Liberal Democracy - Theory and Practice

Theory and Practice

Empiricists have argued that the theory of liberal democracy is one thing, its practice quite another. Examples of this are Robert Putnam at Harvard and Bent Flyvbjerg at Oxford. Both argue that in liberal democracies "the rules are not the game," i.e. the rules of democracy, as written down in democratic constitutions, do not ensure democracy, and that "constitution writing" is not the most effective way to improve liberal democracies. Putnam found that the existence and cultivation of "social capital" are more important to making liberal democracy work in practice than the constitutions and formal institutions of democracy. Flyvbjerg found that organizations and citizens in a liberal democracy are experts at judging how far a democratic constitution and institution can be bent and used in nondemocratic ways for group and personal advantage. Democratic rationality is confronted by opportunistic political power at every turn, and typically "power has a rationality that rationality does not know," in the words of Flyvbjerg, who argues that effective checks and balances on power are what matters to make liberal democracy work in practice.