| Chapter 2: | Background |
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Doran adhered to the writings of James Madison in the Federalist Papers, No. X (1788/1987) to explain the logic behind the argument that diverse societies have a higher possibility of internal competition and less likelihood of having big monopolies. Madison wrote that a large size is advantageous for the country because a bigger territory is most likely to be more diverse, and thus less prone to factionalism. He stated that the larger the territory, the larger the variety of parties and interests in the society and, therefore, the smaller the chance of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest. Doran argued that Madison’s argument, put in the language of economics, means that the probability of local monopolies is smaller and balanced competition is greater in the larger polity.
Doran recognized, however, that the virtues of ethnic heterogeneity can be only realized if the cultural diversity is managed in the right way. The heterogeneous societies need to be governed by a system that is able to harmonize and integrate the diverse people under a single polity. According to him, the social system that allows the management of ethnic diversity in a single polity is democratic pluralism.
Democratic pluralism is defined by Doran (2001) as “a condition of society in which diverse ethnic, racial, religious, or social groupings ‘maintain their autonomous participation in their traditional culture within the confines of a single civilization’ or state” (p. 5). He described democratic pluralism in the following way:
The principles of democratic pluralism ensure that the diverse communities can live in harmony with each other inside of a single state.