[E-rundbrief] Info 1329 - Jan Oberg: Democracy in crisis
Matthias Reichl
info at begegnungszentrum.at
Sa Jun 14 12:00:08 CEST 2014
E-Rundbrief - Info 1329 - Jan Oberg (TFF, S): Democracy in crisis.
Bad Ischl, 14.6.2014
Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
www.begegnungszentrum.at
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Democracy in crisis
By Jan Oberg
Lund, Sweden, June 6, 2014
Democracy is a core feature of Western society, normally understood
as representative parliament - i.e. in free elections citizens vote
for people to represent their interests in a parliament consisting of
parties of which some form the government and some the opposition.
It’s not always included in the definitions that democracy requires
a reasonable level of knowledge and information, freely available. For
instance, one often hears that India is the world’s largest democracy
but 26% of the people are still illiterate (287 million people).
So the ”world’s largest democracy” also has the world’s largest
population who can’t read and write. In comparison, China's illiterate
citizens make up about 3% and it is regularly called a dictatorship.
The state of democracy - 10 points for dialogue
When we talk about global crisis, people think much more of the
economy, environment, identity issues or warfare than of democracy
being in crisis. I think it is in fundamental crisis for the the
following reasons.
1. The state is being challenged from below and from above.
Democracy is tied to the nation-state. But citizens' activity from
below plus regional and global organisations, summits, forums and
groups make the state weaker.
2. Economic perspectives dominate.
Most of what is discussed in democracies are related to the economy,
and that is further dominated by the politics of the wallet.
3. Materialism over life values.
Compared with economics and what is called ”realistic”, democratic
debate seldom touch values, ethics or concepts such as justice and peace.
4. A time horizon far too short.
Who can achieve anything meaningful in the larger world with a 4-year
perspective?
5. National parliaments less and less important.
Larger, more distant and elite-based structures such as Wall Street,
NATO, EU, the IMF, SCO, ASEAN, banks, and stock market manipulations
etc. set up the parameters within which the state - national
governments - may operate.
6. Economic and military elites think of the world as one system.
But the political sphere remains national, even sometimes
nationalistic. We don’t have even the embryo of a global democratic
decision-making that can match these two powerful actors.
7. Politicians must choose between getting elected and speaking the truth.
A politician whose campaign would emphasise what we must give up and
how we must show solidarity to save the world won’t get elected. Those
who get elected promise more and more money in your pocket, brilliant
futures built on extrapolations of the present and they make promises
everybody somehow knows won’t be kept after election day.
8. Public relation replaces knowledge.
Politics has become pragmatic navigation and positioning, and less a
matter of values and principles. Deals are being made and ”sold”
afterwards to the public.
Decades ago, political leaders would seek knowledge about certain
options from independent expertise; these still exist of course but
the army of spin doctors, marketing people, lobbying etc. has replaced
most of it.
Thanks to modern communication and media demands the time for
knowledge-based decision-making has been reduced enormously during the
last 20-30 years. This mostly probably impacts negatively on the
quality of most decisions.
9. Politics as a calling versus a career option.
10. Finally, democracy should be about creating choice, not just voting.
Most people seem to believe that democracy is about voting for some
policy or law or voting 'yes' or 'no' to some alternatives set up by
the political elites (also called referendum).
But fundamentally, democracy’s very idea is not to vote on an issue
set up in advance; democracy is to contribute to establishing the
agenda in the first place. Example: Yes or no for a country to join
the EU. But that is not democracy. Democracy is to develop a broader
spectrum of which, say, the EU is only one option/alternative among a
series.
Genuine democracy is about setting agendas. It’s not about voting yes
or no to somebody else’s more or less cunning agenda. It's about
dialogue and not just debates.
You could, perhaps, summarise these ten points by saying that
democracy is no longer lived, it is being performed. It's become a
ritual with little ethos.
Consequently, throughout Western democracies citizens feel that it is
almost impossible to "get through" to top leaders.
In one of his last interviews, French existentialist philosopher
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) said that every time you vote, you give
away your power.
That statement points to the essential, classical distinction between
representative democracy and direct democracy.
In the first you delegate to someone else who has convinced/seduced
you, to take care of your interests. We know this generally leads to
false promise-making and considerable disappointment with the whole
idea of politics.
In the second, citizens take issues in their own hands - which of
course has other disadvantages and encompasses a whole series of other
problems. But without a vibrant citizenship, no democracy is possible.
Least bad but far from good enough
In summary, while democracy perhaps remains the least bad system, we
should be very careful not to equate that statement with democracy
being good enough.
It is no test of its quality that Western democracy is - ceteris
paribus - better than authoritarian regimes or dictatorship.
Complacency in this matters could easily lead us towards whatever we
associate with the opposite of democracy in years to come. Was the EU
Parliamentary elections an indicator of just that at a deeper level?*
Since the above discussion is critical, the next article will invite
the reader to a dialogue about some possible things that could be done
to regain the basics of democracy and make it better for the future.
[862 words]
A longer version with elaborated arguments is available at TFF's blog
* An earlier PressInfo dealt with the recent EU elections in
perspective of democracy's crisis
Jan Oberg
TFF director, dr. hc.
June 6, 2014
http://blog.transnational.org/2014/06/tff-pressinfo-democracys-crisis-10-points/
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