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Beyond Participative Democracy 567 Beyond Participative Democracy Albert Ogien 1. Introduction What some call the «crisis of democracy» partly derives from the inconsistencies engendered by the paradoxical situation the regimes of representative democracy are currently caught in. This situation is one in which those who govern are convinced that they have to take steps to renew the link between them and the governed and at the same time contend that handing over the prerogatives which are the preserve of State technicians and administrators to ordinary citizens is an unrealistic, harmful and even dangerous undertaking. The first steps taken by democratic regimes to narrow the so-called gap between the «people» and the «elites» aimed at enhancing the participation of ordinary citizens to the decision-making process1. Such a move has by and large proved to be ineffective as the mechanisms of citizens’ participation that the legal authorities did institute have seldom been connected to a real power to decide bestowed on the consulted population2. As a consequence, a demand for political practices allowing for the emergence of a truly deliberative democracy appeared which still inspires extra-institutional forms of action carried out by members of the so-called civil society, like occupying city squares or roundabouts, launching associations, organizing rallies, establishing networks of common struggle or Facebook groups, circulating on-line petitions or creating «movement parties»3. This article will try to consider the nature and soundness of such a demand through an analysis of some of the forms of political action ordinary citizens have devised and implemented far beyond participation mechanisms in order to claim the key role they have to play in political matters and in fostering the democratization of democracy. M. Carrel, Faire participer les habitants? Citoyenneté et pouvoir d’agir dans les quartiers populaires, Lyon, ENS Éditions, 2013. 2 M. Carrel, D. Cefaï and J. Talpin (eds.), Ethnographies de la participation, in «Participations», 4 (2012). 3 A. Ogien and S. Laugier, Le Principe démocratie, Paris, Le Découverte, 2014. 1 «Iride», a. XXXII, n. 88, settembre-dicembre 2019 / «Iride», v. 32, issue 88, September-December 2019 568 Albert Ogien 2. Active Citizenship and Democracy Most of the protest movements that have been developing throughout the world for the past decade have been organized around an almost unique motto: democracy! This term has thus turned to be a kind of catch-all formula – a slogan under which all sorts of requests are voiced. In authoritarian countries, the claim for democracy is of course linked to the most brutal manifestations of coercion and repression, the lack of rights and freedoms, the violence of supervisory or control bodies, the arbitrariness of an all-powerful administration, the daily strains of a system of widespread corruption, the partiality of a judicial system under influence or the rigging of elections. In democratic regimes, this claim is justified by the erosion of the legitimacy of the parliamentary system, the out of step nature of rulers’ decisions in relation to citizens’ expectations, the corruption of representatives, the tax-avoidance of multinational firms and the rich, the omnipotence of the financial circles, the inexorable progress of climate change and the destruction of the environment, the reduction of citizens’ political and social rights, the subjection of the media to the powers in charge. Furthermore, even those who are boldly opposed to the spirit of democracy (extreme-right «patriots», nationalists, supremacists, separatists, fundamentalists, traditionalists, zealots of women’s submission, opponents to free sexual orientation) are now claiming it in the name of freedom of opinion. Whereas democracy seems to be the ultimate ideological article people are ready to appeal to in order to support their claims, many voices contend that the future of democracy looks bleak as it is plagued by severe contradictions and faces hostile assaults from all parts4. However, one has to bear in mind that such criticisms have mainly to do with the problems raised by the current deadlocks in the functioning of the representative system. Several of its signs are systematically pointed up: distrust of political authorities and their staff, steady rise in abstention, decrease in party and union membership, contempt for institutions. Note that very few dare calling into question the idea of democracy itself. But, in contrast to the blatant rejection of traditional politics, one cannot ignore the vitality of the political practices carried out by groups of ordinary citizens who organize themselves to demand that the answers they offer to solve public problems be carefully considered and enacted by their government5. How is one to account for such a development? F. Dubet, Le déclin de l’institution, Paris, Ed. du Seuil, 2002. B. Arditi, Les soulèvements n’ont pas de plan, ils sont le plan: performatifs politiques et médiateurs fugaces, in < https://www.raison-publique.fr/article682.html> (accessed 111-2019). 