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Against Localism: Does DecentralisingPower to Communities Fail Minorities?

P H I L P ARVI N

The continued decline in politicalengagement among growing sections ofthe British public has led to renewed callsfrom many academics and practitionersfor a fundamental reform of the demo-cratic system. Something must be done, it

seems, and many feel that short-termxes and patches will not be sucientto stem the ow of people choosing toturn away from the political process. Thepast ve or six years have seen thinktanks of the `progressive left' unitingwith their counterparts from the right incalling for a root and branch reappraisalof the British democratic system with aview to making far-reaching changes cap-able of closing the ever-widening gap

between citizens, the politicians who

make decisions on their behalf and theinstitutions in which they operate.1

A large and growing number of par-liamentarians from across the politicalspectrum have suggested that thesolution to the problem of political dis-engagement lies in some form of local-ismthat is, some package of reformsand measures aimed at decentralisingpower from the state down to indivi-duals and communities. Localism is a

broad agenda, and has been proposedas a solution to a variety of social andpolitical problems, but a central aim ofmany who describe themselves as local-ists (regardless of their ideological back-ground) is to establish a more directform of democracy: to give individualsand local communities greater decision-making power in order to bridge the gap

between the people and the politiciansthat work on their behalf.

Hence, Alan Milburn writes in a recentcollection of essays published by theorganisation Progress that political disen-gagement can only be resolved `through amodern participatory politics that allows

both local communities and individual

citizens to more evenly and directly sharein power'.2 In the same volume, JohnHutton advocates `strengthening localleadership by empowering local electo-rates to have a greater say in how they aregoverned', and James Purnell argues forthe re-distribution not only of wealth, butof power. David Cameron, too, has, in thewake of the MPs' expenses scandal,claimed to be in favour of 'pushing powerdown as far as possible', and has advo-cated a 'massive, radical re-distribution

of power' toward local communities,neighbourhoods and individuals.3 Gor-don Brown has called for a `vibrant,reformed local democracy . . . [rootedin] a renewed focus on the devolution ofpowers and responsibilities to local gov-ernment'.4 The Liberal Democrats havesought to aord local people greaterdecision-making power through the`increased use of participatory methodsof consultation' like citizens' initiatives

and citizens' juries. And smaller partieshave also joined the call for greater local-ism. The Green party, for example, iscommitted to reforms aimed at establish-ing greater decision-making powers bylocal people, and the UK Independenceparty states on its website that, if giventhe opportunity, they would 'introduce a"Direct Democracy"' in place of the sys-tem we currently have. Furthermore, forall their dierences on so many other

# The Author 2009. Journal compilation # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2009Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA 351

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issues, the Conservatives, Labour, theLiberal Democrats, the Greens and UKIPcan all at least unite with the BritishNational party in arguing that '[p]owershould be devolved to the lowest level

possible so that local communities canmake decisions which aect them'.5

Many practitioners and academics, too,have defended a move toward a moredirect form of democracy via localism.For example, the 2006 Power Inquiry,chaired by Baroness Kennedy, stronglyargued for `the introduction of institu-tional and cultural changes which placea new emphasis on the requirement thatpolicy and decision-making includes rig-

orous and meaningful input from ordin-ary citizens'.6 The right-of-centre thinktank Civitas has suggested that ourdemocratic system should be reformedsuch that members of the public are ableto call for referendums on the adoption ofpolicies, which, if passed by a majority,

become lawa proposal also made by,among others, UKIP, and representativesof the increasingly popular CampaignFor Democracy.7 Policy Exchange, thethink tank most obviously linked with

Cameron's `progressive conservativism',claims to seek predominantly `free mar-ket and localist solutions to public policyquestions'.8And a number of prominentLabour supporters, advisors and minis-ters, in addition to those mentionedabove, have recently written in supportof a de-centralisation of power towardlocal communities.9

