This in turn impacts on the nature of sovereignty. The image of the autarchic self-governing community at the heart of a certain image of democracy is fading. It is not just a matter of territorial or geographical interdependence but of the nature of global capitalism, which in large part operates beyond and outside the jurisdiction of discrete states.
What it means is that the fate of ordinary citizens is much less dependent on the decisions of national politicians and much more dependent on the decisions of a welter of transnational corporations, money markets, derivatives traders, international agencies and so on. All of these agencies exercise power. They all have an impact on what it is that states can do and must do under threat of sanction. Globalisation has also impacted the integrity and plausibility of 'the people' as the subject of democratic deliberation and procedures.
As transnational migration, decolonisation, and the diaspora effects of various political and economic processes speed up, this singular image of the people is undermined. Leaders stand Canute-like in the face of these forces, seeking ways of instilling 'patriotism', loyalty and a sense of national pride in their increasingly bemused or indifferent citizenry.
In the wake of these changes, it should be little surprise to find that the energies of the most politically active parts of the citizenry have moved away from a preoccupation with capturing power at the nation state level to enact a comprehensive program or manifesto—the rationale of party-based representative politics. Today's activisms and political initiatives are better encapsulated in terms of contesting injustice , whether it be issues around migration, climate change, sweatshops, animal rights, austerity or whatever.
Alongside this changing disposition is the adoption of repertoires of activism that dispense with the party in favour of flatter or more 'horizontal' styles of interaction based on networks.
Under second or reflexive modernity, activists seek out styles and forms of intervention that make a direct or immediate impact in the political field. We are moving from a politics that defends or sustains collective identities towards 'individualised collective action'.
But what is becoming evident is that the progressive ease of organising and connecting to others is taking us well beyond a piecemeal style of activism that is content to influence what representatives do or say, usually termed 'participation' in the political science literature. Recent events in the Middle East, Spain, Turkey, Iceland and Brazil reinforce the sense in which we are beginning to see the emergence of styles of activism that are insurgent as well as reforming or participatory.
Indeed this 'connective' logic now allows for an almost constituting energy to emerge in which citizens act collectively to overhaul their own systems of governance, to bring power closer to the populace, to combat opaqueness in decision-making as in the 'pots and pans revolution' in Iceland.
As citizens become emboldened to take more matters into their own hands, so those who are elected to represent them come to appear less as representatives and more as 'politicians', less like one of 'us' and more as one of 'them', part of the governing apparatus. As the distance develops between a governing apparatus and citizens, so the latter seem to become emboldened to recuperate their own voice, bypassing the traditional structures in favour of 'post-representative' initiatives, street initiatives, and latterly pop-up parties on an 'easy come, easy go' basis.
In Spain, for example, new political parties have been created since They are almost all parties of protest, anti-party parties, post-political parties: Facebook or Twitter creations with low start-up costs. Just as the internet is undermining the old bricks and mortar retail model, so it is undermining the bricks and mortar political model.
Politics is becoming much more a 'pick-up', DIY, evanescent activity and much less a matter of choosing others to speak and act on our behalf. How to characterise the present conjuncture? On the one hand, there is little threat to democracy either in normative terms or in terms of the ability of representative democratic systems to reproduce themselves. On the other hand, it is becoming clear that the classic party-based model of political representation is becoming exhausted.
The represented increasingly feel less represented by the representatives. Politically active citizens increasingly want to speak and act in their own names and not just participate in little deliberative chambers, forums or assemblies designed to give them the impression of gaining 'voice'.
New tools, new repertoires of activism, engagement and mobilisation mean that citizens can organise beyond or outside the mainstream however defined. Commentators such as Keane, Rosanvallon and Brito Viera and Runciman have remarked in an offhand way that the present moment is 'post-representative', and I think that this captures well where we have got to.
We live in a kind of in-between world. One political logic seems exhausted, but there seems little sense of appetite for an alternative to representative democracy. Political theorists peddle their wares 'strong democracy', 'associative democracy', 'deliberative democracy', et cetera to an audience that is, by and large, oblivious to the representations of intellectuals no matter how well meaning.
The mood is not contemplative or deliberative. It is angry and resentful. It seeks to punish politicians, but not to overturn them or to transform democracy itself. Iceland's revolution did not banish politicians so much as seek to remind them of their obligations and duties. Many of Spain's initiatives are in the name of a 'second transition', shorthand for a better, more sensitive model of representation than the blunt electoral system currently on offer.
We are, as Rosanvallon notes, in the grip of 'counter democracy', a kind of massing of the citizenry against their representatives in a stance of suspicion, disdain and remonstration. But citizens are not seeking power for themselves—yet. This is not, however, to say that we are stuck in a kind of closed loop of a necessarily destructive kind. Many of the key initiatives we see around us are, I think, democratising. They are seeking to bring citizens closer to decision-making, to the power makers, to the point where they can make an impact.
