Democracy and human nature: a layered system analysis

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses a question posed by the increase of democratic backsliding: whether democracy itself is compatible with human nature. It analyses democracy as a layered system consisting of three levels: the political/institutional, the social/interactional and the psychological/intrapsychic. At each level it uses evolutionary theory to describes features of a ‘light side’ of human nature that makes democracy possible, and of a ‘dark side’ of human nature that leads to democratic backsliding. At the political/institutional level these features are the reduction of reactive aggression and the capacity for the intragroup stranger. At the social/interactional level they are the cultural evolution of cooperative norms and an inclusive group identity. At the psychological/intrapsychic level they are the coherent, continuous positive self-experiences produced by shared positive emotions. However, these mechanisms can misfire at each level, producing the dark side that leads to democratic backsliding.

KEYWORDS:

• Democracy
• democratic backsliding
• critical realism
• group selection theory
• cultural evolution
• cooperation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The terms ‘light side’ and ‘dark side’ are used in this paper as an expository device. Although they do have a binary form, they should not be taken as suggesting that any particular political action can be simply fit into one category or the other. A more nuanced language that is beyond the scope of this footnote to elaborate is based on the big history tradition (Christian 2018). According to this tradition, human evolution is the result of collective learning, that is, group collaboration to develop and share concepts and information (Christian 2018). Patomaki, elaborates this basic thesis by distinguishing between progressive collective learning and pathological collective learning (Patomäki and Morgan 2023). Progressive collective learning involves learning processes that increase the learning capacity of a system, whereas pathological collective learning involves processes that reduce the system’s learning capacity. Put in these terms, the light side of human nature is the processes that increase our species capacity to collaborate, and the dark side is processes that reduce this capacity.

2 A standard critical realist concept of structure and levels involves their ontology. A high-level structure exists when it emerges from complex interactions between activities of the entities constituting that structure. The higher-level structure then acts on its constituents by means of downward causation (Bhaskar 2016). Archer’s morphogenetic theory offers an example of this when Archer opposes analysing social structure as nothing but a global description of the agents who occupy that structure (Archer and Morgan 2020). My own view is that the levels theorized in this paper are emergent from the levels below them. For example, social identities at the social/interactional level emerge from the interaction of individuals at the psychological/intrapsychic level. In addition, these social identities can affect individual psychologies. However, some readers may view this conceptualization of levels as too simplistic and hierarchical (cf. Patomäki and Morgan 2023). If the reader shares these doubts, then the levels described in the paper may be seen as providing a useful description of complex democratic systems. For another analysis of levels and emergence see Bunge (2004).

3 The definition of democracy as a mechanism for processing conflict is an extremely minimal definition and appears to define democracy solely in terms of political action, with no mention of economic democracy. Thus, the definition might appear at best limited and at worst inadequate. In particular, some Marxist theorists believe that democracy is impossible under capitalism. An alternative view, compatible with the thesis of this paper, is that the democratic social contract allows citizens to choose an economic system that they find beneficial. For example, the Marxist economist Richard Wolff, in his book ‘Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism’ (Wolff 2012) argues that political democracy could lead to economic democracy in the form of Workers Self Directed Enterprises. This paper’s analysis of mechanisms at the social/interactional and the psychological/intrapsychic level could be useful for theorizing how these enterprises might work. This proposal is consistent with Jessop’s reading of Poulantzis and Marx, that power can be analyzed in terms of social relationships (Jessop and Morgan 2022).

4 This paper’s definition of democracy might seem to rule out direct actions such as mass protest as incompatible with democracy, being instead instances of democratic backsliding. This is not the case. Rather, the definition of democracy given in this paper, theorizes democracy as a mechanism for society responding to these actions as conflicts that can be handled within the democratic system. An important example of this is civil disobedience, in which citizens deliberately disobey laws in order to motivate democratic society to change them.

5 This paper defines human nature in terms our species evolutionarily based tendency to cooperate, which is a very minimal concept of human nature. There is extensive critical realism literature on human nature which can be seen as an elaboration of our basic cooperative tendency. The connection through the concept of care. For people to cooperate with each other they must care about each other or care about the same things. For example, Sayer (2012) states that because human beings are embodied and hence vulnerable the need for fellow feeling and care is a human universal. Similarly, Smith (2010; 2015) theorizes that the capacity for love which enables us to enter into loving personal relations is an essential attribute of being human.