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Associative Principles and Democratic Reform 35

Such a democracy tends to degenerate into the plebiscitarian legitimation of administration. Majority decisions are infreąuent whereas administration is continuous, and majorities are often artificial, the Majority" is a coalition of disparate interests. As we have seen in discussing the new republican radicals, empha-sizing democracy as majority decision is hardly likely to answer problems of government accountability. Part of the answer is found in decentralization, limiting the scalę and scope of decisions, and part in creating institutions that emphasize a rather different conception of democracy, that is democracy as effec-tive governance based upon an adeąuate flow of information from govemed to govemors, and the coordination of the implementa-tion of policy through ongoing consultation with those affected by it.

This conception of democracy as communication defines it not in terms of the rule of majority parties or popular majorities but in terms of the ąuality of decision-making that results from the inter-action between the governing agency and the agencies organizing the activity being governed. This conception is the foundation for most neo-corporatist conceptions of social govemance (Schmitter and Streeck, 1985), and was probably best expressed by Emile Durkheim in his Lectures on Civic Morals (1957). Durkheim does not treat the majoritarian principle and representative democracy as the most significant phenomena in defining what is or can be democratic about the modern State. For him democracy is, in its most important aspect, a process of effective two-way communication between an independent public power (the State) and organ-ized social groups representing the main occupational interests. The State is an organ of social coordination not a mere medium for the registration of the wills of social majorities: ‘the State is nothing if it is not an organ distinct from the rest of society’ (1957: 82). Only the independence of the public power can ensure that the State does not become merely a medium through which con-fiicting social interests struggle for supremacy, in which the majoritarian principle enables one set of interests to prevail over others. But the separation of the State from society cannot be too complete, for then the State loses the capacity to coordinate social activity. Hence the hallmarks of an effective democracy are accu-rate information, objectivity and rationality in policy-making: ‘The morę deliberation and reflection and a critical spirit play a