Threats or Gains: The Battle over Participation in America’s Careening Democracy

• Date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/00027162211070059
• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Author: Dan Slater
• Subject Matter: When Mass Politics Fails to Ensure Democracy

90 ANNALS, AAPSS, 699, January 2022

DOI: 10.1177/00027162211070059

Threats or

Gains: The

Battle over

Participation in

America’s

Careening

Democracy

By

DAN SLATER

1070059ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYTHREATS OR GAINS

research-article2021

Modern democracies comprise multiple institutions

and diverse principles. This can make them vulnerable

to “democratic careening,” as polarized actors empha-

size opposing views of what democracy means and

requires. I argue that America’s current bout of demo-

cratic careening is founded on differing partisan per-

spectives of the ultimate purpose of government, and

whether widespread political participation is necessary

to fulfill it. While leftists generally take a gain-oriented

approach to government, conservatives are more threat

oriented. A byproduct of this foundational difference is

that leftists’ conception of democracy is participation

heavy, while conservatives’ conception tends to be par-

ticipation light. The fact that liberals and conservatives

differ on the importance of participation to democracy

is a potential source of democratic careening, and the

fact that conservatives do not necessarily see participa-

tion as a core democratic virtue poses the more serious

risk of outright democratic collapse.

Keywords: democracy; participation; United States;

conservatism; democratic careening

W hat makes a democracy a democracy?

For all their disagreeability, political sci-

entists show surprisingly little disagreement on

this question. Building off of Dahl (1971), three

general attributes are considered essential at a

bare minimum: competition, liberties, and par-

ticipation. As any one of these features becomes

stronger, a political system becomes more

Dan Slater is the Weiser Professor of Emerging Demo-

cracies, director of the Weiser Center for Emerging

Democracies (WCED), and professor of political sci-

ence at the University of Michigan. He was formerly a

professor of political science and founding director of

the Center for International Social Science Research

(CISSR) at the University of Chicago. He is currently

a nonresident fellow in the American Enterprise

Institute’s program on Foreign and Defense Policy,

having previously served as a nonresident scholar in

the Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace.

Correspondence: dnsltr@umich.edu