Utopias Re-imagined: A Reply to Panizza

This article is a reply to Panizza's recent article, 'Unarmed Utopia Revisited: The Resurgence of Left-of-Centre Politics in Latin America'. It contests the claims that there are no alternatives to market economies and liberal democracy in contemporary Latin America. It does this by disentangling the conceptual assumptions that underlie the analysis presented, which, it argues, construct a loaded dice that makes the conclusions of the arguments seemingly inevitable and objective. It also explores the internal contradictions within the alternative presented. This analysis is developed through the use of critical social theory and with reference to the 'movements from below' engaged in the struggle to re-imagine and reconstruct utopias. This involves bringing to the heart of analysis a theoretical orientation in which structures become a series of concrete social relations, not objects, and power is mediated at a variety of spatial levels. It necessitates a conceptualisation of politics, structure and the agents and nature of structural change that expand the boundaries of traditional political science categories. Such conceptual expansion and theoretical repositioning make visible, and politically central, the movements from below normally categorised as marginal in political analysis.     

Power groups,interests and interest groups in consolidated and transitional democracies: comparing Uruguay and Costa Rica with Paraguay and Haiti

Drawing on a representative sample of four countries, this article compares two related aspects of interest group activity across Latin America. First, it identifies the elements that determine the level of interest group system development and types of group activity across the region; and second it provides insights into the relationship of the level of institutionalization of a group system to the extent of the consolidation of democracy. The representative sample is composed of Uruguay and Costa Rica in comparison with Paraguay and Haiti. These are four countries with small populations that cover the spectrum of levels of socioeconomic and political development across Latin America, from Uruguay, one of the most developed, to Haiti one of the least developed. The article argues that across a spectrum of group development in Latin America, advanced systems have more or less integrated characteristics, whereas less developed ones manifest a dual or bifurcated group activity. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is politics under increasing corporate sway? A longitudinal study on the drivers of corporate access

This article argues that the European Parliament (EP) provides a poor model of representative democracy, as the nature of its representativeness is rooted in a pre‐democratic form. If this is correct, the EP's experience might indicate that liberal representative democracy in western political systems has become an inadequate vehicle for governmental legitimacy. However, the EP could promote devolution of power, which is a prerequisite for a more participatory form of democracy better suited to a politically mature populace.     

Local Democracy and Political Leadership: Drawing a Map

Different concepts of local democracy imply different tasks, functions and reform strategies for local political leadership. This article draws a map of local democracy that entails four non-exclusive components: representative democracy, user democracy, network democracy and participatory democracy. After reflecting on the nature of local democracy in governance and the functions of political leadership generally, the article considers in turn the bases of constructing the common good within each form of democracy. Special attention is given to the role of political leadership within these forms.     

Contacting as a channel of Political Involvement: Collectively Motivated,Individually Enacted

Citizen-initiated contact with politicians is an increasing, but often neglected, form of political participation. Direct contact fits well with new participation trends that increased individualisation and a single-issue focus have brought forth, and is often interpreted as a participatory form that conforms with such new demands. Yet while political participation through most traditional channels is decreasing, direct-contact increase implies that people are still channelling involvement through the established institutions. Accordingly, this article argues that the significant increase in direct contacting of representatives is not an expression of protest behaviour. On the contrary, contacting shows strong adherence to representative democracy. It is related to conventional modes of political participation, above all party-related activities. This study examines contacting in relation to other forms of political involvement, using data from the Norwegian Citizenship Survey. The analyses reveal that even after removing from the analyses those who themselves hold public office, citizen-initiated contacting is related to party activity. Political ties are more important in explaining contacting than is the socio-economic status of the contactors.     

The impact of party organisational changes on democracy

This article explores post-World War II developments in the organisation of political parties and the impact this has had on democracy in Western Europe. Adopting three models of democracy as analytical tools we discuss the consequences of, for example, declining membership figures and power on parties' ability to sustain competitive, participatory and deliberative aspects of representative democracy. We find that while there is evidence of a trend towards the competitive model, it is not uniform and the relationship is less clear-cut than previously suggested. The article shows that by making normative assumptions explicit, analyses of party change become more accurate, fruitful and, paradoxically, less biased. Because our conclusions are contingent at times on questionable assumptions about empirical relationships, we urge further research on a number of party organisational matters.     