The government seems to be listening.The 2008 White Paper Communities in

Control: Real People, Real Power, intro-duced by Hazel Blears, outlines a raft ofnew measures aimed at shifting `power,inuence, and responsibility away fromexisting centres of power into the handsof local communities and individual citi-zens'. Specic proposals in the WhitePaper include the establishment ofparticipatory budgeting across all localauthorities by 2012, increased account-ability of local police and health services

to local citizens, and a new duty on localauthorities to `encourage democracy' byencouraging a more widespread take upof volunteering activities among youngand old citizens and providing incentives

for citizens to vote in elections.So popular has the call for localism

become that it is often assumed that we`all localists now'. My aim in this article isto suggest that we are not all localists nowand that there may be good reasons forthose of us who are interested in defend-ing liberal democratic principles toremain wary of the general, multi-partisan move toward the devolution ofdecision-making power away from cen-

tral representative institutions towardindividuals and local communities. Inparticular, I argue that direct democracy,as advocated by some politicians, acti-vists and practitioners, would seriouslyundermine the status of minority groupsin Britain, and is rooted in a mistakenunderstanding of what we should expectfrom our elected representatives and theinstitutions in which they operate.

A more direct democracy?The problem of political disengagementamong the British public is indeed a realand important one. Levels of participa-tion in parliamentary elections are verylow, and in local and European electionseven lower: less than a quarter of eligiblevoters in the United Kingdom partici-pated in the 1999 European elections,and only around 35 per cent went to thepolls in 2009one of the lowest turnouts

in the entire European Union. Only 35 percent of English voters turned out in the2008 local elections. Only around half ofthe Scottish electorate voted in the 2007Scottish elections, and less than half of theelectorate turned out in Wales. Similarly,less than half of voters participated in the2008 London mayoral elections.

However, it is not just voting that isunpopular. The public's willingness toengage politically also seems to be declin-

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ing on other indicators, too. For example,membership of political parties has fallendramatically in the past fty years. In the1950s, membership of the Conservativeparty was well over two million and

Labour over one million; today theircombined membership stands at around500,000. Furthermore, according to arecent report by the Electoral ReformSociety, activism within the party mem-

bership seems very low, with onlyaround 30 per cent of members everreally doing anything. Fewer people joinparties and, furthermore, those that doseem to identify with them less strongly.In 1964, nearly half of Labour and Con-

servative voters were very strong identi-ers with their chosen party, but by 2001only, respectively, 14 per cent and 16 percent could be so describeda threefolddrop.10

Given all this, calls for direct demo-cracy via some form of localism seem tomake intuitive sense. Running throughthe localism literature is the claim thatcentralised, representative institutionshave shown themselves to be incapableof making good on the vision embodied

at the heart of the democratic tradition.Localists argue that in a diverse society,characterised by a radical pluralism of

beliefs and ideals, centralised institutionsneed to be supported or, perhaps,replaced, by local, more reactive institu-tions more capable of representing theircitizens by providing them with moredirect access to decision-making mechan-isms and forums. The diversity and com-plexity of contemporary democratic

societies like Britain exerts considerablepressure on representative institutions; ifthey are to remain legitimate, they musttake seriously the aims and ideals of allthose under them. If they do not, then it ishardly surprising that individuals beginto feel alienated and marginalised, andthat their willingness to engage in demo-cratic life diminishes. Consequently,democratic centralism has thus been

broadly replaced with a new enthusiasm

for democratic localism: the idea thatlocal communities and individualsshould possess real decision-makingpower, and that democracy works bestwhen it aords individual citizens the

genuine capacity to make those decisionswhich aect them at a local level.

The fact that this idea has multi-partisan support is not surprising. Local-ists from the political left have pointedout that it has long been a central commit-ment of socialists and progressives thatlocal communities be given control overtheir own destinies, and that the values of`self-government, bottom-up campaign-ing, workers' control and cooperation'

are hallmarks of the socialist tradition.

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Localists from the political right, mean-while, have joined with some liberals inclaiming that individuals and commu-nities do better when they are freedfrom the tyranny of centralised stateintervention and given the freedom todecide their own fate. Both are driven

by a commitment to the values of free-dom and democracy, and both also sug-gest that, in practice, the `best decisionsare those taken involving the people

responsible for their day-to-day oper-ation . . . closest to the front line'.12

While there may be some truth in this,we should nevertheless be wary of adopt-ing the rhetoric of the localists, and inparticular their support for direct demo-cracy, because the centralisation of deci-sion-making power also fulls anotherfunction of liberal democratic politicalsystemsnamely, the protection of min-ority groups from the tyranny of the

majority.The failure of a localist form of direct

democracy to protect the interests ofminorities is evident in both leftist andright-wing approaches. Consider, forexample, recent calls for the adoption ofa more direct form of democracy byDouglas Carswell MP and Daniel Han-nan, along with a powerful and growingnumber of MPs within the Conservativeparty. Their recent book The Plan: Twelve

