Lisa Hill’s response to my critique of compulsory voting, like similar responses elsewhere,Footnote 1 remind me how much a child of the 1970s I am, and how far my beliefs and intuitions about politics have been shaped by the electoral conflicts, social movements and violence of that period.

But my perceptions of politics have also been profoundly shaped by my teachers, and fellow graduate students, at MIT. Theda Skocpol famously urged political scientists to ‘bring the state back in’ to their analyses,Footnote 2 and to recognize that political identities, interests and coalitions cannot be read off straightforwardly from people’s socio-economic positions. In their different ways, this was the lesson that Suzanne Berger, Charles Sabel and Joshua Cohen tried to teach us, emphasizing that political participation and conflict, themselves, can change people’s identities, their sense of what is desirable and possible, and their ability to make common cause with others.Footnote 3

I do not take it as self-evident, therefore, that the poor and seemingly powerless should be politically apathetic, unwilling to vote, or incapable of imagining a political solution to at least some of the problems confronting them. Nor do I suppose that non-voters are all of a piece, and that their shared interests are, inevitably, more significant than those that divide them. Such assumptions seem mistaken in the case of voters, and I see no reason why they should be true of non-voters. The people we find in these categories are not predestined to be in one rather than the other; they do not always stay where they start off; and at an individual level, the reasons why people fall into one group, rather than another, are likely to be complex and sometimes unpredictable.Footnote 4

Above all, I see nothing in a commitment to democratic government, understood realistically or in more idealistic terms, that requires us to treat raising turnout at national elections (once every four years or so) as of such moral or political importance that we should make it legally mandatory. Realistically, it is an open question how far the ballot box is the path to empowerment for most people – important though it is that they should have an equal right to vote and to stand as candidates at national elections. On a more idealistic view of democratic politics, it is hard to avoid the thought that the importance of national elections to self-government, posited by proponents of compulsory voting, reflects an alienated and alienating view of democracy, in which the choice of our leaders becomes more important than the development and exercise of our own capacities to lead; and in which our awe at the power our leaders might wield is matched only by our inability to imagine less intimidating, distant and centralized forms of politics.

But before saying a little more about these points, and their significance for compulsory voting, I would like to dispel some misunderstandings or misrepresentations of my views in Hill’s essay. I do not believe socio-economic disparities in turnout are not worrying for democratic politics; nor do I believe that abstention is generally synonymous with consent. I do not assume that people have a right not to vote, but try to explain why moral and legal rights to abstain are an important part of democratic politics, including electoral politics.

Inequalities in turnout are worrying, because they suggest a vicious cycle in which those who are doing least well in our societies are least likely to vote, and are therefore least likely to get favourable attention from politicians eager to get elected or re-elected. Moreover, as I explain (in a passage that Hill arbitrarily truncates), while we might be inclined to think that these disparities in turnout do not matter so much, age and education seem to be the most significant predictors of voting, rather than wealth or income directly,

So, I am not indifferent to problems of political inequality – whether manifested in disparities in electoral turnout or in other ways. However, what needs to be shown is why, of the many forms of inequality in our society, we should treat inequalities of turnout as so significant, or compulsory voting as so desirable, when what you can do with your vote depends fundamentally on the political choices you face, what other voters are doing and the scope for political action from legislators.

Put crudely, before forcing people to vote because you are worried about them, you need to show that doing so will make a difference to their lives. But is voting in national elections more likely to improve the lot of the marginalized than participation in local politics or, perhaps, participation in anti-poverty movements, union drives or in efforts to alter the behaviour of their local police, medical services, schools, churches or voluntary associations? Unless it is, why suppose that concern for their well-being requires them to vote, or requires other people to campaign in order to make abstention illegal? For myself, I simply cannot see how forcing persistent non-voters to vote will alter the entrenched inequalities of income and wealth in Britain until a majority of those who habitually vote can be persuaded that redistributive politics are a legitimate, not an illegitimate, political goal.

Nor am I indifferent to problems of ‘low turnout’, despite Hill’s claims to the contrary, although what counts as ‘low turnout’ is much more of a political matter than she is willing to acknowledge.Footnote 6 If 95 per cent turnout were to be our standard, the rates of turnout in post-war Britain that now strike us as exemplary might seem worryingly low. But it does not follow that this is how we should see them. Nor is it clear that the factors currently making for historically low levels of turnout in Britain are destined to stay that way, or to get worse unless we opt for compulsion. On the contrary, the huge dips in voting rates since the 1990s seem to reflect the collapse of the Conservatives as a successful opposition party until recently, and increasing voter disappointment, even disgust, with New Labour. So, whether 75 per cent electoral turnout is ‘high’ or ‘low’ is hardly straightforward; nor is it clear whether we should expect turnout in Britain to fall much further, or to fall for much longer in future.

