Page 35 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

the form of a constitution (although some countries, like Britain, do
not have a ‘written’ constitution) or a bill of rights.

Participation

Secondly, those who participate in the democratic process must
comprise what Bobbio terms a ‘substantial’ proportion of the people.
In the early democratic period, as we have noted, citizenship rights
were restricted to a small minority of the population—men with
property and/or formal education. For John Stuart Mill, one of the
great early theorists of liberal democracy, only this guaranteed the
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rational, informed electorate demanded by democracy. In reality, of
course, this restriction merely demonstrated the close relationship
between democracy and the rise of the bourgeoisie.
Gradually, voting rights were extended to the lower classes and,
by the early twentieth century, to women. In America, only in the
1950s were blacks given the vote. Conversely, societies which deprived
the majority of their people of voting rights, such as South Africa
until the elections of April 1994, have rightly been viewed as
‘undemocratic’.

Rational choice
A third condition of democracy, as already noted, is the availability
of choice (Democrat versus Republican, Labour versus Conservative,
Christian Democrat versus Social Democrat), while a fourth is the
ability of citizens to exercise that choice rationally. This in turn
presupposes a knowledgeable, educated citizenry.

PUBLIC OPINION AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

The importance of an informed, knowledgeable electorate dictates
that democratic politics must be pursued in the public arena (as
distinct from the secrecy characteristic of autocratic regimes). The
knowledge and information on the basis of which citizens will make
their political choices must circulate freely, and be available to all.
But democratic politics are public in another sense too. While
democratic theory stresses the primacy of the individual, the political
process nevertheless demands that individuals act collectively in
making decisions about who will govern them. The private political
opinions of the individual become the public opinion of the people

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