Summary Of Maintaining American Democracy Not Through Reform

March 21, 2016 Jessica Sanford !1

Maintaining American Democracy Not Through Reform (PG Independent Study)

Introduction

In Reforming the Republic - Democratic Institutions for the New America Todd Donovan and Shaun Bowler discuss the necessity to reform the American electoral process and ways in which it could be done. Although the article discusses in depth how and why civil participation and trust in the government are severely lacking, it does not pose a convincing argument for codifying a new electoral process through changes to the Constitution, nor does it present specific paths to take for change. Their overarching argument is this: the American electoral system must be reformed through amending the Constitution in order to increase

One way in which civil participation plays out in American democracy is through local self-government. Tocqueville finds America’s township system to be unique in its way to engage citizens by bringing town institutions, what he equates to the vice of freedom, within people’s reach with the right to use it how they please (Tocqueville, 73). What is more is that people obey the law not because their status is inferior to those running the local government, but because they recognize the benefits that laws give to the community, and they abide by them out of respect (77). Following rules not because of inferiority but because of equality of the large middle-class allows for the people to pursue their own interests in an environment governed by their own people and class, knowing they could have an equal say in governmental affairs (79). Self-empowerment in

Freedom of association is a right, and the Constitution makes it clear that the government cannot impede a person’s ability to associate however they wish, politically and otherwise. Freedom of political association is rare, Tocqueville says, but surprisingly, freedom works for American democracy: “the political freedom to associate is not as dangerous to the public space as is supposed and that it could strengthen a state which for some time it had shaken” (Tocqueville, 607); and: “Thus it is by enjoying a dangerous freedom that Americans learn the skill of reducing the risks of freedom” (608). Tocqueville normally has feared freedom, especially freedom of political association, because he has previously seen it as a gateway for tyranny of the majority; however, in America, Tocqueville appreciates this strange phenomenon as being constructive rather than detrimental. In fact, its goodness, Tocqueville describes, can be explained upon checking the vitality of the nation: in America, one would