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Months to Renew Britain, presents a casefor direct democracy that builds uponideas found in their earlier book DirectDemocracy: An Agenda for a New ModelParty.13 In these two volumes, Carswell

and Hannan call for sweeping changes tothe democratic system in order that localcommunities might decide on those mat-ters which directly aect them. Theyargue that we now live in a `post-Representative age' in which major polit-ical decisions previously made by gov-ernment in parliament are now made byquangos, agencies and unaccountablesupranational institutions like the EU.`Britain is governed by judges, by quan-

gos and by Brussels', they claim. Conse-quently, they argue, it is time to `go backto rst principles; to elaborate a UnifyingTheory' of democratic politics that allowspeople to contribute more eectively tothe decision making process. The prob-lem with the system that we have at themoment, they say, is that citizens do notsee their elected representatives or polit-ical institutions working on their behalf:they see a gap between the decisionsmade at a national level and the issues

which aect them and their families on alocal level. Decisions are being made bypeople in unaccountable bodies who donot appreciate the needs of people on theground and consequently, when people`nd out that their local school refuses toapply the teaching methods they wouldlike, or that scoundrels get away withinsultingly lenient sentences, or that thepolice think that community relations aremore important than protecting property,

they feel frustrated, and direct their angertoward the entire political class', resultingin the spread of resentment and politicalapathy. This is why the democratic pro-cess should be restructured in a way thatempowers `individuals, families andcommunities to take over the decisionsthat intimately aect their quality of life.From planning to sentencing . . . localpeople should shape solutions to suitthemselves.'

Such a view is obviously controversialwithin the Conservative party, andwithin the conservative tradition moregenerally, as it breaks with the traditionalconservative defence of strong, inde-

pendent central institutions (premisedupon a Burkhean defence of reectiverepresentatives), as well as the Thatcher-ite tendency toward political centralismfuelled by an antipathy toward localgovernment. Indeed, it is a view whichis also at odds with the Conservativeparty's own Democracy Task Force,headed up by Ken Clarke. For the pur-poses of this article, I want to put asidewhether or not the views expressed in

Direct Democracy and The Plan are in fact`conservative', and focus instead on theirimplications for British democracy, and,in particular, for the treatment of mino-rities.

The rst thing to be said is that if wereit implemented, the model of directdemocracy advocated by Carswell et al.would place considerable power in thehands of local majorities to decide policyin their local areas and, consequently,would give these local majorities enor-

mous power to aect the lives of thosewho fall outside this majority. As we haveseen, Carswell's plan would see localpeople given the power to make decisionsabout, among other things, the appropri-ate sentencing of criminals, policing pri-orities, the content of school curricula andteaching methods. The reason for this isthat he and the other conservatives whoendorse Direct Democracy are very con-cerned to create a political system that

protects individual freedom, ensuringthat people are `not coerced by statepower'.

Yet state power is only one form ofcoercive pressure that can be felt by indi-vidual citizens, and which might under-mine their freedom. Another, which goesvirtually unmentioned in their book, iscoercion arising from civil societythatis, one's local community. Recent work innormative political philosophy by theor-




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ists like Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraserand Seyla Benhabib, for example, as wellas liberal political philosophers respond-ing to the communitarian critiques ofthinkers like Michael Sandel, Alasdair

MacIntyre and Amitai Etzioni, comple-ments growing empirical evidence drawnfrom minority communities that for many

black people, ethnic minorities and gays,the oppression against which they strug-gle is not oppression by the state or centralpolitical institutions, but the ingrainedprejudices of those with whom they liveand come into contact with on a daily

basis. It is the other children in the play-ground, or the other parents casting hos-

tile glances at the school gates. It is thethreats and intimidation from the gangson street corners, or the excrement orhate-mail they receive through their letter

boxes each week, or the homophobicgrati they are forced to read everymorning as they wait at the bus stop orthe tube station.