Between governance-driven democratisation and democracy-driven governance: Explaining changes in participatory governance in the case of Barcelona

Scholars of participatory democracy have long noted dynamic interactions and transformations within and between political spaces that can foster (de)democratisation. At the heart of this dynamism lie (a) the processes through which top-down “closed” spaces can create opportunities for rupture and democratic challenges and (b) vice-versa, the mechanisms through which bottom-up, open spaces can be co-opted through institutionalisation. This paper seeks to unpick dynamic interactions between different spaces of participation by looking specifically at two forms of participatory governance, or participatory forms of political decision making used to improve the quality of democracy. First, Mark Warren's concept of ‘governance-driven democratization’ describes top-down and technocratic participatory governance aiming to produce better policies in response to bureaucratic rationales. Second, we introduce a new concept, democracy-driven governance, to refer to efforts by social movements to invent new, and reclaim and transform existing, spaces of participatory governance and shape them to respond to citizens’ demands. The paper defines these concepts and argues that they co-exist and interact in dynamic fashion; it draws on an analysis of case study literature on participatory governance in Barcelona to illuminate this relationship. Finally, the paper relates the theoretical framework to the case study by making propositions as to the structural and agential drivers of shifts in participatory governance.     

Word and Deed: A Deweyan Integration of Deliberative and Participatory Democracy

This article draws on the political philosophy of John Dewey as one way to re-think the relationship between deliberative and participatory democracy. Rather than focusing on differences, Dewey's ideal of democracy allows us to bridge these two theories while still being attentive to the tensions between them. In particular, Dewey helps us conceptualize deliberative and participatory practices as distinctive yet complementary phases within a larger circuit of cooperative inquiry. To illustrate the argument, a case study of one democratic experiment that effectively combined different forms of practice is presented. In doing so, it is contended that we might be able to recover and incorporate some of the more radical features of participatory democracy into deliberative practices. Participatory theory's focus on political action and structural inequality, in addition to deliberation, as essential to citizen-centered democratic practice is specifically emphasized.     

Unarmed Utopia Revisited: The Resurgence of Left-of-Centre Politics in Latin America

This paper seeks to examine the extent to which left-wing forces are making a comeback in Latin America and to draw out the political implications of their political ascendancy. It argues that while left-of-centre parties have developed a persuasive critique of the failures of liberal democracy and economic neoliberalism in the region, there is as yet no conceptual clarity or distinct policy initiatives materialising from the left's promises of deepening democracy and implementing an alternative economic model. When in power, left-of-centre parties have followed a strategy of 'bending and moulding' existing political institutions and the free-market economic model rather than attempting radical political and economic reforms. This paper concludes that left-of-centre parties are right in accepting that there is little room in the region for an anti-systemic model and that instead the emphasis should be placed on making states, markets and democracy work better to secure development, address social demands and attack the root causes of discrimination and inequality. But leaving behind old certainties and adapting to the new political and economic environment has come at the cost of a loss of intellectual confidence, ideological clarity and weakened identities.     

The contribution of lobby regulation initiatives in addressing political corruption in Latin America

For most of its history, Latin America has lived under authoritarian and elite rule where public decisions were often crafted in the shadows by cabinets and parliaments to the benefit of a small minority. Recently, the development of participatory political systems has brought some transparency to the policy-making process. Such scrutiny reveals evidence of the capture of aspects of policy-making by private interests that use obscure strategies to achieve their political goals. As a consequence, a widespread movement for regulating the role and tactics of interest groups emerged, which is seen as a necessary step to address the root causes of political corruption. This article provides an overview of efforts to regulate lobbying in Latin America. It explains attempts at regulation in four countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru), evaluates the level of success of these efforts, and assesses prospects for the future regarding reducing corruption through the instrument of lobby regulations. The authors argue that such regulations alone cannot eliminate political corruption. However, lobby regulations can contribute to increased transparency and aid in developing an anti-corruption culture. It will be shown that lobby laws in Latin America exhibit many of the problems long identified with similar regulations across western democracies. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The virtuous circle of representation

Theoretical and empirical research shows that political representation is a dynamic process repeatedly connecting citizens and political elites. However, less is known about how citizens alone experience the process of political representation and connect electoral participation with representation. This article combines different literature pertaining to the representative process in a dynamic framework. It explores causality between electoral participation and perceived responsiveness in citizens' minds using unique panel data. By arguing for two-way causality and the existence of a virtuous circle, the paper refines the concepts’ relationship beyond traditional conceptions that currently dominate the literature on electoral behaviour and participatory democracy. The results indicate that the representative process may be a self-sustaining experience for citizens over time.     

