Contrasting Models of Democracy:
The American and French Revolutions
Daniel J. Elazar
The two most important revolutions of the modern epoch were
the American and French revolutions. Each contributed a
particular understanding of democracy for moderns, models that
shaped the subsequent revolutions of the modern epoch and which
we continue to draw on in the postmodern epoch. This paper will
lay out the two models and the contrasts between them. It will
examine the hidden perspectives and assumptions underlying each.
Those perspectives and assumptions rest upon modern extensions of
the three original theories regarding the origins of the polity,
extensions that seek to adapt those theories to a democratic age
and apply them to the details of governing.
The Three Models of Polity
All polities are organized along the lines of one or another
of three models: they are either organized as hierarchies, as
centers with peripheries or as noncentralized matrices. Each
model is a classic expression of an ideal type. While the three
may be mixed in a real polity, in fact every polity is
constituted on the basis of one or another.
The pyramid is the classic expression of the hierarchical
model, with organizational authority and power distributed among
levels linked through a chain of command. Having its origin in
some form of conquest, the use of force, a possibility in all
polities, stands behind its constitution. Thus it is the
military model par excellence. It goes without saying that, in
the hierarchical model, the top level must be the most important
and the place where decisions are made as to which level does
what.
The center-periphery model is one in which authority is
concentrated in a single center which is more or less influenced
by its periphery, depending upon the situation in which it finds
itself. Such polities or organizations tend to develop
organically, either around a pre-existing center or through
generating one over time. They tend to be oligarchic in
character, with power in the hands of those who constitute the
center. Power is either concentrated or dispersed according to
decisions taken in the center which may or may not include
significant representation from the peripheries.
The matrix model reflects a polity compounded of arenas
within arenas held together by common framing institutions and a
shared communications network. Its origins are to be found in
the deliberate coming together of equals to establish a mutually
useful framework within which all can function on an equal basis,
usually defined by a pact. Consequently, it reflects the
fundamental distribution of powers among multiple centers across
the matrix, not the devolution of powers from a single center or
down a pyramid. Each cell in the matrix represents an
independent political actor and an arena for political action.
Some cells are larger and some smaller and the powers assigned to
each may reflect that difference, but none is "higher" or "lower"
in importance than any other, unlike in an organizational pyramid
where levels are distinguished as higher or lower as a matter of
constitutional design.
Needless to say, each of these models carries with it certain
implications with regard to the organization, distribution, and
exercise of power and authority. The interorganizational
relationships within each develop accordingly. At the same time,
it is in the nature of politics that various groups, parties and
interests which give the system life. The interaction between
them and the institutional framework and among them represents
the substance of the political process.
While the theories themselves require sophisticated
treatment, as common currency they can be designated by their
code words. The hierarchial model is authoritarian or, if
democratized, managerial. The center-periphery model is Jacobin
and the matrix model is federal. If those code words suggest
that each has an ideological as well as a practical dimension,
there is much truth in that suggestion.
Federalism: The Original American Theory
Federalism is derived from the covenant and compact theories
of the polity and, in its modern form, represents the effort to
democratize republicanism. For Americans, its immediate
political sources were the Puritans, Calvinists, Locke, and
Montesquieu. The foundations of modern federalism are to be
found in the American revolutionary experience (including its
constitution-making phase).
The model for federalism is the matrix, a network of arenas
within arenas which are distinguished by being larger or smaller
rather than "higher" or "lower." The organizational expression
of federalism is non-centralization, the constitutional diffusion
and shaping of powers among many centers. The most
articulate expressions of federalism are to be found in The
Federalist and Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.
Federalism in America has been accepted (or criticized) as a
practical response to the problems of nation-building, but from
the first it also had a larger dimension, although it has never
been offered as a form of secular salvation.
Jacobinism: European Import
For Americans, Jacobinism is a European import given
democratic form in the French revolution and subsequently
extended and reshaped by Marx and the various socialist movements
of the nineteenth century. It is derived from the organic theory
of the polity and represents an effort to democratize monarchic
and, most particularly, aristocratic polities by conquering and
transforming the center of power. Its original European
political sources are to be found in Bourbon France, the works of
French political theorists exemplified by Jean Bodin, and in the
statist interpretation of Rousseau.
In its revolutionary form, Jacobinism tends to lead to a
conception of politics as all-encompassing, a vehicle for secular
salvation.
The model for Jacobinism is one of center-periphery
relationships whereby power is concentrated in a single center
which is more or less influenced by its periphery.
Centralization is the organizational expression of Jacobinism,
which distrusts dispersed power because of the historical
experience out of which it grew and in which localism was
synonymous with support for the pre-revolutionary powerholders.
