What Does the US Government Have to Say About Democracy?

This is the first part in an article series on government, power and narrative. As people all over the US question the notion that our government is truly “democratic”, we first decide to look at how the US government defines itself, and some of the questions that raises.

“Do we live in a true democracy?”

There is a lot of talk, in the current US political climate, around this issue. And there’s little wonder for it either, when you consider America’s vast wealth inequality, alongside this well-known study that found that legal decisions tend to follow the interests of an elite few. Democracy, of course, is a deeply-rooted value — at least on a mythological level — in American culture and history. If you grow up in America, you are raised to believe in the importance of this concept, either as something that already exists in this country, or as something that we should strive to create.

There are many different ways you could choose to define the word “democracy” as a concept, but first and foremost, and above all else, the word democracy always refers to a form of government structure or organization.

For this reason, I want to begin looking at democracy from the perspective of the government. Later on in this article series, I will be talking more about what government means and why we have governments today, as well as delving into this concept of democracy in America, exploring what it means from a practical and historical perspective. I will be examining the myths and narratives that the US government, among other governments both modern and historic, have disseminated throughout the societies they rule, and I will be discussing how those myths and narratives affect the distribution and concentration of power in society. I think this discussion is extremely important, and very apropos to our current global political climate. Many people are dissatisfied with the way things are, across the political spectrum. I believe it is time for us to rethink some things.

Let’s start by going to USA.gov, where we might expect to find some official government statements about democracy, if such a thing exists. I think, as the people of this supposedly democratic country, it would be reasonable to expect our government to provide some sort of publicly available information on exactly what kind of government they purport to be, and what that means for our participation as citizens. You’d think that in a democracy it would be important for each citizen to get ahold of these government-provided materials and read them for themselves. But it’s interesting to note that, having been born and schooled in this country from elementary up through college, I was never once directed to this website or provided with any of the materials I have found therein. And I grew up in the time of the internet, so there’s no excuse.

A search for “democracy” on search.usa.gov turns up a pamphlet for prospective immigrants, released by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. This is where we will find, explained in very simple terms, what the US governmental organization thinks it is important for citizens of this country to know. The heading is titled

“Democracy and the United States”, and it reads:

“The United States is a representative democracy.
This means that our government is elected by citizens.
Here, citizens vote for their government officials.
These officials represent the citizens’ ideas and concerns in government.
Voting is one way to participate in our democracy.
Citizens can also contact their officials when they want to support or change a law.
Voting in an election and contacting our elected officials are two ways that
Americans can participate in their democracy.”

Not exactly poetic meter, but straight to the point. (Side note to the USCIS, I am an editor, if you guys want to hire someone to make that flow a bit smoother.)

Okay, so if you’re thinking about becoming a citizen, you might want to know that this is how the USCIS sees our governmental structure. According to them, we are a “representative democracy”, which apparently means that not everyone in the country gets to participate in the actual decision-making (more on this later). Instead, we as a country choose people to make decisions for us, although each one of us has the theoretical power to contact these elected officials, asking them to make decisions on our behalf.

Anything else?

For citizens, there is a US Department of State pamphlet called “Democracy in Brief”:

“Democracy may be a word familiar to most, but it is a concept still misunderstood and misused at a time when dictators, single-party regimes, and military coup leaders alike assert popular support by claiming the mantle of democracy. Yet the power of the democratic idea has prevailed through a long and turbulent history, and democratic government, despite continuing challenges, continues to evolve and flourish throughout the world.

Democracy, which derives from the Greek word ‘demos,’ or ‘people,’ is defined, basically, as government in which power is vested in the people. In some forms, democracy can be exercised directly by the people; in large societies, it is by the people through their elected agents. Or, in the memorable phrase of President Abraham Lincoln, democracy is government ‘of the people, by
the people, and for the people.’

Freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, but the two are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of practices and procedures that have been molded through a long, often tortuous history. Democracy is the institutionalization of freedom. In the end, people living in a democratic society must serve as the ultimate guardians of their own freedom and must forge their own path toward the ideals set forth in the preamble to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights: ‘Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.’”

This raises all sorts of questions. What does it mean, for example, to be a dictator, a single-party regime, or a military-coup leader “claiming the mantle of democracy”? Who is this referring to? Is it possible to have a true government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” if we are only electing representatives to make decisions for us? How did we decide that that was the best way to build a democracy? Who got to make that decision? What if some of us don’t think that’s fair? What do we do if our elected representatives do things that don’t represent us? What are the “equal and inalienable rights” of all humans? How does a democratic government recognize them? How does the US, specifically, recognize them?

