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Democracy
Written by David Tait | Last Updated on July 11, 2026
Rather than the articulation of a system of government or theoretical good, democracy for Mazzinians is part of the moral and spiritual mission for all of humanity. Democracy is a political principle based on the organic pluralism of the nation acting through unity.
For Mazzinians, democracy is not just a political system but a devoutly held principle. Rather than regarding democracy simply as the best of a bad bunch, Mazzinians consider it to be the highest ethical form of political organization available to us. Democracy is not just periodic voting or the rule of law, but a principle that harnesses society’s organic plurality and freedom in an effective form of self-government.
Democracy is a principle that Mazzinians share with many other political movements. While Mazzinians might quibble over the details in some jurisdictions, they maintain a broad interpretation of what qualifies as a democracy, as long as it clearly allows for free elections, civil liberties, and an independent judiciary. Though there might be better or worse ways to organize these exact these principles, all Mazzinian democratic thought requires is that they are real and effective.
Mazzinians therefore ally themselves with the broader global democracy movement against tyranny. They support all sincere efforts and movements seeking to end tyranny for the sake of replacing it with a democracy. Where democracy is something we share with liberals, republicans, socialists, conservatives, and any other ideology, there is a natural alliance and affinity, despite political differences.
Table of Contents ▼
Key Ideas of Democracy:
Democracy as a Principle
Democracy is not merely a pragmatic compromise or the least-worst option, but the highest ethical form of political organization and a spiritual mission for humanity's progress.Dio e Popolo
Supreme moral law originates from a higher divine order, while the people act as the free, progressive interpreters and executors of that law into political reality.Democracy as an Ongoing Process
Rather than a static, finished system with permanent answers, democracy is a dynamic and continuous method for discovering the political good and achieving moral improvement.Harnessing Organic Pluralism
Individual differences and dissenting opinions are not problems to be suppressed, but the essential engine that drives a society's collective decision-making and reveals political truth.International Democratic Solidarity
The struggle against autocracy is a universal cause, demanding that free peoples form cross-border alliances and actively support democratic movements wherever they face oppression.
Mazzini’s Thoughts on Democracy
Mazzini was a committed democrat and remained decisively on the side of democratic movements throughout his entire life. From his political beginnings as a young man in Genoa to his term as triumvir in the Roman Republic of 1849, Mazzini practiced his democratic faith, even at the detriment of his own position. Mazzini was fiercely opposed to power being concentrated in the hands of a single individual, and was a staunch supporter of an assembly-led government.
Mazzini’s Democracy in Practice
Mazzini’s time as triumvir of the Roman Republic was significant since it was the first time he was able to put his democratic principles into action. After being elected to the Roman Constituent Assembly in February 1849, many in the nascent republic requested that he take on an executive role as dictator to provide a strongly unified government [1]. Mazzini refused, but later propose creating a triumvirate instead and was eventually elected to serve as one of the triumvirs alongside Aurelio Saffi and Carlo Armellini [2].
Mazzini’s rejection of personal power was also matched by his style in government. He maintained the civil liberties already guaranteed by the republican constitution, allowing for freedom of association and of the press during his time in office. However, when the Republic came under a severe existential threat from the French, the formally declaration of extraordinary powers led to the suspension of these rights [3]. Nevertheless, his willingness to practice his democratic principles is a testament to how faithful his belief in democracy and liberty really was.
Republicanism
Mazzini’s democratic faith was ultimately informed by his republicanism. He regarded democracy and republicanism as synonymous, even going so far as to reject the pairing “democratic republicanism” as an “a pleonasm, a useless repetition” [4]. Mazzini’s republicanism therefore was tightly aligned with the democratic cause in Europe, and his anti-monarchism was definitively informed by his sincere belief that the people were the only ones who can rule themselves.
Mazzini’s republicanism rejected the dynastic rule of kings on the democratic principle. Under any hereditary system, Mazzini believed that the people’s true liberty could never be fully achieved and argued that hereditary monarchies naturally tend to generate despotism [5]. He was vehemently opposed to the “potluck” process of hereditary rule that could produce either a kindly king or a tyrant. The interest of the tyrant would always supersede those of the nation’s and the people’s, would be left without recourse to contest them.
Thus, for Mazzini, elected and democratic representation was the best way for the national will to be realized and for a nation to be truly free to pursue its mission in the world.
Dio e Popolo
Dio e Popolo—“God and the People”—has become Mazzini’s most recognizable motto. However, beyond a rhetorical symbol, it actually encapsulates his entire religious interpretation of how democracy ought to be conceived as. While this theological interpretation is often perceived at best, strange, and at worse, dangerously theocratic, Mazzini’s original idea behind the concept was more sophisticated. In fact, Dio e Popolo explains his entire justification for supporting a democratic system in the first place.
Mazzini’s God and People formula represents a definitive rejection of Rousseau’s concept of the general will. While Rousseau argues that the people are sovereign and are the sole producers of that sovereignty, Mazzini controversially disagreed. For him, the supreme law does not come from the people but from God. God is the source of all moral law and anything that contradicts this moral law was, therefore, immoral. God sets this law down and is immutable by the popular will. What this implied was that the people were not actually sovereign in the sense that were the legislators [6] since God alone is sovereign, but instead the people are instead the interpreters of that law and its translator on Earth.
“God and the People.
God, at the summit of the social edifice; the people, the universality of our brethren, at the base. God, the Father and Educator; the people, the progressive interpreter of his Law.” [7]
For secular thinkers, this is usually a deeply problematic aspect of Mazzini’s political thought as it forces an avoidably fanatic connotation that is difficult to dispel. Many have accused Mazzini’s emphasis on the union of religion and politics as example of totalitarianism in his thought, but in reality, it actually is the necessary justification for his entire belief in democracy, not as a static political system, but as the mode for progress.
For Mazzini, God and People represent two essential sides of a sort of permanent dialectic [8] that produces moral progress. On one side, God is the sole source of moral law—the objective moral order—and the people cannot legislate against this law if it is to be moral. However, as God cannot realize his supreme law on Earth without the People, the People become the interpreters and executors of his law into political reality. Different peoples realize different parts of this universal divine law and thus must work together in order to reveal the whole of it, which is the collective efforts of Humanity. Therefore, for Mazzini, Humanity was the vital vehicle for God’s law on Earth: “God is God, and Humanity His prophet” [9].
