The Integrative Critique of Democracy: Three Key Strands of Antidemocratic Thought in the History of Ideas and Their Recurrence in Contemporary Antipopulism

Abstract

This article shows that contemporary antipopulism utilises antidemocratic figures of thought that date back to ancient Greece. First, three complementary strategies of defence against demands for equal political and social participation are identified on the basis of three stages in the history of ideas (Greek antiquity, the American Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, and early liberalism in the nineteenth century). First, devaluation: Here, groups of people are described as irrational and easily seduced, which is why they are excluded from political decision-making processes. Second, institutionalisation: If the complete exclusion of the many is not possible, then the establishment of an institutional filter system offers the possibility of restricting their political scope. Third, without the other two strategies disappearing, since the 19th century there has been an increasing demand to educate the social classes, who are not yet considered politically capable, to become good citizens. Subsequently, the return of these three antidemocratic figures of thought is demonstrated using exemplary contributions to the populism debate. The article concludes with the diagnosis that contemporary antipopulism is faced with the challenge of labelling as democratic those institutions that are supposed to limit democracy. This is why the widespread invocation of democracy in the fight against “populism” seems so helpless.

Zusammenfassung

Der Artikel zeigt, dass der gegenwärtige Antipopulismus antidemokratische Denkfiguren bemüht, die bis in die griechische Antike zurückreichen. Zunächst werden anhand von drei ideengeschichtlichen Etappen (griechische Antike, die Amerikanische Revolution am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts und der Frühliberalismus im 19. Jahrhundert) drei sich ergänzende Strategien der Abwehr von Forderungen nach gleicher politischer und sozialer Teilhabe herausgearbeitet: Erstens Abwertung: Hier werden Personengruppen als irrational und leicht verführbar beschrieben, weswegen sie aus den politischen Entscheidungsprozessen ausgeschlossen gehören. Zweitens Institutionalisierung: Wenn der völlige Ausschluss der Vielen nicht möglich ist, dann bietet die Einrichtung eines institutionellen Filtersystems die Möglichkeit, deren politischen Gestaltungsspielraum einzuschränken. Hinzu tritt drittens, ohne dass die beiden anderen Strategien verschwinden, seit dem 19. Jahrhundert verstärkt die Forderung, die als noch nicht politikfähig betrachteten sozialen Klassen zu guten Bürgern zu erziehen. Anschließend wird anhand von exemplarischen Beiträgen der Populismusdiskussion die Wiederkehr dieser drei antidemokratischen Denkfiguren aufgezeigt. Der Artikel schließt mit der Diagnose, dass der gegenwärtige Antipopulismus vor der Herausforderung steht, als demokratisch jene Institutionen auszuzeichnen, die die Demokratie begrenzen sollen. Daher wirkt die verbreitete Beschwörung der Demokratie im Kampf gegen den „Populismus“ so hilflos.

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“Populism” has become a fighting word in both academia and the public sphere, used to label political demands as illegitimate or at least as tending to be undemocratic.Footnote 1 As a result, many contributions on the crisis of “liberal democracy” are characterised by a decidedly antipopulist thrust (cf. Jörke and Selk 2015; Jörke 2022). However, the central arguments of this antipopulism, which goes hand in hand with a commitment to liberal democracy, are drawn from the arsenal of a long tradition critical of democracy that goes back to ancient Greece. Even if it would be anachronistic to speak of an ancient antipopulism, Plato formulated central argumentation patterns that defenders of liberal democracy use today. And even in later stages of the critique of democracy, these now familiar forms of argumentation can be found. As far as the current debate is concerned, this leads to a paradoxical constellation: Democracy is to be defended by way of its own containment. This paradox is resolved, however, when one considers the semantic shift in the concept of democracy. What we call “liberal democracy” today largely corresponds, at least at the institutional level, to the demands of critics of democracy in the history of ideas, such as Plato, James Madison, Alexis de Tocqueville, and John Stuart Mill, who will be discussed below. These authors do not reject democracy outright. On the one hand, they make concessions to democratic demands. Yet on the other hand, they try to ensure that democracy does not degenerate into “anarchy” or “mob rule” through institutional filtering processes and barriers, as well as through the programme of “education for democracy.” In the last 20 years, however, these barriers against “mob rule” have been increasingly called into question, leading to talk of “populism” in academia and the public sphere. My thesis, which I will not pursue further here but which I will take as a premise, is that the concept of democracy is linked to two promises, namely equal and effective participation, which are disappointed within the framework of a “liberal democracy” when the barriers to democracy become too strong.Footnote 2

Instead, this article is primarily concerned with the genesis and return of what I would like to call the integrative critique of democracy. In the main part, three complementary strategies of the integrative critique of democracy are worked out on the basis of three stages in the history of ideas (Greek antiquity [Sect. 1], the age of revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century [Sect. 2], and early liberalism in the nineteenth century [Sect. 3]). First, a strategy of devaluation: Groups of people are described as irrational and easily seduced, which is why they should best be excluded from political decision-making processes. At the same time, however, pure exclusion is not possible, either for normative reasons or because of the hegemony of democratic values and expectations. For this reason, this democratic critique of interests pursues two further strategies simultaneously. Second, the strategy of containing democracy through institutionalisation: Insofar as the complete exclusion of the many is not possible, the establishment of an institutional filter system (a mixed constitution, separation of powers, staged and/or indirect elections, depoliticisation through constitutions) offers the possibility of both involving the many and limiting their real political influence. And third, there is the programme of education for good citizenship for those sections of society that are considered not yet politically capable. On the one hand, this can be achieved through the introduction of compulsory schooling, but on the other hand, it can also involve the practice of civic skills through participation in areas that are considered less crucial, such as the municipal level. In the fourth section, I would like to look at least briefly at the current return of these three forms of criticism of democracy in the anti-populist discourse (Sect. 4). I will conclude with some brief remarks on why the three strategies appear so helpless in the current constellation (Sect. 5).

