Popular Sovereignty in the West by Nootens Geneviève;

Author:Nootens, Geneviève;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1170322
Publisher: Routledge

5 Popular sovereignty, contention, and democratization

The notion that the legitimacy of political power is somehow grounded in the people’s consent has been with us for a long time. It is certainly not an invention of the eighteenth century, neither in discourses nor in social practices. Recall that in the Middle Ages, there were constant references to consultation and consent, as well as to the ruler’s duty to consult (Reynolds 1997: xlvii–xlviii). Respect for custom and justice, which was embedded in medieval values, ‘meant that rulers, from kings down to mere lords over peasants, were supposed to consult with the people under their authority’ (Reynolds 1997: xlviii).1 Yet, ‘having a say’ is not the same as having one’s participation in decision-making and public debates on policies recognized as legitimate for every adult citizen (and having such participation grounding the legitimacy of a regime of government). There is a huge gulf between the former and latter ideas.

The way the convention of consent has been embodied in social and political structures is closely dependent upon struggles between rulers and ruled, the latter generally striving to be freed from excessive oppression, though the contexts in which they do so vary significantly. For example, the free election of officials in communes was clearly valued in the twelfth century. But it did not depend upon a democratic ideal: the context is one of a hierarchical society, in which custom played a significant regulation role, and rank and wealth determined the right – and duty – to represent the rest (Reynolds 1997: 131ff.).

The Western contemporary notion of popular sovereignty depends upon the idea that the people rule (and ought to rule) and legislate for themselves, although indirectly. It is indirect in two ways: the people are represented as forming one national community; and they rule through their representatives. The ways representation in the legislative body relates to the representation as one national community varies, though. In other words, in the West, the idea of popular sovereignty came to be closely identified with democratic self-rule, namely, the normative requirement according to which law is legitimate insofar as it is the product of the people’s decision-making (Walker 2006). The social, economic, and political background against which such an idea came to be embodied in structures of government is also a world apart from that of Middle Ages’. Contemporary liberal states are seen as being composed of free and equal individuals who are autonomous moral agents and citizens. They are single-status communities in which people as citizens are considered as equal and have the same rights and responsibilities, whatever their race, gender, wealth, and faith. The people are ‘the single locus of authority’, and as such they establish a legally and politically uniform constitution, whereas ancient constitutions corresponded, rather, to corporate hierarchical communities (Tully 1995: 66).

It is in the course of processes of contention opposing people to powerholders that popular sovereignty came to be identified with democratic self-rule.2 For example, in Great Britain workers struggled for the enlargement of franchise,

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