V.I. Lenin and Harold Laski were perhaps the most articulate
twentieth century proponents of Jacobinism, Lenin in its
totalitarian collectivist manifestation and Laski in its social
democratic form.
Jacobinism was brought to the United States in the mid-19th
century as a form of liberalism. Francis Lieber, a German
refugee -- a '48er -- and the first professional political
scientist in America (he held a chair at Columbia University),
was the first articulate proponent of Jacobin liberalism on the
American scene. Beginning as a theoretical critique of the
compact theory of the state (i.e. an attack on the theoretical
basis of federalism), in the course of a generation it became
linked with the new nationalism of the late nineteenth century in
the development of a practical program of expanded national
government activity. Woodrow Wilson then gave it a more
Americanized form by suggesting that Congress was the national
center of all political power.
Managerialism: An Organizational
Response to the Industrial
Revolution
Managerialism is an organizational response to the industrial
revolution, in many respects typically American but with strong
roots in the authoritarian military and bureaucratic traditions
of Russia and France. Politically, managerialism represents an
effort to democratize (or, perhaps more accurately,
republicanize) autocracy, whether in the immediate sense of the
autocracy of the great entrepreneurs who built and ruled the
great new industrial corporations, or in the older sense of
imperial autocracy. In both cases, the founders can be
considered "conquerors" who ruled autocracially but, in the end,
unsatisfactorily, given changing times. The introduction of
managerial structures was a means to transform autocratic rule
without formally altering the hierarchical institutional
structures built by the founders. For this reason, managerialism
can be considered as derived from the conquest theory of the
origins of the polity. In both cases, the proponents of
managerial techniques could argue that what they proposed was
politically neutral and hence not a threat to the existing
system. In fact, as new generations of managers emerged and as
management became a career in its own right, managerialism became
an ideology in its own right.
The immediate sources of the managerial system and the
ideology it produced were Bismarckian Germany and the scientific
management theorists of the early 20th century United States. The
model most characteristic of managerialism is the pyramid which reflects its commitment to hierarchical organization.
The hierarchical form of organizational expression is implicit in
the discussion of "levels" of government, a key feature of
managerialism. Under such conditions, the political system has a
"top level," a "middle level," and a "bottom level." It goes
without saying that the top must be the most important level and
the place where decisions are made as to which level does what.
The most articulate expressions of managerialism can be found in
Max Weber's discussions of bureaucracy and in the writings of
leading American proponents of scientific management. Since
proponents of managerialism never called it that and, indeed,
believed that they were advocating a politically neutral means of
increasing efficiency, the implications of its spread in the
United States are just now beginning to be recognized. In fact,
managerialism, for all its practical orientation and sincere
commitment to neutrality in such matters, does reflect a
political position as well, one no less real for not being
articulated as such. Originally conceived to be a technique
only, in a scientific age committed to the relativity of ends, it
was transformed by some into a potential vehicle for secular
salvation, one which offered a right process in place of a
teleology.
Contemporary Syntheses
In the course of the 20th century, these three approaches
have had to be related to one another as a practical matter.
What resulted were two separate syntheses which are fundamentally
in conflict with one another. That conflict remained submerged
as long as it did not affect the pursuit of immediate common
goals. Today the conflict is emerging as the old goals must be
replaced by new ones that are intimately related to one approach
or another.
In ideas, the synthesis was between Jacobinism and
managerialism, both of which reflected the 20th century thrust
toward the centralization of power and were useful in justifying
the increase in the velocity of government centralization of the
post two generations. The synthesis itself grew out of (1) the
managerial dimension of the early twentieth century, which saw in
the new techniques of management a means to make government more
efficient and economic; (2) Jacobin influences on the liberal
intellectuals, generally in the Marxian form, which led them not
only to advocate strong centralized government but to
reconceptualize social and political life in terms of the
center-periphery model; and, (3) the practical experiences of the
interwar generation which, when confronted by two total wars and
an unprecedented depression, increasingly turned to government
for direction and control and, at the same time, became at least
somewhat disillusioned with inherited political ideas, at least
in the versions which they received (which they did not know
differed from the original).
In practice, on the other hand, the synthesis in the United
States was between managerialism and federalism, reflecting both
the realities of American politics and the continuation of fondly
supported traditional principles. That synthesis grew out of (1)
the communitarian dimension of Progressivism which sought to
restore America's sense of community that was so threatened in an
industrial age, as well as to improve the efficiency of its
governmental system; (2) the practical experiences of the
interwar generation which led to the need to introduce management
techniques and bureaucratic organization into most governmental
institutions, yet which were unable to bring about any
fundamental change in the structure of the federal system even
where articulate groups were willing to promote change; and, (3)
those institutional and political constraints which required the
adaptation of managerial devices and ideas to a multi-centered
federal system whose politics remained non-centralized and which
functioned through the separation of powers and a continued
reliance on checks and balances.