4 5 Beyond Participative Democracy 569 Ordinary citizens’ efforts to reclaim control of politics should not simply be seen, as is usually done, as a consequence of the rise of the level of education or, as one tends to argue now, of the skillful use of modern communication tools6. Since the end of World War II, a series of structural factors have contributed to a radical change in the ways citizens relate to politics, the five most important of them being: the increase in people’s autonomy of judgment (rejection of hierarchies and authorities; decolonization of thought); the globalization of political problems and the emergence of non-governmental and non-partisan activism; the technicization of political issues and the development of political and scientific expertise within civil society; the professionalization of political activity and its effects on the routine of institutional work; the twilight of the nation-State as crucial locus of political decision-making. The social dynamics powered by these transformations have been invigorated by the contemporary rise to supremacy of financial capitalism. This dramatic shift of political orientation has borne – all around the world – identical effects: the concentration of decision-making power has been handed over to supranational political bodies, banking institutions, multinationals and investment funds. And this reconfiguration of the relationships between political, economic and financial powers has resulted in the weakening of the State, the domination of the regulation by markets, the increase in levels of corruption and the booming strength of finance. The consequence of this new distribution of powers has been the disaffection of electoral democracy (what is the use of voting if decisions are made elsewhere than where the vote is held or if the ballot count is rigged?), and the disgust felt towards governments seen as massively indifferent to the basic needs of the population (what happens with legitimacy when the verdict of the ballot box is not respected and when the decisions taken are the same regardless of those who are elected?). Swept away by this overwhelming turmoil, the experience of democracy turned out to be one of deception doubled with betrayal. Henceforth, the traditional site of political life (party politics, electoral competition, programmatic commitments, the struggle for control of state power, etc.) has ceased to be the determining arena in which public debate and decision-making take place. Masses of outsiders – i.e. ordinary citizens whose avowed aim is satisfying a political, social or environmental claim with no intention to get hold of State power – came to challenge the sphere of political activity which largely remains the preserve of professionals. To appraise the legitimacy of such a challenge, a brief clarification of the concept of democracy seems necessary. 6 D. Cardon, La démocratie internet, Paris, Ed. du Seuil, 2012. 570 Albert Ogien 3. The Practical Content of The Concept of Democracy Democracy is an ambivalent concept. On the one hand, it refers to a type of political system, based on election, alternation, separation of powers and a range of individual rights and freedoms secured and protected by the institutions of the implementing the rule of law. On the other hand, the concept of democracy refers to a form of life, that is, an order of social relationships ideally exempt from any trace of domination, whether of class, competence, origin or gender, and based on a key principle: unconditional respect for equality of all citizens. This principle is highly demanding when taken downright since it should be applied to all circumstances of social interaction: in politics, in business, at school, in the family as well as in all circumstances of public life. Moreover, achieving absolute equality for all is an infinite task since nobody knows exactly where equality should end – and at what precise point it turns into license or anarchy7. Acknowledging the dual nature of democracy – as regime and as form of life – allows getting sensitive to the crucial role played by the continual back and forth between these two aspects of democracy8. From the perspective of such a practical and dynamic conception, one should reckon ordinary citizens’ full political capacity and give legitimacy to the autonomous political practices they work out to back their claims to equality, justice, dignity and rights. On what grounds and in which terms does this capacity express itself? In the present situation, two different dismissals of democracy are currently voiced which are sometimes difficult to distinguish since they are expressed under the same slogans: «Get out», «You don’t represent us», «Let them all go», «All rotten» or «We are the people». It is nevertheless important to differentiate them. The first one is an external criticism, which states that since democracy is a regime that produces «parliamentarian idiocy», insignificance of public debate, lack of representativeness, contempt for citizens, reproduction of alienation, we must get rid of it and give way to a strong power that will eventually be able to take the necessary measures to save a country, preserve an identity, fight against the decline of civilization, oppose the demise of a nation, or achieve emancipation. The second one is an internal critique, which contends that we must move towards a radicalization of democracy by extending citizens’ rights of control over their governments, increasing the number of negotiation sites, reformulating political priorities, opening up the political decision-making process and producing and circulating free information. 