Majoritarianism
Majoritarianism (often also called majority rule) is a political philosophy or agenda which asserts that a majority (sometimes categorized by religion, language or some other identifying factor, sometimes not categorized at all) of the population is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society. Under a majoritarian political structure the majority has a single restriction — it is not allowed to exclude any minority from future participation in the democratic process.
Majority rule is defined as the rule that requires more than half of community members who cast a vote to agree in order for the whole community to make a decision on that measure.
Variations and concept in-depth
Two variations of majoritarianism can be found: the loose majoritarianism that allows in some cases the exclusion of some individuals or minorities from future participation in the democratic process (by ostracizing them, killing them or taking their voting rights under certain conditions decided by a majority), and the strict majoritarianism that prohibits totally the exclusion of a minority or of an individual from future participation in the democratic process (ostracizing or killing or taking away voting rights is not allowed).
Majoritarianism argues that any restriction on majority decision making is intrinsically undemocratic. If democracy is restricted by a constitution which cannot be changed by a simple majority decision then yesterday's majority is being given more weight than today's; if it is restricted by some small group, such as aristocrats, judges, priests, soldiers or philosophers, then society becomes an oligarchy. The only restriction they accept is that the current majority has no right to prevent a different majority emerging in the future (this could happen, for example, if a minority persuades enough of the majority to change its position). In particular, the majority cannot exclude the minority from future participation in the democratic process. Majoritarian liberals believe that a sufficient number of individuals are concerned that they themselves could at times be in the minority, so that the majority would foster a general culture of tolerance for minorities. It is also notable (and often a subject of misuderstanding) that majoritarianism does not prohibit a decision being made by representatives as long as this decision is made via majority rule, as it can be altered at any time by any different majority emerging in the future.
Some of the people who call themselves majoritarians put restrictions on who can or cannot be part of "the majority". This view is called initialized majoritarianism, and in certain cases it can be hard to distinguish from minoritarianism. Supporters of initialized majoritarianism may advocate restrictions of membership in "the majority" based on conditions of language, religion, political beliefs, nationality, citizenship, skin color, sex, education, age, financial status, intelligence or various other factors. This is not to be confused with the usual ("uninitialized") form of majoritarianism, in which anyone can be part of the decision-making majority.
History and legacy
Accurate majority rule (by using polls in order to define accurately what the majority really wants today and make every decision based on that majority will) has never been tried as a political system in human history, with the exception of the loose initialized majoritarianism which has been used in Athenian Democracy and some other ancient Greek city-states. However, some argue that none of those Greek city-states were perfect with respect to accurate majority rule, and most of the time due to technical reasons: an aggressive minority (mob) with the help of aristocrats overcame the accurate majority will.
It is a common practice by the opponents of majoritarianism to equate or confuse (sometimes on purpose) the strict or the uninitialized majoritarianism with the loose or the initialized one, thus accusing the strict or the uninitialized majoritarianism of having the disadvantages that only the loose or the initialized one can have, and vice versa. Although majority rule has never been tried in human history, majoritarianism (as a theory), similar to democracy, has often been used as a pretext by sizable or aggressive minorities in order to group people together and form cliques, so as to oppress other smaller (or inactive) minorities, or even sometimes the (inactive) majority.
This agenda is most frequently encountered in the realm of religion: In essentially all Western nations, for instance, Christmas Day - and in some countries, other important dates in the Christian calendar as well - are recognized as legal holidays; plus a particular denomination may be designated as the state religion and receive financial backing from the government (examples include the Church of England in the United Kingdom and the Lutheran Church in the Scandinavian countries). Virtually all countries also have one or more official languages, often to the exclusion of some minority group or groups within that country who do not speak the language or languages so designated. In most cases, those decisions have not been made using a majoritarian referendum, and even in the rare case when a referendum has been used, a new majority is not allowed to emerge at any time and repeal it.
Reform and backlash
In recent times - especially beginning in the 1960s - initialized majoritarianism has come under intense attack from liberal reformers in many countries: In 1963, the United States Supreme Court declared that prayer in the nation's public schools was unconstitutional, and since then many localities have sought to limit, or even prohibit, religious displays on public property. Speakers of languages other than English have also won broader rights in the United States, as legal documents, including those pertaining to voting, have been made available in other languages, particularly Spanish. The movement toward greater consideration for the rights of minorities within a society is often referred to as multiculturalism.
This has provoked a backlash from some advocates of initialized majoritarianism, who lament the Balkanization of society they claim has resulted from the gains made by the multicultural agenda; these concerns were articulated in a 1972 book, The Dispossessed Majority, written by Wilmot Robertson. Multiculturalists, in turn, have accused initialized majoritarians of racism and/or xenophobia, a charge which most of them deny.
Majoritarianism in the United States
In contemporary America, the leading mainstream initialized majoritarian political forces include the Christian Coalition and the English-only movement, which seeks to make English the official language in all 50 U.S. states, a fact that has never been formally codified; many organizations opposed to immigration have also sprung up, but not all of the latter are necessarily motivated by an initialized majoritarian philosophy as some opponents of immigration base their opposition to it on economic or even environmental grounds. Some militant adherents of initialized majoritarianism can be found in the Ku Klux Klan, or in some neo-Nazi groups, which, ironically, are actually small minorities themselves - and thus it is unlikely their agenda could ever be implemented in a majoritarian system.