Dictatorship and Democracy

The relation between democracy and dictatorship is analyzed using Arrow’s social choice model, where individual preferences are variable, as with an arbitrarily changing social situation. In its original formulation, the model implies the existence of a dictator, or, an individual whose preference always coincides with that of the society. Using the indices of popularity and universality introduced, it is shown that there are always ‘good’ Arrow’s dictators who are more representative than non-representative and should therefore be interpreted rather as political leaders, presidents or the like. Moreover, every Arrow’s dictator or political leader operates in conjunction with a decision-making hierarchy, ‘sharing the responsibility’ for the choices made. All of these correspond to the political design of democracy as practiced today. Since Arrow’s dictators, with their associated decision-making hierarchies, fall into ‘bad’ and ‘good’ types, it is their selection that makes the system dictatorial or democratic. We conclude that the inevitability of a strong ‘first man’ is, per se, not dangerous for democracy. The danger arises when the circumstances change significantly (e.g. if the rulers hold office for too long), resulting in the transformation of democracy into dictatorship.