Kelsen and Schumpeter on

Democracy

Adam Przeworski
Department of Politics
New York University

1 Introduction
Hans Kelsen, writing in 1929,1 and Joseph A. Schumpeter in 19422 were
the …rst realistic theorists of democracy.3 Both took it upon them-
selves to de-ideologize the "classical" understanding, to analyze the how
democracy functions in fact. Both attempted to …nd its "essence" –to
provide an analytical framework for how democracy in fact operates –
and its "value" – the ideals realizes. They share several points of de-
parture: democracies function in societies with heterogenous interests
and values, to elect their representatives individuals are organized by
political parties, the representative body de…nes the "popular will" with
which everyone must comply. Kelsen is precise in identifying the value
this system realizes; Schumpeter leaves it to "the democrats." They di¤er
in their institutional models of democracy, perhaps because Kelsen was
thinking about Austria and Germany, while Schumpeter, writing in the
aftermath of the collapse of the Weimar Republic, modelled democracy
after Great Britain. Both believe that democracy can last and be suc-
cessful only if at each time it generates "compromise" between majority
This is the second draft of a chapter to appear in Sandrine Baume and David
Ragazzoni (eds.), Hans Kelsen on Constitutional Democracy: Genesis, Theory, Lega-
cies. New York: Cambridge University Press. It re‡ects comments by Roberto
Gargarella, Stephen Holmes, Fernando Limongi, and Gerry Munck.
1
According to Michel Troper (1988: ft. 5), the …rst edition of Democracy: Its
Nature – Its Value was published in 1920 but had little in common with the 1929
edition. In this draft I use my own translations (and page numbers) from the French
1988 edition of Kelsen but I plan to …x this in subsequent drafts.
2
All page references of Schumpeter quotes are from the original 1942 edition.
3
The very word "democracy," rather than "republic" or "representative govern-
ment" became popular only after 1918. On the bewildering history of this word, see
Dunn (2005). On the role of the Versailles Congress and speci…cally of Woodrow
Wilson in making it popular, see Manela (2007) and Graubard (2003).

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and minority in the language of Kelsen or if the temporary majorities
exercise "self-control" in the language of Schumpeter. Both revert to
exogenously given cultural conditions of societies in which democracy
functions as a pre-requisite for self-limitation by majorities. But neither
has much to say about the mechanisms that induce majorities to exercise
self-restraint, and this the fundamental problem for any understanding
of democracy.
In what follows, I …rst brie‡y summarize the innovations introduced
by Kelsen and Schumpeter into our understanding of democracy and the
value they attribute to it. Then I emphasize that their’s is not a "liberal"
democracy but a majoritarian one: neither reverts to some super- or
contra-majoritarian institutions to explain why democratic government
would be a limited one. Finally, I try to tease out their views about the
mechanisms that prevent tyranny of the majority. They understand, I
think, that limited government must be self-enforcing, that it must be an
equilibrium in which the current majority stops short of monopolizing
power and the current minority accepts to act within the democratic
framework given that the majority is not monopolizing. But formal
analyses of this problem, summarized in the last section, are very recent.

2 Analytical and Normative Framework

2.1 Essence
While their emphases di¤er, both reject what Schumpeter dubbed "the
classical theory":
(1) Social heterogeneity as the point of departure. Kelsen (25-6) was
the …rst to challenge the 18th-century assumption of "consensus" or
"harmony of interests": "Divided by national, religious and economic
di¤erences, the people presents itself to the view of a sociologist more as
a multiplicity of distinct groups than a coherent mass of one piece." And
a few pages (32-3), he launched a frontal attack: “Moreover, the ideal
of a general interest superior to and transcending interests of groups,
thus parties, the ideal of solidarity of interests of all members of the col-
lectivity without distinction of religion, of nationality, of class, etc. is a
metaphysical, more exactly, a metapolitical illusion, habitually expressed
by speaking, in an extremely obscure terminology, of an ’organic’collec-
tive or ’organic’ structure...." Schumpeter (250¤) o¤ered a systematic
critique of the concept of the common good or general will by making
four points: (1) “There is no such thing as a uniquely determined com-
mon good that all people could agree on or be made to agree on by the
force of rational argument.” (2) The individual preferences which the
utilitarians adopted to justify their conception of common good are not

