Rational Democratic Consensus within a Rawlsian Framework

This argument works within the conceptual framework established in Political Liberalism. It adopts (a) Rawls’s definitions, including his basic distinction between the grounds of rational and reasonable evaluation and his minimal account of the modus vivendi as a self-interested democratic consensus, and (b) his values: just, stable political institutions and habits of cooperative citizenship (Rawls, 47–48). It demonstrates the validity of the democratic modus vivendi according to this rubric of values and, in turn, demonstrates that the rational can express properties that Rawls reserves to the reasonable.

Theoretical work has been done to investigate cooperation motivated by rational calculation (e.g., Elster Reference Elster, Kolm and Ythier2006; Gauthier Reference Gauthier1986), interrogate the distinction between rational and reasonable (Elster Reference Elster2009), and develop a democratic framework in which citizens’ participation is motivated by rational calculation rather than adherence to liberal principles (Ober Reference Ober2017). However, these accounts do not work within the Rawlsian framework to assess Rawls’s own schema of rational and reasonable or evaluate the characterization of rational democratic consensus he builds on this basis.

Rawls’s account of democratic consensus has drawn much direct criticism, and theories of modus vivendi have a number of proponents. Modus vivendi accounts can be categorized into (1) critiques of the overlapping consensus, (2) accounts that ascribe normative content to the modus vivendi but expand its grounds of consensus beyond self-interest, and (3) practical arguments that self-interest can secure stable democratic institutions. Of these, none comprehensively addresses Rawls’s positive claims about the features of a rational democratic consensus or, in turn, reflects more broadly on Rawls’s account of political reasoning.

Rawls’s ideal of the overlapping consensus has inspired many critiques.Footnote ⁴ Accordingly, many modus vivendi accounts are framed in this light, critiquing Rawls’s ideal by presenting the modus vivendi as a preferable object of study. Dauenhauer (Reference Dauenhauer, Davion and Wolf2000) presents “A Good Word for a Modus Vivendi” to diagnose the instability of the overlapping consensus. Gray (Reference Gray2000) and McCabe (Reference McCabe2010) argue that the overlapping consensus cannot sufficiently accommodate value-pluralism and conclude that the modus vivendi offers a preferable focus for liberal theory. Realist scholarship promotes the modus vivendi as a rejection of the “liberal moralist” tradition associated with Rawls (Galston Reference Galston2010; Horton Reference Horton2010; Williams Reference Williams and Hawthorn2005). They present the modus vivendi as an alternative to the Rawlsian framework rather than engaging with his particular concerns about rational democratic consensus.

Numerous accounts highlight the modus vivendi’s normative content, articulating the values that theories of modus vivendi might pursue. Modus vivendi liberalism (Gray Reference Gray2000; McCabe Reference McCabe2010) presents the modus vivendi as an avenue toward the liberal value of pluralism. Other modus vivendi theorists promote values like peace (Wendt Reference Wendt, Horton, Westphal and Willems2019) or political acceptability (Wall Reference Wall, Horton, Westphal and Willems2019), presenting these as distinct from Rawls’s core values but complementary to liberal ends (see also, Sala Reference Sala, Horton, Westphal and Willems2019). Realist accounts of the modus vivendi pursue values external to the liberal project, such as managing political conflict (Horton Reference Horton and Mookherjee2011) or securing political survival (Fossen Reference Fossen, Horton, Westphal and Willems2019). However, these proponents of the modus vivendi relax Rawls’s definition of its grounds: rather than assuming a narrow foundation in self-interest, they broaden its basis to encompass a wide array of motivations, including culture, norms, and personal values, in addition to interest.Footnote ⁵ Because they modify this defining feature of Rawls’s modus vivendi, these accounts cannot address his concerns about democratic consensus founded solely in self-interest or his underlying account of rationality.

Finally, few accounts address Rawls’s claim that self-interested democratic consensus is unstable under a changing distribution of power. Hershovitz (Reference Hershovitz, Davion and Wolf2000) most directly evaluates this assertion: using historical example and formal intuitions, he argues that well-designed political institutions establish sufficient incentives to sustain rational democratic equilibrium. Arnsperger and Picavet (Reference Arnsperger and Picavet2004) argue in similar vein. However, these accounts do not address Rawls’s concern that the rational citizens participating in this consensus fail to make choices and take actions that he considers “reasonable.” Arnsperger and Picavet (Reference Arnsperger and Picavet2004) locate the self-interested democratic equilibrium outside the Rawlsian framework, whereas Hershovitz (Reference Hershovitz, Davion and Wolf2000) ultimately dismisses Rawls’s concern about reasonableness, as he concludes that it is unnecessary for democratic stability.

This paper uses formal accounts of self-enforcing democracy to show that the democratic modus vivendi can achieve robust stability under a changing distribution of power and that rational citizens uphold this equilibrium by expressing cooperative qualities that Rawls reserves to the reasonable. In doing so, it evaluates Rawls’s typology of political reasoning, revising his account of rationality to reflect its capacity to share these properties with the reasonable.