7 8 D. Schnapper, L’esprit démocratique des lois, Paris, Gallimard, 2014. A. Ogien and S. Laugier, Antidémocratie, Paris, La Découverte, 2018 Beyond Participative Democracy 571 To be clear, the external criticism of democracy seeks to undermine faith in these two pillars of democracy, namely equality and human rights, in order to wipe out from the spirit of the individuals the chimera of the end of hierarchy and the domination of the powerful whereas the internal criticism pleads for bringing forth a form of government which is respectful of the aspirations of the population, truly representative and encourages citizens to directly take public affairs in charge. It thus proposes a completely different way of overriding the resentment elicited by the spectacle of a parliamentarian system totally cut off from its constituents. But the task does not seem easy to achieve since it comes up against a force that works to maintain this distinction: anti-democratic thinking. What does this refer to? 4. Varieties of Anti-Democracy Anti-democracy thinking expresses a world view which denies the soundness of letting ordinary citizens debate and decide together on their collective destiny without their choices properly being guided by experts or professionals of politics. On these grounds, it objects to the potential contribution of each individual on equal footing to the determination of public problems or to directly taking governmental affairs in charge. This world view is largely shared by the members of the political and economical establishment who are irritated or frightened by the prospect of losing their dominance. It is primarily voiced whenever one is reluctant to grant new rights to the people who claim them; whenever one considers the expertise of public administrators and managers as inherently superior to that of ordinary citizens; or whenever one asserts that the powerful and the dominant naturally master the rules of rationality. Another manifestation of anti-democracy thinking can be found in the disregard of «people’s sovereignty» as it emerges from the polls. This is the case when a head of state or an ruling party reigning through fear and corruption pretends to run for elections while being convinced in advance that it is assured of its results or whenever a legally elected government decides to rule without respecting the spirit of the institutions that give its credit and legitimacy to democracy and repudiates separation of powers, freedom of opinion, parliamentary control over the executive or freedom of information (which is the case of «illiberal» democracies as Hungary, Poland, Romania, Philippines, Russia); or whenever elections are prevented or neglected by the power that convened them; or whenever a government decide to withdraw their country from international institutions that organize respect for human rights and hinder their absolute power (like the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention on Refugees or the Paris Agreement on Climate Change). 572 Albert Ogien Anti-democratic thinking do also nurture the sneer and sarcasm ordinary citizens are subjected to when they pretend acting in politics and are courtly sent back to their condition of amateurs or neophytes who know nothing about it but still require taking part in it. A long list of arguments aiming at ridicule this demand for empowerment exists, among which one may find: 1) The apathy or indifference of the people to politics (which leads to avoid questioning the question of the imbalance of conditions, fear of repression or the absence of a credible alternative to the system in place); 2) The need for efficiency (which only true professionals trained in public administration are able to elicit); 3) Voluntary servitude or the will to be governed (or the fear of freedom of people who would not know what to do with it); 4) The disorganization of the masses and their inability to structure themselves in the absence of a leader and an inculcated ideology (and the side idea that as soon as there is a leader, it is the end of history and return to normal); 5) Fatalist acceptance of hierarchy (there will always be inequalities and the wisest and most trained are made to lead an ignorant populace); 6) Defending the idea that politics is not a matter of satisfying the common good, but a game reserved for those who know how to play it (a true politician should be a «killer») and take advantage of it (politics should only be seen as profitable career); 7) The aristocratic nature of power in a democracy, i.e. the educational mission of the elites who are naturally exemplary, endowed with height of vision and courage; 8) The fact that all attempts to establish direct democracy have been swept away, most often in blood, by powers – right and left – throughout history (which, curiously enough, would disqualify them forever, as if this organization were a utopia destined to be annihilated because it was unable to resist a determined power). Each of these arguments is unfounded and harmful. But the grip they have on our minds is such that they often prevent us from admitting, in a non-problematic way, that ordinary citizens have a political capacity at least as relevant as that of those who have turned State or corporate leadership into their craft9. 