There seems to be no end to the interest in the decline or “death of democracy” and no lack of efforts to renew or reformulate it. But while we may no longer be in a period of political disengagement, the “hyper-politics” of the post-crash era seems to be markedly different from – and less effective than – the popular politics of the past. So what explains the changes in the nature of democratic participation across Europe over the last 50 years?
In Ruling the Void: The Hollowing Out of Western Democracy – originally published in 2013 and reissued last year by Verso – the late political scientist Peter Mair retraces the history of citizen and elite withdrawal from politics and the “void” that opened up between the electorate and the state. With a new separation between citizens and the state, this contemporary classic explores how institutional changes in party democracies would create the career vehicles and electoral machines we recognise today, and in turn, provoke a crisis of legitimacy that continues to undermine public trust in representative politics.
So, what caused the current separation between citizens and the political class? What implications does it have for efforts to rebuild democratic power in society? And do we have to accept that a post-popular democracy is the only option?
Though Ruling the Void mainly focuses on party democracy, electoral participation, and the rise of apolitical institutions, Mair’s retelling of the transformation of European democracies offers an important story about the roots of the current public distrust in representation, mediation, and democracy. If mediation, as political scientists Carlo Invernizzi Accetti and Christopher Bickerton argue, is the “condition” of democratic life, how has it come to be seen as an “obstacle” to it?
As civil society shapes the relationship between citizens and the state, Mair starts his story of decline by outlining the consequences of the relocation of political parties from civil society to the state. This new orientation towards the state reduces “popular involvement and control”, as the historical “party on the ground” is replaced by “an evident enhancement of the party in the institutions.” This shift is then further entrenched through a revision of the purpose of government, as it transforms into a “regulatory state” that is decidedly less “political” and “redistributive” than its former incarnation.
These changes in government are also visible in the political class, who no longer view themselves as representatives, but as “office holders” who should be primarily concerned with “good governance”. Unlike the contestation of the mass party era – where there were intense ideological differences between political programmes – policymaking started to become a process largely confined to “ostensibly non-political experts” whose role was to find the evidence for the right policies. In other words, politicians were now the “effective caretakers” of an administrative system that was responsible for “non-partisan problem solving.” One of the most obvious references to this shift is the New Public Management values of cost-efficiency, procedure, and performance, which became prominent in government policy during the New Labour era. Or in the words of its parliamentary leader, Tony Blair, politics was no secondary to the “synergy and opportunity” between dynamic markets and strong communities.
To provide other explanations for these institutional changes in party democracy, Mair examines how the concept of democracy is redefine during the post-political period in both political science and government. While democracy has always relied on both constitutional and popular components, he observes that the popular part of the equation is “downgraded” in favour of its constitutional role. In a short and incisive formula, he describes this new image of democracy in reference to the model promoted in developing countries as: “judges + NGOs = democracy.” Within these “hollowed out” democracies, governments were now more likely to focus on the benefits of “impartial evidence” and “procedural legitimacy” than electoral participation and democratic membership.
Another important feature of the political history in Ruling the Void is that efforts to promote “democratic renewal” take place within a context of depoliticisation. Though the institutions of party democracy survive in some form – through what sociologist Colin Crouch calls a “formal shell” – the control over decision making about domestic economic issues is largely transferred to non-majoritarian and suprastate institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. In other words, this new “structural dependency” reduces accountability and “institutional responsiveness” to citizens.
As representative processes continue to be marginalised by “market governance” and apolitical institutions, governments and civil society bodies start to encourage new forms of “stakeholder engagement.” According to Invernizzi Accetti and Bickerton, they promised to provide a “greater opportunity [for citizens] to have their voices heard in the political domain”. With such a significant deferment of democratic power, participatory initiatives naturally emerged as a response to increasing citizen discontent as the political apathy of the 1990s is replaced by the “anti-political sentiments” of the 2010s.
But despite these efforts to mobilise citizens in what Anton Jäger describes as an “age of demobilisation,” Invernizzi Accetti and Bickerton argue that it merely reinforces the individualisation of politics: “Disintermediation dilutes their political agency, increasing their sense of alienation from the political system as a whole. It actively contributes to an exacerbation of the widespread sense of democratic discontent from which they stem in the first place.” More therapeutic than political, this so-called “deliberative wave” was admittedly advisory and primarily existed to give voters a “sense” of participation. It does not seem unfair to call this a poor impersonation of the previous period.
