Radical Democracy Research Articles

Demokrasi Radikal sebagai Alternatif Tatanan Politik Global dalam Konteks Multikulturalisme

This article discusses the relevancy of cosmopolitan democracy concept in multicultural world. It argues that cosmopolitan democracy concept is not enough in achieving a just and equal political order the context of plural world-citizenship, it showed by the practice of economic, social and political structure which prevails. Hence, this article tried to search an alternative in attempt to make the idea of cosmopolitan democracy become more realistic and inclusive by adopting radical democracy concept. Firstly, it discuss the critics of Kant’s cosmopolitan view using Spivak’s conception of Planetarity. Secondly, it discuss about the plural democracy by Mouffe’s in the context of planetarity. This combination that yields a plural democracy in the context of world-citizenship.

Institutionalizing deliberative mini-publics? Issues of legitimacy and power for randomly selected assemblies in political systems

ABSTRACT Randomly selected deliberative mini-publics (DMPs) are on the rise globally. However, they remain ad hoc, opening the door to arbitrary manoeuvre and triggering a debate on their future institutionalization. What are the competing proposals aiming at institutionalizing DMPs within political systems? I suggest three ways for thinking about institutionalization: in terms of temporality, of legitimacy and support, and of power and role within a system. First, I analyze the dimension of time and how this affect DMP institutional designs. Second, I argue that because sortition produces ‘weak representatives’ with ‘humility-legitimacy’, mini-publics hardly ever make binding decisions and need to rely on external sources of legitimacies. Third, I identify four institutional models, relying on opposing views of legitimacy and politics: tamed consultation, radical democracy, representative klerocracy and hybrid polyarchy. They differ in whether mini-publics are interpreted as tools: for legitimizing elected officials; to give power to the people; or as a mean to suppress voting .

Radioactive waste management ethics and public policy: a precautionary approach

Abstract. The focus of the project is on how to regulate risky technologies, both old (such as nuclear waste management) and new (such as geoengineering). Thus, the project is aimed at contributing to a better understanding of the ethical, political, and socio-economic aspects of radioactive waste management-related risks. The goal of the project is to contribute to the current discussions on the case of the expansion of the Hungarian Nuclear Power Plant. The Paks II project allows us to present how to set up procedures where some radioactive waste-related risks will not derail decision-makers and how they can be held accountable by the public. The case of Paks II is also compelling; as of today there are only 19 countries in the world that are in the process of new reactor building (World Nuclear Association, 2021). The project is aimed at providing and defending a precautionary approach to radioactive waste management because it involves high levels of uncertainty and the possibility of causing irreversible harm on a global scale. When investigating procedural principles of radioactive waste management policies by three types of precautionary approaches, the project will look at risks that stem from the displacement of politics in public consultations in relation to large infrastructural projects. The practices of the emerging era of public engagement tap into the current debates on democratic politics in political theory with the emergence of deliberative democracy (Bohman and Rehg, 1997; Dryzek, 2000; Gutmann and Thompson, 2009), and radical democracy (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001; Mouffe, 1999, 2000). Specific attention will be paid to the fragmentation of public along with technical and non-technical, local and national, site-specific and general issues, and the role of different political platforms (public exhibition events, consultation documents, and public engagement sessions) in the way in which the political is displaced from the arena of public inquiries to legal challenges and debates about boundaries and geographies.

Is another democracy possible in schools? Challenges to create a truly democratic school

In most schools everywhere, democracy and participation continue to be carried out through the usual channels based on representative democracy and the vote of elected representatives. However, this reality is not monolithic, and we do find centers committed to practise a full and more profound democracy. Based on a case study, the article analyzes the theoretical and practical approach of Germinal School. Despite some difficulties, this school has successfully implemented a project of radical democracy, both through micropolitics and daily pedagogical action. This article also examines why it is so difficult to democratize school and how to create a truly democratic institution. Finally, we address the possibility of extending the democratic model presented here to other schools.

Demokrasi Radikal sebagai Alternatif Tatanan Politik Global dalam Konteks Multikulturalisme

This article discusses the relevancy of cosmopolitan democracy concept in multicultural world. It argues that cosmopolitan democracy concept is not enough in achieving a just and equal political order the context of plural world-citizenship, it showed by the practice of economic, social and political structure which prevails. Hence, this article tried to search an alternative in attempt to make the idea of cosmopolitan democracy become more realistic and inclusive by adopting radical democracy concept. Firstly, it discuss the critics of Kant’s cosmopolitan view using Spivak’s conception of Planetarity. Secondly, it discuss about the plural democracy by Mouffe’s in the context of planetarity. This combination that yields a plural democracy in the context of world-citizenship.Keywords: radical democracy, cosmopolitanism, world citizenship, global politics.

