A Device We Deserve
Name: Ivan Karadanov
Category: Argumentative
Prompt: Should voting be mandatory in democratic societies? Argue whether compulsory participation strengthens or undermines the integrity of democracy.
Region: Europe and Central Asia
A Device We Deserve*
Whenever my dad is upset at the evening news, he quotes George Bernard Shaw: “Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”¹ This always strikes me as disturbingly true. If we are to embrace democracy as collective self-rule, we must accept the logical conclusion that democracy is what democrats make of it and face the consequences.
The question, then, is how we can make the best of that device?
I look at what has been unfolding in my home country, Bulgaria - seven parliamentary elections within five years, voter turnout down to 34.4% in June 2024,² radical parties on both the far left and far right gaining ground³, while most of us watch from the sofa.
Doesn’t it follow that the right to vote should also be an obligation?
In countries where voting is mandatory, turnout is indeed higher, elected governments have a broader base, and the risk of capture by well-organized minorities or wealthy interests is reduced.⁴
Isn’t that a good enough reason?
I will claim it is not and that the reasoning is more dangerous than it first appears.
The easy objection is about liberal freedom: forcing people to vote may be compatible with democracy in some technical sense, if democrats decide collectively that they want to live in a society without basic freedoms, including the freedom not to vote, this will still be, strictly speaking, a democracy, but not the one I would endorse or advocate.
There is, however, a deeper objection. Making voting mandatory, threatening non-voters with fines or sanctions, will damage precisely the bond between citizens and democratic government that makes democracy worth having.⁵ A democracy sustained by threat may secure higher turnout, but not the thing that turnout is supposed to represent.
Democracy is not just a device or a procedure. It is a type of society where people have not only the right, but also the willingness to govern their common affairs.⁶ This willingness requires genuine effort, a readiness to set aside convenience and self-interest (say, to read a book or go dancing, rather than vote). Force cannot produce it. What it produces instead is resentment.
The real challenge, then, is not how to compel people to vote, but how to make them want to. This probably begins with teaching the importance of voting at school. But none of this will succeed if people don’t have the material conditions to exercise their vote - the time, the energy, the practical conditions to participate.⁷ If they are overworked, exhausted from childcare and other domestic responsibilities, they would not only lack the will to participate in political life, but will experience the obligation to vote as oppressive, as something that adds to already impossible burdens.⁸ This would not make people embrace democracy. On the contrary, it will alienate them from it.
Bulgaria does not need a law that forces its citizens to the ballot box. It needs a society worth voting for. No fine has ever built one.
References:
1. Shaw, G.B. The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. London: Penguin, 2009 [1928].
2. Central Election Commission (Bulgaria). 2024. Results from the Elections for National Assembly, 9 June 2024. Sofia: CEC. https://www.cik.bg
3. Freedom House. Nations in Transit 2024: Bulgaria. Washington, DC: Freedom House, 2024. freedomhouse.org.
4. Lijphart, A. “Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma.” American Political Science Review 91, no. 1 (1997): 1–14.
5. Habermas, J. Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996.
6. Tocqueville, A. de. Democracy in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
7. Azmanova, A. Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change Without Crisis or Utopia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020.
8. Diamond, L. “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession.” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 1 (2015): 141–155.
*This paper was written for The Harvard Crimson Global Essay Competition 2026 in category “Argumentative”