2025-09 INNATE: So what IS democracy?
Monday, June 2, 2025 SO WHAT IS DEMOCRACY?
“There was rightful reason yesterday – majoritarianism was certainly better than many a minority diktat – but today,
there is little or no justification for the use of binary voting and its consequence, majority rule.”
While many advocate ‘majority rule’ and believe multi-option disputes may be reduced, fairly, to umpteen binary votes, others talk of ‘the nonduality’ of supposed opposites. So could our majoritarianism be improved? Maybe the procedure which identifies Jeremy Bentham’s “greatest good to the greatest number” – the superlative to the superlative – should be something better than comparative binary voting. Let’s first question our own beliefs, and then query those of others.
Northern Ireland’s “Are you Protestant or Catholic?” was bad enough. “Are you Russian or Ukrainian?” is another blatant nonduality. In effect, this was the referendum question posed in (1991 and) 2014 in Crimea. Yet both are Slav (although many Russians are non-Slav, like the Udmurts from the Urals and the Siberian Buryats); many Russians and most Ukrainians are mainly Orthodox Christians, with a few Catholics and Uniates in Western Ukraine; they both share a common script, Cyrillic, and linguistic differences are often just dialectical. Yet they’re killing each other! When I cycled over the border in 1990, a sea of land was interrupted by the road and a slab of concrete: welcome, it said; it was as incongruous as the supposed difference between two grains of sand on the Libyan/Egyptian border.
Likewise in Croatia in 1991: the question “Are you Serb or Croat?” disenfranchised the partners in or adult children of a mixed relationship, not to mention any non-Christians and, most importantly, those who wanted to vote for peace or a compromise. It was another stupid – and dangerous – question. It too ignited a war.
Furthermore, in any multi-option debate – and in democracies which aspire to be pluralist, (nearly) every controversy will be multi-optional – a binary vote will be yet another stupid question. Let’s look at the logic of it all.
There are two types of binary voting: a singleton asks “Option X, yes-or-no?” while a pairing poses “Option X or option Y?” With singletons, there might be a majority against everything; with a pairing in contrast, there will always be an (accurate or inaccurate but nevertheless) definite outcome. (In the Brexit debacle, Theresa May used singletons and, as predicted, lost the lot; Boris Johnson used just one pairing: ‘his deal’ versus the worst of all possibilities, ‘no deal’; so he won… of course.)
Now those who want to change a status quo, option S, may propose a motion, option M, or an amendment to make it option A. So the eventual outcome of a democratic process could be A, M or S. Imagine then a committee of 9 persons with these outcomes supported by 4, 3 and 2 persons i.e., so there’s no majority in favour of any one thing. The procedure (first devised by the Greeks 2,500 years ago) is based on two pairings: (A v M) v S. {And if there are two amendments, Aand B, the procedure is {(A v B) v M} v S, for three binary votes.} But all these votes are pairings, and the Greeks also knew, there will always be a definite answer, even when a majority doesn’t like it!
Sticking to just three options, imagine a dispute about the colour of the front door: should it be Amber, Mauve or Silver; and the committee members have the following 1st-2nd-3rd preferences:
4 like A-M-S, 3 opt for M-S-A and 2 prefer S-A-M. This means A is more popular than M, i.e., A > M by 6:3; it also means M > S by 7:2, and S > A by 5:4.
Therefore:
A > M > S > A …..
and it goes round and round for ever: the famous paradox of binary voting. And therefore,
+ if the order of debate is (A v M) v S, we’ll get A v S and then S; but
+ ” (M v S) v A, ” M v A. ” A; but
+ ” (S v A) v M, ” S v M ” M, so
…the answer can be anything. It depends upon the order of voting. In other words, the chair can get exactly what she wants, always with a ‘democratic’ majority in favour, either 5:4, 6:3 or even 7:2!
Now maybe a majority of the committee want something, let’s say A, which the chair doesn’t want – let’s say A:M:S = 6:2:1. In which case, he could ask the committee to consider another colour, amendment B, blue; so the vote would be {(A v B) v M} v S, or {(B v M) v S} v A, whatever. If subsequently nothing has an overall majority, she can adjust the order of voting to get, again, the answer he wants. In other words, in politics, the chairperson – or in business, the majority stake-holder – is all-powerful.
The conclusion is clear: majority voting is manipulable; some politicians are manipulative; and many decisions are manipulated… but still regarded as democratic. It must be emphasised, however, that to take a binary vote in any controversy is at least unwise, always illogical, and at worst a cause of violence and war. If the question is not contentious, then by all means take a majority vote; but when passions are high and options are many, any resort to a binary vote will inevitably infringe upon the democratic rights of many. In a nutshell, binary ballots have exacerbated countless conflicts. Yet many seldom if ever question this methodology.
