Power in Action , livre ebook

POWER IN ACTION
POWER IN ACTION
Democracy, Citizenship and Social Justice
STEVEN FRIEDMAN
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
www.witspress.co.za
Copyright © Steven Friedman 2018
Published edition © Wits University Press 2018
First published 2018
http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/12018113023
978-1-77614-302-3 (Paperback)
978-1-77614-303-0 (Web PDF)
978-1-77614-304-7 (EPUB)
978-1-77614-305-4 (Mobi)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
Project manager: Elna Harmse
Copyeditor: Margaret Labuschagne
Proofreader: Lisa Compton
Indexer: Marlene Burger
Cover design: Hybrid Creative
Typesetter: Newgen
Typeset in 10 point MinionPro-Regular
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 The Journey Lasts Forever: Beyond ‘Democratic Consolidation’
CHAPTER 2 Deeper and Broader: What Makes Democracies More or Less Democratic?
CHAPTER 3 Democracy in Deed: The Centrality of Collective Action
CHAPTER 4 Colonisation of a Sympathetic Type? The Culture of Democracy
CHAPTER 5 Another Lens: Collective Action and Democracy in Africa
CHAPTER 6 Every Day is a Special Day: Collective Action as Democratic Routine
CHAPTER 7 Power is Theirs? Why Collective Action is Usually the Preserve of the Few
CHAPTER 8 Collective Action as Democratic Citizenship: The Treatment Action Campaign
CHAPTER 9 Towards Popular Sovereignty: Building a Deeper and Stronger Democracy
NOTES
REFERENCES
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
Is democracy good for Africans in general and South Africans in particular? Does it really belong to us or is it a Western idea imposed to enslave us? If democracy is both ours and good for us, how do we know a democracy when we see one? And, if we do see one, how do we know whether and how it will survive? How do we do what we can to make it flourish and grow?
A few years ago, it seemed absurd to question democracy’s value or its survival. Formal democracy, in the shape of regular multi-party elections and at least some of the liberties and rights which are meant to accompany them, was no longer a rarity, practised mostly by rich countries. It had become the norm in Africa and Latin America and had taken root in parts of Asia (which also houses the world’s largest democracy, India). Much of humanity lived in democracies, many of which, only a decade or two ago, were not democratic. Democracy had also become almost hegemonic in the sense that it was considered the normal, common-sense way of arranging politics: with some isolated exceptions, governments which wanted respectability insisted that they were democratic, whatever reality might suggest. In South Africa, formal democracy ended decades of white minority rule and was widely embraced by most citizens. This mirrored the international trend – modern people were confirmed democrats and the system’s only opponents were small groups of hold-outs on the right and left.
This brief period of democratic triumph is now under threat. In contrast to earlier periods of democratic breakdown – the collapse of democracies in Europe in the 1930s 1 and in Latin America in the 1970s 2 – democracies have not been replaced by other forms of government. But champions of the liberal democracy which spread across the globe from 1974, when a coup in Portugal triggered a series of transitions from authoritarian rule, have moved from unbridled optimism to deep anxiety. 3 American scholar Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 claim that history had ended because liberal democracy was the only credible political and value system 4 now seems ridiculous – ‘a quaint artefact of a vanished unipolar moment’. 5 The idea that democracy is in trouble is now almost as universal in mainstream scholarship as were claims that it had triumphed forever: ‘Today, it would be easier to assemble those who did not think something fundamental was amiss than those who did’. 6
The anxiety is based less on a sense that democracy may be dying, although some claim that it is losing ground, particularly in Africa. 7 Instead, from the United States of America (USA) of Donald Trump and the Russia of Vladimir Putin, through the Philippines of Rodrigo Duterte to the Zimbabwe of Emmerson Mnangagwa, there are deep fears that authoritarians are able not only to win elections and operate within ostensibly democratic constitutions, but also to govern in deeply undemocratic ways. And, if this is the problem which worries mainstream scholars and commentators, other important voices warn that, even in those democracies which continue to operate in seemingly democratic ways, ‘neoliberal rationality’ 8 preserves democratic form but denies citizens the control over their lives which democracy is meant to offer. The ‘neoliberal rationality’ they warn against can be understood not only as an economic framework which allows markets rather than elected representatives to govern, but also as a reliance on decisions taken by ‘experts’ rather than citizens.