The Conflict Between Theory and Practice in the Postwar
Generation
At first, the potential conflict between the two syntheses
was avoided because activists were pursuing common goals. It was
only toward the end of the postwar generation that it became an
irrepressible one. The emergence of that conflict can be traced
through three stages. During stage one, the practical
convergence of the previous generation was maintained and even
extended as governments reorganized to accommodate increased
activity and intergovernmental cooperation. It was at this time
that appropriate theories of management, bureaucracy, and
intergovernmental relations were developed to account for,
explain, and justify the new order of things.
Stage two brought with it a new spurt of government activity
based on a further extension of Jacobin ideas supported by
managerial goals and tied to the emergence of conflict. In the
United States, the "Great Society" programs represented the
fulfillment of the Jacobin-managerial synthesis through which
Jacobin goals were pursued through the intensive utilization of
managerial approaches and techniques. This stage saw a
redefinition of equality, democracy and other American values to
fit Jacobin prescriptions coupled with a redefinition of
individualism that went beyond the ken of any of the three
approaches. In both its successes and failures, the "Great
Society" made thoughtful Americans begin to recognize the limits
of both politics and bureaucracy and, in the process, to question
the two approaches which saw in the one or the other a source of
secular salvation.
In the waning years of the postwar generation and on into the
new generation now well upon us, a third stage can be
distinguished, one in which the terms of the conflict were slowly
but surely defined. The disillusionment with politics as a
vehicle for solving deeply rooted problems, the bureaucracy
problem, and the application of managerial techniques for
constitutionally questionable purposes were joined with a new
questioning of the assumptions of the Jacobin-managerial
synthesis in certain academic circles. Certain names come
immediately to mind. The late Martin Diamond and Herbert
Storing, both taken from us in their prime, brought us back to
the original federalist sources of the American polity, thereby
seriously questioning the authenticity and validity of prevalent
Jacobin concepts of American institutions. Vincent and Elinor
Ostrom have synthesized the principles derived from those sources
with those of public choice theory and they have used the results
to measure the validity of current governmental policies and
behavior, concluding that federalist theory was intrinsically
correct as administrative as well as political doctrine and
questioning the basic assumptions of managerialism. Martin
Landau has rediscovered the virtues of redundancy, Heinz Eulau,
the link between federalism and representation, and Samuel Beer,
the virtues of the states. Publius has become the forum for the
expression and development of many of these ideas. Nevertheless,
this reexamination is still in its early stages.
The Contemporary Crisis or the Curses of Bigness
Today the world is confronted with the obvious failure of
hierarchical structures which are not only unable to "deliver the
goods," but which have even come to distort delivery systems in
the pursuit of their own vested interests. We have discovered
that in very large bureaucracies coordination is well-nigh
impossible "at the top" since the people on the top can barely
control and are frequently at the mercy of their own
organizations. Moreover, in a system of interlocking arenas
(which is what exists in the United States despite all the talk
about "levels"), there is no "top" to do the coordinating.
Similarly, people all over have begun to note the failure of
managerial techniques widely touted as means to come to grips
with contemporary governmental problems. Certainly, the idea
that they would automatically result in efficiency and economy
has long since gone by the boards. We now know how bureaucracies
create their own inefficiencies and diseconomies. Beyond that,
there has been a discovery that many of the new management
techniques are inappropriate to the political arena with its lack
of precise, agreed-upon goals and its basic purposes of
conciliating the irreconcilable and managing conflict.
On a different but closely related plane, people in the
affluent societies are beginning to sense the failure of
consumerism -- the redefinition of people primarily as consumers
and their institutions primarily as vehicles for the satisfaction
of consumers wants. At the very least, the redefinition of
government as a service delivery mechanism and citizens ad
consumers leads to an unmanageable acceleration of public
demands. It also leads to the evaluation of all institutions by
a set of standards that, being human institutions, they are bound
to fail. Not the least of its problems is the abandonment of the
principle that people have responsibilities as well as rights,
obligations to each other if not to the polity in the abstract,
which, when neglected, imperil democracy by undermining its very
foundations.
Harmonizing Managerialism and Democratic Values
American federal democracy may begin with the matrix model
and, despite various challenges and deviations, has held to it
overall. The French revolution was directed against a state
founded on the hierarchical model. It sought to replace that
state with one organized along the lines of the center-periphery
model but founded in the matrix mold. It ended up with a return
to hierarchy in modified form.
The problem remains: how can we manage large enterprises in
the spirit of democracy? This means, in short, preserving
non-centralization, freedom of choice, pluralism, and regional
and group cultural differences; maximizing liberty in tandem with
equality and assuring proper access and representation for
citizens.