1 The Beginnings of the Critique of Democracy in Ancient Greek Political Thought

The history of democratic theory is essentially a history of the critique of democracy, and it is also the history of antipopulism in the sense of antimajoritarianism. Since antiquity, theorists of democracy have been dismissive of the people, considering them not (yet) ready for the process of self-legislation and certainly not capable of running the affairs of government. The Old Oligarch and Thucydides portrayed the demos as irrational, easily seduced, and unpredictable in its violent behaviour. The Old Oligarch, for example, states, “For among the best people there is minimal wantonness and injustice but a maximum of scrupulous care for what is good, whereas among the people there is a maximum of ignorance, disorder, and wickedness; for poverty draws them rather to disgraceful actions, and because of a lack of money some men are uneducated and ignorant” (Ath. Pol. 1.5).

In his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides also repeatedly refers to the fickleness of the Attic demos. It was only under the wise leadership of Pericles that the demos was able to restrain its passions. But after his death, according to Thucydides, it was at the mercy of self-serving and unscrupulous demagogues like Cleon and Alcibiades, who made false promises to win majorities. This is the message of a debate in the Athenian assembly where the disastrous decision on the Sicilian expedition was taken: The demos was seduced by the unrealistic promises of booty that were presented as certain, while critical voices were silenced: “With this enthusiasm of the majority, the few that liked it not, feared to appear unpatriotic by holding up their hands against it, and so kept quiet” (6.24.4).

The accusation that democratic procedures are susceptible to manipulation, as well as that the demos allows itself to be blinded by false promises, is a recurring motif in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. The relevant passages amount to the thesis that it was precisely the irrational decision-making caused by the democratic constitution that led to the Athenians’ defeat. Thucydides saw himself as a historian who wanted to describe historical processes, albeit not without a subtext critical of democracy. Although he also outlined alternative, more aristocratic–expertocratic decision-making models, he left it to the reader to draw explicit conclusions. This changed with Plato, who attacked the democratic practices of the time much more directly and developed a series of aristocratic–expertocratic alternatives.

In his Republic, Plato famously subjects the democratic culture and institutions of Athens to scathing criticism. This begins with the famous parable of the ship of state (488a–489d). The ship’s owner, the Athenian people, is completely incapable of steering the ship and ensuring order among the sailors. Chaos reigns because almost everyone presumes to be able to steer the ship, with those who captivate the ship’s master with their oratory and flattery standing out. Some pages later, Plato, in the words of Socrates, paints a very suggestive picture of the supposed dynamics of assemblies:

“Why, when, I said, the multitude are seated together in assemblies or in court-rooms or theatres or camps or any other public gathering of a crowd, and with loud uproar censure some of the things that are said and done and approve others, both in excess, with full-throated clamour and clapping of hands, and thereto the rocks and the region round about re-echoing redouble the din of the censure and the praise” (492 b‑c).

Reading these lines, you can almost feel the clamour and tumult in the ecclesia and the agora. Images and emotions are evoked in the reader that are unpleasant and are not likely to leave the reader unaffected. This creates the image that wherever the people come together in “dense masses” and discuss issues of the common good, passions, on the one hand, and demagoguery, on the other, determine what happens. Under these circumstances, rational decision-making aimed at the good is completely unthinkable. In addition to its suggestive power, this passage is also remarkable because it describes and criticises mechanisms of mass psychology, as was already the case with Thucydides. The shouting and the nonverbal expressions of approval or displeasure mutually reinforce each other in assemblies and foster a dynamic that can no longer be controlled.Footnote 3

Plato is best known in political science for his tripartite model of expertocratic rule. This model, which promises a perfect order that avoids politics and, above all, democracy, is made up of the rule of the philosophers, who are supported by an auxiliary class of guardians. Significantly, there are hardly any passages in Plato about the third estate, which comprises by far the largest proportion of the population but appears largely irrelevant to the direction of the political order. The description of the constitutional decline in the eighth book also fits in with this: With regard to democracy, which he characterises as “chock-full of liberty” and a “bazaar of constitutions” (557d), Plato is convinced that the now degenerate members of the former oligarchs would also rule, but with the help of the many. Plato then goes on to describe what he sees as the inevitable “transformation of a democracy into a tyranny” (569c) because “is it not always the way of a demos to put forward one man as its special champion and protector and cherish and magnify him?” (565c).Footnote 4

In the Republic, however, Plato had to realise that the best constitution could not be realised once democracy had been established. The philosopher who returns to the cave and tries to teach the many the necessity of his rule would at best be laughed at, if not killed (517). In short, in the face of democratic hegemony, the best order cannot prevail. Plato’s late work the Laws can be interpreted as a response to this challenge.

While Plato had primarily propagated a utopian vision of philosopher-kingship in the earlier work, the basic sociopolitical order discussed for the imagined city of “Magnesia” on Crete is characterised by a more realistic spirit. Plato especially attempts to contain the democratic order institutionally, rather than overthrow it.Footnote 5 The endeavour to draft “a constitution no higher than second in point of excellence” (739a) serves precisely this purpose.Footnote 6

As in other works by Plato, the Laws also contains a critique of democratic practices, which he characterises as “theatrocracy” (701a). Here Plato follows the double criticism of the crowd as both ignorant and impetuous, as formulated in the Republic and other early and middle writings. However, he refrains from confronting democratic hegemony in the abstract by designing a metaphysically justified social order. Probably due to his own political experiences, Plato distances himself in the Laws from the trust in the competences and, above all, virtues of supposedly wise rulers, even if he has not done so completely.Footnote 7 His distance from the figure of the wise ruler is particularly expressed in the extremely detailed description of the laws and institutions—characterised here in a broader sense of customs and traditions and the educational measures that should support them. The laws and institutions are intended to fulfil the governing function that Plato ascribed to the philosopher-kings in the Republic. Nevertheless, the flourishing of this legal and institutional order must be placed in the hands of political and religious officials. To guarantee the quality of the officials on the one hand and to fulfil the need for democratic legitimation on the other, Plato provides extremely detailed specifications for their appointment, which cannot be discussed here.Footnote 8

Little has changed between the Republic and the Laws in terms of the fundamental rejection of democratic modes of selection for office in general and the lottery system in particular. However, the more realistic character of this work can be seen in the fact that Plato no longer responds to democratic hegemony in so confrontational a manner. Instead, he now endeavours to achieve an apparent balance between the expertocratic model, which he continues to advocate, and democratic practices. Thus, after a passage in which he distinguishes between a purely numerical equality and a true equality, the latter of which allocates offices according to virtue (especially wisdom) and thus institutionally embodies justice. Plato writes, “Nevertheless, it is unavoidable for every state to also apply this variety, this so-called equality, from time to time, if it wants to keep itself free from any internal discord” (757d). It is therefore concern for the stability of the community, and thus solely a pragmatic reason, that motivates him to take democratic demands into account when constructing the procedures for the selection of politicians and officials.