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autonomous but shaped by persuasion, “not a genuine but a manufac-
tured will.”(3) Even if a common will would emerge from the democratic
process, it need not have the rational sanction of necessarily identifying
the common good. Given the pathologies of mass psychology, nothing
guarantees that people would recognize what is good for them. (4) Even
if we could know the common good, there would still be controversies
about how to implement it.
(2) We must be governed by others. While already J.S. Mill (1859)
observed that all citizens cannot rule simultaneously, following Kelsen
(27), this observation became the point of departure of democratic the-
ory: “[I]t is not possible for all individuals who are compelled and ruled
by the norms of the state to participate in their creation, which is the
necessary form of exercise of power; this seems so evident that the de-
mocratic ideologists most often do not suspect what abyss they conceal
when they make the two ’people’[in singular and in plural] one.”Schum-
peter (295) is as often more blunt: "The voters outside the parliament
... must understand that, once they have elected an individual, political
actions is his business and not theirs."
(3) Individuals are politically relevant only if they are organized by
parties. People must be represented and they can be represented only
through political parties, which “group men of the same opinion to assure
them real in‡uence over the management of public a¤airs”(Kelsen, 28)
or which are groups “whose members propose to act in concert in the
competitive struggle for political power” (Schumpeter, 283). Isolated
individuals cannot have any in‡uence over the formation of general will;
they exist politically only through parties (Kelsen, 29).
(4) "People’s will" is de…ned by parliaments. Parties, in turn, have
followers and leaders, who become representatives through elections.
Representatives will for the people. “Parliamentarism,”says Kelsen (38),
“is the formation of the directive will of the State by a collegial organ
elected by the people.... [t]he will of the State generated by the Parlia-
ment is not the will of the people....”Schumpeter (269) echoes: “Suppose
we reverse the roles of these two elements and make the deciding of is-
sues by the electorate secondary to the election of the men who are to do
the deciding.”Although in the classical theory “the democratic method
is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions... by
making the people decide issues through the election of individuals who
are to assemble in order to carry out its will,” in fact the democratic
method is one in which the individuals who assemble to will for the
people are selected through elections (250).
(5) Bureaucracy. Both Kelsen and Schumpeter emphasize that gov-
ernments must be able to govern, so that democracy requires a compe-

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tent and non-partisan state bureaucracy.

2.2 Value
The value of democracy is clearly identi…ed by Kelsen. It maximizes
liberty, understood as "autonomy": living under the laws in the making
of which one is free to participate. Democracy maximizes thus under-
stood liberty when it minimizes dissatisfaction with the laws: "There
is only one idea which leads in a reasonable way to the majoritarian
principle: the idea that, if not all individuals, at least the largest possi-
ble number of them should be free, said di¤erently that the social order
should be in contradiction with the will of the smallest number of peo-
ple possible." (19) This maximum is obviously constrained because when
individual preferences are heterogenous some people will inevitably be
unhappy with whatever laws there are. Yet –it is a mathematical the-
orem, formalized by Rae (1969) – the combination of political equality
with simple majority rule minimizes the aggregate dissatisfaction.4 In
Kelsen’s words, "When the number of individual wills with which the
societal will is in agreement is larger than the number of those with
which it is in contradiction – and this is the case, we have seen, when
the majoritarian principle is applied –the possible maximum of liberty
–understood as autonomy –is reached." (58)
Now, one could think that this goal is achieved when the majority
imposes its will on the minority. Schumpeter certainly thought so: "Ev-
idently the will of the majority is the will of the majority and not the
will of ’the people’." (272). Yet Kelsen’s favorite word about democracy
is "compromise": "the general will, if it should not express the interest
of a single and unique group, can be only a result of such oppositions,
a compromise between opposing interests. The formation of the people
in political parties is in fact an organization necessary to realize such
compromises, so that the general will could move in the middle." (34)
"The application of the majority principle," Kelsen maintains, "contains
quasi-natural limits. Majority and minority must understand each other
if they are to agree." (65). He repeats the same in 1945:

Insofar as in democracy the contents of the legal order,

too, are not determined exclusively by the interest of the
majority but are a result of a compromise between the two
groups, voluntary subjection of all individuals to the legal
order is more easily possible than in any other political or-
ganization. It is precisely because of this tendency towards
4
For an explicit argument against supra-majority rules, see Kelsen (1955: 25).
The logic of Kelsen’s argument is spelled out in Przeworski (2010: 57).

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 compromise that democracy is an approximation to the ideal
of complete self-determination (Kelsen 1945: 288).

