Can Ballots Liberalize Regimes?

One popular argument in the current discourse on democracy is that there is too much of it in the world today. But it is of the illiberal kind that gives more value to the outside trappings of democratization rather than to the principles of individual liberties and enlightened consent. Democracy has become a mere popularity contest, devoid of rational deliberations supposedly among equally competent and intelligent citizenry. Indeed, in many Third World countries today, elections often yield autocrats and oligarchs that win elections on the ignorance and weaknesses of their unenlightened majorities. The way out of this problem, experts recommend, is to strengthen liberal institutions that will put limits to the unchecked powers of government.

But institution-building must first and foremost recognize that individuals are the final source of sovereign power, and that liberal institutions must have its proper grounding on individual rights and liberties. There must be a deliberative participation by the people in any democratic process in terms of having the opportunity to acquire political education and exercise property rights, among other things. Political education and property rights are good indicators of a liberalizing democracy as political education leads to one’s understanding of his rights and political obligations, while the exercise of his property rights cultivates private initiative and personal responsibility that are the bedrock of economic liberties.

Any country that recognizes the importance of strengthening its people’s rational deliberative participation is on the road to a genuinely liberalizing democracy.