Rousseau Ve Çoğunlukçu Demokrasi Anlayişi
Rousseau and Concept of Majoritarian Democracy

Summary/Abstract: This study analyzes the political theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the founders of the idea of the republic developing his theory on the concepts of social contract and popular sovereignty. He argues that the real owner of the political power is the people and claims that the origin of the state is founded by the social agreement of the people deriving to the 18th century, in the age of Enlightenment. Rousseau puts that the society should be integrated around the common interests and it should be embodied in the notion of state providing legitimacy within society. Inspiring from the Ancient Greek city states and philosophy, Rousseau’s aim is to introduce an alternative theory to the liberal political thinking of his age. Rousseau’s political theory, have aroused much interest after French Revolution. Various liberal, socialist, anarchist, nationalist and fascist currents have been influenced from Rousseau’s thinking in several ways. We claim that this interest in Rousseau’s work grow out of the motivation to find an alternative theory of democracy to liberal one. At this point we argue that the concept of majoritarian democracy that conceives citizenship on the ground of the notion of “positive freedom” that reduces general will to the will of majority is important to understand Rousseau. However this concept caused Rousseau to be stigmatized as an advocate of totalitarianism. This study analyzes the potentiality of Rousseau’s theory to be a remedy for the problems of modern democracies that call themselves pluralist societies.

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