The argument proceeds as follows: the next section rehearses Rawls’s account of political reasoning and democratic consensus. The following outlines the formal literature on self-enforcing democracy. The subsequent three sections argue that (a) the stability of the democratic modus vivendi is robust to a changing distribution of political power, (b) rational democratic equilibrium entails consensus on demanding habits of cooperative citizenship, and (c) rational evaluation can reliably prioritize polity-regarding considerations and moderate the pursuit of narrowly self-regarding ends. To conclude, I reflect on this argument’s implications for Rawls’s account of political reasoning and democratic consensus and outline avenues for further theoretical investigation of rationally motivated democratic cooperation.

Political Reasoning: The Reasonable and the Rational

Rawls asserts that organized political cooperation pursues two distinct values: (1) fairness, or the coherence of the political framework with a political conception of justice, and (2) the promotion of citizens’ rational advantage (Rawls, 16). Given these founding values, Rawls identifies two structural components of political cooperation: (1) terms of cooperation that establish “publicly recognized rules and procedures” and (2) citizens’ widespread voluntary acquiescence to those institutions (Rawls, 16; see also, 38). Rawls assesses political institutions by their ability to promote both rational advantage and fairness and considers the fulfillment of this condition “implicit in the public culture of a democratic society” (Rawls, 15). Therefore, a democratic agreement satisfies his institutional ideal for organized political cooperation.

Using the same values of fairness and rational advantage, Rawls prescribes a basis for citizens’ voluntary acquiescence. He specifies two modes of political reasoning that citizens might employ: the “reasonable” by which citizens evaluate political fairness and the “rational” by which citizens evaluate the private advantage they gain from cooperation (Rawls, 48–54). These two modes are primarily distinguished by their grounds: the reasonable derives from moral principles of political justice (Rawls, 52, 147), the rational from private calculations of interest (Rawls, 50). Given this grounding distinction, Rawls assigns distinctive properties to each mode of reasoning and draws implications for how they function in a political context. I outline three central distinctions below.

First, Rawls ascribes distinct priorities to each mode of reasoning. The reasonable prioritizes the other-regarding concern that “each [citizen] benefits along with others,” whereas the rational promotes self-regarding ends—the rational agent “seek[s] ends and interests peculiarly its own” (Rawls, 50).Footnote ⁶ In a political context, then, the reasonable places a high priority on other-regarding ends, extending this regard to all polity members. By contrast, the rational places overriding priority on narrowly self-regarding ends: rational agents form factions, “each of which has its own fundamental interest distinct from and opposed to the interests of the other groups” (Rawls Reference Rawls1999, 150).

Second, Rawls asserts that reasonable other-regard tempers rational self-regard, resulting in self-moderation. That is, citizens balance self- and other-regarding priorities by exercising these “distinct and independent” modes of reasoning in conjunction (Rawls, 51–52; see also, Rawls, 54). By employing both modes of political reasoning, citizens rationally pursue private ends, but “their rational conduct” is “constrained by their sense of what is reasonable,” ensuring they attend to the effects of their actions on others (Rawls Reference Rawls1999, 25; see also, Rawls Reference Rawls and Kelly2001, 82). Absent the reasonable, however, the rational lacks this capacity for reliable self-moderation (Rawls, 147–148; Rawls Reference Rawls1999, 150).

Third, Rawls distinguishes the rational and the reasonable by the quality of the cooperative behavior each motivates. Rawls asserts that the reasonable promotes longstanding engagement in a collection of cooperative political behaviors that he labels “political virtues” or “virtues of political cooperation” (respectively, Rawls, 194, 157). These encompass an array of cooperative practices and attitudes including “tolerance[,] … being ready to meet others halfway[,] … reasonableness[,] and the sense of fairness” (Rawls, 157). These cooperative virtues express the reasonable orientation toward other-regard and self-moderation: reasonable agents exercise other-regard by attending to the interests of their peers, “tak[ing] into account the consequences of their actions on others’ well-being” (Rawls, 49 n. 1); they exercise self-moderation by “act[ing] on [fair] terms, even at the cost of their own interests in particular situations,” tempering their pursuit of private ends to ensure that political cooperation adequately benefits their co-citizens (Rawls, xlii).

Rawls describes the reasonable commitment to the cooperative virtues as indicative of an enduring and general regard for all polity members. He attributes these qualities of reasonable cooperation to its principled foundation: the reasonable motivates an enduring commitment to the cooperative virtues because it derives from stable principles (Rawls, 148); this cooperative orientation generalizes to all polity members because it derives from principles that acknowledge others’ moral personhood and therefore “recognize the independent validity of the claims of others” (Rawls, 52).

By contrast, Rawls does not believe the rational capable of motivating cooperative behaviors functionally equivalent to these cooperative virtues. Rawls acknowledges that the rational agent’s private sense of the good is not confined to her own well-being (Rawls, 50–51). Given her “special loyalties or attachments,” she may act to further the interests of her affiliates, perhaps even by prioritizing their well-being over her own (Rawls, 52 n. 6). However, this cooperative behavior is limited: whereas the cooperative virtues of the reasonable are enduring and reflect a general regard for others, rational cooperation is mutable and particularistic. Mutable, as the rational agent might cease cooperation if she reprioritizes her interests and other ends provide greater benefit (Rawls, 50); particularistic, as rational other-regard derives from special private attachments rather than a general attentiveness to the well-being of her co-citizens (Rawls, 52 n. 6).