There are basically two institutional mechanisms that bring about the broadest possible legitimisation and thus correspond to so-called equality. First, there is the right to vote, which Plato envisages being exercised to fill most positions. However, it is clear to see how there are subtle but effective gradations. In the case of the second-ranking officials on the one hand, such as the city and market supervisors, the entire citizenry can choose candidates, although these may come only from the wealthier classes; in the case of the strategists and the supervisor of education, on the other hand, the nomination of the candidates as well as the selection are reserved for the small circle of guardians of the law. Although there is nominally universal suffrage in the appointment of the members of the council, this is also likely to lead to social selectivity, as voting is compulsory only for the upper classes. Even if the need for universal suffrage and thus numerical equality is met, its possible effects are channelled in such a way that “the truest and best form of equality” (757b), i.e., the rule of the best, is given much greater weight.

Second, the introduction of the lottery procedure can also be interpreted as a concession to the democratic spirit. In the Republic (561b), Plato had harshly rejected the lot and paralleled its contingency with the arbitrary way of life of democratic man. In the Laws, however, the lot is used in a variety of ways. There are several pragmatic reasons in favour of its introduction, such as the avoidance of discord and corruption. However, it is nonetheless applied selectively. The drawing of lots is provided for in the appointment of the lower and replaceable officials (members of the council and, to a lesser extent, the city and market overseers), but not for the appointment of the strategists, the guardians of the law, and the supervisor of education. It is also subordinate to the practice of election. In modern terminology, it can be said that the integration of the lottery procedure as a genuinely democratic mode of appointment for second- and third-ranking civil servants is primarily intended to generate and reproduce mass loyalty. Democratic procedures are permitted only to the extent necessary for stabilisation of the community in the face of democratic hegemony. The higher offices, however, are removed from democratic influence by a sophisticated institutional arrangement. We can therefore agree with Aristotle when he characterises the political order of “Magnesia” as “oligarchic” (Politics 1266a7).

Plato develops yet another line of defence against the rule of the many, namely the education of the population. The central importance that Plato ascribes to education for the stability of the political order was already made clear in the Republic. Large parts of the book deal with the education of philosophers and guardians. Educational issues also take up a great deal of space in the Laws. The immense importance of education for the state becomes clear in the fact that “of the highest offices of State this is by far the most important” (765), and Plato lucidly isolates it most strongly from democratic influence.Footnote 9 However, there is a difference, albeit only a partial one, from the earlier writing in that Plato now extends education to all citizens of the state. For although the quality of the civil servants is of primary importance, the other citizens, insofar as they have the right to vote, must also be educated in law-abiding habits:

“You see that it is necessary, in the first place, that those who rightly undertake official functions should in every case have been fully tested— both themselves and their families—from their earliest years up to the time of their selection; and, secondly, that those who are to be the selectors should have been reared in law-abiding habits, and be well trained for the task of rightly rejecting or accepting those candidates who deserve their approval or disapproval. Yet as regards this point, can we suppose that men who have but recently come together, with no knowledge of one another and with no training, could ever possibly select their officials in a faultless manner?” (751c-d).

The Laws thus provides three answers to the problem of the supposedly ignorant and impetuous crowd: First, the marking of a difference between the wise and the crowd, with the related assumption that the crowd is not capable of rule because it is impetuous, irrational, and easily seduced by demagogues. Second, a differentiated system of institutionalisation that allows the participation of the many by means of elections, but at the same time ensures that the decisive offices are removed from the power of the demos. Third and finally, extensive considerations not only on the formation of the political elite but also on the education of the many. These three strategies for dealing with what is seen as the danger of a “tyranny of the majority” are now being invoked again in the phase of the “second democratic transformation” (Dahl 1989).

2 The Containment of Democracy by the U.S. Fathers of the Constitution

It is debatable whether it makes sense to refer to representative systems that are essentially based on elections as democracies. In any case, the term “modern democracy” or “liberal democracy” has become established for those political systems that emerged during the great revolutions of the late eighteenth century. Historians of ideas therefore also speak of the “Age of Democratic Revolution” (Palmer 1959). Although the differences between ancient and modern democracy are immense, there is at least the commonality that a certain proportion of the many were granted rights to political participation. The institutions of voting and representation have proven to be central to this (Manin 1997).

Elections and representative assemblies already played an important role in Plato’s reflections on the containment of democracy. The American Founders took up this motif and, unlike Plato, succeeded in designing a political system that was first called a “representative republic,” later called “representative government,” and today called “liberal democracy.” The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison provide a pertinent and powerful example of this.

In these contributions, originally published as newspaper articles in New York, the three authors defended the new constitution for the United States of America adopted at the Philadelphia Convention against criticism from the so-called Anti-Federalists, who feared a loss of both democratic and republican principles.Footnote 10 It is important to note that although the Federalists emphasised the republican character of the new order, they also made it clear that it was not a democracy. The Federalists, following an old aristocratic–republican judgement, regarded democratic rule, which they associated both with ancient practice and with the political conditions in the individual states that they saw as needing to be overcome, as anarchic and dangerous. At the beginning of the ninth article, Hamilton equates Athenian democracy with the Italian city republics of the Renaissance and diagnoses a “perpetual vibration, between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy” (Hamilton et al. 2003 [1787/88], p. 35). The aim is to create the impression of chaos and instability, which, as Hamilton argues, inevitably goes hand in hand with small “republics.” Ancient democracy thus served the Federalists as a kind of prototype for the debunking of all forms of direct, or as they put it, “pure democracy,” including that which was practised in the many state conventions and township meetings. The Federalists also described the many uprisings of that time that challenged the legal and social order as “democratic.” One particularly large uprising was a decisive factor in the convening of the Philadelphia Convention (Klarman 2016, pp. 88–101). It was an uprising of overindebted small farmers in rural western Massachusetts, which has gone down in the history books as “Shays’s Rebellion.” John Jay paradigmatically expressed the concerns of the upper classes about the spirit of the rebels in a letter to Thomas Jefferson dated 26 October 1786: “A Spirit of Licentiousness has infected Massachusetts, which appears more formidable than some at first apprehended; whether similar Symptoms will soon mark a like Disease in several other States, is very problematical” (Jay 1964 [1786], p. 488). At the same time, Jay pointed the way out of this threat:

“As the Knaves and Fools of this World are forever in Alliance, it is easy to perceive how much Vigour and Wisdom a Government from its Construction and Administration should possess, in Order to repress the Evils which naturally flow from such copious Sources of Injustice and Evil” (Jay 1964 [1786], p. 499).

