Mutua on The Fraud of John Locke: Subnational Challenges to Democratic Theory @makaumutua

Makau W. Mutua, SUNY Buffalo Law School, is publishing The Fraud of John Locke: Subnational Challenges to Democratic Theory in Comparative Election Law (James A. Gardner, ed. Edward Elgar Publishing 2022). Here is the abstract.

In this chapter, I focus my attention on some of the most poignant limitations of the idea and practice of democracy. Democracy is challenged by some of its central imperatives—individualism, elections, anti-discrimination and equal protection norms, and nationalism, including subnational identities. Often, it can appear to be nonsense on stilts. I argue here that the very norms that make democracy attractive are its Achilles heel. In particular, I question the potential for democracy to contain certain identities, especially racial and ethnic, to create the society that embraces all—both majority and minority. In this context, I ask this question—is it time to revisit Locke’s and liberalism’s central theses? Is the political experiment of democracy on its deathbed because of the resilience of nationalism and sub-nationalism? In a word, was Locke’s genius an unwitting fraud on its theorists and practitioners? In the political furnace of these nativist cross-winds, democracy as expressed through open and free elections—the one essential and indispensable element of political democracy—is open to capture by the vilest of majorities. Suddenly, the pivot of the idea of democracy becomes its enemy. Majorities then use democracy itself to attack, or end, it. This chapter contends that there is no defense against the capture of the democratic state by hateful majorities. Not only can they use elections to gain and husband power, they can deploy their control to rewrite the character of the state while leaving a veneer—an empty husk—of the liberal state in place. In the circumstances, thinkers need to contemplate whether the clock of history has run out on liberalism. Can it be rescued from the clutches of fatigue and populist nativist, and often racist, uprising in the most advanced democracies? Are there any failsafe tools— normative and structural—that can snap democracy from the precipice?

Download the chapter from SSRN at the link.