The institutional framework which enables compromise is parliamen-

tarism based on proportional representation. Given proportional repre-
sentation, the relative strength of parties in the parliament re‡ects their
support in the electorate. Liberty is then maximized if the decisions of
the parliament are "in the middle" of the weighted preferences of parties
in the parliament. Yet Schumpeter rejects this solution. Probably allud-
ing to Kelsen, he notes that "Attempts at real solutions have however
been made by the authors of various plans for Proportional Representa-
tion." Perhaps with the knowledge of the Weimar experience, he …nds
this solution not only dangerous but also unnecessary to implement ma-
jority rule:

If acceptance of leadership is the true function of the

electorate’s vote, the case for proportional representation
collapses because its premises are no longer binding. The
principle of democracy then merely means that the reins of
government should be handed to those who command more
support than do any of the competing individuals or teams.
And this in turn seems to assure the standing of the majority
system within the logic of the democratic method, although
we might still condemn it on grounds that lie outside of that
logic. (272-3)

What, then, is the value of the "democratic method" for Schumpeter,

for whom democracy is a method, means to achieve something, not a
value in itself? His approach di¤ers from that of Kelsen in that he
does not take it upon himself to identify this value but leaves it to
"democrats." His question is not what the value of democracy is but
why people would value democracy. They do, Schumpeter observes, if
they believe that it implements some superior ideals or interests they
…nd desirable He gives examples but does not …x their list: "There
are ultimate ideals and interests which the most ardent democrat will
put above democracy, and all he means if he professes uncompromising
allegiance to it is that he feels convinced that democracy will guarantee
those ideals and interests such as freedom of conscience and speech,
justice, decent government and so on." (242)

3 Democracy and "Liberal Democracy"

Kelsen’s and Schumpeter’s democracy is majoritarian. But for them
"majoritarian" is not a quali…er, not a distinction from any other type

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of democracy. Majority rule is de…nitional for democracy. What, then,
to make of claims such as Rosanvallon’s (2009): "Now power is not con-
sidered fully democratic unless it is submitted to the test of control and
validation concurrent and complementary to the majoritarian expres-
sion"?
To clarify such claims, an essential distinction must be made between
"the rule of law" as a pre-requisite of democracy and as an ex-post check
on decisions reached through the democratic process. Democracy can-
not function unless people are free to express and pursue their political
opinions, for the simple reason that governments cannot be replaced by
elections unless people are free to organize and vote. Kelsen (1945: 287)
says: "A democracy without public opinion is a contradiction in terms.
Insofar as public opinion can arise only where intellectual freedom, free-
dom of speech and press and religion,are guaranteed, democracy co-
incides with political – though not necessarily economic – liberalism."
Schumpeter (271) explicitly makes this distinction: "We have seen that
the democratic method does not necessarily guarantee a greater amount
of individual freedom than any other political method would permit in
similar circumstances.... But there is still a relation between the two.
If, on principle at least, everyone is free to compete for political lead-
ership by presenting himself to the electorate, this will in most cases
though not in all mean a considerable amount of freedom of the press.
Dahl (1971: Table 1.1) provides an exhaustive list of "Requirements for
a Democracy among a Large Number of People." Hence, what Ginsburg
and Huq (2018 : 8) describe as the "rule of law" are pre-requisites of any
democracy, not limits on majority rule:

Democracy is frequently boiled down to the seemingly

simple foundational requirement of competitive elections. This
in turn entails that polls’ results are ex ante uncertain, ir-
reversible, and ex post repeatable. We think these basic el-
ements of competitive elections cannot be meaningfully un-
tangled from a thick set of institutional and legal predicates.
Elections with only one feasible winner, either because only
one entity competes, or because only one entity will be al-
lowed to exercise power, are insu¢ cient. Elections that hap-
pen once, never to be repeated, do not a democracy make.
For genuine electoral competition to be sustained, therefore,
something more than a bare minimum of legal and institu-
tional arrangements is necessary. These include the civil and
political rights employed in the democratic process, and the
availability of neutral electoral machinery, and the stability,

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 predictability, and publicity of legal regime usually captured
in the term “rule of law.

Thus understood "rule of law" is thus a pre-requisite of democracy,

"electoral" democracy.
Yet the currently fashionable ideological language distinguishes "lib-
eral" from "electoral" democracy.5 Here is how an in‡uential data
source, V-Dem (Codebook: 44), de…nes it:

The liberal model takes a ’negative’view of political power

insofar as it judges the quality of democracy by the limits
placed on government. This is achieved by constitutionally
protected civil liberties, strong rule of law, an independent
judiciary, and e¤ective checks and balances that, together,
limit the exercise of executive power.

