Democracy, meaning

A distinction should be made between the different levels of political influence operating at different levels of policy. At the macro level, the body politic is regarded as representative of the public or the electorate. Hence, politics is a means by which society decides which regulatory direction is ethically acceptable, socially preferable, economically beneficial and scientifically reliable. From the perspective of representative democracy, therefore, it is desirable for politics to determine the overall legal frameworks within which dmgs are regulated. But at the micro level, where decisions are made which apply those legal frameworks to specific cases, it is not desirable for politics to exert influence on individual cases. 

It is up to governments (and in a democracy that means the people) to decide how much, if any, pollution should be permitted. They in turn must rely upon scientists and engineers to tell them how various elements and compounds affect man and the environment, so reasonable laws can be enacted. Yet not enough is known about all the substances and their interrelations to anticipate many problems that may arise. Consider the following case, where copper from an overhead power line located in a polluted area was lethal to sheep. 

Americans generally agree the government should aggressively pursue and confront terrorism with aU appropriate means available. The question is what means are appropriate to deter and protect Americans from terrorism while maintaining democracy and justice. Today s use of emergency powers are trade-offs between freedom and security. These may become permanent over time. 

A good many institutions in liberal democracies already take such a form and may serve as exemplars for fashioning new ones. One could say that democracy itself is based on the assumption that the metis of its citizenry should, in mediated form, continually modify the laws and policies of the land. Common law, as an institution, owes its longevity to the fact that it is not a final codification of legal rules, but rather a set of procedures for continually adapting some broad principles to novel circumstances. Finally, that most characteristic of human institutions, language, is the best model a structure of meaning and continuity that is never still and ever open to the improvisations of all its speakers. 

Theodore M. Porter, Trust in Numbers The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 22. Porter shows convincingly how "mechanical objectivity has served as a means for bureaucracies, especially in democracies where expert judgment and expertise are always suspected of masking self-serving motives, to create an impersonal set of decision rules at once seemingly democratic and neutral. 

In J. Allan (Ed.), Inclusion, participation and democracy What is the purpose Dordrecht Kluwer Slee, R. (2004). Meaning in the service of power. In L. Ware (Ed.), Ideology and the politics of in/exclu-sion. New York Peter Lang... 

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