This dialectical relationship between divine authority on one side and the people’s liberty on the other was the basis of Mazzini’s entire theory of progress. The divine law could never be fully immanentized on Earth by any one person or group since they simply did not possess the capacity to, but rather than devolving into a conservative pessimism, Mazzini’s idea permits gradual realizations of the law throughout history, with each people playing their part. The law restrains the people from creating new laws that deviate from morality since they do not actually legislate it, whereas the people in their freedom are capable of realizing the law in ways that work in reality.
This has radical implications for Mazzini’s belief in democracy that goes beyond just thinking it the best moral system. For Mazzini, democracy was the mechanism that allowed the People to best execute God’s law as a collective. Democracy, with its civil liberties, voting, and popular participation, functions as a system that permits the pluralism necessary to allow for a people to interpret their role in humanity, rather than have it decided for them by an autocratic leader. What God and the People really entail for democracy is not blind obedience of each citizen to an absolute theocratic law, but instead the honest, sincere participation of each individual citizen in collaboration with others to best interpret that law.
National Education
In accordance with these republican principles, Mazzini argued strongly for a free, national education to provide citizens with the moral formation necessary for democracy [10]. Education was not merely instruction—the transmission of technical and scientific knowledge—but instead to teach citizens how to develop their moral capacities necessary for genuine political participation [11].
Democracy, especially taking in Mazzini’s republican interpretation, was pointless if it was made up of a passive citizenry who were uninterested in participation in the political processes. For example, if a democracy was—as in the liberal interpretation—just a system where voters chose their representatives periodically but did little else to hold them accountable, this failed democracy’s core purpose in the Mazzinian conception.
Education of citizens in their national history, literature, rights, duties, and ways of exercising their contestatory powers are all vital in facilitating a citizen’s ability to choose the best means of doing good, rather than selfishly pursuing their interests.
Mazzini’s Democratic Vision of Government
Mazzini resisted sketching out a potential constitution for a unified Italy since he believed that was the job of the first elected assembly to define [12]. As a consequence, despite his aspirations for a democratic republic in Italy, he was vague about how that ought to look: what sort of voting system should be used, and how the political institutions ought to be organized. That being said, across his writings, there is a clear image of what he liked and what he didn’t like, even if it didn’t constitute a fully codified constitution.
In general, Mazzini supported:
Universal Rights and Suffrage: Mazzini supported equal rights for all citizens (including women [13]) and universal suffrage as the basis of free elections. He was a strong advocate for civil liberties and supported the abolition of the death penalty.
Social Welfare and Education: Mazzini envisioned a system were the government would intervene in the economy to provide education, credit and welfare for citizens in order to address inequalities [14]. These would be funded through taxation, giving his thought a distinctly social democratic flavor.
Decentralization: Mazzini was opposed to rigid administrative centralization and admired the English system of local governments. He wanted local communities to flourish rather than be dependent on a single central authority. He advocated for Italy to be organized in a similar way [15] regarding it to be the best way to protect individual liberty.
Overall, he was not keen on or strongly opposed:
Federalism: In contrast to his support of decentralization, Mazzini was inapplicably opposed to federalism. He believed that federalism would weakened Italy’s unified independence and make it susceptible to imperialism again [16]. He fell out with many likeminded revolutionaries over this particular issue, including Carlo Cattaneo [17], and was one of the reasons why he wasn’t never very popular with Spanish republicans [18].
Political Parties: Mazzini recognized that political parties were essential for forwarding a political cause, and in fact Young Italy is generally considered to be Italy’s first political party in its history. That being said, Mazzini was skeptical of political parties pursuing their interests rather than ideas and believed that they should always be subject to the nation [19].
Single-Person Power: As his experience as triumvir of the Roman Republic indicates, Mazzini was not a fan of power being concentrated into the hands of a single individual. He applied this principally in his critique of monarchical rule, but also extended it to criticizing the French presidency [20].
Liberal Checks and Balances: This is perhaps one of the more controversial positions since Mazzini strongly disliked the “Whig-American theory of government” that treated the state as a necessary evil to be strictly limited by systems of mutual distrust, checks, and balances [21]. He preferred a popularly elected government with a wide mandate to actively take the lead, and devised novel (and sometimes bizarre) alternatives to the standard Montesquieuan model.
Democracy as a Principle
We’re used to thinking about democracy as just the best of a bad bunch. For many advocates of democracy, it is not that democracy is a superior system of government, but because it represents the one with the least amount of deficiencies—whatever these deficiencies might be. Since democracy requires broad consensus, fair majority support for decision-making, and leads to less violence, many democrats argue for democracy because it is the pragmatic, sensible option. Democracy, therefore, is considered a consequentialist choice, rather than a principled one.
For Mazzinians, however, democracy is a principle. Regardless of its deficiencies and the possible effective superiority of other systems, Mazzinians believe democracy is the highest moral and ethical political system available, and the only one that genuinely conforms to moral action in the world. Mazzinians believe that free individuals working together is a necessary condition for a truly moral system of life and politics. In a dictatorship, decisions are taken by a single individual or caste that inevitably act in the interests of themselves and against that of the people. In a democracy—where the people rule—each individual is involved and, out of their free will and individuality, contributes to the overall decision-making process of a political community.
In this way, democracy as rule of the people is taken in its literal sense. In contrast to rule of the majority, by which only a large faction of the people rules, democracy requires that every single individual be involved. Democracy, therefore, is not simply about voting as an indicator of legitimacy of a policy, but also about it being challenged, disagreed with, and even repealed. Democracy is broader than that narrow definition of majority rule, since it requires individuals to participate against a majority’s opinion, as well as in favor of it, and it does this through not only having elections, but also civil liberties, separation of powers, and an independent legal system. This is what it means to have a genuine rule of the people.
