What's the Big Deal About Democracy?

"WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT DEMOCRACY?" attracted some sixty delegates and forty presentations from a variety of disciplines and from four continents, as well as several of our own under- and postgraduate students. Presentations were limited to 20 minutes, so as to allow maximum time for discussion.

The central theme - addressed in all by 25 of the papers -- concerned the widespread assumption that it is simply self-evident that democracy is the best system of government yet devised: admittedly imperfect, but better than anything else. Colleagues investigated the grounds for that judgement, what democracy might have to recommend it, and what the assumptions are that underlie its practices. Perhaps the hardest questions were addressed by those who asked why, although apparently predicated on convictions concerning the equality of citizens - if not necessarily of all subjects or persons - democratic theory tended to avoid questioning these convictions. Certainly it remained unclear what might count as a justification for these convictions.

Sub-themes included questions around representative democracy and democratic political organisation. Some delegates questioned whether representative democracy was democracy's ideal form and/or the best guarantor of freedom; some interrogated democracy's understanding and valuing of freedom; and some thought aloud about alternatives both to democracy itself and to representative democracy. Others considered alternatives to democracy; explored whether or not the state remains the zenith of political organisation; and analysed the implications for the organisation of political life, and for democracy in particular, of the growth of corporate power and of corporate forms of organisation.

The invited keynote speaker, Dr Haidar Eid, from Al Aqsa University in Gaza, Palestine, was unable to present his talk on the nature of actually existing democracy. He was denied permission by the Israeli authorities to leave Gaza. Moreover the British consular authorities would not assist him, insisting, in the words of the British Vice-Consul in Jerusalem, that the Israeli government 'will not put up with us trying to offer consular assistance' to Dr. Eid. We hope in due course to publish a collection of the papers presented.