Our democracy is being wrecked by being limited to elections, even though elections weren’t invented as a democratic instrument. That, in one sentence, is the argument I develop in the first three chapters of this essay, while in the fourth chapter I examine the case for the reintroduction of a far more democratic instrument historically, sortition.
But what if nothing changes? What if national governments, parties and politicians decide that drawing lots is all well and good, but that they have already done a great deal for the citizen in recent years and thought up countless new instruments? Which is true. In more and more countries, anyone with reason to complain can go to an ombudsman, anyone who has an opinion can vote in a referendum from time to time and anyone who collects enough signatures can put an issue on the agenda as a citizens’ initiative. These are forms of participation that didn’t exist a few years ago, when a government would usually only enter into dialogue with unions, councils, commissions and itself.
The new instruments are valuable, especially now that organised civil society has less of a say, but they still fall far short of what’s needed. Citizens’ initiatives bring the needs of the people to the doorstep of the legislator, as if they were bottles of milk, and no further. In a referendum people must wait until they can pick a ready-made piece of legislation out of those on offer, and only then can they, in a mad frenzy, throw themselves on their favoured option. Conversations with the ombudsman take place in the garden, as it were, a good distance from the legislative process. No closer. (The ombudsman might be described as the government’s gardener, sometimes chatting with the neighbours and listening to their concerns.)
New instruments certainly, but they still function as desperate ways of keeping the citizen out. The doors and windows of the legislative house remain closed and no one gets in, not even through the cat flap. However, in the light of the economic crisis this degree of agoraphobia should act as a wake-up call. It’s as if politics has shut itself up in its own castle and is peering out from behind the curtains at the uproar on the street, an unhelpful attitude which only increases the citizen’s feeling of distrust and causes further unrest.
Without drastic adjustment, this system cannot last much longer. If you look at the decline in voter turnout and party membership, and at the way politicians are held in contempt, if you look at how difficult it is to form governments, how little they can do and how harshly they are punished for it, if you look at how quickly populism, technocracy and anti-parliamentarianism are rising, if you look at how more and more citizens are longing for participation and how quickly that desire can tip over into frustration, then you realise we are up to our necks. There isn’t much time left.
It’s very simple: either politics throws open the doors or it won’t be long before they’ll be kicked in by angry citizens shouting slogans like ‘No taxation without participation!’ as they smash every last stick of furniture and walk out with the chandelier of power.
This is alas no fantasy. While I was working on this book, Transparency International published its latest ‘Global Corruption Barometer’ and the findings are downright shocking. Political parties everywhere are regarded as the most corrupt organisations on earth. In practically all Western democracies they come in at number one while in the European Union the figures are nothing less than tragic.
How long can this go on? It’s an untenable situation and if I were a politician I’d be losing sleep. As a passionate democrat, I already am. This is a time bomb. We may seem to be in a quiet period, but it’s the calm before the storm, the calm of 1850, when the issue of workers’ rights seemed to have died down. But the issue was still smouldering, the explosion was yet to come and that was the calm before a long period of great instability. In those days it was all about the right to vote, now it’s all about the right to speak, but in essence it’s the same battle, the battle for political emancipation and for democratic participation. We must decolonise democracy. We must democratise democracy.
Once again: what are we waiting for?