Forcing people to vote would, of course, increase turnout. What it would not do is make Britain’s antiquated political and electoral system any more appealing either to voters or to non-voters. The evidence suggests that compulsory voting does not increase people’s interest or knowledge of politics; that it does not affect political outcomes; and the examples of Australia and Belgium hardly suggest that it does much for political equality or legitimacy.Footnote 7 Nor is that so surprising. Paradoxical as it may seem, forcing everybody to vote is an apolitical way of addressing the very real conflicts of interest, desire and power, which explain why so many people now find electoral and legislative politics alienating – even in countries whose political systems and egalitarian achievements social democrats in Britain often wish to emulate.Footnote 8

Hill’s belief that compulsory voting can be described as a ‘benign co-ordinating mechanism’ solving collective action problems ‘caused by informational uncertainty and maladaptive norms’ says it all.Footnote 9 On this picture, the reason why people do not vote is not that they cannot stand any of the political choices they face, do not believe that politicians will do – or can do – what they claim, and doubt that the choice of political party will fundamentally affect their lives. No – for Hill, the problem is simply that rational voters will only vote if they know that others will also vote. So, rather than trying to persuade other people to vote with you – literally, not just metaphorically – she supposes that we should engage in a form of collective self-binding, so that we force our political opponents to vote in order to make sure that our political allies do too.

I may be missing something, but as an analysis of the causes of political alienation, and of its solutions, this is bizarre. However, it illustrates, better than I ever could, a view of electoral democracy that assumes the death of constituency politics and of local parties; that treats voting as essentially an individual act, rather than a fundamentally social and, often sociable, one; and therefore takes it for granted that political passion, camaraderie and inventiveness cannot mobilize people – even if only to register a protest, show their defiance or to indicate a desire, even a hope, for something better. British politics does not look rosy, but such a despairing picture seems premature, and at odds with successful efforts to mobilize voters in France and the United States, and even in Britain. We may not like the politics of some of the groups involved – but the ability of people like Phyllis Schlafly or Jean-Marie Le Pen to mobilize the alienated, the uninterested and the ignored deserves our attention and qualified respect no less than the efforts of Howard Dean and Barack Obama, or of Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy.

I plead guilty, then, to the charge that I am uncertain about the importance of national elections to social democratic politics, both from a realistic and from an idealistic perspective. Realistically, I am keen for people to vote for social democratic parties or their nearest equivalent, but I am sceptical that electoral politics can do much in the absence of efforts to promote social democracy at work, in the administration of justice, welfare, health care, security or, indeed, in the family and in the international arena. So, how important electoral politics is relative to other forms of democratic politics – social movements, unions, pressure groups, non-governmental organizations, or more or less experimental and informal efforts to change our experiences of the arts, of education, of sport and so on – strikes me as an open, and partly empirical, question.Footnote 10

Uncertainty about the importance of electoral politics is reasonable and quite consistent with democratic commitments to treating people as free, equal and reasonable. It is quite unlike uncertainty about whether honour killing is wrong (or the conviction that it is right), though Hill claims to see no difference between them.Footnote 11 The London Review of Books recently had a lengthy review by Jacqueline Rose on the subject of honour killings and women’s efforts to publicize the nature and extent of the evil, and to hold both its perpetrators and complacent religious and civil authorities to account for their actions and inactions.Footnote 12 But it should take no great knowledge to see that honour killings are inconsistent with a democratic view of the rights and status of women, and with democratic forms of freedom and equality (such as freedom of association between the sexes and across religions and nationalities). So, while democratic states are certainly justified in condemning honour killings, we still need to know why we should make the failure to vote illegal and punishable by law.Footnote 13

But what troubles me about arguments for compulsory voting is not just their interpretation of political reality (though I appreciate Hill’s recognition that non-voters cannot be understood as free-riders, with its implication that racist voters are morally superior to alienated non-voters), but their view of the desirable or ideal. I cannot understand what is so desirable about high electoral turnout, however defined, or even equal turnout, whether with high or low turnout, if people are contemptuous of their leaders, uninterested in politics, naïve or unsophisticated in their views, or manipulated by the latest tabloid campaign or media ‘scare’. If the point of democratic government, as I suppose, is to reflect people’s interests in self-government, then the quality of political participation is at least as important as its quantity, and the importance of the latter probably derives from the significance of the former.Footnote 14

Above all, the reasons to consider Schumpeter’s ‘elitist’ model of politics an inadequate view of democracy strike me as reasons to lament a conception of politics that fixes our attention on rates of turnout in the choice of leaders, but shows no interest in the ability of ordinary people to become political leaders themselves. After all, in Britain at least, the precipitous decline in voting rates since the 1990s parallels the near collapse of routes for working-class people to gain entry into national politics, let alone to attain positions of leadership and public responsibility in their parties.

Democracy is not simply about electing leaders. It is also about the ability of ordinary people to become leaders, and to hold positions of power and responsibility in their society. Perhaps if we took this aspect of democracy more seriously, we could improve contemporary political theory and practice, and make both more appealing and accessible in the process.Footnote ¹⁵