Substantiating political equality

Daryl Glaser

Chapter 4 in The Substance in Liberal Democracy, 2026, pp 55-75 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: One way to make democracy more substantive is by giving fuller realisation to political equality, conceived here as equality of opportunity to exercise influence. Formal political equality of adult members of a political community is a baseline requirement of liberal democracy, as is the enforcement of formal equality. A fully equal system of representation entails majority rule and, ideally, proportional electoral representation. Beyond such baseline requirements, political equality entails two types of measures to ‘equalise’ the decision-making process itself. One involves the fair (not necessarily equal) allocation of scarce democratic time and space, the other preventing external social inequalities from breaching the democratic process via either the reproduction of social inequalities within the process or external manipulation, say through political spending. Liberal democracy mostly welcomes such measures. Things get trickier for liberal democracy with the next type of substantial equality, namely equalisation of politically relevant resources, which entails, in effect, a more egalitarian society. Liberal democracy – conceived as ideologically open proceduralism – can welcome or accommodate this so long as it is understood as a revocable achievement of egalitarian-minded election winners rather than as a precondition of democracy or a constitutional requirement, and so long as it does not undermine the material bases of political pluralism (which a single national employer would do). What liberal democracy cannot accept is the equation of societal equality with democracy. Democracy is a collective decision-making regime, not a social order.

Keywords: Political equality; Formal equality; Procedural fairness; Substantive equality; Majority rule; Proportional representation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035333011
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