Local Government and Democracy—A Rejoinder
| Date | 01 December 1953 |
| Published date | 01 December 1953 |
| Author | Keith Panter‐Brick |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1953.tb01708.x |
Local Government
and
Democracy-
A
Rejoinder
By KEITH PANTER-BRICK
Mr.
Panter-Brick of the London School
of
Economics and Political Science
replies to Professor Langrod’s recent article.
N
his paper
“
Local Government and Democracy,” read at a meeting
of
I
the International Political Science Association at The Hague last summer
and subsequently published
in
this
Journal
(Spring,
1953),
Professor Langrod
questions certain common assumptions about local government. He denies
that local government is necessarily part of a democratic system of government,
and he denies also that local government is an essential element in the political
education of the electorate.
It
is acknowledged by Professor Langrod that
local government and democracy have gone hand in hand in the past, indeed
that local government played an important part
in
the creation of a democratic
climate of opinion in various countries, but
it
is contested that there is any
other connection than this one of historical association. Today local govern-
ment and democracy can no longer be said to be inevitably interdependent.
Professor Langrod goes further. He raises the question whether there
is
not an essential contradiction between the two.
To
be jolted into questioning one’s beliefs about local government is
certainly salutary, even if as a result they are only reaffirmed in one’s mind.
Moreover, if that be the result, then to have had attention drawn to practices
which cast doubt upon one’s assumptions should be a stir to action. Professor
Langrod’s remarks merit then careful attention.
He
is
led to question the alleged necessary dependence of democracy
upon a system of local government, first by certain factual considerations.
These are that local government may in fact function
in
an undemocratic
manner, even in a state that is as a whole democratic. Further, Professor
Langrod reflects that local government is after all only a technical adminis-
trative arrangement. What is important for democracy is a democratic
climate of opinion, and democracy may prevail even though certain institutions
have in themselves non-democratic features. A centralised administrative
system for instance may be the instrument of democratic government.
Having thus questioned whether in fact democracy and local government
are to be found
in
a necessary relationship, Professor Langrod turns to
a
consideration of the nature of local government and of democracy. He then
ventures to ask whether they have not come to be contradictory.
Democracy is by definition an egalitarian, majority and unitarian
system.
It
tends everywhere and at all times to create a social whole,
a community which is uniform, levelled, and subject to rules.
It
avoids
any splitting up of the governing (and at the same time governed) body,
any atomisation, any appearance of intermediaries between the
whole
and the individual.
It
puts the latter face to face with the complete
whole, directly and singly.
On
the other hand, local government is,
by definition, a phenomenon of differentiation, of individualisation,
of
344
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