Democracy Debates

1. Democracy Debates Harinda Vidanage PhD

2. Questions • What are the fundamental challenges for liberal democracy in the present context ? • Are the weakening of economic structures directly linked to these challenges ? • Are Western politics splitting up at various ends and becoming increasingly partisan?

3. In a very specific sense, the, the European 20th Century, after the first world war, was an age of democracy. Not all European states have become democratic. On the contrary, many of newly established democracies were destroyed during the 1920s and 1930s, in the eyes of many Europeans making forms of dictatorship seem the obvious way for the future. But even the political experiments that stridently defined themselves against liberal parliament democracy-state socialism as it actually existed and the fully Communist society it promised on the one hand, and Fascism on the other- played on the register of democratic values. (Muller 2011)

4. Post Cold War impact As a result of both the Cold War and subsequent developments, it became customary virtually to equate democracy with "liberal democracy" or a system prioritizing individual rights—completely neglectful of the long-standing tension between the latter and democracy, seen as a shared political regime (Dallmayr 2010)

5. Governance • The mismatch between the growing demand for good governance and its shrinking supply is one of the gravest challenges facing the west today • The crisis of governability within the Western world comes at a particularly inopportune moment. As emerging powers rise, it is not only the West’s material dominance that is at stake, but also its ideological primacy. Kupchan (2011)

6. Radical democracy • It is therefore crucial to realize that, with modern democracy, we are dealing with a new political form of society whose specificity comes from the articulation between two different tradition • Liberal tradition of rule of law, defense of human rights and respect of individual liberty. The other of democratic tradition based on equality. Identity between governing and governed and popular sovereignty • These two strands compete, contest and contradict • This is why radical democracy is important, which takes into serious consideration how to engage with plurality (Chantal Mouffe 2000)

7. Global context • Democracy and its trends in United States • The issues of pluralism in Europe • The emergence of a hegemonic centralist capitalism (divorce of liberalism from capitalism) • Changes in Middles east • Tensions in Africa • Democratic challenges in South Asian in this matrix of internal and external perspectives

8. Theoretical Perspective • Space : Multiplicity, Surveillance, new spaces • Politics: Institutions, values, agency • Society: social interactions • Existence: contest, conflict, difference

9. Minnben Confucian doctrine of minben, whose central tenet is expressed in the maxim "Minweibangben," meaning "The people alone are the basis of the state." The Confucian philosopher Mencius (372-289bc) put it this way: "Most important are the people; next come the land and grain; and last the princes." But the implication is not that the people rule, only that their welfare is central. At its heart, minben is a paternalistic ideal: A government is legitimized by the effects of its policies on the people, not the process by which it came to power.

10. Confucian critique • Political leaders’ interests centered on voters • Neglect non voters • Nobody represents future generations. Ex Climate change • Non voters outside the government. Ex: climate change • Progressive rather than pure sense of Western liberal democracy