With the rise of such “reflective” forms of governance, Mair is obviously not unaware that both civil institutions and political parties are now operating in a new reality in which citizens are less willing to commit to the social and financial responsibilities of representative politics. One of the main – and underappreciated – arguments in Ruling the Void is that both the withdrawal of the political class and citizens from democratic life is “mutual.” Rather than making the case for a “sequential process”, which typically places all responsibility on the political class and other elites, he sees the changing behaviours of citizens as an important contribution to this process of separation. What is “beyond dispute,” he argues, “is that each feeds the other.”
Anticipating the rise of an even more pervasive “anti-political sentiment”, Mair’s claim of “mutual withdrawal” also allows him to dismiss the “crude” populist position that our current deficit is simply the result of “the people” being denied access to politics by an “establishment”, and more generally, from having an “associative life”. Where we may be more critical is that the political class seem too quick to adapt to the “passing of popular involvement”, and this accommodation seems to only accelerate the exit of citizens from the public sphere.
All of this is not to say that markets and governments were not actively repressing a strong civil society, but only that it does not fully account for the disaffiliation of individuals from intermediary and partisan bodies. As Robert Putnam outlines in Bowling Alone, this decline in membership was not exclusive to political parties or trade unions, but also repeated across the experiences of churches, local associations, and mutuals. What is clear is that citizens have largely – if not totally – retreated into their private lives.
If there’s an “emptying of space in which citizens and their representatives interact,” what fills this void? What might be initially confusing about Mair’s argument – at least in the post-crash era – is that civil society appears to be constantly active. Surely the “advocacy explosion” of social campaigns, protest groups, and local activism easily dismisses these claims? Mair refers to this as “subpolitics”, which are activities which take place outside of the representative institutions of our political system. While clearly there is value in action outside of party democracy, this subpolitical movement has also almost universally rejected and abandoned representative organisations in other parts of civil society, too. It seems the reaction to the changing function of mass parties was part of – and maybe even the inspiration for – a “civic trend” which turned away from democratic, member-driven, and accountable bodies in favour of centralised, staff-heavy, and memberless organisations.
The absence of a strong civil society also has other significant implications for our democracy, particularly in terms of political communication. While the origins of the mass media predate the decline of party democracy and membership associations, the collapse of membership organisations empowered the private media sector to become the primary source of interaction between politicians and citizens. There’s no point in restating the connection between media ownership and election outcomes, but it’s clear that public opinion is now more likely to take its cues from the private press than civil society bodies, such as parties, churches, and local associations. It is difficult to exaggerate how much this change has both reinforced the separation between politicians and citizens, and weakened opposition to our current political and economic situation.
Beyond the media, there’s another part of modern political life that is also constantly linked to unfair access to political favour – party finance. Whether opaque, or within legal fundraising rules, the funding shortfall created by the loss of membership dues has forced political parties and civil society bodies to become reliant on both state and private donations. Where previously mass parties and civic organisations were “principally dependent” on membership income, granting them the autonomy to develop policy programmes that “articulated and aggregated” the needs of their members, they now became more heavily associated with the interests of the state or wealthy donors (including “progressive” philanthropic foundations). And though wage stagnation is often presented as one of the main reasons for the decline of individual contributions to mutual, civil, and political organisations, it’s only a convincing argument if you decide to ignore a whole set of new cultural changes during this period.
In response to such institutional changes in mass democracy, and despite genuine attempts to reverse new levels of “popular indifference”, many of the reactions to the crisis of democracy have exacerbated its decline. As a result, these changes have left a hyper-political generation in paradoxical alliances, disengaged from political and social institutions, and often unwittingly supporting elitist and anti-democratic initiatives. In many ways this “re-professionalisation of politics,” as Anton Jäger puts it, makes our current system much more like the pre-popular regimes of the nineteenth century.
While we may have seen the introduction of new civic models to reinvigorate democracy – particularly in the period following Ruling the Void’s publication – Mair is right in claiming that most of these initiatives are not interested in developing “mass-friendly” approaches. Instead, they are more committed to selective “stakeholder engagement” that redefines citizens as “experts.” But despite the relentless proliferation of private NGOs in social and economic reform over the last few decades, it seems the suspicion towards renewing old or starting new democratic organisations is starting to give way as more and more non-democratic agencies begin to question their own legitimacy and efficacy.
For those who still see the value of popular involvement within our political system and civil society, we should ask if we’ve been too hasty to accept that citizens are unwilling to participate in representative platforms. And though our current civil society seems more hospitable to loose networks which offer cheap entry and exit options, are we really thinking about the current and long-term consequences of these models of organisation? Now that it appears that disintermediation is less of an ideological choice, and indifference is no longer the problem, we need to focus more energy on renewing and creating the institutions that can build democratic power again. ∞