These cases, though extreme, are notas rare as we might hope, and serve as areminder that many individuals whofeel oppressed, marginalised or excluded

feel that way not as a result of theirrelationship with central political institu-tions, or because they have had powertaken out of their hands by quangos orthe EU, but as a result of living day inday out with the negative and debilitat-ing opinions of many people in theirlocal community. They consequentlyserve as a reminder that what is rightor wrong (politically or morally) maynot always be consistent with what the

local community thinks is right orwrongthat is, it is not straight-forwardly obvious that what is right orwrong on any particular issue is appro-priately determined by the members of aparticular geographical area. Theauthors of Direct Democracy at one pointacknowledge this: there are no impartialexperts making political decisions neu-trally, they say, because `we all have ourassumptions and prejudices'. This is

clearly true, but if it is true of politicians,then it is true too of the public at large.

In the 2005 general election, just under17 per cent of those who voted in theconstituency of Barking voted for the

British National Partythe same percent-age achieved by the Conservative candi-date, and 6 per cent more than the LiberalDemocrats. And in the 2006 local elec-tions, 12 of the 13 candidates elded bythe BNP in Barking and Dagenham wereelected. According to Searchlight, theanti-racist organisation, `it is not implaus-ible that the British National Party will

become the largest single party on thecouncil in 2010 and gain one or two

MPs'. Barking is not particularly multi-racial or multicultural; however, it doeshave a non-white population of around25,000, and a signicant and growingminority of immigrants from Centraland Eastern Europe. It is dicult to seehow the lives of those 25,000 non-whitepeople, or those of the Central and East-ern European community, would beimproved by giving `local people' thepower to make political decisions thatdetermine such things as the content of

school curricula, local policing methodsor sentencing. Similarly, it is highly likelythat those who voted for the BNP will beangry and frustrated that they do nothave this ability.

Liberal democratic principles may notalways be best served by devolving deci-sion making power down to local com-munities because it is entirely possiblethat local communities might use thispower to enact policies or initiatives that

violate liberal principles and, hence,make the lives of certain of their membersworse. And the mere fact that localpeople are annoyed or frustrated by thefact that they are not able to get the lawsthat they want is not enough in itself to

justify the reform of the democratic pro-cess so that they are able to in future. Itmay be that in certain circumstances it isright that people who would oppress orthreaten the wellbeing of certain other




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members of the community are thwartedin their ability to do so, even if in doing sothe system makes them very frustratedand angry.

The `new agenda' defended by Direct

Democracy's `centre-right' Conservativeauthors is, in fact, quite an old agenda.For all its dierences with regard to localgovernment, the aim of stripping powerout of central institutions and giving it tolocal communities and individuals is aclassic statement of the minimal state andindividualism that we nd in the work oflibertarian or classical liberal thinkers likeFriedrich Hayek and Robert Nozick. In

Anarchy, State and Utopia, Robert Nozick

expressed the central libertarian dream ofa society of autonomous, local commu-nities, each self-regulated and co-existentwith a wider society governed by a mini-mal state. It was, he said, the classicrealisation of individual freedom: peoplewould be free to create the local commu-nities they wanted and if they found thatthey didn't like the community in whichthey lived, they would be able to leaveand nd a better one elsewhere, onewhich was more in line with their views

and more consistent with their aspira-tions and ideals.

This view of society seems to be shared by the authors of Direct Democracy: anidea of society comprised of autonomous,self-regulating, self-governing local com-munities within a wider society heldtogether by a reduced `bare bones' centralpolitical structure. However, the problemis that the world (and the nature ofcoercion) is too complex for this model

to secure the freedoms that its defendershold to be crucial. Claiming that if peopledo not like the community in which theylive (because they are the wrong colour,religion or sexuality, for example) theycan leave and nd a new one in whichthey are treated more fairly is little morethan the endorsement of ghettoisationas a response to discrimination. Blackpeople, or ethnic or religious minorities,should not have to travel the country to

band together in order to receive fairtreatment from their political system;they should be able to receive this fairtreatment wherever they live and what-ever the people around them think. And

people should not have to take theirchildren out of the local school, uproottheir families, quit their jobs and move tonew communities in order to have their

basic equality and dignity respected. Thepolitical system should protect their dig-nity and freedom even if the majority intheir local community would wish other-wise. Advocates of direct democracyseem insuciently attentive to the factthat some people simply cannot take

part in the kind of idealistic, dynamic,freewheeling movement between com-munities that Nozick and Carswell andHannan envisage because they are toopoor, too busy or too dependent uponlocal support networks.

