Political Indifference: A Progressive Disempowerment of Democracy or a Collective Disenchantment with Democracy?

Abstract

Is there an explanation for the widespread increase of citizenry’s political indifference? The effect of political indifference inevitably affects the normative aspects of democracy in spite of the typology of its structure or the strength of its procedural mechanisms. However, a dominant strand of theory continues to underestimate indifference as a temporary phase of discontentment simply expressed with electoral absenteeism. This study argues instead that the state, or governance, encourages indifference among citizens with the role of altering the cognitive basis of polity and crumbling collective consciousness and moral objectivity. My interpretation problematizes the role of state and indicates that democracy has been reduced to a consensual administrative apparatus under the control of a stronger state. This process of indolent assertiveness among citizens has become a very ordinary, micro-process that absorbs elements of disagreement and autonomy into the state’s regulatory structure. That is to say, democracy has evolved into a post-democracy regime deprived of the political agency of citizenry, in which one sole actor performs on stage in front of a dormant mass of passive spectators. The alarm is that citizens are not detecting the relentless progression of their political disempowerment that may further push citizenry towards self-dissolution. The possible consequence is that with democratic ideals seriously imperiled and a public sphere devitalized, a continually marginalized citizenry will try to reclaim its political role with sudden explosions of violence.