Starting with People Where They Are: Ella Baker’s Theory of Political Organizing

This article argues that Ella Baker’s ideology of radical democracy shaped her theory of organizing, including her theories of mass action and indigenous leadership. Against the emerging consensus in realist and radical democratic theory that both Baker’s praxis and democratic organizing more broadly are nonideological, I argue that all organizing is ideological if, with Stuart Hall, we understand ideology not as a rigid set of beliefs but as a dynamic framework for understanding society. Organizers make decisions based on their own ideologies and they attempt to maintain or reshape the dominant ideologies. In this sense, organizers are political theorists: they have self-conscious theories of how society works and changes based on which they make strategic decisions. I demonstrate a method for interpreting organizers’ political theories and argue that Baker’s theory of radical democracy offers democratic theory insight into the practices and organizational structures that advance democratization.

Stateless citizenship: ‘radical democracy as consciousness-raising’ in the Rojava revolution

ABSTRACT This article discusses radical democratic citizenship in the context of the ‘Rojava Revolution’, an ongoing society-building effort that emerged in majority Kurdish regions in the context of the Syrian war. It describes aspects of the political vision of Abdullah Öcalan, as interpreted and applied by activists involved in the democratic self-governance system in Rojava (northern Syria), since 2012. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the region, the article focuses on the ways in which activists frame their revolution and notions of radical democratic citizenship as consciousness-raising efforts against the state system. Centering the role of educational institutions, it argues that theoretical discussions within the Kurdish freedom movement seek to emancipate political action from state-centric ways of articulating political will, justice demands, and wider geopolitical interests. Lastly, it encourages studying radical democracy efforts by taking seriously the political vocabularies, everyday practices, and long-term perspectives advanced in collective self-organisation from below.

Lula and the Future of the Past

Lula and the Future of the Past

Democracy and Social Movements: A Critical Review on the Book “Can Democracy Be Saved? Participation, Deliberation and Social Movements”

This article reviews the book “Can Democracy Be Saved? Participation, Deliberation and Social Movements” Written by Donatella Della Porta. Della Porta’s main question in this book is, Can democracy be saved?” And his response is to “going beyond its liberal model, broadening reflection on participation and deliberation inside and outside institutions through social movements. Della Porta's book is two books in one. The first part of the book deals with the normative discussion of the evolution of the concept of democracy from liberal to deliberative in the last two centuries. The second part is the practice of democracy by social movements in the contemporary world in light of the evolution of the Internet and social networks, which seeks to move from representative democracy to direct democracy. This book is a discussion of the New Left and radical democracy, which seeks to transition from representative democracy to deliberative democracy through social movements. Contemporary social movements, according to Della Porta, are no longer labor movements, unlike in the past, but include a wide range of people and have a high capacity for mobilization using new communication media.

Book review essay: The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism

J.F. Dorahy's The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism (2019) offers contemporary readers a conscientious assessment of the intellectual initiatives of Ágnes Heller, György Márkus, and Ferenc Fehér, both in the years immediately following their apprenticeship with György Lukács, and later, through their independent philosophical endeavours. Dorahy's book also pinpoints the Budapest thinkers' proposal for a radical democratic reckoning, and begins to suggest how that proposal might today bear on global practice and globally-minded theories. The book is an excellent introduction to the ideas of Heller and Márkus. But through them, it is also a striking and thoroughly relevant consideration of the possibilities for an ethics of planetary commitment, and for a critical theory fixed upon incorporating the vigorous rootstock of radical democracy with a multidimensional, pluralistic social order.

Queering participatory planning

All over the world, people suffer violence and discrimination because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Queer theory has linked the politics of identity and sexuality with radical democracy experiments to decolonize development. Queering participatory planning can improve the wellbeing of vulnerable sectors of the population, while also enhancing their political representation and participation. However, to date, there has been limited engagement with the politics of sexuality and identity in participatory planning. This paper identifies three barriers that prevent the integration of queer concerns. First, queer issues are approached as isolated and distinct, separated from general matters for discussion in participatory processes. Second, heteronormative assumptions have shaped two fields that inform participatory planning practices: development studies and urban planning. Third, concrete, practical problems (from safety concerns to developing shared vocabularies) make it difficult to raise questions of identity and sexuality in public discussions. An engagement with queer thought has potential to renew participatory planning.

The Revolutionary Potential of Food Sovereignty: Applying Lenin’s Insights on Dialectics, the State, and Political Action

This essay elaborates a conception of sovereignty that highlights its revolutionary potential. Its argument addresses the nature of different movement strategies in the ongoing struggle for food sovereignty and how movements ought to confront the state while simultaneously using it to create a transformative, potentially anticapitalist form of governance. This claim is built from critiques of the state and sovereignty in studies of radical democracy. The essay then presents how Lenin connects sovereignty to proletarian governance. A revolutionary conception of sovereignty, developed by placing discussions of Lenin’s work in dialogue with practices of food sovereignty, is found in collective political action that suspends state power and challenges private property to create alternative economic and noneconomic forms of organization. This dialectical rendering of sovereignty entails constructing a new order by simultaneously conflicting with and acting through the existing one.