The uniqueness of democracy compared to other systems of government is that it embraces the organic pluralism of a political society in order to produce decisions. Since each individual is different they differ in opinion, ideals, and policies, and therefore non-democratic systems try to suppress these in some way or another. Democracy, in contrast, utilizes this pluralism as its mechanism for rule, channeling it through democratic institutions and rights in order to ensure that the total will of the people is available at all times. Therefore, democracy finds its true antithesis in totalitarianism, which requires the total suppression of this pluralism to make sure everyone’s views are homogenous. Indeed, some totalitarian thinkers have argued that their system is more democratic for making everyone’s opinion the same and therefore making the “will of the people” concretely possible [22], but this comes from a non-democratic interpretation of rule being instantaneous rather than a process and tries to achieve the perfect rule of the majority.
Democracy’s moral superiority, therefore, is derived from not just its respect for the sacredness of the individual (because, to some degree, non-democratic forms of liberalism could achieved this), but because it needs the free individual to actually function. In regarding each individual as an equal participant, democracy elevates the individual to a position in which they need to be politically active in order for the rule of the people to be achieved. Democracy provides a way for each individual an “equal share in determining the political will” [23]. For this reason, Mazzinians regard democracy as the only system possible where individuals must sincerely participate in accordance with their own individuality which thus allows for the entire political community—the nation—to act toward its moral mission for humanity.
Democracy versus Majority Rule
Democracy is often conflated with majority rule. However, as we have already mentioned, this view confuses the idea of a majority’s opinion as being absolute and binding, with the pluralistic nature of a society. The principle of majority rule is that, simply by being the majority view on either a single policy issue or in an election, is therefore the only legitimate one. One of the more extreme examples of majority rule was Lenin’s misnamed “democratic centralism”, in which a majority decision becomes not merely binding but obligatory to defend, leaving no space for the minority to dissent.
The rightness of majority rule as a political system could be debated. However, since the majority can only ever be a faction of people in a political community (by definition), it cannot fulfill the definition of democracy. If the majority’s opinion requires the suppression of other free individuals’ participation in the political then there is no rule of the people, but simply the rule of that certain faction of it. Democracy, as we have outlined, requires the mechanism of free individuals to engage in and contest legislation, and therefore their rights to do so cannot be removed in order for it to continue satisfying that definition.
Democracy as a Process
For Mazzinians, democracy is not a finished system with all the political answers but the method for their discovery [24]. Where non-democratic system propose to have the definitive solution when it comes political decision-making, democracy is an ongoing process for discovering the political good. That there is a single “will of the people” about a policy or idea at any one time is the mistake that Rousseau made in his Social Contract, and has been echoed in many critiques of democracy over the centuries. As we already explored, the totalitarian movements attempted to solve this problem in the most extreme way possible by attempting to stamp out all individuality in order for the “will of the people” to be effective.
Indeed, it is this very idea of the ineffectiveness of democracy that causes this error. Those who think of a political system as the ability to take political decisions naturally see the impossibility of calculating the free will of all individuals at all times, and thus regard this as a problem in democracy that either should be fixed or dealt with. However, democracy already answers this calculation problem with organic participation. That each individual engages, not just at the ballot box, but also in the press, through the legal system, and even through daily conversation, they are all, through their differing opinions, expressing that democratic will.
Democracy as a system carefully maps itself onto the organic pluralism present in a society, rather than trying to impose a view on it. The genius of democracy is that it doesn’t try to represent the will as some homogenous entity (which requires it being imposed), but instead derives it from the natural differences individuals have with one another. The political divisions in democracy are not seen as problems with a divided will, but distinct expression of it that challenge one another dynamically in order to discover what is politically true.
For Mazzinians, democracy becomes the very necessary engine of their view of progress. Progress is a long accumulative process of moral and material improvement, which can only be realized through the democratic will. The people's will is never a fixed essence lying beneath individual difference, waiting to be revealed. It is the very activity of individuals engaging, disputing, and building a shared political life together. This aligns with Mazzini’s own view that nations should become the “workshops of humanity”.
Will and Judgement
Borrowing from the democratic theorist Nadia Urbinati, Mazzinians see the democratic system as a process between two necessary forces. As Urbinati outlines in her book Representative Democracy, democracy (specifically in her case, representative democracy) is a system which requires both the will of the people as an authorizing power, and judgment as providing the fundamental oversight to keep abuses in check. This means that, for Urbinati, democracy involves the people has both having the power to vote on governments and policies, and to criticize and investigate those governments (what she terms “negative power”). This interaction between these two forces, she argues, form a “diarchy” that makes democracy genuinely productive [25]:
“Will and judgment, immediate physical presence (the right to vote), and a mediated idealized presence (the right to free speech and free association) are inextricably intertwined in a society that is itself a living confutation of the dualism between the politics of presence and the politics of ideas since all presence is an artifact of speech.” [26]
Urbinati’s theory of the diarchy between will and judgement within a democracy accurately encapsulates what Mazzinians believe when it comes to democratic control, and how civil liberties, rather than just being an appendage to liberal democracy, are in fact a fundamental part of democracy’s own definition.
Unity in Pluralism
One of the more difficult aspect of democracy—given its active reliance on pluralism is—how it can maintain unity. All too often, democracy’s tendency to allow for all forms of political expression, including anti-democratic ones, exacerbates political polarization and entrenches division. For many of these problems, constitutional safeguards are usually the concrete solution that are built to prevent (or at least contain) abuses of power and corruption. However, these merely solve the problem of human nature and do not necessarily address the problem of division; they manage the division in a negative sense, but do not provide a positive solution.
This unity is difficult to achieve in a democracy since it often clashes with the pluralistic conception, creating a difficult paradox: how can the definition of democracy be maintained if all individuals must submit to some sense of conformity in order to sustain it? This is where we return to the same issue as majority rule. For Mazzinians, for whom unity is an important political principle, the solution is in the way that we think about democracy in terms of means and ends. Like rights and duties, Mazzinians see democracy fundamentally as means toward achieving the ends of the moral and material improvement of the nation. The nation’s improvement, for its overall role in humanity, is the collective goal that provides the unity missing in other theories of democracy.