Democracy is thus "liberal" if some institutions impose limits on

the rule of majority that emerges from free, contested, elections. And
"liberal" democracy is superior to an "electoral" one.
Arguments in favor of limiting majority rule are surprisingly feeble.
Their general theme is that majority rule is dangerous because it may
lead to "tyranny of the majority." The economic sub-theme is that ma-
jority rule threatens property rights while their security is conducive to
investment and economic growth. A more recent theme is that institu-
tions that check majority rule are necessary to protect "minorities" other
than property holders. Finally, some arguments claim that such institu-
tions reduce policy swings between governments of di¤erent partisan ilk.
Strikingly, these arguments are either silent about the status quo which
is protected by such institutions (Buchanan and Tullock 1962) or, if they
do mention it, they fail to justify why protecting it desirable (Levmore
1992: 151).
These arguments are faulty both logically and factually. Anti-majoritarian
institutions do protect some particular minorities, those that are priv-
ileged under the status quo. They were originally designed to protect
one particular minority: property holders. As Cuttrone and McCarthy
(2006: 180-1) observed, "One of the most common arguments for the
emergence of bicameralism in Britain and in American colonies is ... en-
suring that upper-class elements of society are protected." Even Madison
admitted that much in his comment on supermajority rule: "It would no
longer be the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred
5
Google Ngram shows that the phrase "liberal democracy" is new. Its use was
miniscule until 1990 and increased …vefold since then.

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to the minority. Were the defensive privilege limited to particular cases,
an interesting minority might take advantage of it to screen themselves
from equitable sacri…ces to the common weal, or, in particular emergen-
cies, to exhort unreasonable indulgences" (Federalist #58) Strikingly, all
the arguments in favor of the bene…cial e¤ects of secure property rights
focus on investment and growth but never on economic equality. The
conservative, property-protecting e¤ect of super-majority requirement
was noticed already by Condorcet, writing on bicameralism: "We would
be mistaken again if we imagine that these divisions [bicameralism] are a
work of reasoned system, how their apologists sometimes declare. They
were established because the distinctions of d’état, of rank, of power
made them necessary either for having peace or for obtaining common
consent." (Lettre, p. 270). In Schwartzberg’s (2014: 9) succinct sum-
mary, "The minority veto created by supermajority rule increases the
capacity of powerful actors to thwart e¤orts at redistribution, and may
as readily hamper the expansion of fundamental rights as prevent their
eradication."
The most comprehensive attack on super-majority rules has been
o¤ered by McGann (2006: 110-111):6

Majority rule o¤ers the most protection to minorities be-

cause it is easiest for a minority to form a coalition that can
overturn an unacceptable outcome. Supermajority rules can
certainly protect (or rather privilege) some minorities but
only at the expense of others. It is not logically possible for
every minority to be privileged over every other minority. Su-
permajority rules make the status quo hard to overturn and
thus privilege minorities who favor the status quo over those
who favor changing it. Arguments in favor of supermajoritar-
ian institutions have tended to be built on the assumption
that the threat to minorities from government action or a
change of law is greater than the threat from government
inaction or the maintenance of current laws.

Notably, Dixit, Grossman, and Gul (2000: 554) o¤ered a devastating

argument against the claim that supermajority rules protect minorities:
6
I am not competent to enter into the endless debates about constitutional review
in the United States and I can only refer the reader to a devastating critique of it
by Gargarella (2022). But the recent abortion decision by the US Supreme Court
should have dealt a …nal blow to the myth that counter-majoritarian institutions
protect rights.

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"Our …nding ... calls into question an often-heard rationale for super-
majority rules. These rules are o¤ered as a way to prevent tyranny of
the majority... [O]rdinary majority rule does more to protect the weak
than supermajority rule ...." Alesina (1988), in turn, has argued that
if voters have concave preferences, they prefer smaller to larger policy
swings and the equilibrium in which parties choose centrist policies is
enforced in a repeated game by trigger strategies. No super- or counter-
majoritarian devices are necessary to prevent policy swings. Moreover,
the anti-majoritarian claims are not based on any systematic evidence.
Certainly, Sweden, which is a paradigm of a purely majoritarian system,
has not performed worse in terms of economic growth, has not experi-
enced larger policy swings, and has not violated minority rights more
than the United States, which has a bicameral legislation, presidential
veto, and constitutional review. I would not be surprised if we were to
learn from statistical analyses is that their only e¤ect is to perpetuate
inequality.
Are Kelsen and Schumpeter "liberal"? Schumpeter clearly rejects all
checks on majority rule: "Of course, there cannot be any legal limits
to what a parliament, led by the prime minister, might subject to its
decision ...." (292). He does not even entertain the possibility of the
government being restrained by some other, non-majoritarian, organs.
But Kelsen’s view of this issue is not easy to decipher. Baume (2007:
Part II, Section 2) observes that for Kelsen "the rule of law does not
presuppose any restriction on activities of the legislative power." This
is certainly what he says in the 1945 General Theory, where he asserts
the supremacy of the parliament and relegates constitutional review to
accidents of history:

