Specification of decision making powers

Suppose the group has agreed it needs some basic rules to live together. That still leaves an even more fundamental question unanswered: who actually gets to decide what those rules will be? You might be certain your preferred rule is the fairest one, but other members of the group will be equally certain that their own rule is better — so before the group can even settle on what the rules should say, it first has to settle who has the authority to make that call at all.

In principle, different societies have answered this question very differently. In a monarchy, a single monarch decides. In some systems — the erstwhile Soviet Union is the chapter's own example — a single political party alone was given the power to decide. In democratic constitutions, the people are said to decide, broadly speaking, but even that answer isn't the end of the matter: should every citizen vote directly on every single law the way the ancient Greeks tried to, or should the people instead choose representatives to decide on their behalf? And if representatives are used, how exactly should they be elected, and how many of them should there be? …