The End of Representative Politics E-Book

Simon Tormey

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 352

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Representative politics is in crisis.  Trust in politicians is at an all-time low. Fewer people are voting or joining political parties, and our interest in parliamentary politics is declining fast.  Even oppositional and radical parties that should be benefitting from public disenchantment with politics are suffering.

But different forms of political activity are emerging to replace representative politics: instant politics, direct action, insurgent politics.  We are leaving behind traditional representation, and moving towards a politics without representatives.  In this provocative new book, Simon Tormey explores the changes that are underway, drawing on a rich range of examples from the Arab Spring to the Indignados uprising in Spain, street protests in Brazil and Turkey to the emergence of new initiatives such as Anonymous and Occupy.
 
Tormey argues that the easy assumptions that informed our thinking about the nature and role of parties, and ‘party based democracy’ have to be rethought. We are entering a period of fast politics, evanescent politics, a politics of the street, of the squares, of micro-parties, pop-up parties, and demonstrations. This may well be the end of representative politics as we know it, but an exciting new era of political engagement is just beginning.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Contours of a ‘Crisis’

Contours of a crisis I: the view from above

Voter turnout

Membership of political parties

Trust in politicians

Interest in politics

Contours of a crisis II: the view from the margin

The Zapatistas

The World Social Forum (WSF)

Occupy Wall Street (OWS)

Conclusion

Notes

2 Locating ‘Representative Politics’

The origins of ‘representation’

The emergence of the nation state

The waning of religious orthodoxy

Mercantile capitalism and the first great transformation

From absolutist to democratic representation

An ambivalence towards the state

An ambivalence towards the demos

Representation and its critics

The rise of ‘representative politics’

From ‘majoritarian’ politics to the politics of minorities

Conclusion

Notes

3 Are We Becoming Unrepresentable?

Why is representative politics in crisis?

The problem with politicians …

The problem with citizens …

The problem with neoliberalism …

The long revolution: modernity, globalization, individualization

The transition from ‘Fordism’ to ‘Post-Fordism’

Transnational flows and deterritorialization

The proliferation of information, media, communication

Individualization and the erosion of authority

The crumbling pyramid

(Don’t) take me to your leader

The DIY-ification of politics

Conclusion

Notes

4 Is the Party Over?

A farewell party?

Content: what’s the matter with the message?

Form: what’s the matter with the organization?

Politics after and beyond the party

Social media: the quantum leap forward?

Mobilization after social media: from representation to resonance

Conclusion

Notes

5 Citizens against Representation

The Spanish crucible

15M as event

15M and non-affiliated activism

Back to the party

Party politics – but not as we know it …

The new ‘party-based democracy’

Conclusion

Notes

6 Democracy after Representation

The ‘end’ of representative democracy

From representation to resonance

The collision of ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’

The transformation of ‘party-based democracy’

The new (political) class warfare

A redrawing of the relationship between governments, politicians, authorities and citizens now better able to act in ‘swarm’ or ‘crowd’ mobilizations

Post-representative democracy?

The end of an aura?

The long wait for the ‘democracy-to-come’

Democracy after ‘post-democracy’?

Conclusion

Notes

References

Index

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Contents

Begin Reading

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The End of Representative Politics

Simon Tormey

polity

Copyright © Simon Tormey 2015

The right of Simon Tormey to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2015 by Polity Press

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press350 Main StreetMalden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-9051-3

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tormey, Simon, 1963-The end of representative politics/Simon Tormey.pages cmIncludes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-0-7456-8195-5 (hardback: alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-7456-8196-2(pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Representative government and representation. I. Title.JF1051.T66 2015321.8--dc23

2014030425

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Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has its origins in a European Consortium for Political Research Joint Sessions workshop on ‘Representation’ held in Edinburgh in 2003. I gave what was even by my standards a rather leftfield paper, but it nonetheless provided me with an entrée to a world, albeit one I had little intention of inhabiting for very long. The paper was received with good humour and constructive criticism by those who were properly attuned to the intricacies of the topic: Gideon Baker, Henrik Bang, Michele Micheletti, Mike Saward, Graham Smith, amongst numerous others. I thank them for providing the initial stimulus that encouraged me to take up the issue in a more extended form.

As for the present, I feel very fortunate to work with a talented group of colleagues in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney. I would particularly like to thank John Keane, who has done so much to encourage discussion at Sydney of many of the key themes with which this work is concerned. I also acknowledge the important role locally of Pippa Norris, who, like John, has done a huge amount to enliven the environment for the study of representation, how it works and for whom.

