Emily Finley argues in her book, The Ideology of Democratism, that there are (at least) two broad approaches to democracy. The first is as a decision-making process for groups, with all the pedestrian foibles and indeterminacies with which day-to-day democratic politics makes us all too aware. There is another tradition, however, in which democracy takes on a distinctly ideological, even religious bent. This tradition, traced back at least to the writings of French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, sees democracy as a means of identifying and channeling a mystical “General Will” that lays behind and above day-to-day democratic politics.

One main current of the American political tradition early on expressed skepticism, if not outright hostility, to the Rousseauean understanding of democracy. Early in the well-known argument of Federalist #10, for example, James Madison rejected as “impracticable” the possibility of solving the problem of factions “by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.” Human differences and limitations make this aspiration fundamentally impracticable, if not utopian: “As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.”

Other political theorists and politicians, including a fair number of Americans, Finley argues, have proven more open to the Rousseauean solution to the problem of faction. Rousseau’s “General Will” posits an aggregate social will distinct from the sum of individual preferences. This General Will would reflect a form of unanimous consent. The irony is that this aspirational approach to democracy, if actually inconsistent with the nature of man, as both Madison and Finley argue, ultimately becomes anti-democratic.

Though Rousseau is perhaps the earliest proponent of “democratism,” Finley argues that there have been many over the centuries, both theorists and practitioners. Finley includes on this list Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, Jacques Maritain, Jürgen Habermas, John Rawls, and even George W. Bush (or, at least, notable members of Bush’s administration).

What unites these otherwise diverse figures, according to Finley, is their commitment to distinctive features of democratism. While often only an implicit political theory, the phenomenon manifests two recurring distinctives. 

The first distinctive is that democratism serves as something of an ersatz religion for its advocates and for society. It provides, even if only implicitly, rival answers to those that traditional religion—Christianity in particular—provides in addressing humanity’s ultimate concerns. 

A second distinctive Finley discusses is the self-defeating irony of the Rousseauean approach to democracy: Despite ostensibly promoting the aspiration to democratic decision-making, democratism necessarily relies on elite interpreters of the “General Will.” As a practical matter, this reliance effectively turns democratism’s formal commitment to democratic governance into an elite-controlled oligarchy.

Democratism as Ersatz Religion

While it may seem strange to many Americans to imbue the rough and tumble politics of democratic governance with the devotion of religious belief, Finley argues that implicit appeals are made regularly and full-throated versions of the Rousseauian tradition assert democratic doctrines as a rival, or even as a substitute, for traditional religious beliefs. 

Finley identifies at least five doctrines advanced by democratists that would rival traditional religious dogmas even as they modify or reverse them. 

First, Finley argues that the Rousseauian notion of the “General Will,” in effect, asserts an immanentistic substitute for Divine Providence. Drawing on David Lay Williams’ analysis, Finley suggests that Rousseau’s General Will is a secularized version of the theology of seventeenth-century French priest Nicholas Malebranche. In Rousseau’s revisionary faith, however, “the common good” replaces salvation itself. Finley writes:

For Malebranche and others, a general will is a godly will for its ability to see the whole and to anticipate the abiding needs of humanity over and above narrow, fleeting passions. For Rousseau and thinkers such as Diderot, the general will retains its original theological connotation of wholeness and perfection, but instead of being attributed to an infinite and omniscient God, it becomes a rational and ahistorical ideal. Rousseau and others substitute for the will of God an abstract will of humanity universally accessible through reason.

A second religious-like doctrine of democratism, according to Finley, is a mirror image of the Christian doctrine of Original Sin. “Rousseau, Jefferson, and other democratists believe that human nature is generally good.” Democratism asserts a secular form of the Pelagian heresy, an ancient rival to the Christian doctrine of Original Sin and divine monergism in salvation. Rousseau is notably explicit on this point, positing that humans are “naturally good” and that it is society that corrupts people. 

