Liberal democracy, which is what most developed Western nations would claim to practise, is actually a combination of two values which do not necessarily go together logically. As far as the democracy aspect is concerned, liberal democracy is a form of representative democracy. Thus the usual system is the election by the whole electorate of a small number of representatives, probably organized in political parties, who form a legislative assembly. The majority of this assembly makes the law, and may, in parliamentary systems like those of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australasia, India and others derived from the Westminster model select some among themselves to form the executive. It is thus a rather indirect form of majority rule. The liberal aspect refers to a set of traditional values, drawn from the basic stock of civil rights and natural rights, which are seen as central to the political culture, and may indeed be enshrined in a constitution and protected by the courts. However, social research has often shown that a majority of the electorate of Western democracies are, under certain conditions, hostile to certain of these rights, for example aspects of the due process of law.
Thus the empirical will of the majority may conflict with the vital system values. As a result liberal democracy cannot be a full-blooded majoritarian system.
Furthermore, because those elected to the assembly are usually seen as unbound representatives, as argued by Burke, rather than as bound delegates, legislative assemblies often thwart the desires of those who elect them. A classic example in the UK is the question of capital punishment. Ever since its abolition in 1967 there has been a strong majority of the population in favour of its return, yet several times votes in the House of Commons have rejected the policy by sizeable majorities of the representatives. Similarly certain rules developed by the US Supreme Court to protect the rights of those accused in criminal trials are seen by a majority of citizens as hampering the police in dealing with the crime problem, yet the unelected court, in what claims to be a democracy, can and has prevented the popular will. Liberal democracy can be seen as the answer to the traditional fear, as expressed by de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill, of the tyranny of the majority—that unhampered majoritarian democracy could be more dangerous to liberal values than many ordinary tyrannies.
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