Relational Culture: Beyond Prefigurative Politics

Social movements have been identified as a source of learning for collaborative governance network models, prefiguring “integrative governance” through their commitment to radical democracy. The nonprofit training institute Relational Uprising works directly with social movements and finds that despite their shared values and struggles, most movements are deeply challenged with sustaining these radical commitments within their own group interactions over time. Within movement communities, a culture of trusting relationships is needed to ensure resilience to the complexities of diversity and interdependency, without collapsing into suspicion, exclusion, and power struggles. Relational Uprising offers movements 1) a deconstruction of meta-narratives and embodied social behaviors they unwittingly inherit from the dominant culture; and 2) practices for generating a relational culture, which is characterized by the presence of key relational resources: sensitivity to connection, interdependence, and sustained inclusion. In this essay, we offer an explanation of our Relational Culture training framework and explore strengths and challenges within a specific movement example. We conclude that movements need a commitment to and a strategy for 1) uprooting dominant cultural values and behaviors and 2) replacing them with a relational culture that centers and protects relationships. Ultimately the Relational Culture framework helps movements undertake an ontological shift, which is necessary to avoid the inevitable pitfalls of operating within the habits and habitat of the dominant culture.

Matthew T. Eggemeier, Against Empire: Ekklesial Resistance and the Politics of Radical Democracy

Matthew T. Eggemeier, <i>Against Empire: Ekklesial Resistance and the Politics of Radical Democracy</i>

Feminism in Radical Democracy and Japanese Political Theory: Mouffe, Pateman, Young, and “Essentialism”

Abstract This paper examines feminist arguments in radical democracy and Japanese responses to them. Although feminist insights are significant intellectual sources of radical democracy, recent political theorists have tended to exclusively consider radical democracy as agonistic pluralism. The radical democratic thinker Chantal Mouffe, who is very popular among Japanese political theorists and philosophers, criticizes the “essentialist” tendency of two feminist political theorists, namely Carole Pateman and Iris Marion Young. First this paper examines Mouffe’s critique of the two theorists. Second, it evaluates the relevance of Mouffe’s criticism of Pateman and Young by reconsidering their ideas on democracy and citizenship. Third, it engages the works of a few Japanese political theorists who respond to the issue of essentialism and points out the problems involved in the introduction of radical democracy in Japan and in Japanese feminist political theory. Finally, this paper concludes that we are still in the early stages of introducing and absorbing foreign feminist political theories into Japan as opposed to developing original Japanese feminist political theory to share with the world.

‘A new power structure will be built from the grassroots’: The challenge of radical democracy in Allende’s Chile

Chilean history in the twentieth century poses a number of unresolved questions about the limits of liberal capitalist democracy to effectively include the interests of non-elite sectors. The origins of the contemporary crisis for Chile’s political elites – as well as of neoliberalism more broadly – can be found in the chasm between political parties and their social bases. The parallels faced by Chilean activists and protestors in 2019 invite a closer look at the possibilities for and restraints on popular sector participation during Chile’s experiment with democratic socialism. As an act of radical democracy, the 1972 People’s Assembly in Concepción represented a vital attempt to create new mechanisms for citizen participation within an unfolding revolutionary process. Today, as Chileans grapple with how to construct an alternative to neoliberal democracy, past historical experiments in radical democracy and building grassroots movements can offer important lessons for the present.

Book Review: Eggemeier, T. Matthew: Against Empire: Ekklesial Resistance and the Politics of Radical Democracy

Book Review: Eggemeier, T. Matthew: <i>Against Empire: Ekklesial Resistance and the Politics of Radical Democracy</i>

Janathana Sarkar (people’s government): rebel governance and agency of the poor in India’s Maoist guerrilla zones

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the agency of the poor in the context of rebel governance in rural India. During its five-decade-long armed agrarian struggle, the Maoist movement has established in several villages an alternative structure of governance called Janathana Sarkar (people’s government) with Adivasis and Dalits as the primary agents of social transformation. Drawing on the author’s long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the Maoist guerrilla zones, this article explores the insurgent consciousness of Dalits and Adivasis by engaging with two interrelated questions. First, how does Janathana Sarkar function as a platform for radical democracy by the marginalised? Second, is violence inherent in the emergence and manifestation of this agency? These questions, although primarily focused on the agency of Dalits and Adivasis in Janathana Sarkar, have a wider relevance to the study of transformative politics of the poor and radical democracy, which have received inadequate attention in the scholarship on rebel governance.

From the spectacular to the mundane: radical democracy in the open city

ABSTRACT Radical democracy is usually fleeting. What are the possibilities for institutionalising it? If we want to understand them, we have to look carefully at the institutions and practices of local government and distance ourselves from the ideal of the nation-state, focusing instead on the possibilities of the open city. In that context, this article refers back to the work of Hannah Arendt and Robert Dahl, considering it in light of more recent contributions from Nancy Rosenblum, Andy Merrifield, Jacques Ranciere, and others.

Radical Democracy and Sacred Values: John Dewey's Ethical Democracy, Sheldon Wolin's Fugitive Democracy and Politics of Tending, and Cornel West's Revolutionary Christianity

Radical Democracy and Sacred Values: John Dewey's Ethical Democracy, Sheldon Wolin's Fugitive Democracy and Politics of Tending, and Cornel West's Revolutionary Christianity