In practice, this means that Mazzinians regard the democratic process fundamentally as a division of labor. Each free individual contributes their part but not for their own interests, but instead toward the same collective goal as a whole. Political parties, organizations, institutions, civil liberties, advocacy groups, even the elites—all the pluralism in a democratic system—are the vital modes in which this division is expressed. Each individual is required to put forth their own opinion since, without it, the nation as a whole might be denied a moral truth or advancement that no one else could have come up with. In this sense, the Mazzinian conception of democracy is as genuine teamwork, where everyone—with their different opinions, experiences, and moral ideas—disagree productively, all for the same collective goal. Without this collective goal, these institutions fall into looking after their own interests, turning democracy into a “state of war—a war, not of blood, but of gold and tricks” [27].
This collective goal is not a fixed target but a moving one. The very nature of national improvement is constantly reinterpreted and reaffirmed through the same democratic process that pursues it. In other words, unity in democracy does not require conformity, which would be its antithesis. Instead, it requires a common direction that requires everyone’s efforts to be both discovered and work properly toward. Another way to think about it is again, to return to the workshops of humanity analogy, is that democracy is akin to a well-organized company, where each employee and department all contribute their specific skills toward increasing moral and material output.
Democracy as a System
Beyond the principle of democracy, Mazzinians care about its practice in the real world. While Mazzinians will have their own views of the best form of democracy, what matters more is that it resembles democracy in the first place, and where democracy is practiced, regardless of how it is constituted, is worth defending. This means that whether a democracy is liberal, social, republican, or otherwise, as long as it allows for the organic pluralism as outlined above, Mazzinians believe there is a duty of solidarity.
While a democracy can be constituted in many different ways, there are fundamental institutions that are necessary in order for the definition of democracy to be satisfied, both constitutionally and in practice. In other words, Mazzinians have a falsifiable definition of democracy. This means that at a very minimum, a democracy must have civil liberties, free elections, and an independent judiciary. While these might be expressed in different ways, any system that omits one of these necessary conditions is, for a Mazzinian, undemocratic.
In many circumstances, this means that democracy is not an on-and-off switch within a country, but often a battle against undemocratic forces. This means that the Mazzinian aligns specifically with the democratic elements within a country and pushes for them to be extended and respected. Where a democracy is experiencing backsliding, the fight for the Mazzinian is to keep the democratic elements in place and effective. This is also the case in already mature democracies that might have flaws in their constitutions that can be amended in order to keep them from being abused, though the exact nature of these amendments would depend on the nation.
Republic or Constitutional Monarchy?
Mazzini was a fierce republican and strongly opposed monarchy in all its forms, including constitutional monarchy. His opposition was fueled by his democratic ideals and his contempt for the European despots that governed the continent during his lifetime. As a consequence, Mazzini’s anti-monarchism led him to regard it as fundamentally incompatible with any form of democracy, and he strongly called for its abolition, along with all hereditary privilege.
Today the landscape is a little more nuanced. While monarchy in its absolutist form is fundamentally undemocratic, constitutional democracies in Europe and Asia have managed to fulfill a democratic way of life without the monarch interfering. In many cases, the monarch is directly constrained by the constitution and their role is purely ceremonial. These are full democratic systems where abolition and replacing the head of state with an elected president, has become less about democracy and more about political aesthetics. While Mazzinians would argue for a republican system as a default, over a hereditary monarch, it is not the chief concern as long as there is no absolutist rule.
An interesting case study for this is the reality of semi-constitutional monarchies in many Arab countries. While the monarch holds supreme executive power, they are also subject to a constitution and limited parliamentary oversight. For Mazzinians, this does not constitute a form of democracy as civil liberties are often severely restricted. However, it could be evidence of a gradualist approach toward greater public participation in affairs, rather than total autocracy. This gradualism—particularly in a country like Jordan—has meant significant push and pull between the King and the people and has developed into something a little freer over time. That being said, gradualism in name only is something Mazzinians ought to be critical of and should push for further democratic participation where it can be achieved.
The criticisms that Mazzini makes against the despotic princes in his day, are also directly applicable to presidential dictators who are, in many instances, the new princes of the modern age. There have now been too many instances throughout history of presidents usurping all power and imposing a dictatorship, and these absolutist regimes pose an equal threat to democracy as absolutist monarchy. Mazzinians therefore broaden Mazzini’s own anti-monarchist principles to deal with all modern forms of authoritarianism.
For the Mazzinian, the distinction is less about what the nominal system (republic or monarchy) is and more about whether it is a democracy in practice. Whether a republic or not, Mazzinians are concerned firstly about whether the organic pluralism of the society is respected.
Separation of Powers
Mazzini disliked the traditional separation of powers as a way of preventing tyranny and preserving civil liberties, calling them a chimera [28]. This objection was not out of any authoritarian tendency, but because he believed that the Montesquieuan separation of powers fundamentally undermined the unity of the nation. He argued that the separation of powers were not a genuine safeguard for liberty, but instead an artificial system built on mutual suspicion that paralyzed the nation’s ability to act [29]. Mazzini argued that dividing up the state into these different powers inherently weakened that state’s capacity to act on behalf of the nation.
Mazzini had several idiosyncratic proposals for avoiding the separation of powers. He was strongly in favor of an assembly-first political system, whereby the executive would work in strict accord with elected representatives. This was based on his belief that a truly popular government ought to work in harmony with the people, rather than against them [30]. To protect citizens from a tyrannical state and government, he emphasized the importance of vertical administrative decentralization where local government would be organized into large communes that would be the primary defense against state autocratization [31]. And, as opposed to a traditional independent judiciary, Mazzini proposed a radically democratic jury-led system, where criminals would be tried primarily by a “competent jury” and the role of professional judges would be drastically reduced [32]. His fear was that judges often acted on behalf of the tyrannical state and therefore the perception of their independence was fanciful [33]. His reasoning behind these proposals was driven by his desire to preserve the unity of the nation and to avoid a system of government based on interests.
While many of these proposals are original and interesting subjects for history of political thought, for modern Mazzinians they are untenable. In the first place, in his search for alternatives to the checks and balances approach to preserve Italian unity, Mazzini’s proposals have considerable blindspots that provide a possible in for tyranny and parliamentary autocracy. In too many instances, Mazzini relied too heavily on his belief in civic education and unity in duties that papered over the reality of human nature. He was not unaware of these flaws, but was arguably too optimistic that they could be overcome.