I owe a great deal to the university for permitting me to take leave in 2013, when the bulk of the writing for this project was undertaken. During this year I offered a number of papers which became incorporated into the present work. I learned a lot from Wolfgang Merkel and colleagues at the WZB Berlin. I also thank the participants at a workshop on representation held at the Political Studies Association Annual Conference in Cardiff, particularly Mónica Brito Vieira, who provided detailed comments on my paper which gave much food for thought. I’m also grateful to the participants at a workshop on ‘The Crisis of Democracy’ held at Canberra University in 2014.

I’m very pleased to acknowledge the help of Ramón Feenstra of the University Jaume I, in Castellón, Spain. Ramón helped organize two periods of fieldwork which fed directly into Chapter 5 of the present work. He worked tirelessly for weeks setting up meetings, rounding up representatives and ‘post-representatives’ of political parties, taking me to all manner of events in Castellón, Barcelona and Valencia. Whilst in Spain we met with around a hundred activists. Quite simply, this would not have been the same book without their passion, engagement, knowledge and enthusiasm. Meeting individuals like these is the ultimate antidote to a certain weary fatalism that can creep into thinking about the present and future democracy. I salute them all, and thank them for their input into this work. Muchas gracias!

I’m also very pleased to acknowledge the direct help and assistance of Ben Moffitt, Andy Robinson and Ramón in reading and commenting on the full text of this work. All of them made me change my thinking or approach in some important way.

I’d like to acknowledge the help and guidance of the team at Polity Press, particularly Louise Knight and Pascal Porcheron. I am also grateful to the small army of colleagues behind the scenes who commented on my initial proposal and the final manuscript.

Finally (always finally), gros bisous to Véronique, and my children Maximilian, Gabrielle and Louis. Towards the end of the book I describe a form of democracy that is noisy, rumbustious and full of the clamour of unruly dissensus. Any resemblance to the family dinner table is entirely coincidental.

INTRODUCTION

There are not many truisms in the study of politics, but the view that representation is intrinsic to any system of democratic governance is probably one of them. Some people will speak and act on behalf of a group, political cause or identity and thus represent it; others will recognize themselves as being the object of this discourse and be represented by it. Some will hold power as representatives; other people will be represented. ‘Speaking for others’ and ‘being spoken for’ is, according to Hanna Pitkin, author of the classic work on the topic, The Concept of Representation, fundamental to understanding the dynamic of politics. As she puts it: ‘In modern times, almost everyone wants to be governed by representatives…; every political group or cause wants representation; every government claims to represent’ (Pitkin 1972: 2).

Few readers of Pitkin’s text would have had grounds for querying such an analysis when it first appeared in 1967. Now it appears increasingly problematic. The claim that almost everyone ‘wants to be governed by representatives’ is countered by a growing body of evidence that suggests that many of us have become – or are becoming – disillusioned with politics and politicians, with our representatives and with representation (Norris 1999; Dalton 2004; Hay 2007). Compared to the 1960s we vote less – when we vote at all. We are much less likely to join a political party, to be interested in the affairs of the state or the political class (unless it is in the context of a scandal). The citizens of advanced democracies trust politicians less than virtually any other professional grouping, including second-hand car salesmen. In response to such alarming indicators, the Guardian asked in a recent survey whether representative democracy was in ‘terminal decline’ (Burn-Murdoch 2012).

As for the second half of Pitkin’s statement (‘every political group or cause wants representation’), many emergent political groups and initiatives explicitly and implicitly disavow the inheritance of representative politics. Occupy, for example, like other recent movements, rejects the idea that it is seeking to represent, even as it proclaims ‘We are the 99%.’ We can put to one side for a moment the issue of whether and to what extent such responses achieve what they set out to do: avoid, query or move beyond representation. Of interest here is the discourse and repertoire of devices, manoeuvres and gestures groups use to distance themselves from ‘representative politics’. In place of a politics based on a practice of speaking and acting for others, we now find a plethora of forms and styles of what might be called immediate or non-mediated politics: direct action, flash protests, Twitter-led mobilizations, pinging, hacking, squatting, boycotting, buy-cotting, occupying and other interventions of a direct, practical kind. Increasingly, politically engaged citizens don’t vote, they act. They don’t join mass parties contesting power; they create their own initiatives, ‘micro-parties’, networks, affinity groups, deliberative assemblies, participatory experiments. They don’t wait for elections; they seek to make their views, anger, displeasure, known immediately, . They don’t read the media, they (to quote Indymedia) the media.