Characterizing Consensus: Modus Vivendi as Foil

Rawls identifies two primary forms of democratic consensus, differentiated by the reasoning that motivates citizens’ voluntary consent: (1) the democratic modus vivendi in which citizens exercise only the rational, evaluating the regime by its capacity to promote their interests, and (2) the overlapping consensus in which citizens consent on the principled basis of the reasonable.Footnote ⁷ Rawls claims that this difference in foundational reasoning creates three central distinctions between the resulting agreements (Rawls, 147–148). Each reflects a criticism of the democratic modus vivendi while casting the overlapping consensus in an ideal light.

The defining distinction between the overlapping consensus and the democratic modus vivendi lies in the grounds of citizens’ consensus. Whereas reasonable citizens ground their consent in shared principles of political justice, rational citizens ground their consent in interest-maximizing calculation. By Rawls’s definition of rationality, the democratic modus vivendi derives from a mode of reasoning that does not reliably prioritize polity-regarding considerations or moderate the pursuit of self-regarding ends. Accordingly, Rawls describes this rational basis for democratic consensus as a “fortunate convergence of interests,” a product of “happenstance” rather than meaningful human decision making (respectively, Rawls, 147, 148).

Rawls’s second critique of the democratic modus vivendi lies in the object of democratic consensus. Reasonable citizens consent not only to the terms of a democratic agreement but also to the shared conception of justice underlying that agreement. By contrast, Rawls asserts, rational citizens consent only to the institutional features of the democratic order: theirs is “merely a consensus on accepting certain authorities, or on complying with certain institutional arrangements” (Rawls, 147).

Finally, Rawls’s claim about the robustness of democratic stability follows from the two preceding distinctions. Rawls believes that gains in political power corrode rational agents’ incentives to uphold the democratic agreement. Therefore, Rawls concludes, “stability with respect to the distribution of power is lacking” in the democratic modus vivendi (Rawls, 148). By contrast, within the overlapping consensus, citizens are morally committed to fair cooperation. As such, shifting interests do not affect their commitment to democratic cooperation.

Evolution of Consensus: Modus Vivendi as Foundation

Finally, Rawls presents his overlapping consensus as a “realistic” ideal rather than a “utopian” vision (respectively, Rawls, 66, 158). He demonstrates its feasibility by describing the mechanism by which it might occur in practice (Rawls, 158–168). The democratic modus vivendi plays a foundational role in this process: the democratic framework is initially established as a modus vivendi, but it evolves into an overlapping consensus over time.

This transformation can occur because both forms of democratic consensus fulfill Rawls’s institutional ideal of fair terms of cooperation—they simply differ in the reasoning that motivates citizens’ consent. Thus, the democratic modus vivendi evolves toward an overlapping consensus as this grounding reasoning evolves from a rational mode to a reasonable one. Rawls credits democratic institutions with catalyzing this transformation of citizens’ reasoning (Rawls, 163, 142–143). He concludes that an overlapping consensus can occur if democratic institutions established as a modus vivendi function “effectively and successfully for a sustained period of time,” persisting long enough to introduce elements of the reasonable into citizens’ political thought and behavior (Rawls, 163; see also, xli). This section rehearses Rawls’s account of this process.

Citizens initially establish democratic institutions as a modus vivendi, calculating that democracy presents an interest-maximizing alternative to civil conflict (Rawls, 158–159). By establishing fair terms of cooperation, rational citizens implicitly “endorse an institutional structure satisfying a liberal political conception of justice” (Rawls, xxxviii). However, unlike reasonable actors, they do not accept fair terms because of the conception of justice they entail. Instead, each rational citizen is “ready to pursue their goals at the expense of the other, and should conditions change they may do so” (Rawls, 147).

To shift the modus vivendi towards an overlapping consensus, citizens must choose to express reasonable attitudes and behaviors. However, citizens only have reason to express the reasonable if they expect their peers follow suit:

Each citizen’s decision rests on her expectations about the corresponding choices and behavior of her peers. As such, Rawls concludes, the prevailing rationality of the modus vivendi hinders expression of the reasonable: citizens know their peers to be motivated by interest rather than principle and therefore cannot rely on them to uphold the democratic agreement. Without these assurances, citizens lack motivation to express the reasonable.

Thus, the transformation toward an overlapping consensus hinges on the question of how these interdependent expectations and choices of reasonable behavior might be encouraged. Rawls claims that democratic institutions—if they are well-established, functional, and reliable—provide this catalyzing force:

By encouraging citizens to practice the cooperative virtues, effective democratic institutions introduce elements of the reasonable within the rational equilibrium of the modus vivendi. Further, well-established democratic institutions spark citizens’ expectation of mutual reasonableness because “if other persons with evident intention do their part, people tend to develop trust in them” (Rawls, 163). By practicing cooperative behaviors, citizens assure others of their willingness to “do their part.”

Therefore, Rawls claims, functional democratic institutions catalyze the widespread expression of the reasonable: by eliciting expression of the cooperative virtues, they induce a virtuous cycle in which citizens reciprocate and reinforce each other’s reasonable orientation. Over time, citizens’ embrace of the reasonable expands to include a commitment to shared principles of justice (Rawls, 158–168). Thus, effective and successful democratic institutions—established as a modus vivendi—precede and produce the reasonable political culture that brings about the overlapping consensus.