In the second place, almost all modern states—democratic or not—have nominally accepted the separation of powers approach. While it might have its flaws, it has become the acceptable norm for constituting a state and, for the most part were it is genuinely effective, has proven to be reliable. A modern Mazzinian movement, therefore, has to act in the era that it finds itself in and, while Mazzini’s ideas are interesting to study as theory, they are too underdeveloped to be serious contenders of the status quo. That being said, this does not mean that Mazzini’s insights when it comes to the separation of powers should be discarded by modern Mazzinians. On the contrary, they can inform Mazzinians in regards to reforms of current systems to make them better, as well as provide insights for what systems we prefer. For instance, Mazzini’s ideas concerning the judiciary as jury-led and therefore needing laws to be clear and easy to understand for the average citizen, is a reason to favor Napoleonic law and clarity in the legal system. His arguments for decentralization and local government is also perfectly compatible with modern constitutions, and his belief in a popular government is a strong case for an executive that is directly accountable to the legislature, rather than strictly separate.
In the third place, it could be claimed that the spirit of Mazzini’s thought over the separation of powers is not actually undermined by the separation of powers approach, especially when interpreted from a civic republican point of view, rather than the liberal view that he opposed. The republican approach broadens the separation of powers to include not only the traditional tripartite divisions, but to also include the exercise of civil liberties by citizens to hold power to account. Rather than a passive citizenry relying solely on the checks and balances to preserve liberty, citizens who are actively engaged in civic virtue and democratic oversight provides an essential check on government power that is not wholly reliant on divided interests. Given Mazzini’s own profound republicanism, this approach is perhaps the way in which his ideas for popular control ought to be interpreted today.
Lastly, Mazzini’s two main fears of the separation of powers were that it would undermine unity and undermine the state’s ability to act effectively. For the question of unity (as we addressed above), the democratic separation of powers ought to be interpreted as the natural division of labor for each citizen toward the goal of the nation. The separation of powers, especially taken in the republican sense to include civil liberties, allows for this in a way that does not necessarily undermine unity. Indeed, this approach could possibly fulfill Mazzini’s point of free individuals acting together better than his own proposals, as it allows for organic participation without devolving into interests. This also fulfills Mazzini’s own view that nations ought to be “workshops of humanity”.
As for his fear of debilitating the state’s ability to act, the experience of modern democracies has revealed that they are capable of enacting large scale reforms and modernizations without the separation of powers undermining them. In fact, they have, in many cases, been more effective in implementing these than other regimes simply because they have this democratic oversight that prevents abuses and corruption. In addition, the reality of pluralistic politics today, means that broad, national parties (that Mazzini envisioned) that act in the interests of the entire community are relatively rare, with dominant party systems only existing in a handful of democracies. This means that policies that are usually guided by one political faction that need oversight to avoid authoritarianism.
In conclusion, Mazzinians today ought to wholly endorse the separation of powers approach and push it to include civil liberties, encouraging civic education so that citizens are better aware of the laws and systems of government in order to hold their governments to account, as well as a strongly independent judiciary.
Civil Liberties
For the Mazzinian conception of democracy, civil liberties are even more fundamental than elections. The ability of free individuals to each participate in the rule of the country is what makes democracy the genuine rule of the people, and therefore democracy requires liberty to actually function. For Mazzinians, the most important civil liberties are:
Liberty of Expression: Speech is the most fundamental expression of an individual. Without the ability to speak freely, the individual cannot truly provide for their part in the democratic process. This is the most crucial liberty for a citizen to criticize the actions of a given government without fear of repercussion.
Freedom of the Press: Along with liberty of expression, freedom of the press is fundamental for a truly functioning democracy. Without the press’s ability to investigate, challenge and write freely, democracy lacks the oversight necessary.
Freedom of Association: The freedom to create advocacy groups and political parties ensures that democratic movements can organically emerge and find representation. These associations are movements that help strengthen a cause and create legitimacy and function as crucial part for a nation’s improvement.
Freedom of Religion: Personal faith and individual philosophies are vital sources for the moral improvement of the nation and humanity. Without the ability to utilize your reason to come to your own moral conclusions, these insights are denied to the wider cause. This idea of freedom of religion is not necessarily a blank cheque for religious organizations to practice freely (which is guaranteed by the freedom association) but instead the fundamental right of an individual to come to their own beliefs.
Right to Privacy: The right to privacy is the essential guarantee of individual liberties without which an individual cannot act morally. This is not just safeguards against government overreach in the private lives of citizens, but importantly also about that right against other individuals.
Without these civil liberties, democracy cannot truly be fulfilled in its definitional sense. Where one individual is suppressed, there is no democracy.
Elections
Since democracy is a dynamic process rather than a set system, changes in governments are a natural part of progress. To move from one political conception to another as directed by the citizenry permits the democratic unfolding of the nation’s moral improvement. Elections via a secret ballot have become the definitive way of calculating which type of government ought to be formed and with what mandate.
Given the existence of many different voting systems, Mazzinians do not necessarily endorse one as better than the other. Since democracy requires civil liberties (the absence of which would be majority rule), even a majoritarian voting system is considered democratic, despite governments being formed on a smaller mandate. Mazzinians might argue over the fairness and effectiveness of different systems, but as long as it provides for a secret vote and a smooth transfer of power, this conforms to the Mazzinian democratic standard.
Civil Duties
In line with republican ideals, Mazzinians fundamentally believe that it is not only the existence of effective civil liberties that are important but actively exercising them. Willingness to engage in political processes and civic life is just as much a fundamental part of democracy as being left alone. Utilizing what legal mechanism are available to hold power accountable is democracy in practice. Mazzinians ought to advocate that education in legal rights and political processes be part of a nation’s curriculum.
In accordance with Mazzinian thought about duties, often these civil duties ought to be carried out even in the absence of formal civil liberties. Either in an autocratic regime or a country experiencing democratic backsliding, the need for the citizenry to act beyond what is guaranteed to them is a matter of democratic practice. Examples of this are often journalism under censorship, underground organization and civil disobedience. This is not an easy thing to ask since it also requires those activists to risk their liberty and life for the sake of democracy, but it is an unavoidable part of active democratic resistance to all authoritarianism.