9 N. Eliasoph, Avoiding Politics. How Americans Produce Apathy in Everyday Life, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998. Beyond Participative Democracy 573 Anti-democracy thinking do also animate the contemporary proliferation of the misleading use of the term «populism» to qualify political agendas of many persuasions. It can be applied to those who pretend reducing individual and collective freedoms as well as to those who invite turning foreigners, migrants or Muslims into scapegoats; or call for the closure of borders and the erection of walls; or advocate the restoration of absolute national sovereignty; or reprove the arrogance of power elites. But also to all these discourses denouncing «neo-liberal» policies of austerity, supporting the destruction of the capitalist system, claiming the end of over-exploitation of natural resources or calling for putting an halt to the grip of finance on life. This hodgepodge makes the public debate confusing, even incomprehensible. But still such an undifferentiated use of the term «populism» comforts anti-democratic thinking as it leads to warrant the cogency of five ideas: political activity is the monopoly of leaders and experts; the sensitivity of the people can be easily manipulated by appealing to their lowest feelings and impulses; the masses are bound to follow the instructions given by who poses as their guide; what citizens think about the way they are governed and how public affairs should be conducted can be ignored; the citizens’ ordinary conception of politics and democracy can legitimately be debarred from the public sphere. Anti-democracy thinking is not the monopoly of the enemies of democracy. It permeates the reasoning of those who believe they are diffusing democracy through bestowing on themselves the mission of educating the people about their condition and feeling entitled to lead them toward the right way to achieve emancipation. A contemporary display of anti-democracy thinking is emerging on the ruins of the party system. This is the one I will focus on now. 5. When Citizens Make Politics Representative democracies are beginning to experience a reversal: traditional parties no longer form public opinion and organize its expression in the terms they set, but it is the citizens themselves who frame the kind of organization they adhere to in order to satisfy aspirations that have ceased to be claimed by parties and unions which turned out to be part of the system of the so-called social democracy. Such independent organizations are often set up in the wake of square occupations or collective struggles and depict themselves as «movements» the purpose of which is running for election to allow ordinary citizens to sit in Parliament and take the fabric of the law and the control of the executive into their own hands. The emergence of such «movement 574 Albert Ogien parties»10 (the most glaring examples being the Movimento Cinque Stelle in Italy, Podemos in Spain, Zivi Zid in Croatia, Demosisto in Hong Kong, The Pirates in Island, La République en marche and La France insoumise in France, Québec Solidaire in Canada) puts the current representative system in jeopardy and prompts outrageous criticisms aired by an old political establishment whose station is threatened by this innovation. This situation appears to offer an unlimited reservoir of anti-democratic arguments. The first one being that once such citizens’ organisations are committed to run for elections and get into power, the way they operate shows no difference with the traditional parties’ one. This argument is clearly defective. What distinguishes «movement parties» from their traditional counterparts is that they reject the idea of a pyramidal and military structure led by a leader who controls the organization, hierarchy, finances, propaganda, appointment of representatives, discipline, mobilization. A new political structure is being invented in which horizontality replaces verticality, using deliberation software developed by civic tech activists. These tools make it possible for members to effectively control the direction of the movement and that of the adherents over their representatives; the collective definition of the orientations taken by the movement and those defended in Parliament; the appointment and revocation of spokespersons; the monitoring of the consistency between the principles and the practices of the movement; eventual alliances in parliamentary work. The most successful of such organizations is the Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) as it is the only one which has achieved getting into power to date. It therefore offers a living laboratory to observe how horizontal functioning resists the test of governmental responsibility and how a movement overcomes the pitfalls of ruling without denying its fundamentals (radical pluralism and direct democracy) and implementing the commitments made during the electoral campaign. How did the Cinque Stelle fare on these two issues? The M5S has been created in 2009 and is officially defined as a «nonparty», with no leader, no headquarters and no political doctrine. It deliberately pursues a twofold ambition: to put an end to a system of parties known to be corrupt and to return power to the citizens in order to solve the public problems that concern them. To become an adherent, two criteria must be met: never having been involved in party politics and showing a clean criminal record. The M5S operates through a digital platform («Rousseau») on which members exercise control over the