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Machiavellian Democracy by John P. McCormick

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2012

Jeffrey A. Winters
Jeffrey A. Winters
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Extract

Imagine an America in which indictments by the people could be brought against Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger for the secret bombing of neutral Cambodia that killed thousands of civilians and paved the way for the rise of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. Imagine a college of tribunes, drawn by lot exclusively from the pool of ordinary citizens, that could initiate charges against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Yoo as torturers, or indict the heads of financial institutions for the crimes that triggered economic ruin in 2008. Consider how different American democracy might be if its governing institutions included a body of and for the plebs, empowered to veto one major piece of legislation a year (perhaps the recent extension of the Bush tax cuts) or oversee an annual national referendum (maybe on a single-payer health insurance plan).

Type
Critical Dialogue
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 140 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012

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