The term ''post-democracy'' is a term coined by
Warwick University political scientist
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...
Colin Crouch in 2000 in his book ''Coping with Post-Democracy''. It designates
states that operate by
democratic systems (
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...
s are held, governments fall, and there is
freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...
), but whose application is
progressively limited. That is, a small
elite co-opts democratic institutions to give itself decision-making authority. Crouch further developed the idea in an article called, "Is there a liberalism beyond social democracy?" for the
think tank
A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...
Policy Network and in his subsequent book ''The Strange Non-Death of Neo-Liberalism''.
The term may also denote a general conception of a post-democratic system that may involve other structures of
group decision-making
Group decision-making (also known as collaborative decision-making or collective decision-making) is a situation faced when individuals collectively make a choice from the alternatives before them. The decision is then no longer attributable to ...
and
governance
Governance is the overall complex system or framework of Process, processes, functions, structures, Social norm, rules, Law, laws and Norms (sociology), norms born out of the Interpersonal relationship, relationships, Social interaction, intera ...
than the ones found in contemporary or historical democracy.
Definition
By Crouch's definition:
Crouch states that we are not "living in a post-democratic society, but that we were moving towards such a condition".
Causes
Crouch names the following reasons:
* No common goals: For people in the
post-industrial society it is increasingly difficult, in particular for the
underclass, to identify themselves as a group and therefore difficult to focus on
political parties
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
that represent them. For instance
laborer
A laborer ( or labourer) is a person who works in manual labor typed within the construction industry. There is a generic factory laborer which is defined separately as a factory worker. Laborers are in a working class of wage-earners in whic ...
s,
farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer ...
s or
entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones.
An entreprene ...
no longer feel attracted to one political movement and this means that there is no common goal for them as a group to get united.
*
Globalization
Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...
: The effect of globalization makes it almost impossible for nations to work out their own economic policy. Therefore, large
trade agreements and
supranational union
A supranational union is a type of international organization and political union that is empowered to directly exercise some of the powers and functions otherwise reserved to State (polity), states. A supranational organization involves a g ...
s (e.g., the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
) are used to make policy but this level of politics is very hard to control with democratic instruments. Globalization additionally endows
transnational corporations with more political leverage given their ability to avoid federal regulation and directly affect domestic economies.
* Non-balanced debates: In most democratic countries the positions of the political parties have become very much alike. This means that there is not much to choose from for its voters. The effect is that
political campaigns are looking more like
advertising
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...
to make the differences look bigger. Also the private lives of the politicians have become an important item in elections. Sometimes "sensitive" issues stay undiscussed. The English conservative journalist
Peter Oborne presented a documentary of the
2005 general election, arguing that it had become
anti-democratic because it targeted a number of
floating voters with a narrow agenda.
* Entanglement between public and private sector: There are large shared interests between politics and business. Through
lobbying
Lobbying is a form of advocacy, which lawfully attempts to directly influence legislators or government officials, such as regulatory agency, regulatory agencies or judiciary. Lobbying involves direct, face-to-face contact and is carried out by va ...
companies,
multinational corporations
A multinational corporation (MNC; also called a multinational enterprise (MNE), transnational enterprise (TNE), transnational corporation (TNC), international corporation, or stateless corporation, is a corporate organization that owns and cont ...
are able to bring about
legislation
Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...
more effectively than the inhabitants of a country. Corporations and governments are in close relation because states need corporations as they are great employers. But as much of the production is
outsourced, and corporations have almost no difficulty in moving to other countries, labor law becomes employee-unfriendly and tax bites are moved from companies to individuals. It becomes more common for politicians and managers to switch jobs (the 'revolving door').
*
Privatization: Then there is the neoliberal idea of
new public management (
neoliberalism) of privatizing public services. Privatized institutions are difficult to control by democratic means and have no allegiance to human communities, unlike government. Crouch uses the term “phantom firms” to describe the flexibility and elusive nature of firms which bend to the market. He concludes that private firms have incentive to make individual profit rather than better the welfare of the public. For example, he states that there is a problem with pharmaceutical companies funding (and skewing) medical research.
Solutions
According to Crouch there is an important task for
social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
in which voters can participate more actively in
public debates. In addition, these voters would have to join
advocacy groups for specific interests. The citizens have to reclaim their place in decision making. He calls this ''post-post-democracy''.
Crouch argues that some forms of
populism
Populism is a essentially contested concept, contested concept used to refer to a variety of political stances that emphasize the idea of the "common people" and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite. It is frequently a ...
or
direct
Direct may refer to:
Mathematics
* Directed set, in order theory
* Direct limit of (pre), sheaves
* Direct sum of modules, a construction in abstract algebra which combines several vector spaces
Computing
* Direct access (disambiguation), ...
voice of the people might invigorate democracy, but "there must always be another election, and opposition and government parties alike must have the right to go on debating and using political resources in preparation for that moment".
See also
* ''
Democracy: The God That Failed''
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
References
Sources
Interview with Colin Crouch about post-democracy on YouTube (mainly in English)Verma, Ravindra Kumar "Indian Politics: Haunted by Spectre of Post Democracy?", Indian Journal of Public Administration/SAGE, 63(4), December 2017
Further reading
*
Colin Crouch: ''Post Democracy'', 2004,
*
Jenny Hocking &
Colleen Lewis: ''Counter-Terrorism and the Post-Democratic State'', 2008,
External links
On Coping with "Post Democracy" By Ernest Partridge. "The Online Gadfly", January, 2001.
*
There is no Alternative by Henry Farrell.
Why We Need A More Substantive European Democracy by Colin Crouch. ''Social Europe'', 20 August 2014.
{{Authority control
Political science
Democracy
2000s neologisms
Elite theory
Oligarchy
Democratic backsliding