The principle of a separation of powers ... is not essen-

tially democratic. Corresponding to the idea of democracy,
on the contrary, is the notion that all power should be con-
centrated in the people; and where not direct but only indi-
rect democracy is possible, that all power should be exercised
by one collegiate organ the members of which are elected by
the people and which should be legally responsible to the
people.... [I]f control of the legislative and administrative
functions by courts is provided for by the constitution of a
democracy, this can be explained only by historical reasons,
not justi…ed as speci…cally democratic elements. (1945: 282)

His 1955 essay on democracy, reasserts the supremacy of the parlia-

ment even farther:

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 By the rule of law the principle is understood that the
administrative and judicial functions of the state should be
determined so far as possible by preestablished general norms
of law, so that as little as possible discretionary power is left
to the administrative and judicial organs; freedom is thus
guaranteed because arbitrary government is avoided....The
rule of law principle does not guarantee the freedom of the
individuals subject to the government because it does not
refer to the relation between the government and the gov-
erned but to a relation within the government, the relation
between the law-creating and the law-applying function; its
purpose is the conformity of the latter to the former.... On
the other hand, the discretionary power or "arbitrariness"
of the legislative organ is practically unlimited. The parlia-
ment is sovereign; and the sovereignty of the parliament is
the sovereignty of the people within a representative democ-
racy. (1955: 77-78)

Yet Kelsen was the author of the second (by a few months) consti-
tution in the world that introduced judicial review, the Austrian consti-
tution of 1920. Moreover, in an essay published in 1928, he proclaimed
that "It is therefore not possible to rely on the parliament itself to realize
subordination to the constitution. The task of nullifying its unconsti-
tutional acts must be entrusted to a separate organ, independent of it
and of any State authority, i.e., a constitutional jurisdiction or tribunal"
(Kelsen, 1928: 171-172).
The only reference to judicial review in the 1929 book occurs in the
chapter entitled "Administration," where Kelsen distinguishes "democ-
racy of legislation" from "democracy of execution." His main thesis is
that once legislation has been passed democratically, execution promotes
democratic norms if it implements the laws. There is no place for democ-
racy in execution. And then, there is this sentence, "But it is not only the
individual norms laid down by administrative acts, it is also the general
norms of regulations and more particularly of laws that can and must
be submitted to judicial control, relating for the …rst to their conformity
with the laws, for the seconds to their conformity with the Constitution."
(73) Yet the sentence that follows quali…es this formulation, restricting
judicial review to the legislative procedure, not to the content of the
laws: "the respect of the Constitution in the legislative procedure con-
stitutes an eminent interest of the minority, for which, have seen, the
rules about the quorum, the quali…ed majority, etc. have a function of
o¤ering it a protection." Hence, what is subject to constitutional review

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is only whether laws have been passed in conformity with parliamentary
rules, not whether they conform to some constitutional norms. This
text, however, is contradicted in the essay written a year earlier: "The
Constitution is, then, not only a procedural rule but also a substantive
rule; therefore, a law may be unconstitutional either because of a proce-
dural irregularity related to its creation or because of content contrary
to the principles or directives formulated by the constituent, when it
exceeds the preset limits (Kelsen, 1928: 154)."
Urbinati and Accetti (2013) see Kelsen as liberal "in the sense that
it [democracy] does not need to import the grounds for limiting its own
exercise of political power from the outside, but contains them already
inscribed within its own institutional framework." And, "Kelsen’s point
is that democratic self-government is possible only within the framework
of a constitutional order, because this is what de…nes the procedures that
enable the people to govern themselves in the …rst place." Yet when he
confronts directly the relation of democracy to liberalism, Kelsen treats
the latter as a "procedural element of secondary importance":

It is of importance to be aware that the principle of

democracy and that of liberalism are not identical, that there
exists even a certain antagonism between them. For accord-
ing to the principle of democracy the power of the people is
unrestricted, .... Liberalism, however, means restriction of
governmental power, whatever form the government may as-
sume. It means also restriction of democratic power. Hence
democracy is essentially a government by the people. The
procedural element remains in the foreground, the liberal el-
ement – as a particular content of the social order being of
secondary importance. Even the liberal democracy is in the
…rst place a speci…c procedure. (1955: 3-4)

