Federalist No. 10: Are Factions the Problem in Creating Democratic Accountability in the Public Interest?

• Published date: 01 December 2011
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02459.x
• Author: Jack H. Knott
• Date: 01 December 2011

Jack H. Knott is the Erwin and Ione

Piper Dean Professor in the School of Policy,

Planning, and Development at the Univer-

sity of Southern California. His research

interests center on the impact of institutions

and decision making processes on public

policy, governmental and bureaucratic

reform, and public management. He is a

fellow of the National Academy of Public

Administration.

E-mail: jhknott@usc.edu

Are Factions the Problem? S29

Jack H. Knott

University of Southern California

Federalist No. 10 contains an optimistic view of the

national government’s ability to fulf‌i ll its obligations

in the midst of what was, at the time, a small but

challenged nation.  is essay

suggests that the founders did

not anticipate the pernicious

ef‌f ects of rent seeking, corruption,

and repression of minorities,

and they failed to anticipate the

calamities associated with slavery.

 e essay asks about the role of

government as a party machine,

a business, a policy process, and

a contractor and examines a

variety of contemporary theories

for explaining government

performance.

Are political factions

the problem in public

administration? In Fed-

eralist No. 10, James Madison

addresses the issue of factions

in a democratic republic. His

argument consists of two parts: First, he argues that

the causes of faction cannot be removed. Factions are

rooted in the self-interests of individuals and groups.

When self-interest is combined with the limited and

faulty rationality of human beings, political factions

emerge that do not serve the broad public interest or

that cause harm to the rights of other groups (Carey

1995, 9–11; Epstein 2007, 64–66). Madison also

believed that the unequal distribution of property

is the main source of factions, which, in turn, is a

major determinant of the political power structure of

a state (Ostrom 2008, 81). Madison argues, however,

that the consequences of factions can be controlled.

In colonial America, he worried less about minority

factions than majority ones. He reasoned that while a

minority faction might frustrate and delay the actions

of the majority, it cannot prevent the majority from

working its political will. Consequently, his primary

concern focused on majority factions that repress the

rights of minorities or that pass legislation that would

not benef‌i t the broadly def‌i ned public interest.

Madison believed that the

United States would have two

interconnected advantages over

other countries in control-

ling the potentially repressive

acts of majority factions.  e

f‌i rst advantage is a republican

form of government, in which

the legislative body consists

of a small number of elected

representatives of the people.

 e second advantage is that a

republican form of government

allows for a much larger size

country. Madison argues that

elected representatives are more

likely than the general popula-

tion to include people who have

an interest in the public good.

He also makes the case that

the number of elected of‌f‌i cials

in a large country will be a smaller proportion of the

population than in a small country, and hence each

representative will represent a larger number of people

and interests, giving each representative a broader

political perspective. But Madison thought that even

if the representatives did not have the public inter-

est in mind, the broad diversity of interests in a large

country would make it dif‌f‌i cult to aggregate interests

into a countrywide faction to repress minorities.

His analysis has two important limitations for answer-

ing the question of this article. First, he could not

address the question of the importance of factions

for public administration because, at the time of the

founding of the country, the federal government

played a minor role in the economy and society, with

few public servants and a small bureaucracy. Sec-

ond, while Madison’s analysis profoundly predicted

the potential success of a democratic republic in a

Federalist No. 10: Are Factions the Problem in Creating

Democratic Accountability in the Public Interest?

Madison believed that the

United States would have two

interconnected advantages over

other countries in controlling

the potentially repressive acts

of majority factions.  e f‌i rst

advantage is a republican

form of government, in which

the legislative body consists

of a small number of elected

representatives of the people.

 e second advantage is that a

republican form of government

allows for a much larger size

country.