Tyrannies of majorities: A conceptual reassessment

Andreas Schedler*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Since the invention of modern democracy, political theorists as well as practitioners have alerted us against the dangers of “majoritarian tyrannies,” whose substantive meaning, however, remains unclear and controversial. Many have also alerted us against the dangers of such alerts serving as rhetorical cover for antidemocratic elites. In this twin exercise of conceptual explication and reappraisal, I intend to both clarify the meaning and reevaluate the political role of the idea of majoritarian tyrannies. In the main part of the paper, I elucidate their internal structure and variance by discussing three logical presuppositions: (1) the performance of tyrannical acts, (2) the exclusive targeting of minorities, and (3) collective action by the majority. In the final part, I propose to revalue the concept as an instrument of horizontal accountability among citizens. Antipopulist rather than antidemocratic in nature, it allows the losers of majoritarian decisions to call their fellow citizens to account for the injustices they engender.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-32
Number of pages32
JournalWorking Paper - Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Volume2019
Issue number433
StatePublished - Dec 2019
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Democracy
  • Democratic injustice
  • Demos accountability
  • Horizontal accountability
  • Majoritarian tyranny
  • Minority rights
  • Unfairness
  • Vital interests

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