In a Hobbesian democracy, elections are constitutional devices for electing
rulers with ‘sovereign power’. Those rulers are not responsible in any
meaningful sense of the word. The same is true for the electorate and every
individual voter. Admittedly, the elected rulers may be voted out of office a
possibility some cite as proof that in a Hobbesian democracy the rulers are
‘politically responsible’. However, few (if any) constitutions tie elections to
any regular or institutionalised form of giving accounts. As Democritus
already remarked, the voters may refuse to re-elect the incumbents for good or
for bad reasons, or even for no reason at all.Moreover, most of the time,
‘political responsibility’ merely means that some agents of the State have to
give accounts of their actions to other agents of the State. However, that is
common practice in all complex organisations. It is not a peculiar feature of
Hobbesian democracy.