And so on and so on. We’re not going to answer all those questions now. But we might answer a lot of them later. The point is, a great deal of this language is language that you grew up with if you grew up in America, but many of us probably never stopped to think about what it actually means. We were told what it meant, so we didn’t have to think much about it. But it’s worth going back, every now and then, to re-examine concepts you thought you learned as a kid, and see if perhaps there are things you might have missed the first time around. Especially where government is concerned. Ask yourself: why might you trust certain governments, and not others? What makes you place trust in your own government, if you do so, or withhold trust, if you do not? (And I don’t mean the specific people in government, although certainly, that’s a good question to ask, too; what I mean in particular is the governmental structures and organizations that will exist over our heads regardless of who occupies the seat.)

Let’s move on. It’s worth reading the rest of the “Democracy in Brief” pamphlet, because that will provide some nice context for some of the stuff we will be talking about later on in this series.

Another link leads to the National Endowment for the Humanities, which talks about Alexis de Tocqueville and his 1835 book Democracy in America. Tocqueville was a French aristocrat who came to America to study the prison systems, and came away with a two-volume rave about how America was the center of a democratic revolution that was going to shake the world. He saw America, he said, as “the image of democracy itself”. The site provides some materials so that teachers can give this history lesson to their classes. An excerpt from one of the study activities reads as follows:

“Have a student read out loud the first three paragraphs of the Introduction. Follow this with a brief discussion of this passage, beginning with the question, what is it about America that most impressed Tocqueville? This is of course something he calls the ‘equality of conditions.’ Tocqueville does not say much about this here; he doesn’t even define it or tell us what it is. But he does describe in broad strokes how important it is, and the students should get some appreciation of this. Ask them what the equality of conditions is responsible for in America.”

Moving beyond the definition of democracy, we come to learn that the US government doesn’t just consider itself to be one. Rather, its organizational visions of the concept transcend the national sphere and go on to the world arena. The US, this is essentially saying, is a model for world democracy and the shining example that will lead the world revolution. In the words of Tocqueville, as stated by the NEH, this revolution is “inevitable and irresistible”.

There are also some interesting notes to be made here about the idea of “equality of conditions”, and that being a key feature of American democracy, especially in the light of the OECD study I pointed out earlier. But that’s a discussion for another time.

For now, we will begin to close. I obviously can’t paste excerpts from every page that a search for “democracy” turns up on the us.gov website. Nor, in all likelihood, would such a thing be intellectually valuable in this context. I will note that the majority of my searches actually turned up matters related to foreign policy, or USAID. Which brings me to my final two points.

I’ll start with this one that I found on the website for Air University, the intellectual and leadership center of the Air Force. This is a pamphlet called “Media in Democracy”, which primarily relates to US operations abroad, but can also be relatively insightful for US government attitudes toward democracy at home. According to this pamphlet, the United States government sees the media and press freedom as key components of a functioning democracy, as well:

“Access to information is essential to the health of democracy for at least two reasons. First, it ensures that citizens make responsible, informed choices rather than acting out of ignorance or misinformation. Second, information serves a ‘checking function’ by ensuring that elected representatives uphold their oaths of office and carry out the wishes of those who elected them. In some societies, an antagonistic relationship between media and government represents a vital and healthy element of fully functioning democracies. In post-conflict or ethnically homogenous societies such a conflictual, tension-ridden relationship may not be appropriate, but the role of the press to disseminate information as a way of mediating between the state and all facets of civil society remains critical.

Support for media is a critical prong of U.S. democracy and governance assistance.”

Okay. So the the media and the press are seen by the US government as vital to the operation of a democracy, as well, both at home and in aid to foreign countries. This raises a question for the future: what role does the media play in the US, as far as government and democracy is concerned? Can we examine that role? For now, we will concentrate on the “foreign countries” aspect of this statement, which will help us wrap up our basic examination of US government attitudes toward democracy.

As we recall from above, the NEH uses Tocqueville to imply that America is the model for a global democratic revolution — one that is both inevitable and irresistible. Already, this implies some sort of action beyond national borders, in the field of foreign policy. Which leads us to our last us.gov site excerpt for today, taken from the US Department of State page on democracy:

“Democracy and respect for human rights have long been central components of U.S. foreign policy. Supporting democracy not only promotes such fundamental American values as religious freedom and worker rights, but also helps create a more secure, stable, and prosperous global arena in which the United States can advance its national interests. In addition, democracy is the one national interest that helps to secure all the others. Democratically governed nations are more likely to secure the peace, deter aggression, expand open markets, promote economic development, protect American citizens, combat international terrorism and crime, uphold human and worker rights, avoid humanitarian crises and refugee flows, improve the global environment, and protect human health.

