Good Democracy Requires Good Citizens

On April 23, 2014, Professor Dennis Mueller (University of Vienna, Austria) spoke at the HSE on 'Democracy and Citizenship'. He agreed to speak with the HSE news service to share his views on successful democracy and his impressions of the HSE as an institute.

― In your report ‘Democracy and Citizenship’ you counter the assumption that universal suffrage is a necessary condition for democracy. Why can allowing everyone to participate in the political process be counterproductive for democracy?

― This is actually what political scientists say. I sort of question this definition. The problem is that if some people are uninformed or simply illiterate, if they cannot read or they are not aware of the issues, they may vote for populist politicians who actually damage the economy or do things that can hurt the economic welfare. So restricting the right to vote, the privilege to vote, to people who are well informed and concerned about the state may actually improve the outcomes of the political process.

― What should voting rights depend on? How can the voting process be restricted?

― There are definite ways it can be done. For example, in many countries when someone moves in and wants to become a citizen, they have to learn the language and pass a test to prove they know something about the constitution, for example. It often happens that immigrants who become citizens know more about the government than people who became citizens automatically. The simple thing would be to require the same tests of everyone before they can vote. In developing countries, it used to be quite common to require literacy. If you can’t read a newspaper, it’s difficult to follow what’s going on. Most countries are getting rid of that now, but for some of them it is harmful, because Latin American countries, such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, have very large numbers of illiterate people. They are allowed to vote. And not only allowed to vote, they are compelled to vote. Those three countries fine people who don’t vote. So they are compelling people to vote – people who probably aren’t able to follow what’s going on. None of these three countries has had a very distinguished record in terms of economic or political success…

― Are there any historical examples when citizens have participated intelligently in the political process?

― If you look at Europe in the 19th century, voting was restricted. Not only could women not vote, but only a small fraction of the male population could vote. They typically had their own property and paid taxes. This meant that people who could vote had some wealth, which probably meant they had some education, which created the wealth. In the 19th century, particularly the second half of the 19th century in Europe, you saw liberalism dominating in many countries. Liberal parties were very important. I have argued that part of the explanation for the rise of fascism in Germany might be that the voting electorate expanded rapidly after World War I. Many people voted, including those who had little education and who had never voted before. With unemployment and inflation in Germany, they voted for the populist party - the Nazis. I have speculated that if they had the same electorate vote in 1934 that voted in 1890, Hitler would not have got so many votes and would not have been elected. And it was true elsewhere… Austria also elected anti-Semitic populists that the electorate expected…

― Do you mean that if people had acted more intelligently while voting, World War II wouldn’t have happened?

― I think it would have been far less likely. Today, Sweden has a very highly educated population and very patriotic population. They are very proud of their country. If you drive around Sweden, you see that every house has a flagpole and a Swedish flag on it. And if you look at Greece you see that many people there dislike the government.  First of all, Greece has a low level of education; people try to cheat on taxes because they don’t trust the government. So one reason that I would argue that Sweden performs better as a democracy than Greece is because it has a better-educated citizenry and citizens take their citizenship seriously... The Greeks and the Italians are trying to hide their money from the government.

― You admit that good democracy requires good citizens in the sense that they gather information about the parties and candidates and have the intelligence to evaluate this information. What are other necessary conditions of good democracy?

― Well, this is not in my lecture, but the rules are also important, whether you have a two-party system, a multi-party system or a presidential system. I’ve written another book - ‘Constitutional Democracy' - which looks at these different rules and the outcomes. Presidential systems like the U.S. system are prone to deadlock because of the checks and balances. The president can’t do what he wants because the Congress doesn’t agree. Congress can’t do what it wants because the president vetoes it. Many Latin American countries have had strong presidential systems like the U.S. (Argentina and Brazil), and they have had similar problems. Very often in Latin America the military steps in when things get out of hand and democracy disappears. So a strong presidential system with checks and balances is not good. However good the citizens are, if the elected representatives can’t function, then you don’t get good outcomes. There are advantages and disadvantages of two-party systems versus proportional representation systems. I’m not saying one of those is much better than the others, but you want to make sure that there is a link between what citizens want and what the government does.

― Is it your first time at the HSE? What are your impressions?

― It’s my second time in Moscow, actually. Several years ago, in December, there was a conference about a research project being organized by the New School of Economics. They were setting up different research groups, and I was invited to offer my advice. I came during a big snowstorm, took part in the conference and toured the city afterwards.  I am very impressed by the HSE. It seems to be a very high quality institution in terms of the faculty and the students. It seems as though they are getting a very good education that is competitive with the West. In general, what little I know about Russia is that one of its strengths has always been strong education in things like mathematics, which is very important for future research work in economics.

Dennis C. Mueller received his B.S. in Mathematics in 1962 at Colorado College, and his Ph.D. in Economics in 1966 at Princeton University. He taught at Cornell University and University of Maryland. He was visiting professor at University of Cambridge, Monash University, Federal Trade Commission, International Monetary Fund, and other institutions. Dennis C. Mueller has been Professor at the University of Vienna since 1994.

Ekaterina Solovova, specially for the HSE news service