Is Mass Society a Threat to Representative Democracy? Revisiting David Riesman’s “Other-Directed Character”

Abstract

Representative democracy has been based on the idea that interest groups form parliaments through competitive elections, and legislate in favour of their supporters. Declining electoral participation, rise of populist right-wing parties, contingent coalitions, personalized electoral success and scandal-driven politics indicate a crisis in representative democracy. Mass society theories after the Second World War predicted a decline of democracy on the basis of homogenisation of mass consumption societies. The threat was seen to involve totalitarian rule, combined with bureaucracy serving the interests of elites. This paper examines the underlying presuppositions of mass society theory, and argues that the homogeneity argument is insufficient to fit the realities. Following David Riesman, it is argued that the other-directed character grows from unstable interest group identities, but its determinant is not sameness but agency and therefore difference. To have agency is to orient oneself to others as a self, as unique, separate and autonomous subject. This is vindicated by trends in public administration since the 1980s, which stress citizens’ self-control, autonomy and partnership rather than conformity. Political disputes arise around contradictions between difference and autonomy in societies where agency is a principle of justification. Universal autonomy requires homogeneity but agency stresses difference and uniqueness.