Similar concerns exist with regard tothe so-called `progressive' localism of theleft. Despite the dierence in emphasis,localists from the left fall into the sametrap as those from the right: localists fromthe political rightlike Carswell et al.

tend to argue for direct democracy as aresponse to the impoverishment of cen-tralised institutions and the fragmenta-tion of decision-making power amongunelected quangos and supra-nationalinstitutions, while left localistslike Mil-

burn et al.tend to argue for the decen-tralisation of power to local communitiesin the interests of giving them a stake insociety and a greater capacity for decid-ing how public services are administered,

and how public resources should be re-distributed in order to safeguard indi-vidual equality and freedom. Yet in seek-ing to devolve decision-making powerdown to local communities, and awayfrom centralised institutions, localistsfrom the left and the right are forced toconfront the dicult question of whatshould be done when local communitiesact in ways which violate liberal prin-ciples, and impose unfair constraints or




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rules upon minority groups, or whenmajorities do not propose illiberal con-straints on minority groups but never-theless consistently vote down proposalsthat would help minorities, resulting in

the benign yet systematic marginalisationof minority interests.

The question is not a new one: liberalssince John Stuart Mill have grappled withthe tensions between liberal justice anddemocracy, and how liberal democraticinstitutions should respond to circum-stances in which the expressed will ofthe majority would deny liberal justiceto minority groups. Various solutionshave been canvassedfor example, the

re-conguration of liberalism along delib-erative democratic lines (as found in thework of people like Amy Gutmann,Charles Larmore and John Rawls), orthe introduction of constitutional safe-guards like minority rights for potentiallymarginalised groups (as defended bythinkers like Kymlicka). Localism, how-ever, is not a solution, and it cannotrepresent one. Just as localists from theright appear to underestimate the extentto which local communities can be

sources of coercion, so leftist localistsappear to underestimate the extent towhich involving local people in decisionsabout the administration of public ser-vices and the allocation of scarce re-sources can potentially lead to minoritygroups being systematically denied thoseservices and resources that they need byprejudiced or, indeed, benign majorities.

Leftists like Milburn and Blears arekeen to decentralise power to local com-

munities as a way of broadening thegovernment's commitment to choice (inschools, hospitals, etc.), but there is noth-ing in localism per se which is compatiblewith extending choice. Extending choicerequires institutions to free individualcitizens from the coercive constraintsimposed by discrimination and preju-dice, but also by poverty and unequalaccess to important social goods likeeducation, housing and welfare. It also

requires political institutions andmechanisms that protect minority groupsfrom having their interests consistentlydenied or ignored by majorities. Conse-quently, it requires that all individuals

regardless of what opinions prevail in thelocal communitybe provided with theresources they need to engage produc-tively, equally and freely with oneanother and with the institutions underwhich they live regardless of what opin-ions prevail in the local community. Loc-alism makes it easier for local majoritiesto overrule the needs of minority groupsand allocate resources in ways that areunfair, inequitable and in violation of

precisely those `progressive' ideals ofequality and individual freedom that itsleftist advocates defend.

The myth of representation

The popular, cross-party call for directdemocracy via some form of localismdoes not, as it stands, represent a defen-sible response to political engagementamong British citizens because it leavesracial, ethnic, cultural, religious and eco-

nomic minority groups open to margin-alisation and tyranny by illiberal and

benign majorities. Consequently, theanswer lies not in devolving power tolocal communities, but in strengtheningcentralised institutions, and reformingthem in ways which allow representa-tives to govern eectively and reectivelyin the face of disagreement as to whatshould be done in any given circum-stance.

The fact that the localist call for directdemocracy has become so popular sug-gests that its many advocates have for-gotten something important aboutrepresentative democracy: that while itis an important role of representativeinstitutions to make decisions in thelight of public opinion, it is also import-ant that the state (and elected represen-tatives) possess the power to defy thewishes of the people, and, on occasion,




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to tell them they are wrong. The myth ofrepresentative institutions, of course, isthat it is their sole responsibility to`represent' the views of the electoratewithin the political system, and that

our elected representatives should doall they can to ensure that policy out-comes are determined as far as possible

by the public will. However, it is not ourrepresentatives' only responsibility.Sometimes we look to our representa-tives to take a reective attitude towardthe views that their electorate is givingthem. If the majority of the electoratesupport measures or laws that run con-trary to important liberal democratic

principles, or if a particular group isseen to consistently lose out to the willof the majority on a range of importantissues, then a balance needs to be struck

between the will of the majority and thewill of the minority or minorities whomight be marginalised by it.