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Others think differently. “Asking yes-or-no questions is very unAfrican,” said Senator Ephrem Kanyarukiga at a 2003 press-conference in Kigali on the Gacacas (see below); indeed, one of the biggest European mistakes in sub-Saharan Africa was to introduce majority voting, especially to Rwanda. In 1994, the slogan used by the Interahamwe to start their appalling genocide was, “Rubanda Nyamwinshi,” (we are the majority). But “majority rule was a foreign notion,” said Nelson Mandela; our “democracy meant all were to be heard… A minority was not to be crushed by a majority.” Furthermore, this non-majoritarianism was true throughout tropical Africa. In Tanzania, for example, “the elders [would] sit under the big tree, and talk until they agreed,” was how Julius Nyerere described it, talking until they found a compromise, what we might call the option with the highest average preference: the 1st preference of few perhaps, but a good compromise preference of many. Alas, the European rulers, wazungu, were impatient.
In Ethiopia, if two people “in the village are quarrelling, then the court convened beneath the tree... will set itself the sole task of… conciliating the warring sides, while granting to each that he is in the right,” was how Ryszard Kapuściński described it. And the Kinyarwanda word, gacaca, means grass; grass grows under a tree; African decision-making was always ‘under a tree’, where people can sit in comfort and in the shade. Rwanda’s reconciliation process was called Gacaca, and Senator Kanyarukiga was speaking at the launch of the Gacaca report.
{Exactly the same slogan, ‘we are the majority,’ “Мы Большевики – [mwe bolsheviki] (we are the Bolsheviks), the word means ‘members of the majority’ – was used by Lenin in 1903, when 19 members of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party split from 17, the Mensheviks (those of the minority), while 3 abstained. So the 19 were not a majority at all, only the largest of three minorities.}
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Asia has also long since questioned (the human and) definitely western tendency to put everything into pairs. The Hindus were maybe the first when the Bhagavadgītā said those who are “free from pairs of opposites [are] easily liberated from bondage,” while “…the nonduality of right and wrong [is] the state of a buddha,” quotes Longchenpa, a Buddhist monk of the Nyingma tradition. This is strange to the westerner, who has often heard, “He who is not with me is against me,” Matthew 12:30; (these or similar words have also been used by politicians of various persuasions).
Needless to say, (not just non-Westerners but) many Europeans have also criticised this illogical habit of reducing every dispute into binary dichotomies. Aristotle noted that Hippodamus “has a not unreasonable dissatisfaction with simple ‘yes or no’ verdicts,” and the first to suggest a non-binary voting procedure was Pliny the Younger in the year 105: hence plurality voting, (the electoral system is called first-past-the-post). Europe then descended into the Dark Ages, and (I think) the first government to use a plurality vote was Chinese, or should I say Jurchen, in the year 1197. The Jīn Dynasty was debating the possibility of war with Mongolia, and the 84 ministers split three ways: 5 voted for war, 33 supported an alternating policy, and 46 wanted peace. {In 1211, however, Chinggis Khan invaded China on the way to conquering all of it, and hence the Yuán Dynasty.}
It is interesting to note that the peoples to the North of the Great Wall, those whom Beijing called ‘barbarians’ – the Khitans, Jurchens and Mongolians – all had relatively advanced forms of governance. In all three, the leader was elected (or acclaimed) in a gathering of the nobles; indeed, with the Khitans, the procedure was brilliant (Mr Putin wouldn’t say): after three years, they would hold another assembly to decide if he (he was always a he) was still ok.
But what was it that prompted the Jurchens to use a multi-option vote? China had used majority votes over 2,000 years ago in the Former Hàn Dynasty, albeit only in the Imperial Court. Whether or not the binary vote was introduced because, like the European rulers in Africa, the Emperor was impatient, I know not. And I don’t know if Pliny the Younger deserves some credit for the Jurchen vote. Suffice to say contacts across the Euro-Asian landmass were numerous, even when life-expectancy gave the average individual barely time enough to procreate and raise a family.
The debate resumed in Europe in 1299 when Ramón Llull spoke of preference voting, and in 1433 Nicholas Cusanus proposed a points system (which by historical accident is called a Borda Count BC). Along with the non-preferential approval voting, this was used fairly extensively in medieval Europe.
Next, what is now called the Modified Borda Count MBC was devised in 1770, closely followed by the two-round system (a plurality plus a majority vote) and the Condorcet or Copeland rule {the option which wins all (Condorcet) or the most (Copeland) pairings}. Later, in 1821, England’s Thomas Hill proposed a knock-out system, the alternative vote AV (which in elections is often called the single transferable vote, STV or, in the USA, ranked choice voting RCV).