It’s not a stretch to include Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson (whom Finley also discusses) among those with a more-or-less benign view of human nature. Nonetheless, it’s not as obvious that some of the others on her list of democratist deplorables share a commitment to this proposition. 

For example, while George W. Bush can be credibly described as holding an overly optimistic belief in the attraction of democracy in nations with authoritarian traditions, Bush’s worldview was not uniformly optimistic: It is, for example, difficult to square Bush’s “axis-of-evil” framework with a general theory of intrinsic human goodness. 

So, too, Jacques Maritain, whom Finley lumps in with the democratists, expressly recognizes that “evil is easy” for humans—and even “inevitable.” 

And even John Rawls is difficult to square with Finley’s generalization. The point of Rawls’ “veil of ignorance” thought experiment, after all, is to invite the reader to set aside all of the individual attributes that would tempt a person unfairly to tip the scales of justice in his or her favor in crafting a constitution. And for decision-makers behind the veil’s hypothetical abstraction, Rawls assumes they apply the self-regarding anthropology of homo economicus. This, combined with Rawls’ manifest recognition of the need for criminal justice and market incentives to curb and guide human nature, places Rawls at odds with Finley’s Pelagian generalization regarding democratists, however much it may have characterized Rousseau himself.

Other religious-like affirmations of democratists Finley observes include imputing a mystical unity to the body politic—in essence political unity substitutes for the religious unity of the Body of Christ. Finley also notes the missionary zeal of democratists and the optimistic, secular eschatology asserted almost universally by democratists. That is the widely-articulated “Whig history” that history is moving decidedly and unilaterally in a progressive-democratic direction.

An Elite Oligarchy in Rousseauian Democracy?

Democratism is ostensibly democratic, but Finley argues that the viewpoint is in fact elitist. It is elitist because, in practice, this kind of view requires the people to be led by a vanguard of right-thinkers. 

Perhaps the most telling attribute of democratism is its more or less hidden elitism—the belief of democratists that they possess special knowledge about the true way to conduct politics and can speak authoritatively about how to transform society. Supremely confident in their own interpretation of Right, democratists do not hesitate to make sweeping proclamations about the ways in which society must change.

Though Finley claims that this is a fundamental feature of democratism, it is largely implicit in the approach rather than overt: “Democratism generally avoids the topic of democratic leadership,” yet its theory “turns out to be at the crux of its philosophy.” Finley adds:

What is needed for the realization of true democracy, according to democratism, is for a new leadership class to emerge that will help to open the eyes of the people to true or rational course of action, which should be self-evident but is not always readily apparent.

What is needed for the realization of true democracy, according to democratism, is for a new leadership class to emerge that will help to open the eyes of the people to a true or rational course of action, which should be self-evident but is not always readily apparent.

A concrete example of Finley’s claim in the American context might be the way some judges and legal scholars claim to channel and refine public sentiment. For example, in striking down then-existing death penalty statutes across the country, justices in Furman v. Georgia notably appealed to their ostensible discernment of an “evolving standard of decency” regarding capital punishment. One justice observed that this practice was “progressively more troublesome to the national conscience.” The basis for the justice’s generalization was not clear, particularly given that 37 states re-enacted the death penalty after the decision. To be sure, the re-enacted laws sought to avoid the disabilities that had the Court strike them down in the first place. But there was a broad expectation at the time that the Court had killed off the death penalty.

One might ask whether Finley’s broadside against democratist countermajoritarianism results simply from the fact that she would disagree with the democratists about the proper place to draw the line between what is permissible and what is impermissible. 

So, too, legal scholars have even attempted to formalize a vanguard status for courts. Writing early in the twentieth century, Harvard Law Dean Roscoe Pound (then Dean of the University of Nebraska Law School) advocated the “sociological movement in jurisprudence” which would be “a movement for pragmatism as a philosophy of law.” And by “pragmatism” in law, Pound meant that the Constitution would be construed so that it would not “obstruct the way of social progress.”