Minority groups (including the poor)would suer genuine and profound dis-advantage in a political system thatplaces power in the hands of local majo-rities to decide such wide-ranging and

important issues as what is taught inschools, how criminals should be sen-tenced and what the police should spendthe majority of their time doing. More-over, direct democracy is inecient, andincapable of resolving some of the mostimportant questions in contemporary lib-eral democratic societies like Britain.Given the diversity which characterisescontemporary British politics, it is naveto assume that public debate and partici-

pation will always achieve a clear andimplementable consensus. In diversemulti-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious societies like Britain, somevalues and ways of life will remainincompatible with one another even aftera great deal of debate, and in thesecircumstances democracy requires thatstrong, legitimate institutionsem-powered by the popular and collectiveconsent of the peopleweigh the argu-

ments and make dicult decisions onbehalf of the citizen body.

Similarly, only legitimate and strongcentral institutions are capable of ensur-ing that local communities sometimes

bear the costs of national policy decisions.Imagine that it is overwhelminglydecided, by national referendum, per-haps, that the country's energy demandswould be best met by adopting nuclearpower and that, consequently, a newnuclear reactor must be built somewherein Britain. Imagine, then, that we haveadopted the kind of localist approach toplanning decisions defended by Carswelland Hannan, and under these rules every

local community in Britain decides that areactor must not be built in their area. Insuch circumstances, central institutionsmust legitimately defy the wishes of atleast one local community in the interestsof implementing the democratic will ofthe nation at large. The resultant decision,in our example, may well anger the localresidents of the chosen community, andwill no doubt cause frustration and angerin that area. It may indeed result inthe population feeling disempowered,

resentful of `bureaucrats in Westminster'and disenchanted with the political pro-cess. Yet none of this makes the decisionundemocratic or unjust, because (and aslong as) the national policy was decidedfairly and justly.

In this last point lies a key to ad-dressing the problem of political disen-gagement among the British public. Oneof the key drivers of political disengage-ment in Britain, it seems, is that indivi-

duals no longer feel that the politicalsystem makes room for their views: theparty system dramatises a con ict

between broad-church ideologies thatare becoming increasingly outdated inan era in which traditional identitiesand forms of association are givingway to new ones. While the major polit-ical partiesmodelled on historical classinterests that have become increasingly

blurred in recent yearsare in decline,




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smaller, single issue parties are becom-ing more popular. Similarly, while mem-

bership of political parties seems to befalling, membership of single-issuegroups is increasingfor example, since

the 1970s, membership of Greenpeacehas risen from 30,000 to 221,000, mem-

bership of the Royal Society for theProtection of Birds grew from 98,000(in 1971) to 1.2 million in 2006, andmembership of the National Trust rosehas risen from 278,000 to 3 million.Amnesty International UK currentlyhas around 256,000 supporters, nearlyfour times as many members as theLiberal Democrats. Furthermore, as evi-

denced by the recent mass marches overissues such as the Iraq War, tuition feesand fox hunting, large numbers of peo-plemillions, in factappear motivatedenough by political issues to expresstheir opinions and nd new entries intothe political system.

The repeated desire among manymembers of the British public to marchin mass protests against aspects of gov-ernment policy, or to join sectional inter-est groups, suggests something very

signicant about how they perceive theirrole as democratic citizens. It also sug-gests that the problem is not one ofapathy. Many people act `politically',

but they do not see the formal politicalsystem as capable of representing them.This is the real challenge, and it is notsolved by merely handing power to localcommunities. Citizens need to feel thattheir elected representatives are workingon their behalf. However, they also need

to realise that this does not always meanthat representatives must do what theywant. The failure of elected representa-tives to do what the people want is not initself a failure of the democratic system;rather it is an inevitable consequence ofliving in a diverse society in which thereis often profound disagreement over`what the people want'. Not having thegovernment act upon one's expressedview, or not having one's MP vote in

the way that one might like, is not neces-sarily a failure of the democratic system,

because the democratic system is chargedwith the responsibility of doing morethan merely put into action the will of

the people. It must defend the rights ofminorities, even if the majority thinks itshould not; it must provide all peoplewith the resources necessary to live pur-poseful and rewarding lives, even if themajority do not think these lives areworthwhile; and it must make dicultand complicated decisions in circum-stances of conict.