Sadly, many politicians prefer the win-or-lose binary vote. The BC/MBC, for example, was adopted in France by l’Académie des Sciences… but those were revolutionary times. l’Académie became l’Institut Français; it had a new boss; not liking the concept of consensus, he reverted to majority voting, and hence his 1803 referendum: he was the only candidate, and thus he was elected l’empereur, the world’s first ‘democratic dictator’, we might say: Napoléon. Sadly, in France today, hardly anyone knows about he who first devised the MBC, Jean-Charles de Borda.
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The MBC is the world’s first non-binary and always-non-majoritarian, voting procedure. Instead of reducing everything to a short-list of two options or a series of binary battles, those concerned reduce everything to a short list of about 5 options – (ideal for a multi-party parliament). Then they vote. Let’s imagine a debate on just four options, in which 100 MPs have the following preferences:
|
Preferences |
Number of Voters |
|||
|
55 |
20 |
15 |
10 |
|
|
1st |
W |
X |
Y |
Z |
|
2nd |
X |
Y |
X |
X |
|
3rd |
Y |
Z |
Z |
Y |
|
4th |
Z |
W |
W |
W |
Winning every pairing, option W is the Condorcet winner. But if we take every preference cast into account, then the obvious collective choice is option X, the 1st preference of only 20, but the 1st or 2nd preference of everybody! And in an MBC, the scores are W-265, X-320, Y-250 and Z-165, so the winner is indeed X.
Now you might think that the W supporters, knowing that option X is very popular amongst the other members, will give option X their last preference… but that would mean that Y would win on a score of 305, compared to W’s 265, Z’s 220 and X’s 210.
Furthermore, if the debate were about tax levels – W-X-Y-Z at 30-40-50-60% – (or about Brexit: the UK in the EU, EEA, CU or WTO), there would be a logical way for anyone to vote: W-X-Y-Z perhaps, or Z-Y-X-W, or maybe X-W-Y-Z, or X-Y-W-Z or X-Y-Z-W. But the MP who votes, say, X-Z-W-Y… 40-60-30-50%, (EEA-WTO-EU-CU), oh his sanity will doubtless be questioned by his constituents and the media.
Admittedly, the W folk could submit just three preferences, voting just W-Y-Z, and giving X nothing; this would reduce W’s score from (55 x 4) = 220 to (55 x 3) = 165. But their leaders might find it difficult to persuade their followers to give Y and Z a preference, while giving their obvious second-best preference nothing. And if they give their favourite Wa 1st preference only, W will lose everything – W 100, X 155, Y 140, Z 110 – and come last!
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Human nature being what it is, people are much more likely to vote ‘sincerely’ – as the jargon describes it, giving a true representation of their preferences – with the MBC. Why then do we still use the primitive, divisive, and often extremely inaccurate binary vote, especially when we know more precise methodologies are available? And when we know binary voting can be a cause of war!? Is it because (not just Napoléon but) many politicians like a win-or-lose polity, not least because they want to win, and win everything. Indeed, some of them would prefer to maintain this system, even if it means losing today, in the hope that they might win tomorrow. And many of them – not least the likes of Putin, Trump, Netanyahu, Modi and so on – don’t like the idea of compromise. So they won’t even consider alternatives to binary voting. Alas, nor too do many in the media and even academia. That which the late Professor Sir Michael Dummett called “the mystique of the majority,” appears to be, as it were, enshrined on a tablet of stone.
Admittedly, the COPs have realised that consensus cannot best be achieved in binary voting… but not yet have they considered multi-optional let alone preferential voting. They know the very survival of our species depends on our collective decisions – and what we decide depends so much on how we decide – so they know that COP decision-making must be non-majoritarian; yet the UN and so many others fail to consider the potential benefits of the all-inclusive MBC.
And so, to answer the question – What is Democracy? – we first state the principle: democracy is for everybody, men andwomen, black and white, Arab and Jew, etc., and not just for a/the majority. Secondly, we all share a responsibility to reach collective agreements. And thirdly, while everyone has the right to vote, none have the right to veto. Accordingly, in debating any controversy, nothing is binary, and the democratic decision is the option which gains the highest averagepreference. An average involves every MP, so governance should be based on all-party power-sharing. There was rightful reason yesterday – majoritarianism was certainly better than many a minority diktat – but today, there is little or no justification for the use of binary voting and its consequence, majority rule.
Accordingly, to take a current conflict, given that the population of Israel is 20% Arab, the members of the Knesset should be about 20 (and not just 10%) Arab, and their percentage in the government should also be about 20% and not, as is currently the case, zero. As in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Rwanda, Ukraine, and throughout the Middle East, majoritarianism was/is part of the problem. So maybe those who want peace in Gaza and beyond should first initiate preferential decision-making and all-party power-sharing in the Dáil.