Self-Enforcing Democracy within a Rawlsian Framework

This argument works within Rawls’s framework of assumptions and values. Here, I reiterate four central features of this framework. First, citizens consent to the democratic modus vivendi on a solely prudential basis. Other motivations for democratic participation—for instance, shared principles, norms, or traditions—do not feature in this form of democratic consensus. Formal accounts of self-enforcing democracy share this minimal assumption of self-interested democratic consensus.

Second, the democratic modus vivendi and the overlapping consensus are differentiated by the reasoning that motivates citizens’ participation: the former derives from self-interest, the latter, shared principles. By challenging Rawls’s critiques of the modus vivendi, I do not suggest that it is equivalent to the overlapping consensus: this fundamental distinction in citizens’ motivation remains.

Third, the overlapping consensus represents Rawls’s ideal democratic equilibrium. I do not contest Rawls’s characterization of this ideal or claim that the modus vivendi is preferable to it. I simply evaluate Rawls’s critiques of the democratic modus vivendi, as enumerated above. My primary intent is to show that the rational democratic equilibrium entails self-moderating, other-regarding, and cooperative features that Rawls reserves to the reasonable and to argue that Rawls’s account of the rational should be revised to reflect this.

Finally, the democratic modus vivendi provides an institutional foundation for the overlapping consensus: the evolution from modus vivendi to overlapping consensus occurs within a fixed institutional framework and simply reflects a transformation of citizens’ motivations for consent. Further, this transformation can only occur if the democratic institutional framework “work[s] effectively and successfully for a sustained period of time” as a modus vivendi (Rawls, 163). Given this assertion of functionally equivalent and effective democratic institutions, I assume that the democratic modus vivendi, like the overlapping consensus, entails consolidated democratic institutions—institutions in equilibrium (Diamond Reference Diamond1999; Linz and Stepan Reference Linz and Stepan1996; Schedler Reference Schedler1998). The next subsection outlines the defining features of a rational democratic equilibrium.Footnote ⁹

Defining Self-Enforcing Democracy

This section defines self-enforcing democracy. Subsequent sections evaluate Rawls’s account of self-interested democratic consensus by comparison with the formal accounts rehearsed here.

A self-enforcing agreement has three basic components: (a) the agreement is in equilibrium, or stable; (b) the agreement’s stability derives from the voluntary compliance of its participants—the self-enforcing nature of the agreement implies that no power external to the agreement is authorized to enforce it; and finally, (c) participants’ voluntary compliance is motivated by calculations of private advantage (Telser Reference Telser1980, 27). A pact is self-enforcing only if “participants all perceive that they are better off under the pact than under the status quo” (Weingast Reference Weingast1997a, 258; see also Przeworski Reference Przeworski, Weingast and Wittman2006, 312). Thus, a central concern in the study of self-enforcing agreements is to identify the structure of incentives that motivates participants’ voluntary cooperation, rendering the agreement stable (Mittal and Weingast Reference Mittal and Weingast2013, 279).

A stable democratic pact is one form of self-enforcing agreement (Fearon Reference Fearon2011, 1661–1662; Przeworski Reference Przeworski, Weingast and Wittman2006, 312; Weingast Reference Weingast, Morris, Oppenheimer and Soltan2004, 173). In addition to the general mechanism of self-enforcement described above, the democratic agreement has particular institutional features. First, the pact establishes a governing apparatus authorized to enforce the terms of cooperation and constrain citizens’ behavior. By accepting the pact, democratic citizens accept the coercive power it institutionalizes. Thus, the pact formalizes a power hierarchy within the polity: once the pact is established, citizens differ in their proximity to governing power, exerting varying degrees of control over the implementation and enforcement of the terms of cooperation. As such, participants in the democratic agreement can be differentiated, at any given time, into groups that are defined by their relative proximity to governing power. Accounts of self-enforcing democracy schematically model this power differential by dividing the democratic polity into two discrete groups on this basis: (a) a group “in power”—the parties and organizations that occupy or influence the government apparatus at a given time t—and (b) a group “out of power”—those with diminished access to governing power at time t (Przeworski Reference Przeworski1991, 18–19; Reference Przeworski, Weingast and Wittman2006, 312).Footnote ¹⁰ Finally, the sharing and transfer of power among citizens is a defining feature of democratic governance: citizens’ relative proximity to power changes over time, given standard practices of democratic politics (Przeworski Reference Przeworski1991, 10–14).

Given these features, a stable democratic pact must satisfy the conditions of a self-enforcing agreement: knowing that the pact institutes these structures of shared power and governance, citizens must have sufficient incentives to endorse and uphold it over time. Of particular concern is the ongoing voluntary compliance of the groups defined by their relative proximity to power: democratic stability requires that, at any given time, “those in power adhere to the constitutional rules … they obey election results and eschew transgressing the rights of their opponents,” while also “no significant group of citizens or parties out of power is willing to attempt to subvert power or secede” (Mittal and Weingast Reference Mittal and Weingast2013, 282, emphasis added). Self-enforcing democracy implies that citizens throughout the power hierarchy have sufficient incentives to voluntarily comply with the terms of the agreement.

Mittal and Weingast (Reference Mittal and Weingast2013, 285–286) outline four conditions necessary to establish these incentives, securing citizens’ ongoing voluntary compliance:

1. 1. Rules and Limits: The democratic agreement must institute “structure and process—citizens’ rights and a set of rules governing public decision making,” establishing “a series of limits on the state” (Mittal and Weingast Reference Mittal and Weingast2013, 285).