State,democracy, socialism: introduction

This paper argues that comtemporary developments in democratic politics mark the emergence of a new type of representative government. Current trends such as the weakening of party identification, the decline of political platforms or the increasing role of an élite of media experts may be regarded as undermining the principle of popular government. The paper demonstrates, however, that representative government was not invented as an indirect form of government by the people, but as a wholly original political system resting on principles different from those which organize democracy. Moreover, a number of institutional arrangements were established at the origins of representative government which have been virtually unquestioned since. Political representation has changed much less than is generally assumed. It is true, on the other hand, that the constant principles of representative government have had different consequences depending on the circumstance in which they were implemented. Such differences have generated various forms of political representation. The paper constructs three ideal-types of representative government. It shows that the current situation is best conceived as the rise of a new type of representation.     

The failure of the participatory democracy in the Czech republic

Following the breakdown of the Soviet system, the new East European elites faced the problem of defining and building democratic institutions. This problem was not a purely institutional one, however. During the transformation process, different conceptions of democracy appear and often become critical issues for political competition. Based on the Czech case, this article aims to understand how and why one particular conception of democracy becomes dominant during a process of regime change. Personified by the two ‘Vaclavs’ in the Czech political arena (Havel and Klaus), divergent perspectives on democracy exist in the Czech Republic, having concrete consequences for the practice of politics. These conceptions (referred to here as ‘participatory’ and ‘majoritarian') dramatically differ in their perception of the role of the citizen in a liberal democracy. This article identifies and describes these two different conceptions of democracy in the present and past Czech Republic. It explores the sociological conditions of their emergence in order to understand the failure of the participatory model of democracy with respect to the alternative, majoritarian, vision of democracy.     

Best Laid Plans … The Institutionalisation of Public Deliberation in Scotland

Despite increasing support for participatory and deliberative principles amongst academics, practitioners and parliamentarians alike, efforts to infuse political systems with more inclusive and consensual forms of debate often founder. This article explores this conundrum by examining institutional reforms through the lens of deliberative democracy. More specifically, we scrutinise attempts to institutionalise forms of civic deliberation within the Scottish political system via the Scottish Civic Forum and the Scottish Parliament's committee system. Our analysis tells the story of how these two types of institutional reform, both designed to facilitate the move towards a more participatory and deliberative model of democracy in Scotland, have fared over a ten‐year period. In turn, this analysis allows us to comment on the ways in which deliberative and parliamentary democracy may be integrated.     

Mechanisms for popular participation and discursive constructions of citizenship

In the past decade, Latin America has witnessed the emergence of a political discourse that links popular participation to citizenship accompanied by an explosion of participatory mechanisms. Yet there is little qualitative research that looks at how participatory experiences affect people's perceptions of their role as citizens or to what extent the discourse transmitted through these institutions encourages participation or compliance. This article examines conceptions of citizenship among individuals who engage in participatory mechanisms in Venezuela, Ecuador and Chile. Using discourse analysis, it finds that participants in Venezuela and Ecuador have developed a ‘radical’ conception of active citizenship that differs from the liberal interpretation in Chile. Regardless of the preferred model, however, state discourse establishes parameters around citizenship. Furthermore, the discursive repertoires of citizen participants align with those produced by state institutions, suggesting that participatory mechanisms act to socialize people into participating in ‘legitimate’ and acceptable ways.     