Many of these initiatives contest the basic coordinates that inform and underpin representative democracy: the monopoly of power in the hands of a few, 'the one per cent'; the secrecy and lack of transparency around how particular processes and institutions work; and the generalised sense of resentment about the direction in which global economic processes are unfolding.
On the contrary, the waning of the paradigm speaks to a certain recuperation of the sense of democracy as the affair of the demoi themselves, not their representatives.
It speaks to a recognition that noise, resonance, direct engagement on the streets, in the squares, outside parliaments is part of democratic life. As Ranciere points out, this sense of democracy being the affair of 'anyone and everyone' used to be held to be intrinsic to democracy—that is, before the guardians, technocrats and politicians took over.
It is a crisis that may, ironically, be the condition of possibility for the return of some of those elements once held to be indispensable to democracy: dissensus, noise, politics and the direct involvement of demoi ,as opposed to those who would represent them.
Question — Today the High Court ruled that the changes to the voting system for the Senate are constitutional. I was wondering what you think the major parties will do to try to keep minor parties at bay.
This was a reform to try to stop vote whisperers letting minor parties increase their representation in parliament. Do you think there are going to be other things the major parties try to do in the same vein? Simon Tormey — Are monopolies interested in preserving monopolies? They most certainly are. I am not sure I completely understand the Australian political system after seven years here. I am really looking forward to looking at that ballot paper.
How many numbers? Where does it go? Up above the line or below the line? The one minor party that I know will get my vote is the Australian Cyclists Party because I am fed up with being knocked off Sydney's roads! To go back to the serious point, we call these kinds of parties 'cartel parties' for a reason—because they have stitched up the political system.
The pendulum move between centre right and centre left is, of course, highly convenient for them. It is no surprise to me, and I suspect it is no surprise to you, that they will, by hook or by crook, make it very difficult for new political parties to proliferate.
In Britain it is exactly the same thing—very difficult for small parties, third parties, or the Green party to break through. The British first-past-the-post system more or less rules it out. The only way in which that minoritarian vigour can come through here is, it seems to me, in the Senate. I think it would be a danger and would be wrong to try to close down the sense of the Senate being a place where you do hear odd voices, different voices and idiosyncratic voices.
There is a problem about how many votes it takes in order to get that kind of representation. There will be people here who know an awful lot more about this than me, but the thought that a mere 2, votes can get you a seat in the Senate in a country where there are 15 million people voting does sound very disproportionate, if that is the case.
If you are going to have representation, it needs to be proportional and it needs to be organised in a way which does not lead to a kind of Looney Tunes politics as well, because I think that is also a frustration. Whatever criticisms you have of parliamentary systems, having some clarity on what it is that the government is going to do without reference to all the particularistic needs of tiny minority parties is, I think, a source of stability.
That is a very unfashionable view but I think, given the scale and the nature of the problems that confront national governments, some ability to see them in action doing things and then to hold them accountable is of the essence of the political system. That does not always seem to be apparent in the Australian system. Question — For transparency, I am a Greens candidate for the federal election. Speaking as someone who is out there talking to people, doorknocking and doing all the traditional things as well as social media, there really seems to be a space, if not a vacuum, for connecting with people.
The votes of the majority decide the winners of the election, but the rights of the minority are constitutionally protected so that they can freely criticize the majority of the moment and attempt to replace their representatives in the next election. From time to time, there is a lawful and orderly transition of power from one group of leaders to another. In earlier autocratic governments, the unrestrained power of a king or an aristocracy had typically threatened liberty.
Constitution feared that a tyrannical majority of the people could pose a new challenge to liberty. Madison expressed his fear of majority tyranny in an October 17, , letter to Thomas Jefferson:. Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.
Most of us would agree that democracy, while not perfect, is the fairest system of government. It tends to do the best job of protecting the values most of us hold, like equality, human rights, and equal application of the law. And representative democracy is probably the best form of democracy to achieve this.
Citizens still maintain ultimate control over their government through elections, during which they can choose the people and parties that represent them. Representative democracy gives people the advantages of democracy — having a say in the way they are governed, and choosing the people who govern them — without the onus of needing to study each law or policy initiative themselves. Most of us have neither the time nor the inclination to do this. This means we maintain control over the direction of our country and what laws we live under.
A few puppies may have to suffer through some uncomfortable photoshoots, but the drawbacks of representative democracy are far fewer than those of other systems of government.
And it does the best job of safeguarding our rights and values so that we are able to build and enjoy safe and free societies. A system of government in which citizens elect representatives who propose and vote on legislation or policy initiatives. But it delegates the responsibility of being expert on law and policy so citizens can go about their daily lives or choose not to pay much attention to the details.
Pretty rosy. Representative democracy is now the established form of democracy in the world, and the system of government most people live under. Liberties Liberties. What is a representative democracy? How does a representative democracy work? Which countries have a representative democracy? Information Hub. More Stories See more stories. Human Rights Monitoring Institute.
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