Rule of Law
The rule of law is perhaps one of the most fundamental protections for civil liberties and the best guarantee against government overreach and corruption. An independent judiciary, which is free to act against politicians and officials (with cause), is critical for ensuring that everyone is equal before the law. This equality must be guaranteed by the presumption of innocence and due process to protect an individual’s ability to act as a free agent, and cannot be forsaken under any circumstances. For a Mazzinian, the presence of a free, independent judiciary and due process are key requirements for a functioning democracy, and thus oppose all political interference in its affairs.
Unitary State vs. Federation
As we mentioned above, Mazzini himself was fundamentally opposed to the federalist model for Italy as he believed it would lead to a weak country after unification. A federal Italy would have been more easily broken up, and the influence from foreign, imperial power could become a source of division. He also saw the need for unity under a single party and constitution as essential for Italy’s role in the world as a revolutionary nation.
This is why, despite contact and liaison, a Mazzinian movement never emerged in Spain. While Mazzini had been a great admirer of the Spanish guerrilla tactics against Napoleon’s occupation (and integrated their tactics into his rules for insurrection), the point of federalism was the main division between the Spanish republicans and Mazzini’s thought. That and Mazzini’s more religious commitments vis-à-vis the Spanish republicans’ more secular conception [34]. However, as we also noted above, Mazzini was not opposed to devolution. He admired the English localism and believed in town halls managing local affairs. His focus was unity more than centralization.
For the modern Mazzinian movement, federalism can be a national choice rather than something Mazzinians oppose. Federalism can be a practical way of organizing a country that is composed of multiple groups or nationalities, and in complex political circumstances, pragmatism should be favored. Whichever system works (or doesn’t work) is fundamentally up to the country and the political situation. As long as there is unity in the federal nation, there is no reason why the Mazzinian principle here is neglected.
Republican Democracy versus Liberal Democracy
As stated from the beginning, Mazzinians support democracy wherever it’s practiced and however it’s constituted. However, given the Mazzinian focus on civil participation with their more republican views on citizens, Mazzinians will prefer democratic systems that encourage citizens to actively engage in the political system as part of the democratic process. While this viewpoint does not diminish liberal democracy’s credentials as a democracy—since all the civil rights and institutions are present—but it does seen them as not acting to their highest democratic potential. This does not necessarily mean a change in the political system either, but simply that liberal democracy should encourage a passive citizenry to be more engaged.
When it comes to so-called illiberal democracy, Mazzinians are not immediately dismissive if civil liberties and an independent judiciary are respected. However, in practice, most of these illiberal democracies usually involve some suppression of full democratic practice and therefore Mazzinians are skeptical of them.
Problems of Elitism
Any theory of democracy needs to deal seriously with the challenges posed to it by elite theory. Thinkers such as Vilfredo Pareto, Robert Michels, and Joseph Schumpeter each question the feasibility of genuine democratic self-government in practice, each developing pessimistic arguments as to why it can never be achieved. That all political systems, regardless of their formal character, are inevitably governed by a small elite—the “iron law of oligarchy”—presents a difficult and realist case against democracy even being possible in the first place.
However, while the elitist critiques are powerful in explaining the sociological reasons why control of political institutions can never be truly popular, if one looks at democracy as mapping onto the organic pluralism of a society, elitism becomes a feature of the system, rather than a bug. Elitism might be inevitable due to social laws of nature, but what matters more is how it is constituted politically, rather than that it exists. In other words, while elites might inevitably control political power, parties and institutions, in providing for civil liberties and civic action, the democratic system can hold elites accountable in ways no other system has achieved.
This has an important implication for the relationship between democracy and elitism. It is worth recognizing that elitism can have many genuine benefits for a society and should not necessarily be an object to be destroyed but made productive. Elitism can provide for administrative competence and organizational efficiency that are essential for complex social and political tasks. It can help with economic and social progress which leads to leaps in prosperity and moral improvement. And it can give a society social stability and long-term vision. These are indispensable in the moral and material progress of a country. It’s also worth noting that elitism is rarely static, but is, in Pareto’s terms, a “circulation”, whereby old elites are replaced by new ones [35]. This means that, through the Mazzinian lens of progress, elites are not just a single cohort of people, but flexible and transformative throughout the history of a country: no ruling class is ever permanent.
Democracy—in the Mazzinian conception as process and as reflective of the organic pluralism of a society—cannot disregard elitism, but seeks to integrate it as a recognized division of labor. The democratic system transforms elitism from an authoritarian or technocratic rule of the few, into an essential cog in the democratic process. With civil liberties and civic action as respected and effective, democracy makes elitism work with the people (i.e. with the rest of non-elite society), rather than for themselves. Even Pareto, for all his skepticism, was ultimately unable to escape this conclusion. Despite his flirtations with authoritarian alternatives late in life, he came to regard democracy (or “pluto-democracy” as he referred to it), however flawed and however far short of genuine popular rule, as the least damaging system available, precisely because its pluralism kept the circulation of elites more open than any alternative [36].
The integration of elitism into the democratic system is also firmly represented in the Mazzinian tradition. Mazzini himself recognized the role of exceptional individuals for pushing the moral and material improvement of humanity forward, seeing democracy as “the progress of all through all under the leading of the best and wisest” [37]. He also envisioned a vast international “Supreme Council” composed of individuals who were “known for faith, virtue, energy, and proven constancy” [38]. This was his vision to replace the papacy with a syncretic and democratic organization that would act as spiritual and moral compass for the world. As a counterweight, Mazzini argued that universal suffrage was the vital link that connected this moral genius from above with its popular impulse from below [39]. Indeed, his anti-clericalism led to him to strongly condemn intellectual priesthoods and caste systems—which he saw as significant potential dangers in communism—and argued for strong democratic accountability.
In a similar, though less theoretical and more practical vein, Sun Yat-sen also integrated elitism into his democratic conception for China. His republican five-power constitution included the Examination Yuan as a branch of elitist power that managed the standards and qualifications for officials, whether appointed or elected [40]. Sun also controversially argued for a period of “political tutelage” post-revolution before the republic fully transitioned to democracy, where the elite revolutionary party would govern the nation, suppress counterrevolutionaries, and actively train the uneducated masses in how to exercise their democratic rights.
