We the “People”
As one of the primary document in the study of modern day democracies, the American constitution starts with three simple words, “We the People”. Kelsen and Schumpeter both share this ideology of democracy being a government of the people in their theory of democracy, yet at the same time, we can see distinct differences on their definitions and the exact functions of the “people” in a democratic government.
Kelsen recognizes early on in his theory that the concept of the people has two sides, the ideal and the realistic. Just like his argument on freedom, he provides to us first his take on the ideal view of the people. He states that “democracy, according to its idea, is a form of state or society in which the will of the community, or, speaking nonmetaphorically, the social order is created by those subject to it: by the people” (Kelsen 89). He proposes that idealistically speaking, a democracy is a society in which the people provide the will of the community, yet this is only an ideal. The condition for this to be true as stated by Kelsen is “. . . that a multitude of human beings becomes a unity in it” (Kelsen 90). Such is a condition that can’t be achieved in a realistic sense for as Kelsen points out that people are “split by national, religious, and economic conflicts . . .” (Kelsen 90). The term “people” can only be defined by Kelsen as “. . . a bundle of groups than a coherent mass of one and the same aggregate state” (Kelsen 90). However this definition contains some limitation, the fundamental problem with the term “people”, for “democratic ideologues themselves often do not realize what gaps they are concealing when they identify the ‘people’ in the one sense with the ‘people’ in the other” (Kelsen 91). In a political sense, the term “people” has barriers such as age, sex, and citizenship. Kelsen argues here for universal suffrage or at least one that does not bar those based on sex and citizenship. From this point, he praises...