Fuller Democracy: James Cairns Reviews Roslyn Fuller's In Defence of Democracy

What Matters Now

In fall, 2019, fascists organize openly in the streets of Hamilton. Elected autocrats strip away civic rights in Brazil and Hungary. A Brexit-induced constitutional crisis rocks the United Kingdom. Pundits debate whether the US president is a despot. Inequality grows while voter turnout shrinks. Roslyn Fuller’s In Defence of Democracy arrives at an opportune moment.

Roslyn Fuller. In Defence of Democracy. Polity. $22.95. 216 pp., ISBN: 978-1-509-53312-1

Fuller grew up in southwestern Ontario. In 2010, she earned a PhD in law at Trinity College, Dublin, where she currently runs a research institute committed to democratic renewal. Fuller calls herself “the world’s leading authority on infusing the ideals of Athenian Democracy with the participatory potential of modern information technology.”

The defence in the title of Fuller’s book is launched against academics and think-tankers who argue against not just the practicality but the virtue of popular government. The anti-democrats in Fuller’s sights argue that people are some combination of too racist and sexist, too stupid, or “too crazy” for democracy. They say ordinary citizens make irrational choices – voting for Brexit, resisting trade, blaming politicians for things beyond their control – which proves “people don’t know what is good for them anyway.”      

The boldest anti-democrats want to restrict voting to those who’ve earned a ballot by passing a test of political knowledge. Other anti-democrats encourage civil servants to subvert the popular will when elected leaders pursue erroneous policies. China’s authoritarian state is celebrated for its decisiveness and emphasis on merit. 

In the first two parts of her book, Fuller dismantles these anti-democratic visions through a combination of counter-evidence and theoretical judo. For example, after reading the libertarian Bryan Caplan argue that “people are unfit for democracy” because they fail to appreciate “the discipline imposed by business” and market rule, Fuller tracks down every source in the bulky footnote Caplan uses to support his claim. “Want to know what wasn’t in those sources?” Fuller asks. “Actual evidence that people are biased against markets.” 

As for the pseudo-progressive claim that people are too bigoted for democracy, Fuller points to the racist policies and cultures of past leaders heralded as democrats. She explains that when it comes to fighting discrimination, “the more people have got involved in politics, the better things have become.” Fuller’s writing is engaging and uncharacteristically playful for a treatise on politics.

The final third of the book lays out Fuller’s vision for democratic renewal; for, at the same time as championing the principle of popular power, Fuller is deeply critical of liberal-representative democracy, the actually-existing elections + parliament model of rule-by-the-people that structures politics in countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, France, India, and the United States. Punning on her name, Fuller calls her alternative model “fuller democracy,” the radical aim of which is nothing less than to harness the power of digital technology to “switch out elected politicians for mass decision-making.” 

Picture millions of people around the country using advanced social media to debate and decide all matters of public policy. There are no elections or legislatures under fuller democracy. In the absence of government by political party, formal leaders would disappear, too. As in ancient Athens, in Fuller’s model for a better future, outstanding debaters and knowledgeable analysts will become recognized as “unofficial leaders.” But their authority will be akin to the rhetors of ancient Greece – dependent on reputation and civic performance, without the clout or protection that comes with formal office. 

Under fuller democracy, citizens will be paid for the hours they devote to civic labour. Heads of government departments (like the Minister of Finance or the Secretary of Education) will be selected by lot (i.e. drawn randomly from the citizenry, the way juries are chosen now). Using lottery this way, as the ancient Greeks did, emphasizes the administrative (i.e. not legislative, not political) function of the office, and avoids the corruption-inducing practice of career-building atop government departments.

Fuller says her alternative model of democracy would create “a world you might actually want to live in.” However, she doesn’t explain why, in this desirable future, certain institutions of liberal democracy would remain intact, despite other key parts being so radically altered. Why, for example, does she envision that the sprawling, unelected bureaucracy of the modern state would go on functioning after the legislative process is fundamentally transformed? 

Mainstream political scientists will invoke the “law of unintended consequences” to dismiss the possibility that other branches of the state (the bureaucracy, the courts, the constitution) could survive such a radical redesign in the legislative branch. Radical democrats will ask: Why on Earth would you imagine preserving mass bureaucracy in a sky’s-the-limit dream of rule by the people? 

Fuller also neglects to answer a question the reader might ask on every page: If the principles of fuller democracy are so desirable, why aren’t they being implemented today? The answer isn’t the persuasiveness of books by anti-democratic academics. 

The real reason has to do with the narrow limits of what is politically possible within a capitalist economy. The history of modern democracy is in large part the history of business elites using every tool at their disposal to fight against people-power extending into the economic sphere.

Look how fiercely business interests fight political reforms that pose even the slightest challenge to profit accumulation. Systemic change on the order Fuller envisions would see every effort to halt it by interests whose dominance depends on the party system, government by cabinets stacked with elites, and a legislative framework that mostly excludes public control over industry, trade, and the distribution of wealth. 

For Fuller’s vision of fuller democracy to become reality, nothing less than a revolution of political economy is required. That sort of foundational change doesn’t happen on its own or through tinkering by leaders at the top. It requires a political agent: namely, mass movements from below. Yet Fuller is silent on the question of who would champion, build, and bring her model to life. For all its emphasis on people power, the book is virtually devoid of actual people struggling to deepen democracy.

James Cairns is associate professor of Social and Environmental Justice at Wilfrid Laurier University, and a Senior Editor at Hamilton Review of Books. He is the co-author (with Alan Sears) of The Democratic Imagination: Envisioning Popular Power in the Twenty-First Century (University of Toronto Press, 2012). His most recent book is The Myth of the Age of Entitlement: Millennials, Austerity, and Hope (University of Toronto Press, 2017).