With the contestation of the pension reform, which was accompanied by a criticism of the institutions, we have seen the multiplication of pleas in favor of “democratic renewal” with the aim of ensuring better citizen participation. Calls of this type are not new. Appearing for a quarter of a century, they have gained in legitimacy to the point of taking on an incantatory dimension. It is now a question of “inventing” new forms of democracy, and this word for innovation is complacently relayed by official speeches, whether In France or in Europe and more generally in West. For their part, academics have heavily invested this theme to which they provide their support and their endorsement.
However, a question arises: what is new? What does it mean to “reinvent” democracy or establish “new forms” of participation? Can we really innovate in politics after 2000 years of history, especially in France where all political regimes have been experienced?
The truth is less exciting: there is nothing new under the sun. No one has ever invented anything in the past decades. The fundamental mechanisms of democracy were laid down a long time ago and they have hardly changed: the free election of representatives, the separation of powers, the independence of justice. These mechanisms are certainly not perfect, nor completely fixed because the cursors can move according to times and countries, but for the time being, no country has demonstrated that there are more satisfactory democratic mechanisms. From this point of view, Francis Fukuyama, who has been laughed at so much, was right.
Disruptive ideologies
However, the idea that it is possible to imagine alternatives to classical democracy has continued to gain strength. This focus on innovation has had two main effects. The first is to have left the decline in electoral participation in the greatest indifference. The rise in abstention was seen as a simple consequence of distrust of conventional participation, and even as proof of a yearning for democratic renewal. As a result, no one has really sought to engage in serious reflection on the real causes of the democratic malaise.
The second effect is to have comforted those who dream of tearing down democratic institutions. Indeed, nothing could please them more than to propose replacing the most vital mechanisms of democracy with mechanisms that are supposedly more democratic but which in reality help to scuttle it. In a way, the pleas in favor of “citizens’ conferences” give credence to the idea that democracy is elsewhere. Casually, they rehabilitate the imagination of “workers’ councils” and other “committees for the defense of the Revolution” where activists have long learned to reign supreme.
In ordinary times, these proposals for alternative democracy meet only a weak echo in the population. Moreover, the experiences of participatory democracy in recent years have hardly demonstrated their usefulness and their performance, especially when the public is openly mocked by claiming to have citizens selected by lot sit there.
But conditions have changed. The Observatory of Decolonialism continues to warn of the return of disruptive ideologies, often based on logics of identity, therefore hostile in principle to representative democracy and political compromise.
These aggressive ideologies reject on principle the electoral game and alternation in power. The debate on pension reform gives an idea of this: for opponents, not only are constitutional mechanisms such as Article 49.3 illegitimate (despite their legal character and much more democratic than citizens’ conferences) but it does not come obviously not at the idea that it is possible to wait for the next electoral deadline to present a counter-project.
In these troubled times where conspiracy and political violence are experiencing a resurgence in popularity, it might be time to stop playing with fire.
*Vincent Tournier is a lecturer at Sciences Po Grenoble and a member of the Observatory of Decolonialism.