2. 2. Private Advantage: Citizens must consider participation advantageous to their long-term interests; they believe themselves “better off under the pact than without it” (Mittal and Weingast Reference Mittal and Weingast2013, 285).

3. 3. Pact-Defending Behavior: Citizens must act to uphold the pact and dissuade their co-citizens from transgressing it: “the parties to the pact must be willing to defend the pact against transgressions by political leaders … they defend not only the parts of the pact benefitting themselves but also the parts benefitting others” (Mittal and Weingast Reference Mittal and Weingast2013, 286, emphasis added; see also, Przeworski Reference Przeworski1991, 25–26).

4. 4. Coordination: Citizens coordinate in choosing to uphold the agreement (Mittal and Weingast Reference Mittal and Weingast2013, 285). Each has incentives to uphold the pact only if she expects her co-citizens to follow suit. When these coordinated expectations are in place, citizens have reason to practice pact-upholding behavior—including “defend[ing] … the parts benefitting others”—because, reciprocally, “each party anticipates that its rights will be defended by others” (Mittal and Weingast Reference Mittal and Weingast2013, 286).

This framework of incentives is necessary to secure the long-term advantage of democratic participants and render the agreement self-enforcing.

Finally, I reiterate that a self-enforcing democracy is an agreement in equilibrium. Its citizens consider democratic participation more advantageous than reneging, and they calculate that this is true in expectation: “in equilibrium, each party has definite expectations as to what it will receive now and in the future; it attaches a fixed value to future life under democracy” (Przeworski Reference Przeworski2005, 269). When citizens evaluate their expected long-term advantage under the pact, this calculation considers the features of democratic participation outlined above: the structures of governance and hierarchy, the sharing of power, the need for coordinated cooperation, and so on. If citizens conclude that the pact serves their long-term advantage, they have incentives to accept short-term losses incurred through normal democratic competition because, on balance, they expect to benefit from ongoing democratic participation (Przeworski Reference Przeworski1991, 19).

Destabilization of Rational Democratic Consensus

Finally, I outline the mechanism by which a rational democratic equilibrium might be destabilized, and I highlight a key difference between this outline and Rawls’s account of the process. Within a self-enforcing democracy, rational citizens expect their lifetime advantage to be better served under the democratic pact than otherwise. Unforeseen circumstances can, however, trigger changes to this calculation of expected long-term value. These changes to the value of democratic participation can be catalyzed by “endogenous processes, exogenous shocks, and combinations of both” (Greif and Laitin Reference Greif and Laitin2004, 639).Footnote ¹¹ If such circumstances “alter payoffs so that citizens no longer have incentives to cooperate,” this decrease in the expected value of democratic participation threatens pact stability: under these conditions, the expected long-term value of undermining the pact rivals that of upholding it (Mittal and Weingast Reference Mittal and Weingast2013, 286).

However, unexpected changes of circumstance do not directly dictate the value that rational individuals place on democratic participation, nor, therefore, do they directly dictate the stability or instability of democratic institutions. Rather, citizens calculate how unexpected change shapes their interests and behavior based, in large part, on how they expect their peers to respond. This is because citizens cannot unilaterally transgress the pact. Przeworski (Reference Przeworski1991, 28) observes that “isolated individuals do not shake social orders … only organized political forces have the capacity to undermine the democratic system.” Like stability, instability results from coordinated action. If stability reflects a coordinated effort to uphold democracy, instability reflects a coordinated effort to undermine it.

Thus, if enough citizens lack incentives to continue cooperating under unforeseen circumstances, they might constitute an “organized political force” capable of threatening democratic stability. If, however, enough citizens prefer to continue coordinating around pact-upholding cooperation, they can discourage such attempts to renege.Footnote ¹² Democratic equilibrium can weather unforeseen circumstances if citizens coordinate around pact-upholding behavior. However, as Rawls observes of the coordination required to secure an overlapping consensus, “[while] that is the hope; there can be no guarantee” (Rawls, 65).Footnote ¹³

Within Rawls’s account, the stability of the modus vivendi depends entirely on chance conditions: he describes its stability as simply “contingent on circumstances remaining such as not to upset the fortunate convergence of interests” (Rawls, 147; see also, xli). By contrast, accounts of self-enforcing democracy show that unexpected circumstances influence rational individuals’ calculation of their long-term interest in democratic participation but do not represent the whole of this calculation. Rather, because citizens must coordinate their political action with their peers, much of this calculation rests on their interdependent choices, expectations, and behavior.

Argument Overview

By describing the democratic modus vivendi as a rational democratic consensus that “work[s] effectively and successfully for a sustained period of time,” Rawls describes a democratic agreement in equilibrium (Rawls, 163). The remainder of the paper evaluates Rawls’s characterization of rational democratic equilibrium by comparison with that developed in formal accounts of self-enforcing democracy. Through this comparison, I assess Rawls’s positive assertions about the robustness, object, and grounds of rational democratic equilibrium.

Drawing on the definition of self-enforcing democracy, I demonstrate that (a) the stability of a rational democratic consensus can withstand variation in the distribution of political power; (b) the object of consensus is not limited to democratic institutions; it also comprises cooperative behavior functionally equivalent to Rawls’s reasonable “cooperative virtues”; and (c) although self-interest serves as the grounds of consensus, there are various modes by which interest can be pursued; rational democratic equilibrium is grounded in a mode of rationality that is, like the reasonable, reliably other-regarding and self-moderating.

