Just Freedom : A Moral Compass for a Complex World (9780393243017) by Pettit Philip

Author:Pettit, Philip [Pettit, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780393243017
Publisher: Norton
Published: 2014-01-22T06:00:00+00:00

Making Popular Influence Attainable

Three problems and their resolution

A system of popular influence, equally accessible to all, could not involve a participatory assembly, even a virtual assembly, of all the citizens in a country; such a forum would preclude the discussion and deliberation required for coherent, collective decision-making (Pettit 2003). The only feasible way of organizing popular influence is via a familiar system: open, periodic, and competitive election to the legislature and perhaps also to other offices.65 Such a pattern of election to public office is the only sure way of engaging and reinforcing the basic liberties of expression and association, thereby recruiting people to an enterprise of collective self-assertion and helping to underwrite the need for government to win popular acceptance.66

But, for a number of reasons, an electoral system is unlikely on its own to give people equal influence, even if almost all can and do vote, as under compulsory registration or voting, and even if electoral constituencies and rules ensure that each vote has the same value. It will fail to give them equal influence insofar as it fails to offer them the same chance of being on the winning side.67 There are many problems that undermine the prospect of equal influence, but I shall mention three in particular: the sticky minority problem, the party interest problem, and the influential lobby problem.

The first problem is that some people may be locked into a sticky minority—say, a religious minority with systematically divergent but neglected views—so that they lose out invariably in certain of the decisions taken by elected representatives. The second problem is that elected representatives, seeking to ensure their personal election or the election of their own party, will tend to exploit their powers in certain areas for electoral advantage; this abuse might occur in the drawing of electoral district boundaries, the setting of interest rates, or the reporting of economic and other data. And the third problem for establishing a regime of equally shared influence is that elected representatives are likely to be pressured and motivated to serve the interests of groups on which they depend for campaign finance or for favorable representation in the media; such lobbies are bound to be able, behind the backs of the public, to claim self-serving rewards for their efforts and thereby usurp the power of the state for their own advantage.

The solution to such problems requires dividing, constraining, regulating, and sometimes even sidestepping elected representatives. Take the sticky minority problem, for example, which can arise with any religious or ethnic or cultural minority, or with a minority distinguished by occupation, language, or sexual orientation. In order to resolve this barrier to equal influence, such groups must be enabled to find a public voice—most plausibly, via public interest organizations. And equally, they must be given a right of appeal to independent authorities for the assessment and, if necessary, rectification of their complaints. These authorities might include regular courts and special tribunals as well as ombudsmen, equality commissioners, and other watchdog agencies. They

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