Elections and Democracy

Two simple questions get at why elections matter so much to democracy: can we have democracy without elections, and can we hold elections without having democracy?

The first question is about representation. In a large country, all citizens obviously cannot sit together and take every decision themselves — this kind of direct participation, where citizens themselves make day-to-day decisions, is called direct democracy. The city-states of ancient Greece are the classic historical example, and in India today the institutions that come closest are local self-government bodies, especially the Gram Sabha, where villagers can directly discuss and decide local matters. But direct democracy of this kind simply cannot work when a decision has to involve lakhs or crores of people spread across a country. That is why democratic rule, in practice, almost always means rule by elected representatives — citizens choose people to govern and administer on their behalf, and their own role is limited to choosing and periodically judging those representatives, not making policy directly. This indirect arrangement is what makes the method by which representatives are chosen — the election system — so important: get the method wrong, and the link between what voters want and who actually governs breaks down.

The second question is a warning against assuming that holding elections is, by itself, proof of democracy. Many non-democratic governments hold elections too, precisely because they want to look democratic, while designing the process so that it poses no real threat to their hold on power — a token opposition, no genuine choice, or results that are managed rather than counted. What actually distinguishes a democratic election is that it is free (voters can genuinely choose, without fear or coercion) and fair (the rules and the counting are not rigged in favour of the rulers). …