"We, the Peoples”: Models of Demoicracy

“The history of the idea of democracy is”, in the words of David Held, “curious; the history of democracies is puzzling”. Beginning in the Greek world of city states, the composite word “democracy” combined demos (people) with kratos (rule) to refer to the “rule” or “government” of the “people”. The government of the people thereby meant the rule of the “many” – the majority of the people; and this model of democracy, as direct democracy, can still be found today. Yet with the spectacular rise of the territorial state, the idea of democracy underwent a major “translation”. For if mass democracy was to work, it had to rely on the idea of representation; and once this idea was applied to elected assemblies, the (American) idea of parliamentary democracy was born. Within that new model of democracy, the people would no longer rule through a plebiscitary majority among themselves; they would, instead, delegate their powers to an elected “few” in parliament where a parliamentary majority now came to represent the will of the people. This model of parliamentary democracy – a contradiction in terms for the ancients – has come to completely dominate our modern imagination.

With this definition of democracy in mind, what could the neologism “demoicracy” mean? If democracy is the “rule” of the “people” (via representative institutions), can there be a government of peoples? Are international organisations, like the United Nations – adopted in the name of “We the Peoples”, demoicracies; or should the United Kingdom, as a multi-nation state, be viewed as such? Within the last decade, the idea of demoicracy has developed considerable traction, especially within the political science literature on the European Union. Yet what exactly is demoicracy supposed to mean in this context; and what models of demoicracy have evolved to explain the “realities” of a plurality of peoples governing together?

This project aims to explore the theoretical and historical expressions of the curious concept of demoicracy. Based on an earlier Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, it has already produced a (small) number of publications. Its main objective however is a monograph that will eventually appear as a volume of the “Oxford Comparative Constitutionalism” Series. The comparative core of the book will be an historical analysis of the demoicratic credentials of the United States, Switzerland, Germany (and India). It will be argued that that the great American federal invention in the realm of political philosophy was the idea of dual democracy and dual citizenship in a “republic of republics”. Equipped with these comparative lessons, the second part of the book will then analyse the potential international and supranational manifestations of a democratic government of peoples today. It will especially look at the European Union, where older models of demoicracy will be contrasted with a – newer – model called “republican federalism” that best captures the constitutional theory and reality of a democracy beyond the nation-state.