With these goals in mind, the United States seeks to:

Promote democracy as a means to achieve security, stability, and prosperity for the entire world;
Assist newly formed democracies in implementing democratic principles;
Assist democracy advocates around the world to establish vibrant democracies in their own countries; and
Identify and denounce regimes that deny their citizens the right to choose their leaders in elections that are free, fair, and transparent.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) is committed to supporting and promoting democracy programs throughout the world. As the nation’s primary democracy advocate, DRL is responsible for overseeing the Human Rights and Democracy Fund (HRDF), which was established in 1998 to address human rights and democratization emergencies. DRL uses resources from the HRDF, as well as those allocated to Regional Democracy Funds, to support democratization programs such as election monitoring and parliamentary development.

Over the past quarter-century, a large number of nations have made a successful transition to democracy. Many more are at various stages of the transition. When historians write about U.S. foreign policy at the end of the 20th century, they will identify the growth of democracy — from 30 countries in 1974 to 117 today — as one of the United States’ greatest legacies. The United States remains committed to expanding upon this legacy until all the citizens of the world have the fundamental right to choose those who govern them through an ongoing civil process that includes free, fair, and transparent elections.”

I am not even going to list all of the questions this brings to mind. A few of them are: what are those 117 countries the US government defines as being democratic? What do the DRL and HRDF do? How does the US government help other countries transition to democracy? Exactly who benefits from this style of foreign policy, and in what ways?

The important takeaway from this, for now, is the idea that the US government sees the spread of democracy around the world as part of its mission. This is an important element of how the US governmental organization conceptualizes the meaning of democracy. It goes beyond simply a style of government that it applies to the citizens within its borders. It is something to be spread and propagated. The other important thing to note is that the primary goal of this propagation is to support national interest. It just happens to be a national interest that, according to the State Department at least, “helps to secure all the others”.

Obviously, the question of how the US government conceptualizes democracy is a challenging one to answer. I cannot possibly, in one article, detail all the nuances of a topic this vast. My goal here has been to do some basic research into the government’s own narrative, using the tools and resources that an average person might have at their disposal. The idea is that a government, and especially a so-called democratic government, should theoretically make their ideas about government as publicly and easily accessible as possible (at least if they want people to understand those ideas). What would the average citizen find if they attempted to figure out the meaning of democracy from the us.gov website? What is the government narrative that is most easily accessible and widely disseminated? What is the mythos that the US government wants their citizens, first and foremost, to understand?

Once we can pinpoint some key aspects of these myths as they come straight from the horse’s mouth, we can then turn our attention to other questions. We can dig deeper and start to ask about some of the meatier issues regarding government, power, and narrative. We can begin to tease out some of the mechanisms by which these concepts intersect. We might be surprised by what we discover when we start to rethink our most basic assumptions.

Sources

1. Gilens, Martin, and Page, Benjamin I.. 2014. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.” Perspectives on Politics 12(3): 564–581. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592714001595
2. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015. “OECD Forum 2015: Income Inequality in Figures” (May). Available at http://www.oecd.org/forum/issues/oecd-forum-2015-income-inequality-in-figures.htm
3. US Citizenship and Immigration Services, (n.d.). “Your Government and You.” Available at https://www.uscis.gov/system/files_force/USCIS/files/Government_and_You_handouts.pdf
4. US Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs, (n.d.). “Democracy in Brief.” Available at https://photos.state.gov/libraries/amgov/30145/publications-english/democracy-in-brief.pdf
5. National Endowment for the Humanities, EDSITEment! The Best of the Humanities on the Web, (n.d.). “Democracy in America: Alexis de Tocqueville’s Introduction.” Available at https://edsitement.neh.gov/feature/democracy-america-alexis-de-tocquevilles-introduction
6. US Agency for International Development, Bureau for Global Programs, Field Support, and Research, Center for Democracy and Governance, (1999). “The Role of Media in Democracy: A Strategic Approach” (June). Available at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usaid/media_in_democracy.pdf
7. US Department of State, Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, (n.d.). “Democracy.” Available at https://www.state.gov/j/drl/democ/

Further Reading (from search.us.gov)

Przeworski, Adam, Stokes, Susan C., and Manin, Bernard. 1999. Democracy, Accountability, and Representation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Available at http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam032/98050663.pdf