While Bruce Ackerman’s argument in his “We the People” series is not as manifestly political as Pound’s “sociological jurisprudence,” the ostensible role he provides for “the people” when engaged in the “higher lawmaking” process of changing the Constitution outside of its formal amendment procedures is hardly less elitist. That the constitutional revisions he trumpets as actions of the “people” would actually have been ratified if subject to popular referenda at the times they occurred can be easily contested.

These examples can be taken to illuminate Finley’s claim. Despite that, it is not entirely obvious that these judges and scholars are engaged in the sort of Rousseauian dynamic that Finley alleges. Their behavior could be accounted for by a more modest theory, to wit, that the difficulty of amending the U.S. Constitution provokes judges and scholars to cast about for ersatz means of amendment. And the temptation to pursue policy change through the courts rather than through the longer and more costly route of democratic persuasion and deliberation is hardly limited to progressive judges and scholars.

Drawing Limits to Majoritarian Decision-Making

This last point directs us to a larger problem with Finley’s analysis. On the one hand, she criticizes “democratists” for ostensibly championing democratic decision-making while nonetheless actually opposing democratically-supported outcomes with which they disagree. This is particularly highlighted by Finley’s repeated claim that today’s populist movements in the U.S. and Europe are in fact broadly democratic movements and, yet, despite their democratic bona fides, these movements are denounced by democratists.

The problem is that Finley too, and her non-democratist heroes, all draw lines between permissible democratic outcomes and impermissible democratic outcomes. Finley writes, “It is not the intention of this book to suggest that the unmitigated will of the majority ought to be politically normative.”

Fair enough. But in that case, one might ask whether Finley’s broadside against democratist countermajoritarianism results simply from the fact that she would disagree with the democratists about the proper place to draw the line between what is permissible and what is impermissible. 

After all, whether democratist or not, political theorists and politicians who endorse democracy as a legitimate means of governance do not therefore endorse every majoritarian outcome. Consider Aristotle, who distinguished between proper and deviant forms of constitutions based on whether the government—whether monarchical, aristocratic, or popular—advanced the common good. (Might the notion of the “common good” be identified with Rousseau’s “General Will”?)

Or consider Edmund Burke, another of Finley’s commended non-democratists, who notably advocated what has come to be known as the “trustee” model of representation. This is contrasted with the “delegate” model of representation. In the “trustee” model, politicians do not slavishly follow the preferences of a majority of their constituents. Rather, a politician draws on his or her own experience and judgment to make the best decision even when that judgment conflicts with or even contradicts the judgment of a majority of his or her constituents.

So, too, in The Federalist, one argument for separation-of-power systems that slow down decision-making is that the process helps deter the adoption of rash, if momentarily popular, outcomes, and promotes outcomes that advance the long-term and permanent interests of the nation.

And many of the modern “democratists” Finley criticizes, particularly the neoconservatives, are not in the least surreptitious regarding their support for a critically adjectivally-modified form of democracy called “liberal democracy.” The modifier has bite in that it identifies some topics in liberal democracies as beyond majoritarian adjustment. 

To be sure, the critical question is where one would draw the line between subjects that one would subject to majoritarian control and topics that one would place beyond majoritarian control. Yet non-democratists would seem to join democratists in placing limits somewhere on majoritarian outcomes. 

As a result, it doesn’t seem quite accurate to classify people as anti-democratic merely because they draw the line differently than others. This is particularly chastening given that Finley accuses democratists of disparaging those who disagree with them as authoritarian and anti-democratic.

This quibble, however, is not to diminish the important lesson in Finley’s analysis that, like the utopian millenarianism of fascism and Marxism, or older theories like the Divine Right of kings, democracy, too, can be, and has sometimes been, turned into an ersatz religion. And while democratists congratulate themselves on their enlightenment and updated sentiments, democratism is nothing more than an updated version of the itch to make an idol out of temporal power.