Self-Enforcing Agreements and Their Participants

I begin by contrasting the conditions required for democratic stability with those entailed in a treaty. Like the self-enforcing democracy, a treaty is a form of self-enforcing agreement: stability depends on the voluntary compliance of the agreement’s participants, as no power external to the agreement is authorized to enforce it (Telser Reference Telser1980, 27). Therefore, both forms of agreement are stable so long as “all politically significant groups” participating in the agreement choose to comply with the pact rather than undermine it (Burton, Gunther, and Higley Reference Burton, Gunther, Higley, Higley and Gunther1992, 3). Voluntary compliance, in turn, is motivated by calculations of private advantage; pacts are self-enforcing only if “participants all perceive that they are better off under the pact than under the status quo” (Weingast Reference Weingast1997a, 258).

However, although treaty and democracy are both self-enforcing agreements, they establish distinct institutions. The relationship between sovereign states remains anarchic under a treaty: states do not create governing institutions authorized to enforce compliance with the agreement. By contrast, the relationship among citizens becomes hierarchical under the democratic agreement: democratic institutions establish a government of citizens with enforcing power (Waltz Reference Waltz1979, 79–128). Thus, democratic citizens differ in their proximity to governing power at any given time, exerting varying degrees of control over its use. While citizens are differentiated by their proximity to governing power, states remain undifferentiated in this respect.Footnote ¹⁴

Because treaty and democracy establish distinct institutional structures and create distinct relational structures among their participants, they also produce distinct sets of “politically significant groups” whose compliance must be secured. The democratic agreement contains a set of groups defined by their proximity to power: democratic citizens can be divided, at any given time, into a group “in power” and one “out of power.” By contrast, an anarchic agreement lacks a hierarchical governing structure, and it therefore lacks this set of groups defined by their relative proximity to governing power.

By definition, a self-enforcing pact provides incentives for all participants—all “politically significant groups”—to comply with its terms. Democratic citizens recognize that the pact differentiates them into such groups based on their relative proximity to power, and they accept that this hierarchy is dynamic, subject to change through processes of democratic competition. Thus, a democratic agreement is only self-enforcing if, at any given time, citizens throughout this power hierarchy have adequate incentives to accept and uphold the democratic agreement (Przeworski Reference Przeworski1991, 30–31).

Stability and the Distribution of Power

Rawls conflates two forms of “power” when he likens the democratic modus vivendi to a treaty: the anarchic “power” of sovereign states ebbs and flows outside the terms of the pact, whereas the hierarchical “power” of citizens is established by the pact itself. Because the latter is granted and regulated by the agreement, citizens assess its structure and dynamics when offering their consent. This observation allows us to address Rawls’s claims about the robustness of the democratic modus vivendi under a changing distribution of power.

First, I counter Rawls’s assertion that citizens’ interest in democratic participation erodes as they gain access to power. By definition, a self-enforcing democratic pact entails the existence of group-level incentives that, in expectation, motivate compliance with its terms: at any given time, citizens occupying power have incentives to obey the boundaries of the pact rather than abuse their power by changing the rules, transgressing the rights of their opponents, or refusing to cede power. Simultaneously, citizens out of power have incentives to accept the leadership of the governing coalition, rather than rejecting its authority or taking extraconstitutional action to override it (see, e.g., Mittal and Weingast Reference Mittal and Weingast2013, 279; Przeworski Reference Przeworski2005, 270; Weingast Reference Weingast, Morris, Oppenheimer and Soltan2004, 162). If a democratic pact lacks these incentives for citizens throughout the power hierarchy to comply, it fails to meet the definition of a self-enforcing agreement.

Second, I address Rawls’s assertion that the democratic modus vivendi is unstable under a changing distribution of power. The sharing and transfer of power is a defining feature of democratic governance. When citizens consent to the pact, they accept that their proximity to power is subject to change, given standard practices of democratic politics.Footnote ¹⁵ Citizens only have reason to accept these power-sharing implications of democratic governance if, as described, groups across the power hierarchy have ongoing incentives to sustain the agreement. These conditions promote the peaceful sharing and transfer of power: political winners have incentives not to entrench their hold on power by amending the rules of the game or disenfranchising their opponents, and political losers have incentives to accept the temporary loss of power because they do not fear these consequences.Footnote ¹⁶ In short, the definition of self-enforcing democracy implies the existence of incentives that ensure that the transfer of power does not disrupt democratic governance. This counters Rawls’s claim that “stability with respect to the distribution of power is lacking.”

Incentives for Politically Significant Groups

Within a self-enforcing pact, rational individuals calculate that, in expectation, democratic participation promotes their long-run advantage (Przeworski Reference Przeworski2005, 269).Footnote ¹⁷ This calculation assumes the features that define a democratic agreement: the institutionalization of governing power and the power-sharing inherent in democratic governance.Footnote ¹⁸ Given these considerations, acquiescent citizens calculate that they benefit from the ongoing stability of the democratic pact.

However, these incentives to comply with the agreement depend on the pact-compliant behavior of other citizens. If citizens subvert the negotiated agreement, they affect their peers’ incentives to uphold those terms.Footnote ¹⁹ Citizens throughout the power hierarchy can transgress the pact: power-holders can violate their co-citizens’ rights or refuse to cede power, while opposition groups might refuse to abide by government decisions or seek power extraconstitutionally.