In short, Mazzinians do not ignore the reality of elitism as pointed out by the the elite theorists. However, rather than seeing it as a threat to democracy per se, the consider it as another part of the messy sociological reality that makes up a part of the organic pluralism of society. The democratic system they advocate therefore does not seek to abolish elitism, but instead to elevate it to its most accountable and productive.
Opposing Technocracy and Post-Democracy
Mazzinians oppose technocracy as the rule of the few over the rule of the people. Technocratic governments, while sometimes necessary in transition periods, are definitively undemocratic as they do not include the full citizenry in the decision-making process. Policy decisions are usually incontestable and inclusion is based on standards that are arbitrarily dictated by the technocratic elite. While educational competence and expertise are important, without the democratic process technocracy becomes tyrannical. Ironically, technocracy makes it harder to spot incompetence since procedures and decisions are not developed openly. Without democratic oversight, technocracy can quickly become corrupt and stagnant, leading to an entrenched regime that gets weighed down by its lack of opposition. Technocracy is ultimately the result of what happens when elitism is not subject to democratic systems.
Technocracy has become a concerning development of modern democracies, especially with the rise of intergovernmental organizations and international institutions. While many of these organizations are controlled by national governments and treaties, the reality is their position and culture has allowed for an elitism to go unchecked by genuinely effective democratic oversight. The distance between the ordinary citizen and these organizations—not just in terms of hierarchy, but also in expertise required—has put many technocrats out of the range of popular contestation and making them effectively undemocratic. As a consequence, a growing problem affecting modern democracies has been the advent of post-democracy [41], where international organizations, large multinational corporations, and financial institutions negotiate (often in secret) highly technical policy decisions beyond democratic contestability. As more power has drifted upwards toward larger institutions, the political effectiveness of democracy has diminished and, as a consequence, citizens have been placed in a position where they have little option but to accept decisions that—to all their knowledge—could be arbitrary.
The issue for technocracy for Mazzinians is not just the fact that it is undemocratic in disallowing individuals to participate properly in their own affairs. It is also that the technocratic elite inevitably look after their own interests, rather than advancing the moral and material improvement of the nation. This defeats the purpose of politics for the Mazzinian, and its the main reason why technocracy is incompatible with democratic thought.
Skepticism of Parties
Mazzinians regard political parties as necessary evils that, at their best, represent an ideological division of labor in a democratic system. If political parties are the forum for new ideas that can better improve the nation, they provide an important function in the democratic process, allowing for new social, economic, and international ideas to emerge naturally and come to power via a popular mandate. This allows for democratic investigation into which political ideas help in the country’s improvement, and which hinder.
On the other hand, political parties are often the source of disunity in a country by causing division by interests. The politics of a nation becomes not a clash of ideas for the best development of the nation, but a clash of interests, where the arguments are about the fair allocation of resources, with everyone lobbying for the biggest slice they can get. In reality, this is usually unavoidable. Especially in situations where politics is divided specifically along sectarian interests, the political system is designed to maintain that division peacefully; parties supporting interest groups are the main mechanism for making sure these groups are provided for. However, parties should represent ideas rather than interests, and while interests are inevitable in all practical terms, parties should express the ideological differences in a country as different ways of achieving national improvement, rather than sectarian interests.
In many democracies, there is a tendency to look at elections as the only opportunity for the citizens to participate at the detriment of other channels. Voting is usually seen as encouraged or compulsory since it is widely perceived as the only opportunity that an ordinary citizen gets to have their say. However, this also leads to tactical voting and pessimism that leads people to vote for the “least bad option”. Voters choose parties not based on the ideas they offer, but instead on power dynamics. While this logic has a genuine realism about it, this perception diminishes the full idea of democracy, reducing it to voting. That, once you vote, that’s your opinion done until the next election cycle. However, this is not the case, as one can continue to participate in politics even without voting, through exercising their civil liberties. In this sense, democratic abstentionism is a perfectly acceptable form of participation, as long as it is not apathetic and accompanied by sincere civic engagement through other means. This could be forming your own political party, advocacy, protest, and press engagement, all of which do not require voting. These channels are often obscured by party-dominated politics.
Lastly, in many parliamentary democracies, there are real risks of politics being monopolized by political parties. In these “partitocracies”, elected representatives hold a democracy hostage to parliamentary majorities and govern in their own interests. Since the ordinary citizen—who is not necessarily a member of a political party—cannot exercise any control over the way those parties are structured, the leader of a political party might well be an autocrat in that party, while still being voted on fairly and freely in national elections. Partitocracy also gives way to political corruption where parties seeking to form majorities make specific parliamentary deals that have nothing to do with the nation’s improvement, and solely for political power. In a fuller democratic system, democracy ought not to be confused with parliamentary sovereignty and should include civil channels, electoral laws, and a robust constitution to prevent these sorts of party abuses.
Supporting the Global Democracy Movement
Mazzinians place themselves firmly on the side of the global democracy movement, wherever it exists. While pro-democratic movements around the world can be an eclectic mix and disagree fiercely about how democracy ought to be consolidated, Mazzinians see the broader dedication of forwarding the democratic cause as vitally more important than policy and ideological differences. Mazzinians therefore firmly align themselves with all pro-democracy movements and seek to support them through solidarity, raising awareness and even active help.
Why Democracy Matters Today
The urgency to support democracy today is not just because it has been in serious decline over the last two decades, but also because it has become unfashionable. Democracy was once the watchword of many revolutionary and progressive movements across the world, but today it is usually tacked on as an afterthought. Equality, social justice and positive rights have become the more dominant concerns of these movements, and democracy has taken a backseat. In many circumstances, it is used cynically as a shibboleth against ideological opponents rather than expressed out of a sincere concern. In Western democracies especially, we seem only to be concerned about democracy when the “other side” threatens it, rather than out of principle.
Democratic backsliding has been the main political tragedy of the 21st century. Countries that have maintained democratic traditions—either stable or shaky—have been sliding into authoritarianism through one means or another: through the election of a so-called strongman leader who personalizes power, or through slow institutional capture, or through technocratic overreach. Countries who had been making progress for many years toward democracy have also had that progress torn up by coups or foreign pressure.