The only logically coherent interpretation of these apparent contra-

dictions I can think of goes as follows. First, as Kelsen observes, the
court performs a legislative function. Secondly, the court is appointed by
the parliament. As Castillo-Ortiz (2020) observes, the Kelsenian court
has only moderate powers of review and is not insulated from political
actors. Hence, the court is an element of parliamentary self-limitation.
The parliament cannot trust itself but it can self-bind itself by creating
a body that would check its potential excesses. Comparing the Aus-
trian and the US constitutional adjudication, Kelsen (1942) emphasizes
that in his model laws are valid only if they pass the scrutiny of the
court: the court is in e¤ect the third chamber of the parliament. In this

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sense, the constitutional court is not di¤erent from the …nance commit-
tee of the parliament when, as is true in several countries, this committee
must be headed by the largest minority. In this interpretation, then, the
constitutional court is just one element of parliamentary organization.
Indeed, the only paragraph where Kelsen discusses constitutional review
ends with a reference to self-limitation: "If [democracy] rejects the self-
limitation represented by the principle of legality, it dissolves itself."
(73).
This interpretation is logically coherent but …nding sense in apparent
contradictions is a hazardous exercise. It may well be that Kelsen held
di¤erent views at di¤erent times or that he said di¤erent things when
writing as a legal theorist and as a political theorist (something which
Urbinati and Accetti 2013 reject). All I can say in the end is that
both Kelsen and Schumpeter believe that democracy is feasible only if
majorities limit themselves, not when they are limited by some anti-
majoritarian devices. Kelsen’s constitutional court is a device adopted
by the parliament as a commitment to self-control.7 If it can check a
parliamentary majority, it is because the parliament wants to be subject
to checks. "Compromise" or "self-control" is what protects democracy
from deteriorating into autocratic rule but limitations on majority rule
must be self-implementing; they cannot be imposed independently of
the will of the majority. The essence of democracy, both for Kelsen and
Schumpeter, is self-limiting majoritarianism.

4 Limited Government
Why then would democracy generate "compromise" or "self restraint"?
The problem Kelsen faces is that the parliament decides by majority
rule, so the question becomes why would parliamentary majority not
simply ignore the wishes of the minority. Several passages in Chapter
VI, where he addresses this issue, are just plays on words. One could
not speak of a "majority," Kelsen casuistically observes, if there were
no "minority," hence minority cannot be ignored (57). But he also in-
vokes what he considers to be facts and then o¤ers a glimpse of the
causal mechanism that presages our current thinking. He admits that
"it appears that the majoritarian principle signi…es the domination of
the majority over the minority," but then claims that "in reality, this
domination does not realize itself most of the time" (58). In fact again,
Kelsen claims, "The entire parliamentary procedure tends to generate a
middle solution (moyen term) between opposing interests...." (60). As
7
For a model of creating credible commitment by establishing a court, see Mey-
erson (2008).

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statements of fact, these are fragile assertions. But the causal argu-
ment is prescient: "A dictatorship of the majority over the minority is
not possible in the long run because of the very fact that a minority
condemned not to exercise absolutely any in‡uence will …nally renounce
formal participation ...." (59).
Stylizing somewhat Kelsen’s understanding, his democracy thus works
as follows. Proportional representation sends to the parliament parties,
the parliamentary size of which re‡ects their support in the electorate.
The parliament makes decisions by simple majority vote. Yet because of
parliamentary organization, it reaches solutions which re‡ect the weight
of the minority. Even if the formal rule is simple majority, parliamen-
tary procedures are designed to give some voice to the minority because
otherwise the minority would withdraw from participating in democratic
institutions. This happens during each parliamentary term: the pie is di-
vided at each time re‡ecting the weights of the parties in the parliament
at the time. But all of this can be true only because some cultural, or
what Kelsen refers to as "psychological," factors are present: "Democ-
racy and autocracy distinguish themselves by a psychological di¤erence
in their political state." (64).8
Schumpeter is much more forthright. At each time there is a major-
ity and the majority decides. All that can happen – and it is essential
for democracy that it can happen –is that current majority can be re-
moved from o¢ ce by elections: "in making it the primary function of
the electorate to produce a government (directly or through an inter-
mediate body) I intended to include in this phrase also the function of
evicting it" (272). Hence, the majority can take the entire pie when it
is in o¢ ce but can be removed from o¢ ce, so that as long as majori-
ties alternate, the pie is still divided over time. Yet Schumpeter also
argues that for democracy to be successful, the majority must exercise
"Democratic Self-control" (294) and that "e¤ective competition for lead-
ership requires a large measure of tolerance for di¤erence of opinion."
(295) This self-control must be exercised by the parliament: "in order
to function properly ... all-powerful parliament must impose limits upon
itself" (292). Moreover, this self-control must be exercised not only by
the majority and not only by politicians:

