Covenant and Contract: Religion, Constitutionalism, and Democracy

Abstract

There is reason to believe that the concepts of 'covenant' and 'contract' respectively denote two quite distinct approaches to democratic government. Democratic theory differentiates a wide range of types of democracy bearing nuanced labels to denote marginal variations. A broad historical approach, however, distinguishes two archetypal forms of democracy — the so-called 'classical' democracy and modern 'representative democracy'. Since the original classical democracy is characterized as 'direct democracy', under which all citizens have a direct part in ruling, a situation which can scarcely be envisaged under the modern pattern of territorial states, classical democracy is largely consigned to the irretrievable ancient world. Scarcely anywhere but in a few microstates could complex national government be conducted by assemblies of citizens. Moreover, there are moral reasons for distinguishing between ancient and modern, since the original direct democracies had no systematic mechanism for chastening legitimate authority.