The modern assault on democracy has been down to a number of failures that democracy advocates tend to ignore. Defenders of democracy have been accustomed (particularly since the collapse of the Soviet Union) to see democracy as a historical inevitability and that, sooner or later without much action, democracy will be revealed to be the best solution, serving everyone’s interests. This view has quickly been proven to be naive. As Western democracies experience instability, corruption and ineffectiveness, the perception that democracy is actually the best system out there has lost all confidence. This erosion of democratic faith has fueled much of the apathy toward it, as frustration with political and economic stagnation has become closely associated with democratic practice. Alternatives to Western democracy—such as the Chinese Communist system—have become more attractive to developing countries, and present a solution for autocrats without the strings of free elections.
The decline of democratic faith in the West has been the most damaging, however. The West, once a place where democracy advocates could find allyship, is now mostly indifferent to democratic struggles of other peoples, unless it serves their political interests at home. In fact, in many of these places, the democracies that face constant existential threats are the ones who believe in their democratic values more than Westerners. The West’s declining engagement is understandable, however, given the ongoing turmoil within our these societies; naturally, the West has turned inward to think about what’s best for ourselves. This turn to purely Western interests, however, has resulted in abandoning our solidarity with other democratic movements many of whom are now having to face their threats alone.
It could be seen that, given these failures, that democracy is a lost cause as well as outdated. If progress means that we are constantly discovering new forms of political amelioration, then maybe democracy’s day is over, and it is now time for better, more effective systems. This might well be the case, but from the empirical experience of what these new systems are like, they do not represent that progress, but rather regress. All these “new” systems are merely “old” autocracies with their one-size-fits-all solutions to the problems of the day, monopolized by individual leaders for, ultimately, their and their clique’s own benefit. The anti-democratic trend has pushed us even further from the capacity for moral improvement and the individual’s role in their own future has become reduced.
For Mazzinians, democracy is not a lost cause. But to confront autocracy, we need to do more than argue for its material benefits and government effectiveness, especially since both are in question. It is not simply enough that we reaffirm democracy as a preferred political system. We must present a fresh democratic vision that brings the fight directly to autocrats. We cannot just rely on democracy being the balance of interests and elections, but we need to rearticulate democracy’s moral superiority in a way that makes it appealing. Duty to one’s fellow citizens, a respect for a nation’s organic pluralism, and promoting a view that the people are all effected negatively by an autocratic regime, can provide the moral goal needed for national unity, even before it ends up in the state.
Democracy as solidarity and love against governments of cynics and tyrants could turn the tide. This means that democrats need to stop winding up on the defensive and relying on global institutions and meek balances of interests to fight for democracy. We need to go on the offensive and oppose anti-democrats in the same way that they oppose us. We need to be actively engaged in promoting it and remember that, while the democratic fight might be different across different countries, we all form one principled front. In short, democracy needs a revival on principles, not just in practice.
International Democratic Opposition
Mazzinians consider themselves active members of the international democratic opposition. Democratic movements, while they differ in practical goals and ideological affiliation, are broadly united in their opposition to dictatorship, and therefore form a single opposition that Mazzinians place themselves firmly in the midst of. This opposition is truly internationalist, one which perceives democracy as a progressive goal for all countries, and supports it regardless of the country or the extent of progress achieved. A Western democrat, opposing corruption abuses in their mature democracy, will show equal solidarity with a democrat in a country with a repressive dictatorship, and vice versa. This is not to pretend that the seriousness of facing a threat to life and liberty is the same as a corruption scandal, but it is the case that an attack on democracy anywhere is to be considered an international problem.
Being part of the international democratic opposition, however, means supporting and raising awareness of causes that are struggling against tyranny. Especially in mature democracies, there is a responsibility to support and engage with democratic movements around the world who need our solidarity in their struggle. This means networking with dissidents, writing about abuses, raising awareness of democratic issues, across the wide range of democratic movements. This solidarity must be shown regardless of whether it is received back or not. Even if a democratic movement is entirely focused on their own struggle, it is still the Mazzinian’s role to continue to support them as best they can.
Mazzini’s own internationalism recognized that the world was not divided into sovereign states with interests, but a broader fight between free peoples on one side and autocrats on the other. He believed that we needed to form a single alliance of our different nationalities to oppose dictators wherever they might be. Writing specifically about the European democracy movement in 1850, he said:
“Europe is divided into two camps. On one flag is written: people, right, freedom of nation. On the other: monarchy, force, privilege, servitude. But on the latter it is also written: alliance of the princes. Our faith, logic, the need for common defense require that on the first flag we add: alliance of the peoples.” [42]
While we form a single, democratic camp, autocrats also form their own. They defend each other—even if they sell themselves as defending the national interest—because they are part of their own autocratic alliance. In order to properly defend ourselves and advance the democratic cause, we also need to do the same through our internationalism.
Democratic Peace Theory
Mazzinians ultimately believe in some form of the democratic peace theory. Though not without its problems, Mazzinians believe that the spread of democracy is also a step closer to achieving peace. Mazzini himself advocated democracy on this principle that, rather than going to war with one another, democracies could settle their differences through negotiation and diplomacy [43]. Democratic internationalism in this sense, as peoples working freely together, is the best way of settling conflicting interests.
However, where conventional liberal internationalism gets this question wrong is extending this peace through negotiation to despotic regimes. While outright war does not have to be the first course, peace with despotic regimes is undesirable and dangerous. As one of the consequences of including dictatorships into the standards of international law, we have handed despots valuable tools for undermining the democratic cause in their own countries and abroad. While it is not possible to rectify this mistake on an international level, it is possible for ordinary citizens to form these cross-border alliances themselves and support one another in their battles against tyranny.
On the same note, Mazzinians also strongly support democracies forming formal alliances with one another in order to counter dictatorships. Free multilateral treaties and coalition cooperation are useful weights against autocratic regimes and, since they are based on democratic principles, they share a natural fraternity that alliances between dictators simply can’t. Multilateralism can also aid in the imbalances created by the modern international order and offset the advantages dictatorships have accumulated.