Everybody will of course agree that the democratic method

cannot work smoothly unless all the groups that count as a
nation are willing to accept any legislative measure as long as
it is on the statute book and all executive orders issued by
8
See Kelsen (1955: 25-27) for a longer discussion of "democratic type of person-
ality."

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 legally competent authorities. But democratic self-control
implies much more than this.... This means that the sup-
porters of the government must accept its lead and allow
it to frame and act upon a program and that the opposi-
tion should accept the lead of the ’shadow government’ at
its head and allow it to keep political warfare within certain
rules. (294)

What then induces self-control? Democracy works if the govern-

ment is "e¤ective," which requires several conditions outlined in Chapter
XXIII, including "self-control." Yet Schumpeter is even less loquacious
about "self-control" than Kelsen is about "compromise." The only hint
I could …nd is in a footnote on page 290: The text refers to "The condi-
tions which I hold must be ful…lled for democratic method to be a success
..." and the footnote says: "By ’success’I mean no more than that the
democratic process reproduce itself steadily without creating situations
that enforce resort to non-democratic methods and that it cope with
current problems in a way which all interests that count politically …nd
acceptable in the long run."
Reading into both texts our current understanding of the conditions
under which democracy survives, both Kelsen and Schumpeter can be
interpreted as positing that democracy functions under the "shadow of
withdrawal." Unless majority compromises or exercises self-control, the
minority would withdraw from participating in democratic institutions.
In turn, this shadow of the minority abandoning democratic institutions
induces the majority to moderate. But these arguments are just one
paragraph for Kelsen and a part of a footnote for Schumpeter.

5 Beyond Kelsen and Schumpeter

Why would anyone who has power ever desist from increasing his power,
"compromise" in the language of Kelsen or exercise "self-control" in the
language of Schumpeter?
Both Kelsen and Schumpeter answer this question by reverting to
exogenous conditions, some traits of the societies in which democracy
functions. Thus for Kelsen (65), "The application of the majoritarian
principle carries certain quasi-natural limits. It is necessary that ma-
jority and minority could understand each other, if they should agree.
This presupposes realization of some conditions: a relative cultural ho-
mogeneity of the society ...." In turn, according to Schumpeter (289-290),
"If a physicist observes that the same mechanism works di¤erently at
di¤erent times and in di¤erent places, he concludes that its functioning
depends upon conditions extraneous to it. We cannot but arrive at the

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same conclusion." Hence, all depends on some traits of societies in which
democracy …nds itself. Democratic leaders stop short of usurping power
if some cultural pre-conditions are ful…lled. Neither author inquires why
such pre-conditions would be present in some societies but not in others
and neither considers the possibility that they would be endogenous to
democracy rather than exogenous.9
The specter of absolute power is perhaps the most enduring theme
of political thought. Yet contrary to centuries of writings that sought
the solution in some exogenous devises, such as constitutions, or in "so-
cial contracts," we now understand that limitations on power must be
self-enforcing.10 It must be in the best interest of the rulers to stop in-
creasing his power beyond some limit and it must be in the best interest
of the opponents to obey democratic norms if the rulers stop increasing
their power beyond this limit. Limited government must constitute an
equilibrium.
To approach this question, we need …rst to distinguish sharing "spoils"
and sharing "power." Spoils are shared when the incumbent govern-
ment makes compromises, whether material or other. Power is shared
when the majority does not have the capacity to make decisions unilat-
erally: the opposition has institutionally guaranteed prerogatives (Weg-
mann 2022) or binding decisions require supermajorities, as under bi-
cameralism,11 or majority decisions are subject to validation by counter-
majoritarian institutions, such as constitutional tribunals.12 Increasing
power means extending the discretion in making policies by weaken-
ing institutional obstacles and/or increasing "incumbent advantage," the
probability of staying in o¢ ce.
Now, assume with Madison (Federalist # ***) that at least some
politicians are vulnerable to the "encroaching spirit of power": the de-
sire for their power to be enduring and unlimited. It makes no di¤erence
whether they care about power per se or the material rewards it gener-
ates. They want to stay in o¢ ce for as long as possible and govern with
the fewest limitations possible when they are in o¢ ce. Why would they
not do everything possible to aggrandize their power?
9
On the causal relation between culture and democracy, see Przeworski, Cheibub,
and Limongi (1998).
10
Schumpeter (247) ciritizes "social contracts" on these grounds.
11
As long as two houses are at least somewhat di¤erently elected, bicameralism is
equivalent to supermajority rule.
12
Extensive literature on "power sharing" is limited to autocratic regimes in which
there are no institutional mechanisms for replacing rulers. Power sharing occurs in
such regimes when spoils are shared between a ruler and challenger and power is
allocated in a way that makes it costly for the ruler to renege (Meng, Painey, and
Powell 2022).

