Democracy is a foundation of freedom: we cannot allow it to become merely authorised bureaucratic rule
When democracy is reduced to managed consent, freedom is not abolished but administered. What remains is not a popular self-governance but a system of democratic authorisation for bureaucratic rule.
In this article, Fighting for a Free Future Associate Luke Lucas continues to explore Dr Nigel Ashford’s Principles for a Free Society, focusing on the second principle for a free society: democracy.
“Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Winston Churchill
The foundation of a free society is civil society, but a free society depends not only on the strength of civil society but also on the capacity of the individuals to govern themselves. Where voluntary associations cultivate responsibility and cooperation, democracy provides the means through which collective decisions are made. Therefore, democracy is an expression of self-governance of equals rather than being a mere selection of rulers.
We cannot have a free society without a strong civil society
At Fighting for a Free Future, we work to secure a free future, but what principles are the basis of a free society? Civil society is one; it is not a luxury of a free society but its precondition.
In the United Kingdom, democracy is largely based on periodic elections and the aggregation of preferences. But this procedural understanding obscures its deeper purpose. Democracy is intended to limit power as much as exercise it: by dispersing authority, requiring justification and subjecting decisions to public scrutiny. When these functions are weakened, democratic forms will persist while democratic substance erodes.
Therefore, democracy is understood as constrained, participatory and pluralistic. Without this, popular rule risks becoming a vehicle for the expansion of state power without protection. Freedom becomes threatened not despite democracy, but because of it.
The second President of the United States John Adams said, “the happiness of the people is the sole end of the government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it”. I do not disagree with this statement, but it leads to one of two outcomes: either you achieve happiness through popular self-government or through a popular and unified will.
Because citizens disagree, democracy requires procedures to manage conflict without domination, the idea that the people are many, not one. Disagreement between individuals is legitimate and encouraged, reflected through the Opposition in government in the United Kingdom. Parliament, courts and local government are not obstacles to democracy but the instruments. They ensure democratic authority is constrained because self-government requires that citizens remain free from arbitrary rule, decisions should be revisited because majorities rule for now, not forever.
Populism, on the other hand, is the simplification of the people, that they all possess a single, unified will that has been betrayed or suppressed. Disagreement is treated not as legitimate but as a betrayal of the people themselves. Rulers claim to be the embodiment of the popular will rather than representing it.
Institutions are painted as obstacles to democracy rather than the safeguards of it. Populism does not abolish democratic language and ideology; it intensifies it. It is the rhetorical shift to more direct and emotional language aimed at mobilisation those who feel marginalised to re-engage with the political process, all whilst hollowing out the democratic process.
Whilst democracy requires citizens to exercise self-restraint, populism thrives on dependency. The more individuals experience politics as something done for them rather than by them, the more plausible it becomes for a ruler to claim exclusive authority in their name.
Tocqueville feared democracy not because of the violence of tyranny but the comfort of dependency. Where equality dissolves free associations and obligations, individuals become isolated from one another despite growing alike. This situation fosters a new form of domination. The problem is not repression but passivity. Individuals retain formal rights yet gradually lose the habits and confidence to exercise them. Political power expands not through force but through consent, as citizens trade autonomy for reassurance and participation for protection.
The danger does not stop here, though, even where democratic language is retained, and elections continue to be held, self-governance can erode to a more technocratic form of role. Citizens’ role is reduced from being participants in democracy to respondents to policies devised elsewhere. Political authority no longer rests on deliberation among equals but on managed consent as individuals are invited to approve decisions already shaped by “experts”. Democracy becomes plebiscitary, participation is reduced to periodic affirmation rather than ongoing self-rule.
Plebiscitary management concentrates power upwards without appearing to do so. Authority is exercised in the name of the people, reframing resistance as opposition to democracy itself. Disagreement is tolerated rhetorically, whilst being institutionally marginalised. This shifts democratic expectations to being a matter of trust in administrators rather than a judgment among citizens. The result is responsibility shifts upwards whilst weakening accountability. What remains is not a popular self-governance but a system of democratic authorisation for bureaucratic rule.
When citizens fail to create their own voluntary associations, they are less equipped to participate meaningfully in democratic life. The government will step in to organise participation itself, not only to govern, further narrowing the space for self-rule. The weakening of civil society accelerates the drift towards plebiscitary management.
The greatest threat to democracy is not that the people will be ruled against their will, but that they will cease to have the freedom to rule themselves. When democracy is reduced to managed consent, freedom is not abolished but administered.
Luke Lucas is a Fighting for a Free Future Associate and runs Voices for a Free Future’s monthly column, What is Happening in Argentina!
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