In order to escape [the] cycle of democratic innovation, reform, and disappointment, we must stop thinking of democracy primarily as a matter of procedures for collective decision-making. Most basically, modern electoral democracy is simply a way of forcing competition for power into peaceful channels—and incentivizing the winners not to ignore the needs of too many people at once. While this may not sound like much, it does limit the ability of any group to capture state power entirely for itself.

More importantly, this understanding of the democratic ideal—as principally a matter of resisting state capture—suggests a more fruitful agenda for action and reform, one focused squarely on power rather than process. (Indeed, this vision offers a more realistic account of what many familiar democratic practices already do.) If competitive elections with universal suffrage provide insurance against the most brazen and egregious forms of authoritarianism, kleptocracy, and apartheid, the unequal terms of competition for state power in all existing democracies ensure that many other forms of capture continue to thrive. Our overriding democratic priority must then be to address this failure directly, by pursuing a more egalitarian balance among social forces.