Latin America's Fledgling,Fumbling Democracies

By a small majority, Latin Americans are disposed toward preferring democracy over other forms of government, and for now almost all leaders in the region hold office from elections not military coups. Still, most Latin Americans quite correctly do not believe democracy has generally served their interests, that is, produced the jobs, houses, food, justice, and opportunities more and more people tell pollsters they want for themselves and their families. Personal observations and many studies, by the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and others, confirm Latin America's unequaled inequalities and in many respects virtual economic stagnation as far as most people are concerned. The problem is not mainly bad individual leaders or foreign predators, as is often charged, but incompetent governance generally and the inability or refusal of Latins themselves to match their desires with the protracted effort needed to achieve their aspirations. Institutions and paternalistic thinking that go back for centuries persist in adapted forms and today are not only not producing for the majority but dragging Latin America farther and farther behind more successfully reforming countries, particularly in Asia. Latins have it in their power to change things, if they will.     

Kritik und Neubewertung politischer Repräsentation: vom Hindernis zur Möglichkeitsbedingung politischer Freiheit

In participatory democratic theory we see a positive reassessment of political representation these days. Whereas until recently representation has at best been accepted as an unavoidable substitute for direct democracy, newer theories regard representation as constitutive for democratic political action. Such a turn in the assessment of representation has become possible by dismissing an autonomy-oriented concept of democracy that goes back to Rousseau, and of which a modified version is represented by Jürgen Habermas today. The new interpretations understand representation not in the sense of an as perfect as possible transmission of the will of the represented to the representative, but as a relation of difference which allows for plural acting and political judgment in the first place. Although the discussion of these theories shows that they can offer an interesting theoretical reconstruction of representative democracy, they remain very vague in specifiying concrete possibilities of political action and democratic participation for the represented.     

Failing Political Representation or a Change in Kind? Models of Representation and Empirical Trends in Europe

This article reviews Peter Mair’s argument on the failure of political parties and the subsequent failure of representative democracy in Europe. It develops a conceptual framework to test the validity of Mair’s argument against competing interpretations of the development of representative democracy. It identifies three ideal typical models of representative democracy that seem to have succeeded each other over time: cleavage-based democracy, competitive democracy, and audience democracy. The article proposes specific empirical hypotheses for political parties and voters in each of these periods and provides empirical evidence to test the validity of these hypotheses. It concludes with a discussion of the results, evaluating whether the changes that occurred indicate failure of representative democracy or rather the emergence of a different form of representative democracy.     

Crisis of political parties and representative democracies: rethinking parties in associational,experimentalist governance

The contrast between the normative functions of political parties in representative democracies and their empirical working is stark and rapidly increasing. This article starts from a sober, realist account of the empirical state of affairs and from structural problems of democracy and participations – in terms of limits of time, information, qualification and relevant expertise – that have to be acknowledged by any realist–utopian proposal of alternatives beyond the exclusive alternative of ‘thin, realist democracy’ or emphatic ‘strong, participatory, direct, or mass democracy’. We can do better. My search for institutional alternatives looks not for the replacement of political parties but for their relief. Many, not all, of their normative tasks can be shared with other functional networks, associations and organizations. In exploring such a new division of political labour I draw on older debates and designs of associative democracy and on recent discussions to democratize expertise and to expertise democracy in order to address urgent societal problems of high-risk decisions under conditions of extreme complexity, contingency, unpredictability and uncertainty and deep contestedness of our knowledge, problems that turn out to be unmanagable by party politics and representative democracy.     

Institutionalising participatory and deliberative procedures: The origins of the first permanent citizens’ assembly

In the context of public disaffection towards representative democracies, political leaders are increasingly establishing citizens’ assemblies to foster participatory governance. These deliberative fora composed of randomly selected citizens have attracted much scholarly attention regarding their theoretical foundations and internal functioning. Nevertheless, we lack research that scrutinizes the reasons why political leaders create such new institutions. This article fills this gap by analysing a specific case: the first permanent randomly selected citizens’ assembly that will work in collaboration with a parliament in the long-term (Ostbelgien, Belgium). This case is analysed through a framework that pays close attention to the context in which it developed, the profiles of political elites that supported its creation, as well as the multiple objectives it was vested with. The findings reveal that initiators of citizens’ assemblies fundamentally conceive them as a way to strengthen a polity's identity, to save the electoral model of democracy, and to restore the legitimacy of traditional political leaders. Our analysis of this particular conception lead us to argue for the need of developing context-sentive approaches to participatory and deliberative procedures, as well as to discuss whether we should consider the latter as mere elites’ legitimation tools.