Only days after appealing to the will of the people,
Greece’s prime minister put forward a proposal to the state’s creditors that
contradicts the people’s rejection of further austerity. To be sure, the
referendum was nonbinding, and the need for compromise was well justified by
the seizing up of the state’s banking system and economy after the “No” vote.
Furthermore, one of the virtues of representative as distinct from direct
democracy is that officeholders can pursue policies contrary to the immediate will of the people but in line
with their best interest. Alexis Tsipras faced immanent economic catastrophe,
and so he can reasonably be credited with acting in his constituents’ best
interest. Nevertheless, the sting of betrayal (and the larger theoretical point
of governmental sovereignty being subordinate to popular sovereignty) warrants
attention in this case.
The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.