A system of government was therefore required that could effectively prevent such uprisings and demands for the abolition of debts or the introduction of fiat money. The new constitution drafted in Philadelphia fully met this purpose in that democracy would be countered by a system of checks and balances, for which they used the concept of the republic, a term, which they attempted to separate sharply from its democratic connotations. The quintessence of this conceptual work can be found in the famous 10th article of the Federalist Papers. There, democracy is characterised not only as irrational but also as a form of rule that is as unjust as it is excessive. In it, there is the constant danger of a “tyranny of the majority,” to which the fundamental rights of the individual are defencelessly exposed. In the words of Madison, “Hence it is, that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths” (Hamilton et al. 2003 [1787/88], p. 44). Strictly speaking, this attack applies only to “pure democracies,” which he, like Hamilton before him, understands as small communities with direct-democratic practices. Nevertheless, this calls into question “democracy” in general, as Madison goes on to make a strict conceptual distinction between a republic and a democracy. The aim is to dissolve their semantic unity, which was widespread at the time, by ascribing a negative content to one term and a positive connotation to the other.Footnote 11 In contrast to the shortcomings of democracy described above, a republic offered the prospect of stability and order. “A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking” (Hamilton et al. 2003 [1787/88], p. 44).

According to Madison, the main advantage of representation is the filtering of political personnel. The geographical expansion of the electoral districts, which was so vehemently criticised by the Anti-Federalists, ensured that there were enough “proper guardians of the public weal” (Hamilton et al. 2003 [1787/88], p. 44) among the candidates standing for election. These were more independent of local and, as Madison adds, narrow-minded interests. In a famous passage, he describes them as men “whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and to schemes of injustice” (Hamilton et al. 2003 [1787/88], p. 46). According to him, the advantage of a manageable parliament characterised by “exquisite characters” lies in its ability to purify particular and irrational opinions and passions.Footnote 12

The Federalists’ defence of the new political order outlined here thus resumes two central aspects of the ancient critique of democracy: First, the view that the many were incapable of rational political decision-making and would only follow their passions, prejudices, and narrow-minded interests. Second, the concept of institutional filtering, which Plato had already outlined in the Laws, is also utilised. As in ancient Greece, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution could not simply exclude the many completely from political participation. Not least due to the mobilisation of broad sections of the population in the War of Independence but also due to the existence of many democratic practices in the shadow of the English colonial administration, a democratic spirit had developed in the North American republics that was difficult to push back. In other words, from the Federalists’ point of view, concessions had to be made to democratic aspirations, but at the same time it had to be ensured that these concessions did not go too far and entail the risk of interfering with the existing system of property—for example, by issuing paper money, cancelling debts, or “any other improper or wicked project” (Hamilton et al. 2003 [1787/88], p. 46), which Madison described as a fall from grace. The famous system of checks and balances and many details of the new constitution were intended to serve precisely this purpose (cf. Klarman 2016).

Even a political thinker such as Thomas Jefferson, to whom a democratic attitude is commonly attributed (cf. Matthews 1984), had these reservations about the excessive democratisation of political decision-making powers. Not only was he a supporter of bicameralism with regard to the constitutional process in Virginia, he also argued in favour of political filtering processes: “I have ever observed, that a choice by the people themselves is not generally distinguished for its wisdom. The first secretion from them is usually crude and heterogeneous” (Jefferson 1999a [1776], p. 336). Accordingly, he proposes an indirect election of the Senate by the first chamber. According to Jefferson, the Senate, thus selected, should be able to act as independently as possible from public influence, which is why he also recommends a single 9‑year term of office. This was quite a remarkable demand at a time when even John Adams was in favour of annual elections for all bodies, but it points to later regulations that provided for a lifetime term of office, at least with regard to judges. Jefferson’s proposal also denied the possibility of senators being reelected in order to strengthen their independence: “My idea was that if they might be re-elected, they would be casting their eyes forward to the period of election (however distant) and be currying favour with the electors, and consequently dependent on them” (Jefferson 1999a [1776], p.336).

It is true that Jefferson’s judgement of the “common man” was less pejorative than that of the Federalists. However, it is wrong to conclude from this that he did not share any of the views widespread among the elites about the necessity of filtering processes. Because Jefferson was convinced that the legitimacy of the commonwealth must ultimately be based on the consent of ordinary citizens, the question of educating the many is central to his thinking. His famous letter to John Adams in 1813, in which Jefferson explains his model of elementary republics, should be seen in this context. The two initially agreed that a “natural aristocracy” was needed to govern the commonwealth, which, according to Jefferson, was based on “virtue and talents” and should be distinguished from an “artificial aristocracy, founded on wealth and birth” (Jefferson 1999b [1813], p. 187). Jefferson now, and in contrast to Adams, rejects the separate representation of the rich in a senate and corresponding restrictions on voting rights. Instead, he trusts that the citizens themselves would already know how to distinguish the members of the “aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi” (Jefferson 1999b [1813], p. 187), which was the purpose of the elections. However, Jefferson does not stop at this argument but mentions the education of the citizens as a decisive prerequisite: The law he proposes “on Education would have raised the mass of the people to the high ground of moral respectability necessary to their own safety, & to orderly government; and would have completed the great object of qualifying them to select the veritable aristoi, for the trusts of government” (Jefferson 1999b [1813], p. 189). It is clear that Jefferson continues to distinguish between the many and the best and that it is the task of the many to select the best. In short, there is only indirect talk of democratic equality.