direction of the movement, the decisions it takes and the actions of 10 D. della Porta, J. Fernández, H. Kouki and L. Mosca, Movement Parties Against Austerity, London, Polity, 2017. Beyond Participative Democracy 575 its representatives and spokespersons. Its political charter lists a series of priority measures ranked by the members on the platform which its representatives undertake to enforce. These measures include themes activists of neighborhood associations or collective struggles have promoted: defense of public services, fighting against corruption and mafias, refusal to pay the public debt, support for environmental causes, organizing local solidarity bonds, etc. For its first participation in legislative elections in 2013, it rather surprisingly gathered 25% of voters, sending 162 «unknown» individuals to sit in Parliament and the Senate, with a mandate to refuse any alliance with the other parties. And throughout the legislature, this ambition has been achieved, even though the group has made a significant contribution to Parliament’s work. During the March 4th 2018 Italian legislative elections, the M5S became the country’s leading political force, winning 32.6% of the vote and turning into the largest group in both Parliament (221 seats) and Senate (112 seats). This is despite the fact that the M5S has been the subject of incessant attacks by all the media and political professionals, who enjoyed denouncing the «populism» of its position, discrediting its spokespersons and mocking the incompetence of its elected representatives – the emblematic example being its favorite scapegoat: the Mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi. However, this undermining work did not convince the Italians. Worse still, since the two major government parties: Matteo Renzi’s Partito Democratico (which won 19% of the polls and 110 seats in Parliament), and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (which fell to 14% and 59 seats) have been largely disowned. Matteo Salvini’s Lega’s extreme right-wing and xenophobic party is far behind the M5S, with 17.3% of voters and 73 seats. These results, though forecasted by opinion polls, sparked off comments announcing an «electoral cataclysm». Three reasons justified such a qualification: Italy has become ungovernable since, despite the alliances formed to reach the 40% threshold of voters for obtaining the fifty seat majority bonus provided for by the new electoral law, neither the «center left» nor the «center right» coalitions have succeeded to do it; the victory of a so called «anti-system» and «eurosceptic» movement is a deadly threat to the future of the European Union and of democracy; the polls have revived the country’s division between the North (where people would live from their work) and the South (where people would live from State assistance). Another way of considering this result would have simply been to take note of the desire of the Italian voters to «clear» the old nomenclature which, under various configurations and names, has monopolized power since the aftermath of World War II. For those who could not imagine any radical change of the status quo established from these days on, the M5S’s crushing victory came as a shock. Most analysts and commentators have predicted the inevitable collapse of a movement which is said to be 576 Albert Ogien the product of the association of a comedian (Beppe Grillo) using the popularity he has acquired in shows in which he mistreats politicians to get involved in institutional politics, and a prophet of the digital revolution (Gianroberto Casaleggio) considered as a grey eminence to which a sulphurous image sticks. Few have paid serious attention to the work done by their representatives during the five years of the previous legislature (Luigi Di Maïo sat a vice-president of the Parliament); or the movement’s successes in the municipal elections in Roma and Torino; or anticipated the consequences of the M5S strategy adopted at a National Convention in September 2017, with the stated intention of gaining power by presenting a candidate to the function of Prime Minister. This negligence also prevailed during the election campaign since it was self-evident that the M5S was out of the picture because of its refusal to join any coalition. In a word, the small, confined world of the professionals of politics and the media were lulled into the illusion that it is a negligible quantity. It is no wonder then that the massive vote in its favor has immediately been castigated, in Italy and abroad, as a dangerous triumph of «populism». One of the reasons the M5S stirs the anti-democratic feelings of disbelief and mistrust is that it is a political organization controlled by its members and claiming that a government must be fully accountable to ordinary citizens. Such a stance thoughtfully questions the principle of representation and the monopoly of power by experts and professionals. No wonder it generates violent attacks11. What troubles most the detractors of the M5S is the will to place in positions of command in society novices who know nothing about the ordered and policed world of political life, are not part of any power network, are foreign to the maneuvers and negotiations of party politics, do not claim any official position and do not wish to pursue a career in politics. The fresh representatives that the Italians discovered following the 2013 elections were young, educated, aware of the issues they were dealing with and generally prone to fulfil the mandate entrusted to them by regularly reporting to their constituents, disclosing the data that feed the public debates and submitting their public interventions for validation by the M5S adherents. The 333 members of Parliament elected in 2018 are more experienced but still committed to revive democracy, defeat corruption and put an end to austerity policies. One may notice though that many of the nominees who turned to be representatives were nonmembers of the M5S appointed without consulting grass-roots adherents. An obvious infringement of a principle of the movement. 