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 The most general answer in our current understanding is "the shadow
of force" (Powell 1996). Models of democracy formulated in such terms
posit two lotteries: an electoral lottery in which control of o¢ ce alter-
nates according to some probabilities and a con‡ict lottery in which the
relations of physical force determine the outcome of an eventual violent
con‡ict (Przeworski 2005; Benhabib and Przeworski 2006; Przeworski,
Rivero, and Xi 2015). In this approach, elections generate temporary
winners and losers. Elections peacefully process con‡icts if the losers do
not …nd their defeat excessively painful and if they expect to have a rea-
sonable chance to win in the future, which also means that the winners
do not in‡ict much pain on the losers and do not foreclose the possibil-
ity of being removed from o¢ ce by elections. This equilibrium exists if
the present value of continuing the electoral lottery is higher than the
present value of the con‡ict lottery both for the current incumbent and
the current opposition, which means that the current rulers exercise self-
limitation only if they are not very likely to prevail in the eventuality of
a physical confrontation.13 The limitation of this approach, however, is
that the power of the current majority and minority is treated as …xed,
so that they either comply or do not comply with democratic norms.
A novel approach is o¤ered by Luo’s and Przeworski’s (forthcoming)
model of the dynamic of democratic backsliding, which addresses itself
directly to the question of "self-limitation" by specifying the conditions
under which the incumbent government would desist from trying to in-
crease its electoral advantage beyond some critical level that would be
accepted by the opponents. They conclude that democracy is sustain-
able, free from the threat of backsliding, when opposing politicians are
neither very attractive nor very unattractive to citizens. To sustain it,
citizens must allow more appealing incumbents to gain some security in
o¢ ce. Backsliding occurs either when citizens knowingly consent to ero-
sion of democracy because they …nd the incumbent highly appealing14
or when citizens unconditionally oppose the incumbent, so that the in-
cumbent can remain in o¢ ce only by backsliding. The limitation of this
model, in turn, is that it considers only the electoral aspect of power (see
also Helmke, Kroeger, and Paine 2021), not the attempts by incumbents
to increase their discretion in making policies, which are considered by
Grillo and Prato (2019), Howell and Walton (2018), Howell, Shepsle,
13
Stephen Holmes (private communication) observed that majorities may need co-
operation of minorities to advance their own goals. This possibility is studied in
Gandhi and Przeworski (2006), where under some conditions concessions to opposi-
tion increase rents of the ruler, but not in the context of democracy.
14
For empirical evidence that voters are willing to tolerate violations of democratic
norms in exchange for policy outcomes they desire, see the pioneering article by
Graham and Svolik (2018).

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and Walton (2019).
In all these models there exist equilibriums in which the incumbent
stops at something and its opponents accept the democratic status quo
but also equilibriums in which the elected governments take all possi-
ble steps to aggrandize their power. Moreover, these models still take
the relations of physical force as …xed exogenously. The question that
remains unstudied is whether the democratic rulers would stop from ag-
grandizing their power if they could increase their capacity to defeat the
opposition by force, to a¤ect their chances in the eventuality to violent
con‡icts, by politicizing the armed forces and the security apparatus,
turning people with guns into political partisans.
The conclusion must be that the magic of self-restraint is still not
completely clear. Yes, "compromise" or "self-restraint" is almost de…ni-
tionally a requisite of democracy. No, it cannot be imposed from outside
and it cannot just follow from agreements about some rules, unless they
are self-enforcing. It must be in the best interest of the democratic
rulers to stop short of monopolizing power given the potential reactions
of the opposition and it must be in the best interest of the opposition
to participate peacefully given that the incumbent stops. Yet, while we
have made signi…cant progress, the biggest issue faced by Kelsen and
Schumpeter has not been completely resolved.

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