The U.S. Founding Fathers thus echoed ancient figures in their critique of democracy. They emphasised the impetuousness and irrationality of the “masses” and formulated a variety of proposals for the institutional filtering of the will of the many. Like Plato, the Federalists and Jefferson were confronted with a political culture in which democratic demands had to be at least partially taken into account. Hence, they advocated a widening of the suffrage in combination with a system of checks and balances. In contrast to Plato, whose proposals remained in the realm of political imagination, the Fathers of the Constitution were able to establish a political system that is now recognised as the oldest modern democracy.Footnote 13

3 The Taming of the Masses: Tocqueville and Mill

Against the backdrop of the beginning of industrialisation, the question of how to deal with emerging democratic demands also arose in Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century. And once again, the three outlined reactions of devaluing the masses, building barriers against the many, and, finally, extensively considering the education of future citizens can be found. The interplay of these three perspectives is expressed particularly clearly in the writings of two pioneering authors of liberal democratic theory: Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill.

Tocqueville is regarded as an “analyst of democracy” (Bluhm 2006), but even an analyst cannot avoid bringing his own judgements to his subject. Although Tocqueville sees the triumph of democracy as unstoppable, he also repeatedly warns of the dangers associated with the “age of equality.” Above all, he fears a threat to civilisation if the many exercise political power too quickly and too directly, following the tradition of ancient criticism of democracy as well as the thinking of the U.S. Federalists. This is clearly expressed in the introduction to Democracy in America. Tocqueville writes:

“Hindered in its march or abandoned without support to its disorderly passions, democracy in France has overturned everything that it met on its way, weakening what it did not destroy. You did not see it take hold of society little by little in order to establish its dominion peacefully; it has not ceased to march amid the disorders and the agitation of battle” (2010 [1835], p. 24).

In the first volume of his book on America, Tocqueville distinguishes between the exquisite characters assembled in the Senate and the ordinariness of the members of the House of Representatives: When you enter the House of Representatives in Washington, “you feel struck by the vulgar aspect of the great assembly” populated by unknown people. “They are, for the most part, village lawyers, tradesmen, or even men belonging to the lowest classes” (de Tocqueville 2010 [1835], p. 320).Footnote 14 Some even cannot write without mistakes. In the Senate, however, the situation is quite different, as it is populated by those whom Tocqueville considers capable: “They are eloquent lawyers, distinguished generals, skilled magistrates, or known statesmen” (de Tocqueville 2010 [1835], p. 320).

Against the background of such assessments, it is only logical that Tocqueville, with regard to his ideas on the institutionalisation of democracy, leans heavily on the proposals of the Federalists and is full of praise for the system of checks and balances outlined above. However, his comments on local self-government as a “school of democracy” go beyond the Federalists and are more closely related to Jefferson. In Democracy in America, we first find Tocqueville’s well-known praise of local government and “township meetings”: “Town institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to knowledge; they put it within the grasp of the people; they give them a taste of its peaceful practice and accustom them to its use” (de Tocqueville 2010 [1835], p. 102). Tocqueville emphasises in particular the town meetings in New England communities as well as the numerous offices of local self-government, which create a sense of order and law:

“He becomes accustomed to the forms without which liberty proceeds only by revolutions, is infused with their spirit, acquires a taste for order, understands the harmony of powers, and finally gathers clear and practical ideas about the nature of his duties as well as the extent of his rights” (de Tocqueville 2010 [1835], p. 114).

Participation in local self-government, as these lines can be interpreted, makes the citizen ready for the democratic order; he becomes an order-loving and tame subject.

However, there is no institution that Tocqueville praises as much as the American jury. In them, more than in township meetings, he saw the real school of democracy. The jury “teaches men the practice of equity” (de Tocqueville 2010 [1835], p. 448). By participating in the administration of justice, the “normal” citizen learns “not to retreat from responsibility for his own actions” (de Tocqueville 2010 [1835], p. 448). He puts himself in the place of the delinquent, sees his misdemeanours, and avoids them. By dealing with questions of right and wrong, he becomes a virtuous citizen. But this is not the end of the jury’s contribution. There is also the role-model function of the judge and his dominant status in the jury trial: “The jurors view him with confidence, and they listen to him with respect; for here his intelligence entirely dominates theirs” (de Tocqueville 2010 [1835], p. 449). Tocqueville therefore believed that, in the United States, he had found an institution that taught people not only to respect the law—especially the law of property—in everyday practice but also to respect the authority of judges and other public officials. Serving on a jury thus helps to overcome licentiousness and “selfishness,” the spread of which he associates so closely with the democratic age. It is therefore not surprising that Tocqueville praises the legal experts as a force that makes a significant contribution to the stability and moderation of democracy:

“… in democracies the jurists, and among them the magistrates, form the only aristocratic body that can moderate the movements of the people. This aristocracy is vested with no physical power; it exercises its conservative influence only over minds. Now, it is in the institution of the civil jury that it finds the principal sources of its power” (de Tocqueville 2010 [1835], p. 449).

Here, Tocqueville speaks in favour of an elitist class, which he hopes will contain democratic endeavours. The “people” are allowed to participate in the decisions, but they should submit in reverence to the leadership of an intellectual and moral elite. For the French aristocrat, jury trials therefore represented a “free school, always open” (de Tocqueville 2010 [1835], p. 448) of democracy because they first of all tamed the generally unruly democratic spirit, and only secondarily because they endowed the citizens with republican powers. Only against the background of a moral (self-)restraint of the democratic citizen can those institutions of democratic empowerment and power control, which are laid down in the American constitution, unfold their effectiveness.

Unlike Tocqueville, who had been in a country that was not yet heavily industrialised and so had in mind mainly small merchants, artisans, and small farmers when he wrote of the democratic “masses,” John Stuart Mill was thinking of the workers of London, who had begun to organise as part of the Chartist movement. At first Mill was sympathetic to their demands, for example for an extension of the franchise, but this quickly changed. In his Autobiography, Mill reports that from the early 1840s he no longer saw himself as a democrat: “In short, I was a democrat but not the least of a Socialist. We were now less democrats than l had formerly been, because we dreaded more the ignorance and especially the selfishness and brutality of the mass” (Mill 1981 [1873], p. 238).