11 R.A. Ventura, La philosophie politique du Mouvement Cinq Etoiles, in «Esprit», 10 (2018). Beyond Participative Democracy 577 Anti-democratic thinking leads to apprehend Italian political life through the lenses of the entrenched power relationships and strange mores of the circles that revolve around sites of power. On such an account, the sheer presence of the M5S in this picture is challenging and illegitimate and still considered as temporary. That is why the political and media establishment seems incapable of acknowledging that the system of representative government has lost a large part of its legitimacy and that the blind consent granted by the governed to the rulers is slowly coming to an end. And though nobody is able to predict what will be the future and evolution of such movements, one should pay close attention to their undertakings and look into how they will demonstrate in practice – or fail to do so – that a true horizontal alternative to the hierarchical parties of yesteryear exists and that a new type of sustainable political organization is ready for the succession. 6. Active Citizenship Procedures of citizens’ participation to public debate have lost their appeal – if they have ever had one. The current political situation is characterized by the emergence of groups of «insurgent citizens» that have chosen to act in politics outside the framework of traditional parties or unions in order to defy the powerful on the terrain of rationality and legality of public action. Protesting against legally and regularly elected governments also appears to be a stance ordinary citizens resort to more and more rapidly and frequently these days. All these phenomena point to the fact that election has lost what has long been its miraculous properties for the winners as it allowed them to state: «You’ve voted for us and we therefore have the legitimacy to apply our program on your behalf until the next election!». The strength of this axiom is steadily regressing and citizens do no longer refrain from calling for the resignation of the government they have just elected a few months before. This unexpected unreliability of the electorate is often presented as irrational or as an unsettling display of ingratitude. Many commentators and analysts further believe that too high a level of citizen’s vigilance is unbearable and argue that it should be defeated in order to «let a government govern» during a time span allowing for the implementation of their program. However, there is no reason to subscribe to such a point of view since citizen’s control over their representatives’ actions and behaviors is essential to democracy. The problem comes from the present day awareness of individuals that voting once in a while is not enough to exercise such a control. 578 Albert Ogien To the utter despair of anti-democrats, it is now up to the citizens themselves to reconfigure the system of representative democracy and define the political issues to be submitted to public debate. A new way of doing politics – which reaches far beyond participation – is on the rise which is committed to work out new practices of democracy in the public sphere as well as in everyday social relationships12. This is what concerned people do accomplish when they get involved in weaving local, national or international bonds of solidarity, in the coordination of cities in transition, in self-managed businesses, in short circuits of economic exchange, in environmental networks fighting against climate change. Or in willfully creating movement parties to reclaim representation and eventually occupy Parliaments. Beyond Participative Democracy The current situation of the regimes of representative democracy is one in which those who govern are convinced that they have to take steps to renew the link between them and the governed and at the same time contend that handing over the prerogatives which are the preserve of State technicians and administrators to ordinary citizens is an unrealistic, harmful and even dangerous undertaking. This article considers the nature and soundness of a demand for a truly deliberative democracy emanating from these groups of citizens who devise, organize and implement what might be called autonomous political practices which reach far beyond participation mechanisms as they claim the key role ordinary people have to play in political matters and in fostering the democratization of democracy. Keywords: Citizenship, Democracy, Participation, Anti-democracy Autonomous Political Practices, Albert Ogien, CNRS, CEMS EHESS, 54 boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris, ogien@ehess.fr. 12 2008. E. Isin and G. Nielsen (eds.), Acts of citizenship, London, Palgrave Macmillan,