CFP: Dictatorship of Failure: The Discourse of Democratic Failure in the Current European Crisis

The current Portuguese prime minister recently declared that ‘we [i.e. the Portuguese people] will only get out of this situation [i.e. the current crisis] by becoming poorer’. That statement sought to justify the implementation of so-called austerity measures agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission in order to make the Portuguese economy more competitive, while allowing for the hope that one day economic progress would return. That particular way of formulating an economic program in times of crisis has at least three interesting aspects. First, there is the rhetorical use of ‘we’, which suggests that sacrifices are abstractly requested from all individuals as citizens, even though as tradition has it, and as specifically proposed financial measures are designed, only part of society is targeted, with a recurrent emphasis on civil servants, pensioners, and so on. Large corporations, banks, and generally individuals and entities at higher levels of the socio-economic ladder seem to largely escape the new austerity measures. Along the same lines, a second element in that general picture consists then in demanding, in a rhetorical manner similar to that expected in times of war, extreme hardship from a few for the sake of the prosperity of all, and particularly future generations. And thirdly, the statement is notable for the economic model it offers: national poverty, as opposed to a more usual focus on job creation or increased purchasing power, is the way to solve the problems in the long run for debilitated European economies. That in turn suggests a novel approach to economic ills, on the model of “creative destruction”, which takes economic misery not only as a problem but as part of the solution, and which sounds thus at odds with the traditional political outlook of recounting social and economic progress that has been achieved and further prosperity that needs to be promised. In general terms, the statement assumes poverty not to be a fact, but an acceptable and desirable way of existence of some for the greater good of the collective. The political outlook behind the economic plan thus brackets the project of the Welfare State and points to other conceptions of the role of the State in the economy, as well as different ideas about the relationship of democracy to political legitimacy in times of financial hardship.

The bluntness of that political vision finds echoes nowadays in a type of political rhetoric at work in many European countries facing the current continent-wide financial and political crisis. We think that it expresses in a particular way a wider picture of what is going on in Europe at the moment, when the possibility and the necessity of dictatorship seem to be pervading in increasingly explicit fashion mainstream political discourse at various levels of the European governance architecture. The dictatorial model comes in different guises, and is variously suggested or implied, if not openly discussed, as a suspension or paralysis of electoral legitimacy and the democratic process, sometimes imposed by extraneous factors and sometimes demanded as a voluntary abdication of democratic control, but always based on technocratic expertise assumed to be beyond popular deliberation. Democratically elected governments have been quite openly forced to resign by unelected European officials. Similarly, the sovereignty of national states is being openly questioned or bypassed by “financial markets” now omnipresent as a reference for the trustworthiness of political programs. A notion of democracy’s inability to serve the demos in the face of economic trouble is prompting people throughout Europe to become confident enough to start toying with the idea of bracketing democracy, bypassing it or supplementing it with technocratic powers of a higher order, in order to restore order in Europe, solving the financial crisis and possibly returning then to democracy. All of it is, however, openly pronounced to be for the general welfare and future of the “people”, a generally undefined “we” of a national or transnational nature.

The normalization of that type of discourse in Europe is sufficiently worrisome from a historical perspective. But what does this say more generally about Europe as a political project, about democracy as a form of government and about democracy as it is practiced in western European countries? Why, and on what grounds, have people become openly skeptical of how modern parliamentary democracies work, regardless of party lines? Is it because political parties seem to be unable to find middle paths between their practical or ideological commitments? Is it on the contrary because party politics has lost much of its appeal in becoming precisely devoid of contrasting ideological visions and programmatic innovations, while the democratic process is focused on short-term electoral schedules, political scandals, and media sensationalism? On the one hand, it seems that many citizens of democratic states doubt the ability of their political representatives to find ways to solve serious crises in a plurality of voices, and respond to the seductive appeal of reverting instead to one voice above and beyond the polyphony of democracy. On the other hand, in a time when individuals are becoming more politically aware and involved, the technocratic elements of supranational organizations, backed by the general sense of economic emergency, are promoting restrictions on access to democratic government in the full sense. The tendency, especially within “debtor countries”, to replace party politics with a general recourse to supposedly neutral economic expertise seems to be a sign of the same phenomenon.