However, Mill not only attests to the “selfishness and brutality” of the lower classes, especially the working class, but also attributes to them a lack of self-discipline at various points in his work. This concerns accusations of drunkenness, unbridled sexuality, and, not least, a lack of work discipline (see Claeys 2013). With regard to the inmates of poorhouses, Mill writes that “the power of the lash” is necessary in order to “extract real work” from them (Mill 1965 [1871], p. 356). In several places, Mill also claims that the workers do not see their real interests but are merely seduced by demagogues, for example when they demand a machine tax or a minimum wage (Mill 1982 [1839], p. 486, 1977c [1861], p. 104). In short, the political empowerment of the “masses,” as long as they were “unprepared, to exercise the control which they are acquiring over their destiny” (Mill 1977b [1836], p. 127), would pose a great danger to civilisation, threatening a relapse into barbarism.Footnote 15

With this devaluation of the many, Mill joins the tradition of criticism of democracy outlined here. At the same time—and here he goes a decisive step further than the earlier, more aristocratic writers—he does not deny the legitimacy of the demand for equality on an abstract level. Nevertheless, Mill is deeply convinced that political decisions must remain in the hands of an elite of experts until the “masses” are “mature.” “The idea of rational democracy is not that the people themselves govern, but that they have the security for good government” (Mill 1977a [1835], p. 71). Twenty-five years later, in his Considerations on Representative Government, Mill spelled out what “the idea of a rational democracy” actually entailed, his proposal for a plurality of votes according to the level of education being only one component of a whole arsenal of institutional barriers to the will of the majority. In addition to restricting the franchise to those with at least a rudimentary education and the ability to earn a living, these include the requirement of a public vote in order to subject voters to the pressure of justification—today this would be called deliberative cleansing. In addition, the powers of parliament should be limited to the arena of debate and acclamation—actual legislation should be reserved for a committee of experts—as well as the introduction of a second chamber analogous to the Roman Senate. Here, too, Mill follows the tradition of democratic critique outlined above. The aim is to introduce institutional filtering mechanisms.

Mill also commented extensively on the question of education for democracy. First, this education should take place at school. Here he argues in favour of compulsory education and free access to education for those whose parents cannot afford school fees. Second, with regard to the content of learning, Mill writes “that the aim of all intellectual training for the mass of the people should be to cultivate common sense; to qualify them for forming a sound practical judgement of the circumstances by which they are surrounded” (Mill 1965 [1871], p. 375). In other words, the aim is to exorcise the masses of their “sinister interests” and to generalise bourgeois educational values.

In his Considerations, Mill cites local self-government as a school of democracy as a second contribution to the maturation of ordinary citizens. Through their participation in local government and their appointment as jurors, and also through the freedom of public opinion, they would participate in government and thus become “sharers in the instruction and mental exercise derivable from it” (Mill 1977c [1861], p. 436). Mill’s argument here is very much in the vein of Tocqueville, for whom the participation of ordinary citizens in local self-government and the administration of justice also primarily had a popular educational function. However, this is not the only advantage in favour of the municipal level from Mill’s point of view. The second is that the competences of the municipal level—for example, with regard to the regulation of trade, the levying of taxes, or the setting of wages—are very limited. In Mill’s words:

“It may be added that these local functions, not being in general sought by the higher ranks, carry down the important political education which they are the means of conferring to a much lower grade in society. The mental discipline being thus a more important feature in local concerns than in the general affairs of the state, while there are not such vital interests dependent on the quality of the administration, a greater weight may be given to the former consideration, and the latter admits much more frequently of being postponed to it than in matters of general legislation and the conduct of imperial affairs” (Mill 1977c [1861], p. 536).

4 The Return of the Integrative Critique of Democracy in Contemporary Antipopulism

So far, we have been talking about the (integrative) critique of democracy in the history of ideas. It has been shown that these authors utilise three strategies: First, the supposed demonstration that the many are not capable of a “rational” form of politics. Second, the design of institutional filtering mechanisms in response to the challenge that the many cannot be completely excluded from political participation. Third and finally, the project of education for democracy, whereby the others, the many, are always seen as in need of education. In the current discussion about the “crisis” of democracy in the face of challenges commonly described as “populist,” these three strategies are once again being increasingly used by defenders of “liberal democracy” in the antipopulist discourse.Footnote 16 It is important to note that the current antipopulism must be seen against the backdrop of the at least partial success of the integrative critique of democracy.Footnote 17 On the one hand, this means the implementation of many of the institutional safeguards proposed by the critics of democracy. On the other hand, it also includes a degree of democratic education that is probably unparalleled in human history. The latter, however, is relevant to the topic under discussion here, since it is precisely the aim of democratic education to question the political authority that has contributed much to the current populist dynamic. This constellation is made all the more explosive by the fact that the liberal critique of populism now has to defend the very institutions that were built as dams against “mob rule.” The entanglements this leads to will be shown in the conclusion. For now, however, it should at least be made clear, by way of example, that we are dealing with a return of the integrating critique of democracy in the discourse of antipopulism.Footnote 18

First is the assumption that the supporters of “populist” parties do not have the necessary cognitive and normative prerequisites to form a reasonable political judgement. As Colin Crouch writes, “Populist movements burst uninvited, loudly and rudely, into a room where groups of people are having polite conversations” (2020, p. 94).Footnote 19 Pierre Rosanvallon can see only a “morality of disgust” in populism, which “exempts critiques from any requirement of precision and renders argumentation useless” (2021, p. 43). Rosanvallon also uses the antipopulist classical phrase that populists only provide “simple answers” (Rosanvallon 2021, p. 41). Herfried Münkler argues that many citizens are unable to understand the “complexity of the deliberation and decision-making process” or have a “false understanding of democracy” and that “liberal, cosmopolitan politics” no longer “resonates with them” (2022, pp. 28, 31, 97).Footnote 20 Armin Schäfer and Michael Zürn also diagnose what they see as a problematic proximity “to anti-liberal, anti-procedural and anti-pluralist thinking” (2023, p. 15) and a lack of “tolerance for ambiguity” (Schäfer and Zürn 2023, p. 176) in those people they describe as “communitarians” and to whom they attribute a particular affinity for populism. This is often accompanied by the assumption that the voters of populist parties are seduced by “polarisation entrepreneurs” (Mau et al. 2023, p. 375) or “populist leaders” (Crouch 2020, p. 150). Overall, attributions such as these, of which numerous other examples can be found in the literature, reflect the classic pattern that certain sections of the citizenry are incapable of rational decision-making, are deficient in democratic attitudes, and are seduced by demagogues. The argument that voters for “populists” misjudge their actual interests, for example by characterising their interests as “nostalgic” or “backward-looking” (for many; Crouch 2020), is also widespread.

With regard to the second strategy, the installation of filtering mechanisms, critics of populism defend existing institutions of political participation, namely the system of filtering through representation and parties. Münkler refers approvingly to Tocqueville’s warning of a “tyranny of the majority” and the resulting necessity of “blocking the will of the people.” Münkler also refers affirmatively to the authors of the Federalist Papers, whose system of checks and balances served the purpose of “filtering and refining the ‘raw’ will of the people” (2022, pp. 27–28). In response to “populism,” Crouch also calls for institutions “outside democracy itself that protect its operation, particularly from the conduct of rulers” (2020, p. 139). Crouch counts the judiciary and central banks among these “independent” institutions.Footnote 21 And last but not least, he is full of praise for the European Union (EU), using an argument that Madison formulated in the classic manner in the 10th article of the Federalist Papers and that was taken up again by Friedrich August von Hayek (1952 [1939]): Precisely because there will always be different political currents in power in the EU member states, “it can never be captured by any one political family, and is therefore less vulnerable to abuse than any individual nation” (Crouch 2020, p. 149).Footnote 22 Strengthening the supranational level is also an answer suggested by Schäfer and Zürn. This is surprising insofar as the two authors also identify the immense increase in power of nonmajoritarian institutions, particularly within the framework of the EU, as a key cause of what they describe as “democratic regression.” Nevertheless, at the end of their book they plead for a “democratization of the EU” (Schäfer and Zürn 2023, p. 172) and “a cosmopolitan worldview” (Schäfer and Zürn 2023, p. 175), but without really being able to show how this is possible and at least how it can persuade those who oppose cosmopolitanism. It is noteworthy, however, that they speak out in favour of the “introduction of Europe-wide referendums on European issues” (Schäfer and Zürn 2023, p. 218), only to immediately qualify that “distribution issues would have to be left out” (Schäfer and Zürn 2023, p. 218).Footnote 23 Rosanvallon, for whom the supranational dimension does not play a decisive role, is full of praise for supposedly independent authorities and constitutional courts as “fully democratic institutions,” which he opposes to a “narrowly electoral conception of democracy” (2021, p. 133) as well as to forms of direct democracy.Footnote 24

Finally, the third strategy, that of education for democracy, can also be found in all of the books listed here, which, as mentioned, are only examples of a whole armada of antipopulism literature. According to Münkler, citizens should not constantly formulate new, unfulfillable demands on politics but should endeavour to develop their “professional competence” and their “sense of responsibility” (2022, p. 136). To practise these liberal–democratic virtues, Münkler, like Tocqueville and Mill, proposes greater political participation at the local level. This could represent a kind of experimental field—he is thinking of citizens’ forums and lot assemblies—“on which the opportunities and possibilities of a future democracy can be sounded out and tried out” (Münkler 2022, p. 167). And it must be added: without causing too much mischief. Münkler even suggests that every citizen should “take part in a media literacy course at least once in order to be >immunised< against systemic misinformation, analogous to the vaccination against physical infections” (Münkler 2022, p. 148). Crouch also sees an educational deficit as the main cause of “nostalgic pessimism.” This deficit makes the voters of populist parties susceptible to the “capacity of the manipulators of mass media, both traditional and IT-based, to stir up a frenzy of fear and hatred” (Crouch 2020, pp. 156–157). Crouch goes on to write, “There must also be an alternative, the development of a population capable of evaluating and checking what purports to be knowledge and evidence, of using the Internet discriminatingly. […] This is essentially a matter of education, as this is the process through which we learn to think and ponder” (Crouch 2020, p. 157). Crouch therefore seems to assume that the supporters of populist parties are simply too ignorant to see their actual interests. Although Crouch points out that the proportion of citizens with a higher level of education is constantly increasing, and therefore more and more citizens will become “capable of evaluating evidence and reflecting their own ideas” (Crouch 2020, p. 158), efforts to achieve this must be intensified. Schäfer and Zürn are also unable to resist the temptation to identify an educational deficit on the part of the “communitarians” and call for an increase in “general competence in dealing with complexity” (2023, p. 178) by means of political education. Conversely, this must be interpreted to mean that the followers of communitarianism, with their supposedly nostalgic convictions, are unable to deal appropriately with “diversity, ambiguity and new insights” (Schäfer and Zürn 2023, p. 178). In short, only they are in need of education, but not those who are already convinced of cosmopolitanism. This is an argument that is currently widespread among social scientists.

5 Conclusion: Criticism of Democracy as a Path to More Democracy?

John P. McCormick has pointed out that “populism” did not exist in the “ancient democracies and democratic republics” (2023, p. 239). This is because the demos there had a variety of mechanisms for self-government and therefore did not need populist politics at all. “In democratic assemblies, every citizen is entitled to initiate and discuss law, ultimate decisions are determined by simple majority vote—not through bicameral arrangements or by super-majoritarian measures that are so common within modern constitutions” (McCormick 2023, p. 237). “Populism” is, rather, a phenomenon of modern republics, which—according to McCormick—can be characterised more as mixed constitutions with a strong oligarchic bias.

