Majoritarianism - Concept in Depth

Concept in Depth

Advocates of majoritarianism argue that majority decision making is intrinsically democratic and that any restriction on majority decision making is intrinsically undemocratic. If democracy is restricted by a constitution which cannot be changed by a simple majority decision then yesterday's majority is being given more weight than today's. One critique of majoritarianism is that systems without supermajority requirements for changing the rules for voting can be shown to likely be unstable. If it is restricted by some small group, such as aristocrats, judges, priests, soldiers, or philosophers, then society becomes an oligarchy. The only restriction acceptable in a majoritarian system is that a current majority has no right to prevent a different majority emerging in the future (this could happen, for example, if a minority persuades enough of the majority to change its position). In particular, a majority cannot exclude a minority from future participation in the democratic process. It should be noted, as it is often a subject of misunderstanding, that majoritarianism does not prohibit a decision being made by representatives as long as this decision is made via majority rule, as it can be altered at any time by any different majority emerging in the future.

Among critiques of majoritarianism is that most decisions in fact take place not by majority rule, but by plurality, unless the voting system artificially restricts candidates or options to two only. In turn, due to Arrow's paradox, it is not possible to have plurality voting systems with more than two options that retain adherence to both certain "fairness" criteria and rational decision-making criteria.