We look to our institutions and repre-sentatives to do these things because we

live in a liberal democracy, founded uponliberal principles of freedom and equal-ity, rather than in a direct democracy thatmerely converts the majority opinion intolaw. Liberal political philosophy has,over the past thirty years, illustrated themany ways in which the freedom andequality of individual citizens can beundermined by forces and institutions

beyond the state: by the people who livearound them, by the people they work

beside, by the religious groups to which

they might belong, and by their lack ofeducation, their lack of money or theirinability to access basic public goods.Any political system that claims to beinterested in upholding the freedom ofindividuals to govern themselves and tolive the life that they believe to be worth-while therefore needs to alleviate coer-cion in all its aspects, wherever it isfound, rather than hide behind the liber-tarian rhetoric of the minimal state, or the

leftist discourse of choice.If political disengagement arises at

least partly from the perception that polit-ical institutions do not listen, then thismust be rectied. However, individualcitizens must also understand that merelynot getting what one wants does notmean that central institutions are notlistening. Politicians need to listen to theirconstituents, but citizens need to remem-

ber that politics is a dicult, complex and




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messy business in which there is often noclear right or wrong answer, and often nooption available that will not cause one orother group to lose out. Rather thandevolve power down to local commu-

nities, then, more eective channelsshould be opened between the electorateand their central institutions. The reformagenda should be concerned with repair-ing the bridge between individuals andthe representatives they entrust to makedecisions on their behalf; this means mak-ing sure that citizens feel able to vote forparties that actually mean something tothem, and it may well involve quite rad-ical reforms of the parliamentary and

electoral systems. However, it does notrequire the devolution of power down tolocal communities in the name of local-ism, or direct democracy, or anythingelse. Doing so would merely condemnminorities to the whims of local majoritiesin ways that violate the liberal democraticprinciples upon which our system isfounded.

Notes

1 For example, Tom Bentley, Everyday Demo-cracy: Why We Get the Politicians WeDeserve, London, Demos, 2005; StephenColeman, Direct Representation: Towards aConversational Democracy, London, IPPR,2005; Emily Keaney and Ben Rogers, ACitizen's Duty: Voter Inequality and theCase for Compulsory Turnout, London,IPPR, 2006; Brian Beedham, The Case forDirect Democracy, London, Civitas, 2006;Centre for Policy Studies, The LocalistPapers, London, CPS, 2007.

2 Alan Milburn, `A state that empowers, not

controls' in Alan Milburn et al., eds,Beyond Whitehall: A New Vision for a Pro-

gressive State, London, Progress, 2008, p. 16.3 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis

free/2009/may/25/david-cameron-a-new-politics

4 Quoted in Hazel Blears, `The de-centralised state', in Milburn et al., BeyondWhitehall, pp. 512.

5 http://www.greenparty.org.uk/policies/democracy-liberty.html; How We areGoverned: A Constitutional and Govern-mental Policy for an Independent Britain,London, UKIP, 2008, p. 4; http://bnp.org.uk/policies/democracy

6 Power Inquiry, Power to the People: AnIndependent Inquiry into Britain's Demo-cracy, London, HMSO, 2007, p. 219.

7 Beedham, Direct Democracy.8 http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/

about/. See Simon Jenkins, Big Bang Local-ism: A Rescue Plan for British Democracy,London, Policy Exchange, 2004, for anexample of the kind of approach theyhave in mind.

9 Milburn et al., Beyond Whitehall; StellaCreasy, ed., Participation Nation: Reconnect-ing Citizens to the Public Realm, London,Involve, 2007.

10 Gerry Stoker, Why Politics Matters: Making

Democracy Work, Houndmills, PalgraveMacmillan, 2006, p. 34.11 Hazel Blears, in Milburn et al., Beyond

Whitehall, p. 45.12 Chris Leslie, `Local forward, Whitehall

back' in Milburn et al., Beyond Whitehall,pp. 567.

13 Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan, ThePlan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain, Lon-don, Carswell, 2008; Douglas Carswelland Daniel Hannan, Direct Democracy: An

Agenda for a New Model Party, London,Direct-Democracy, 2005.



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