Some of the pessimists remain firm democrats, distressed that the system of government which they support may be under pressure. But not all are: some insist that the problem may be democracy itself. Current writings on democracy suggest that the problems the system faces can be addressed only by ‘abandoning the Fukuyaman narrative and instead adopting a position that better appreciates the limits and flaws of this form of rule’ 9 – by accepting that democracy, in its current form at least, is not the perfect system which late-twentieth-century triumphalism held it to be. Most of the new doubters would not go as far as the scholar John Dunn, who, after years of writing about democracy, now warns the rich countries of the West that they should see the system as a ‘happy accident’ rather than a ‘magic formula’. 10 Still, the uncritical tone of a decade ago has been replaced by reflection on democracy’s faults as well as its fragility.
South Africa is not immune from doubts about democracy’s survival or its merits. On the contrary, so widespread are these sentiments that South Africans often seem to believe that their democracy is the only one on the planet whose citizens fear for democracy’s future or doubt its merits. Anxiety that democracy is doomed is a constant feature of public debate. 11 And, while few mainstream voices reject democracy in principle, critiques of ‘Western democracy’, or of the constraints which constitutional democracy places on a majority government, 12 are features of a public debate in which many voices charge that the bargain of 1994 which established democracy has failed to address racial inequality. These concerns often underpin discussions, in the seminar room or at the kitchen table, and occupy the thoughts of citizens experiencing for the first time the uncharted territory of democratic self-government.
However, whatever democracy’s fate, the tide of democratic discontent is overstated. First, democracy’s decline is less pronounced than in previous eras of retreat – and off a much higher base. For much of the twentieth century (and most of human history), democracy has been restricted to a few countries, some of which saw no contradiction between extending democratic rights to their citizens while denying them to the Africans and Asians they colonised. Before the current wave of democratisation in Africa began, only two countries, Botswana and Mauritius, maintained working democracies over decades. Despite retreats from democracy in some countries, democracy is far more widespread than at any previous period – in Africa and in the rest of the world. And, as serious as the backsliding is, the fact that most countries retain democratic form and insist that they are democratic creates opportunities for citizens to express themselves and hold power to account which are not available in despotic systems. The claim, made 15 years ago, that ‘[t]he democratic idea is close to non-negotiable in today’s world’ 13 is under stress. But it may not be as dated as it seems, given the continued need of governments which do not value democracy to continue operating within its form, and claiming allegiance to its values.
As for the idea that democracy is a Western imposition, perhaps the strongest argument against it is evidence that citizens outside the West want the rights and freedoms which democracy offers. We will return to this evidence, but, for now, we need only note that persistent majorities of African citizens opt for democracy if given the choice. Democracy’s critics ‘disregard the sustained demand of African peoples – amply demonstrated in one Afrobarometer survey after another – for democratic polities that promise to help citizens hold those in power accountable’. 14 The survey evidence is given added credibility by the fact that African citizens have, in several countries, mobilised to oppose abuses of power by their governments – attempts by heads of government to extend their term of office, for example. 15 In South Africa, despite disillusion with the bargain of 1994, the voices urging that democracy be rescued from political power-holders far exceed those that want rights and freedoms curbed.
So democracy may be staggering, but it is not about to fall. It may well not only weather its current trials, but emerge from them stronger. Understanding where democracy comes from, what nurtures it and what threatens it remains essential if we wish to chart South Africa’s future. Nor, despite the necessary end of Fukuyama’s triumphalism, is democracy discredited as a system of government capable of realising human freedom. One of apartheid’s few useful legacies is the determination of the vast majority of citizens to ensure t