rule, it is equally clear that it must guarantee that the majority will not abuse its power to violate the basic and inalienable rights of the minority. If so, as Tocqueville notes above, the majority would too easily tyrannize the minority just as a single ruler is inclined to do. Yet, majority rule cannot be the only expression of “supreme power” in a democracy. Minority Rights I: Protecting Against Political Tyranny Otherwise, a minority holding economic, social, and political power would use its power to dominate the majority of the citizens, thus instituting the antithesis of democracy: minority rule. When decisions are made by slim majorities, the outcome may seem unfair to the “near-majority” that was on the other side, but that principle of majority rule is essential both in ensuring that decisions can be made and that minorities could not prevent the majority from deciding an issue or an election. This ensures that when decisions are made more people are in favor than against.
Majoritarian politics definition plus#
A majority of 50 percent plus one decides an issue or question. For one, it establishes a clear mechanism for making decisions. The principle of majority rule has several functions. Thus, when it is said that “the people have spoken” or the “people's will should be respected,” the people are generally expressed through its majority. The majority vote (or sometimes a plurality when there are more than two choices) decides the election or the issue. Namely, when something is voted on, the side with the most votes wins, whether it is an election, a legislative bill, a union-management agreement, or a shareholder motion in a corporation. What is left out of the dictionary definition of democracy is what constitutes “the people.” In practice, democracy is governed by its most popularly understood principle: majority rule. state of societyĬharacterized by nominal equality of rights and privileges. People and exercised by them either directly or through their elected agents. Government by the people a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the For my own part, I cannot believe it the power to doĮverything which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.”Īlexis de Tocqueville, “Tyranny of the Majority,” Chapter XV, Book 1, Democracy in Americaĭemocracy is defined in Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary as: Of obstacles increase with their strength.
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Not change their characters by uniting with one another nor does their patience in the presence Wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do “If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by