The suspension of any normal democratic process, and the subtle questioning of democracy’s “efficiency” as a managerial model, seems to be a danger in itself, as the temptation of suspending liberal rights in order to keep freedom has showed in recent and less recent times. The immediate backdrop to the current wave of democracy fatigue, as represented by the pervasive war-time rhetoric of national sacrifice while others decide and others prosper, is provided by the now normalized question as to whether we should temporarily soften the prohibition of torture in order to keep our democracies and liberal freedoms safe. The expanded version of that same logic comes today in the form of whether democratic legitimacy should not yield to a higher form of legitimacy, which justifies imposing selective sacrifices in the name of an abstract good and an abstract people, described in a discourse beyond political contestation, but also imbued with a form of populist nationalism that seeks allegiance across ideological fault lines. Symptomatic of that situation is the fact that to an increasingly shameless undemocratic discourse corresponds also a wave of extra-parliamentary political opposition and civil unrest presenting itself, among other things, as following in the steps of protests that have now been challenging and weakening dictatorships in the Arab world. In other words, an open dictatorial ethos of national and supranational governance meets the perception of democracy as already perverted by forces that stand in the way of social and economic progress, thus converging in a dire picture of the current faith in parliamentary democracy. Among the most worrisome signs of an assumed decline or failure of democracy is the posture of pride and satisfaction of both political leaders and “financial markets” when governments are revamped to explicitly exclude “politicians” and replace them with “experts”. In other words, the crisis opens up the possibility not only to suspend democracy but, in the minds of some, including politicians, to bracket politics and the political themselves as essentially superfluous, or even noxious, elements of social life.

These are trying days for Europe and for the world, and what makes them so is that we seem to have allowed for the thought of a  destruction, or temporary suspension, of the democratic ideal to enter the political discourse as a normal fact, in the same way as we seem to have accepted that our proudly proclaimed western model of life – more individual rights, family rights, social protection – can be, and should be, junked in order to be able to keep up with models of society that are more competitive because they do not spend resources with such kind of values. It is of course problematic to emphasize a Eurocentric model of society in the abstract, but the issue lies precisely in the adoption of a political rhetoric by mainstream political actors that questions the adoption of such a “model” not on the basis of its desirability but rather its feasibility. Ideas of respect for the individual, gender equality, non discrimination along arbitrary lines, right of free expression and free movement, right to education, personal advancement, social and labor rights are now increasingly presented as a burden, especially if people take that model literally to mean a project for each and every member of the polity. The main questions posed in this context are therefore: in the name of what is this destruction being proposed, what makes it worth it, who is the imagined beneficiary of admitting the defeat of democracy, and what is imagined to be outside of the democratic ideal? Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures, but despite the proliferation of the discourse of sacrifice (give up your rights, give up your pensions, give up your hopes), it remains unclear what the goal is that “we”, beyond socio-economic differences and political opinions, are asked to pursue on the other side of controlled inflation and balanced budgets, with those sacrifices and even a clear awareness of what we are willing to pay. The suspension of democracy, and especially the hope in democracy, seems to have exceeded in this rhetoric the bounds of a “state of emergency”, in that the collective goal of selective sacrifice, the preservation of a model of society, is precisely being put in question by a pervasive erosion of faith in its worth as a dispensable tool for the economic welfare of an undefined “we”. We thought these questions should be asked and we thought we should ask them now. 

Call for contributions

The editors of the special issue are seeking contributions from all disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives around the general theme described above. We are looking in gathering perspectives from and on different countries in Europe, as well as different institutions involved in the handling of the economic crisis. The overall objective is to present a varied and critical picture of the situation concerning the relationship between the economic crisis and the crisis of democratic legitimacy on the continent. Interested contributors are asked to submit a 300 to 500-word abstract to [email protected] and [email protected] by February 15, 2012. Selected articles will be expected to be submitted by August 1, 2012, to be peer reviewed. The special issue of COLLeGIUM is expected to be published by November 2012.

COLLeGIUM is a scholarly, open-access series of interdisciplinary publications by the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, a research institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences at the University of Helsinki. The series consists of electronic volumes written or edited by the Fellows of the Collegium. All studies published in the series are internationally refereed. The first volume appeared in June 2006 and nine more volumes have been published to date. More information can be found on the website of COLLeGIUM at http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium/e-series/

More information on the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies can be found on the website of the Collegium at http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium