DEMOCRACY: BALANCING MARKET, STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY

Democracy can be viewed as an end state (structure) or as a process. In the 20th century, theories of the democratic structure and process (and thus the end state to be achieved and the structures necessary to achieve it) were highly contested. Some argued that only by freeing markets from state control could democracy materialize. Others argued that getting policies right would promote democracy – and a free market. A third group argued that the state was the problem, and that only by relying on civil society could democracy emerge and be maintained. We can classify differing approaches to democracy under three ideal types that drove debate and practice, depending on the sector seen as critical to the process. Stemming from 19th century theorists, three sectoral approaches were in conflict: those that stressed the market (neoliberalism), those that stressed the state (statism), and those that stressed “the people” or civil society (the populist approach).