• DOI:10.2307/797222
• Corpus ID: 29823942

The Constitution of Status

@article{Balkin1997TheCO,
  title={The Constitution of Status},
  author={Jack Balkin},
  journal={Yale Law Journal},
  year={1997},
  volume={106},
  pages={2313},
  url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:29823942}
}

• J. Balkin
• Published 1 June 1997
• Law, Political Science
• Yale Law Journal

Democracies are societies. Behind the formal features of democratic selfgovernance-whether regular elections or majority rule-lie social organization and social structure. Like other societies, democracies have varying degrees of social stratification and social hierarchy, group competition and group subordination. But democracies are special in this respect: Their political ideals seem partly in tension with their social structures. Democracy is more than a commitment to a set of procedures… 

Democracies are societies. Behind the formal features of democratic selfgovernance-whether regular elections or majority rule-lie social organization and social structure. Like other societies, democracies have varying degrees of social stratification and social hierarchy, group competition and group subordination. But democracies are special in this respect: Their political ideals seem partly in tension with their social structures. Democracy is more than a commitment to a set of procedures for resolving disputes. It is more than a culture of respect for those procedures. Democratic ideals seem to require a further commitment to democratic forms of social structure and social organization, a commitment to social as well as political equality. Imagine a democracy organized according to strict lines of racial caste, in which all citizens have equal rights to express their views, vote and hold office, but in which job opportunities and life chances are practically and definitively limited by membership in one's social group. Government discrimination based on caste membership is strictly forbidden, but the social hierarchy remains rigidly in place even without the overt support of law. The citizens of this society take their commitment to voting and freedom of speech very seriously, yet as a society they seem equally committed to their traditional social structure. In one sense this society is a democracy, and yet in another it is very antidemocratic. Indeed, it is hard to imagine this society precisely because we think that accepting the democratic ideal of equal citizenship is inconsistent with social caste; this principle will either ultimately corrode a