Natural Law Liberalism and Democracy

In Chap. 4 I examine challenges to Modernity arising from the commitment to popular sovereignty. It has been taken as axiomatic that political legitimacy comes from the consent of the ruled, and this consent is won in open elections on the basis of a universal franchise and the principle of one person-one vote. This is consistent with the idea that the fundamental political right is the right of all citizens to participate in government either by voting or by standing in elections themselves. However, the on-going rise of populism forces a rethink. Natural law liberalism suggests that the fundamental political right is in fact the right to good governance, and that democratic processes must be evaluated in terms of their ability to secure and promote competent governance. It is argued that periodic elections are a sine qua non of competent governance, but our current electoral regimes amount to collective negligence. I suggest modifications to our electoral systems ranging from the modest to the more radical. These include what I call a ‘one license-one vote’ policy. I also advocate for the banning of all political parties. The idea is to preserve a form of popular sovereignty that ensures governments are held to account by the people while hedging against the damaging effects of populism.