However, citizens cannot unilaterally transgress the democratic pact without inviting punishment. Because the agreement authorizes the enforcement of its terms through coercive force, transgressions by individuals or small groups are likely to be costly and unsuccessful (see, e.g., Diamond Reference Diamond1999, 67–68; Przeworski Reference Przeworski1991, 28). Therefore, efforts to subvert the agreement require coordinated action (Weingast Reference Weingast, Morris, Oppenheimer and Soltan2004, 170). If a sufficiently large bloc of citizens supports transgressive action, this bloc, or its leaders, can successfully undermine the agreement at low cost. If, however, most citizens reject such attempts, the benefits to be gained from transgressing the pact are likely to be exceeded by the cost and risk of the attempt.Footnote ²⁰ In this case, groups and their leaders are unlikely to attempt transgression: “rather than risk failure, leaders are deterred from violating the rules by adverse citizen reaction” (Weingast Reference Weingast, Morris, Oppenheimer and Soltan2004, 170).

By displaying a pact-upholding orientation and a willingness to reject attempts at transgression, citizens establish key incentives for groups to uphold the agreement, creating the conditions necessary for democratic stability.Footnote ²¹ The self-enforcing democratic pact requires citizens to collectively “defend democracy against transgressions” (Weingast Reference Weingast, Morris, Oppenheimer and Soltan2004, 162; see also Weingast Reference Weingast1997a, 251). Thus, citizens must reject transgressive attempts by both (1) groups in power, which might seek to entrench their hold on power or transgress the rights of other citizens, and (2) groups out of power, which might seek to seize power extraconstitutionally or secede (see, e.g., Diamond Reference Diamond1999, 70; Weingast Reference Weingast1997a, 260; Weingast Reference Weingast, Morris, Oppenheimer and Soltan2004, 162–163). So long as rational agents calculate that the democratic agreement furthers their long-term advantage, they have incentives to hold group behavior in check.

Therefore, citizens themselves create the linchpin of the incentive structure that elicits ongoing compliance from politically significant groups and secures these incentives regardless of the distribution of power. Citizens’ coordinated behavior ensures that groups throughout the power hierarchy have reason to abide by the pact rather than undermine it. By discouraging group-level transgressions, citizens promote the widespread compliance necessary for democratic stability.

Rational Consensus on Cooperative Action

This discussion counters Rawls’s assertion that the object of consensus under the democratic modus vivendi (1) is “merely a consensus on accepting certain authorities, or on complying with certain institutional arrangements” and therefore (2) lacks properties that he ascribes to the reasonable.

First, I have demonstrated that an object of consensus limited to “institutional arrangements” cannot generate the incentives necessary for self-enforcing democracy. Instead, consent to democratic institutions entails a corresponding consensus on the actions required to secure them.Footnote ²² Citizens must agree on what constitutes a transgression of the democratic agreement and actively respond to transgressions. When “all citizens hold the same views about transgressions and citizen duty,” citizens can coordinate their responses, curtailing destabilization of the pact (Weingast Reference Weingast1997a, 251). Without this consensus on pact-upholding behavior, groups lack incentives to comply and the pact lacks a self-enforcing incentive structure.

Second, I counter Rawls’s claim that this object of consensus lacks content that Rawls ascribes to the reasonable. Rawls labels practices of political compromise, moderation, and toleration as reasonable “cooperative virtues.” These practices express other-regarding considerations and a self-moderating capacity: reasonable citizens demonstrate other-regard, or attentiveness to others’ interests, by “tak[ing] into account the consequences of their actions on others’ well-being” (Rawls, 49 n. 1); they practice self-moderation by constraining their pursuit of private ends to preserve the democratic agreement. This practice of the cooperative virtues is enduring and reflects a general regard for all polity members.

While Rawls associates the cooperative virtues with principled reasoning, I have shown that the rational can incentivize functionally equivalent behavior: rational citizens act in accordance with the cooperative virtues when they practice the pact-upholding behaviors necessary to maintain rational democratic equilibrium. First, maintaining democratic stability “requires that [citizens] defend not only the parts of the pact benefitting themselves but also the parts benefitting others” (Mittal and Weingast Reference Mittal and Weingast2013, 286). Thus, rational citizens have incentives to engage in behavior that is functionally equivalent to the other-regard motivated by reasonable principles. To uphold self-enforcing democracy, rational citizens attend to their co-citizens’ interests by rejecting attempts to transgress their rights; accepting the decisions these co-citizens authorize when in power—even when these conflict with their own agenda and interests—and compromising their ideal terms of cooperation to ensure that others benefit adequately under the pact (Weingast Reference Weingast1997a, 251–252; Reference Weingast, Morris, Oppenheimer and Soltan2004, 171–172).

In turn, rational citizens within a self-enforcing democracy practice ongoing self-moderation, which Rawls defines as citizens’ willingness to “act on [fair] terms, even at the cost of their own interests” (Rawls, xlii). They incur short-term costs to reject group-level transgressions, even when they might benefit from the pact-transgressive behavior of their affiliated groups.Footnote ²³ Rational citizens have incentives to assume these short-term costs if they expect the lifetime benefit of stable democratic institutions to exceed them.

