Tyranny of the majority

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Tyranny of the majority refers to a situation in majority rule where the preferences and interests of the majority may dominate the political landscape, potentially sidelining or disregarding the rights and needs of minority groups. This idea has been discussed by various thinkers, including John Stuart Mill, who explored the implications of such dynamics in his 1859 book On Liberty.^[1]

A tyranny of the majority can ensue when democracy is distorted either by an excess of centralization^[2] or when the people abandons a wider perspective to "rule upon numbers, not upon rightness or excellence".^[3]

In both cases, in the context of a nation, constitutional limits on the powers of a legislative body such as a bill of rights or supermajority clause have been used to counter the problem. A separation of powers (for example legislative and executive majority actions subject to review by the judiciary) may also be implemented to prevent the problem from happening internally in a government.^[4]

In social choice, a tyranny-of-the-majority scenario can be formally defined as a situation where the candidate or decision preferred by a majority is greatly inferior (hence "tyranny") to the socially optimal candidate or decision according to some measure of excellence such as total utilitarianism or the egalitarian rule.