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Majority rule is a means for organizing government and deciding public issues; it is not another road to oppression. Just as no self-appointed group has the right to oppress others, so no majority, even in a democracy, should take away the basic rights and freedoms of a minority group or individual.
Learn about majority rules and minority rights in the US Constitution here. Just because a democracy succeeds at giving power to the majority does not mean it is a just government. The majority could oppress the minority and pass laws against them.
Jan 21, 2024 · As democracy is understood today, the minority's rights must be protected even when a minority is alienated from the majority society; otherwise, the majority's rights lose their meaning. The British political philosopher John Stuart Mill took the principle of minority rights further.
Majority Rule and Minority Rights. The essence of democracy is majority rule, the making of binding decisions by a vote of more than one-half of all persons who participate in an election. However, constitutional democracy in our time requires majority rule with minority rights.
- Majority Rule
- Minority Rights I: Protecting Against Political Tyranny
- The Constant Threat
- Democracy Requires Minority Rights
- Minority Rights II: Protecting Minority Groups in Society
- The African American Experience
- The Ultimate Denial of Minority Rights
- International Protection of Minority Rights
- The Persistence of Discrimination
- The Democratic Ideal
Democracy is defined in Webster'sEncyclopedic Dictionaryas: Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them either directly or through their elected agents . . . [A] state of society characterized by nominal equality of rights and privileges. What is left out of the dictionary ...
Yet, majority rule cannot be the only expression of “supreme power” in a democracy. If so, as Tocqueville notes above, the majority would too easily tyrannize the minority just as a single ruler is inclined to do. Thus, while it is clear that democracy must guarantee the expression of the popular will through majority rule, it is equally clear that...
The American founders — Anti-Federalists and Federalists alike — considered rule by majority a troubling conundrum. Majority rule was necessary for expressing the popular will and the basis for establishing the republic. Since someone is bound to disagree on any issue, consensus cannot be the basis for making political or legislative decisions. And...
Democracy therefore requires minority rights equally as it does majority rule. Indeed, as democracy is understood today, the minority's rights must be protected no matter how alienated a minority is from the majority society; otherwise, the majority's rights lose their meaning. In the United States, individual liberties, as well as the rights of gr...
Madisonian and Millian principles safeguard individual and political minorities. But, as de Tocqueville observed above, the danger of majority tyranny lies also in the oppression of minority groups in society based on criteria such as skin color, ethnicity or nationality, religion, sexual orientation, and other group characteristics. Throughout his...
In the United States, the African American experience is clearly illustrative of the danger of systematic tyranny of one group by a majority. The US Constitution, adopted in 1789, flatly contradicted the principles of the Declaration of Independence that asserted “all men are created equal.” Although slavery was never specifically mentioned, many o...
The most extreme treatment of minorities in the 20th- and 21st-centuries has been found in dictatorships. The worst examples are those of totalitarian regimes that carried out genocide to eradicate unwanted groups in society. The Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany murdered six million Jews, one-third of the total world Jewish population and two-...
The 20th century’s history of targeted repression and killing of ethnic and national groups has made the protection of minorities from abuse by majorities one of the highest obligations of international law. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted after World War II in 1948, is the most widely recognized in...
In Europe, minority Muslim communities from former colonies in northern Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia have struggled against pervasive discrimination and the denial of equal opportunities in education, jobs, and housing (see, for example, Country Study of France). Majority indigenous groups in several other Latin American countries ha...
On a practical level, the application of majority rule and minority rights relies on a set of rules agreed to by everyone in a political community. How are majorities determined? What are the limits of debate and speech? How can members in a community propose a motion or law? Should a minority be allowed to prevent the majority's will? How can mino...
Jan 21, 2024 · The history of dispossession, forced relocations, slavery and institutional discrimination against minorities in America has led to widespread disparities in wealth and economic well-being. This remains a continuing legacy of majority rule without minority rights.
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Jun 11, 2018 · Democracy requires minority rights as much as it does majority rule. That means the minority’s rights must be protected, no matter what. If the majority could wield its power without restrictions, it could easily tyrannize the minority.