Finally, I counter Rawls’s claim that rational cooperative behavior is necessarily mutable rather than enduring and particularistic rather than general. Within a self-enforcing democracy, citizens have incentives to maintain an ongoing cooperative orientation toward all polity members: given that democratic participation serves their long-term interests, (1) each recognizes that democratic stability depends on the widespread, coordinated cooperation of her peers. In turn, (2) each knows that her peers will only cooperate to uphold the pact if democratic participation furthers their interests. Finally, (3) each recognizes that her own behavior affects her peers’ calculation of their interest in democratic participation, as their interest, like hers, depends on widespread cooperation.

Thus, each rational agent has incentives to maintain cooperative habits, upholding the pact and the interests of her co-citizens: by this means, she motivates her peers to reciprocate her cooperative orientation, securing her own interests under the pact (Elster Reference Elster, Kolm and Ythier2006, 188; Weingast Reference Weingast, Morris, Oppenheimer and Soltan2004, 172–173). Weingast (Reference Weingast1997a, 262) summarizes this mechanism: “citizens aid those who are threatened because the potential victims will later fail to come to their aid if they fail to come to the victims’ aid.” Thus, within a self-enforcing democracy, rational citizens’ cooperative behavior is not limited in the ways Rawls assumes: it is general rather than particularistic, as rational actors have incentives to secure their co-citizens’ interest in democratic participation, whether or not they share personal attachments; it is enduring rather than mutable, as these incentives persist as long as citizens expect a long-term benefit from democratic participation.

Rawls believes that a rational democratic equilibrium arises in the absence of these cooperative practices: because the cooperative virtues stem from the reasonable, he claims, they appear only after—indeed, due to—the consolidation of democratic institutions (Rawls, 163). However, I have shown that self-interest can motivate these behaviors and, indeed, that maintaining a self-enforcing democracy depends on their widespread expression. I conclude that the object of consensus under a democratic modus vivendi shares a key property with the reasonable: rational democratic consensus entails consent to the cooperative behavior that renders democracy stable.

Modes of Self-Interest: Rivalrous and Equitable

Rawls asserts that self-interest cannot motivate reliable habits of cooperation. Thus, his account of self-interest should be expanded to reflect this capacity. Whereas Rawls posits a single form of self-interest, I differentiate it into two modes. Adopting Danielle Allen’s terminology, these are (1) a “rivalrous” mode that matches Rawls’s definition and (2) an “equitable” alternative capable of motivating ongoing cooperative habits (Allen Reference Allen2004, 134, 137–138). Rational democratic equilibrium demands that citizens choose the equitable orientation toward interest rather than the rivalrous alternative Rawls assumes.

As Rawls himself observes, rational agents select the ends they pursue and decide their relative priority (Rawls, 50–51). Rivalrous and equitable modes of self-interest, then, are differentiated by the relative priority given to the preservation of relationships—for instance, the political relationships constituted by a democratic agreement. Rivalrous agents choose not to prioritize the preservation of these relationships relative to their other interests. Because they do not value these bonds, rivalrous agents act from “a commitment to [their] own interests without regard to how they affect others” (Allen Reference Allen2004, 134). If this attitude is widespread in a polity, its politics will reflect the myopic pursuit of factional interests. Allen observes, “no consensually based form of social organization can, over the long term, sustain relationships of cooperation in the face of unrestrained self-interest” (Allen Reference Allen2004, 137). Because the democratic political relationship demands ongoing cooperation, self-interest pursued rivalrously cannot bring about this end.

By contrast, a rational agent chooses the equitable approach to self-interest if she places high priority on preserving relationships. Equitable agents recognize that their partnerships continue only so long as their peers have reason to participate (Allen Reference Allen2004, 134–139). Therefore, equitable agents practice self-moderation and other-regard as they pursue private ends, recognizing that this cooperative orientation is necessary to maintain stable relationships (Allen Reference Allen2004, 126, 135–136). In a political context, citizens with an interest in maintaining self-enforcing democracy have incentives to pursue equitability and avoid rivalrousness, as the former bolsters their peers’ interests in upholding the pact, while the latter diminishes them (Allen Reference Allen2004, 126).

Thus, I contest Rawls’s reductive account of interest, which constrains it to its rivalrous form. I have presented an equitable alternative, which rational agents choose when they value the continuation of their relationships. Interest pursued in this equitable mode shares characteristics with the reasonable: it awards high priority to other-regarding considerations and motivates self-moderating constraints. To uphold self-enforcing democracy, rational citizens must choose to forego rivalrousness in their pursuit of self-interest and adopt this equitable orientation instead.

Finally, I reflect on Rawls’s claim that rational democratic equilibrium derives from a “fortunate convergence of interests” (Rawls, 147). Insofar as citizens’ choices and actions help constitute their co-citizens’ interests in democratic participation, I argue that the resulting convergence of interests ought not merely be attributed to luck. Rather, each citizen contributes to this convergence by choosing to pursue her interest equitably, providing incentives for her peers to reciprocate this equitability. The convergence of interests reflects citizens’ coordinated choice to pursue interest in its equitable mode, giving each other key incentives to support the pact. Indeed, this coordinated choice of equitability follows the same logic of interdependence by which Rawls describes citizens’ coordinated choice of the reasonable: citizens have reason to adopt a cooperative orientation “provided others can be relied on to do the same” (Rawls, 54).Footnote ²⁴