In the development of the modern republic, which we now refer to as “liberal democracy,” many of the institutional proposals from the arsenal of the integrative critique of democracy reconstructed here were implemented. The starting point of this mode of institution building is the concession “to employ even this equality [i.e., the democratic demands] in a modified degree, if it is to avoid involving itself in intestine discord, in one section or another” (Plato, Laws 757d). In modern republics, this concession is expressed in the election of legislative assemblies and, in some cases, heads of government. At the same time, the resulting power of the many is tamed by a complex system of checks and balances designed to ensure that there is no “tyranny of the majority.” The transfer of decision-making powers from parliaments to nonmajoritarian institutions and to the supranational level (cf. Schäfer and Zürn 2023) is just another stage in a whole series of safeguards (cf. Przeworski 2019, pp. 199–204). It is against this background that the current “crisis of liberal democracy” must be analysed. The decisive difference between today’s antipopulism and earlier stages of the critique of democracy, however, is that political rhetoric can no longer be about restricting democracy. The mechanisms proposed in antipopulism to save (liberal) democracy must therefore be sold in a democratising guise. However, this is increasingly implausible (cf. Selk 2023). Its defenders are faced with the challenge of identifying as “democratic” those institutions, such as constitutional courts and supranational organisations, that were created precisely to limit democracy. At the same time, however, they are forced to keep using the language of democracy because the current regime is described as such and not as a republic or even a polity, as Dolf Sternberger (1990) suggested 40 years ago, at a time when at least the transfer of decision-making powers from parliaments to nonmajoritarian and supranational institutions had not yet progressed that far. However, as noted above, the concept of democracy is linked to two central promises, equal and effective participation, that are bound to be disappointed in liberal multilevel systems. This may be the reason why many of the proposals seem so helpless, not least the attempt to somehow create the right attitudes through political education or media skills training.

This article has outlined three classical strategies of argumentation in the critique of democracy and their renaissance in the current critique of populism. It has shown a continuity of antidemocratic patterns of thought from antiquity to the present. Even if it should have become clear that I am critical of these strategies, the aim was not to make a further normative contribution to the intensively discussed relationship between (liberal) democracy and “populism.” Whether one should be convinced that democracy must be protected from itself because there is an “affinity between democracy and dictatorship” (Arendt 1973 [1951], p. 316) or whether one should rather be of the opinion that democratic elements, i.e., the power of the popolo, must be strengthened in order to counteract the oligarchic aspirations of the grandi, was not discussed here. Rather, the focus has been on those authors and arguments which, convincing or not, advocate the former. However, the fact that the arsenal of classical democratic criticism has been deployed in recent years in the face of what is described as a “populist” uprising should give food for thought to those who believe that “the defence of democracy requires more democracy” (Schäfer and Zürn 2023, p. 178).

Change history 10 February 2025

The original online version of this article was revised: The article The Integrative Critique of Democracy: Three Key Strands of Antidemocratic Thought in the History of Ideas and Their Recurrence in Contemporary Antipopulism, written by Dirk Jörke, was originally published under exclusive license to Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft. As a result of the subsequent decision to publish the article under the open access model, the article’s copyright notice was changed on 21. January 2025 to ©The Author(s), 2025 and the article is now distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.

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The original article has been corrected.

19 February 2025

An Erratum to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-025-00594-x Notes

Many thanks to Veith Selk and the two anonymous reviewers for their critical feedback.

For the two promises of democracy, see Jörke (2019).

It is passages like these that, almost 2500 years later, led Hannah Arendt to speak of a “wisdom, so familiar to the ancients, of the affinity between democracy and dictatorship, between mob rule and tyranny” (1973 [1951], p. 316).

In the Laws, Plato refers to the second-best state as an order that is orientated towards the first but makes concessions regarding its practical realisation. The decisive difference to the first form at this point is that Plato represents a “realistic” anthropology, which is reflected institutionally in the admission of private property (739a–e); later on, Plato writes with regard to this new conceptualisation: “wherefore we must choose what is second best, namely, ordinance and law, which see and discern the general principle, but are unable to see every instance in detail” (875d).

The Seventh Letter, in which Plato reports on his political adventure as an adviser to the Tyrant of Syracuse, bears witness to this.

Plato writes about the appointment of the educational supervisor: “Therefore all the officials—excepting the Council and the prytaneis [both are comparatively democratically appointed authorities, DJ]—shall go to the temple of Apollo, and shall each cast his vote for whichever one of the Law-wardens he deems likely best to control educational affairs. He who gains most votes, after passing a scrutiny held by the selecting officials, other than the Law-wardens, shall hold office for five years: in the sixth year they shall elect another man for this office [766c] in a similar manner” (766 b–c).

The proportion of democratic elements in the constitutions created since 1776 varied. The most democratic was the Pennsylvania constitution, which not only provided for an annually elected legislature with only one chamber but also provided for a clear subordination of the executive to the legislative chamber. For example, the governor had no veto rights over legislation. The judges were also subject to strong democratic control. Under the dominance of the strongly oligarchical Federalists after the adoption of the new federal constitution, Pennsylvania’s radical democratic constitution was replaced by a more oligarchical one.

On the semantic unity of democracy and republic in the period after 1776, see Adams (1973).

The idea of refining political decisions can also be found in Hamilton. Although the republican principle requires that “the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct” of the representatives, it is precisely the already purified, deliberative mind and not the immediate will of the people that he describes as “a sudden breese of passion” (Hamilton et al. 2003 [1787/88], p. 349).

Despite several pushes towards democratisation and constitutional reforms (for example, under the presidencies of Jefferson and Andrew Jackson and during the Progressive movement), there are still good reasons to doubt the democratic content of the U.S. Constitution from the perspective of democratic theory (Dahl 2001).

Another passage in which both the devaluation of members of the lower classes and Tocqueville’s assessment that they were incapable of making sensible decisions is clearly evident is his description of an election meeting in England: “The hall was packed with an inquisitive crowd, most of them clearly of the lowest classes. … It was through this crowd that the electors passed to go and vote. I think the vote was given publicly (I was too far away to be sure), for all the time there were cheers or whistles and shouts as the supporters of the two candidates kept up their regular cries. In short it was a very turbulent and rather disgusting spectacle” (1958 [1833], p. 44).

On the significance of Mill’s discourse on “civilization” and “barbarism,” see Eberl and D’Avis (2024).

However, it is only with regard to the Federalist Papers (and in the French context, Sieyes) that a direct connection between political theory and institutional design can be asserted. In contrast, the other authors discussed here were not constitutionalists. At the same time, their considerations always reflect the basic political convictions of powerful actors. In the nineteenth century, for example, this was the emergent bourgeoisie with its fear of the “masses.”

…the piece continues at the source.