The Metamorphoses of Democracy
Michel Wieviorka, Director of Studies at
CADIS*
In the face of the social, cultural and political changes
affecting post- industrial societies, the Western democracies are today confronting the
challenge of renewing themselves, in order to make their ideal of liberty, equality and a
participating citizenship a living one.
Throughout the Cold War, it was possible to
define democracy in terms of its opposite, within Europe itself, namely the political
reality of the totalitarian regimes of the Communist bloc, to which, to be fair, could
perhaps be added, until the mid-seventies, the Greek, Spanish and Portuguese military
dictatorships. While we simply need to recall the experience of former Yugoslavia to show
that barbarity has not disappeared from the "old continent", it is no less true
that the European democracies are today confronted first and foremost with themselves, and
their own problems and shortcomings. Here, at least three challenges merit examination:
social, political and cultural.
In social matters, in the strict sense,
France has emerged from the industrial age, which was also, after the Second World War, a
period of growth – the celebrated "Glorious Thirty" (1945-1975). Our
country, and many others with it, has seen the decline of the central conflict which
structured its public life and conditioned the functioning of the political system by
bringing the workers' movement into opposition with the employers. It has, at the same
time, seen a rise in the problems of unemployment, of exclusion, of lack of job security
and the breakdown of the social fabric. In these major transformations, attempts by the
unemployed or the excluded to organise themselves have given birth to movements of the
"sans" - sans-travail [workless], sans-logement [homeless] and the sans-papiers
[illegal immigrants] too - but on the whole, democracy has been weakened by the painful
emergence from the traditional industrial age, a process that democracy as such did not
really help to deal with.
Broadening the scope of democracy
But, here, let us add a paradoxical
observation: a traditional approach would be to assert that the extension of democracy, at
first limited historically to political life, takes place through its advance in industry
and industrial relations. Looked at in this way, it is true that today the company is much
less of a place of arbitrary rules and employer authoritarianism than it was in the past,
that the trade unions have had full recognition in the workplace since 1968, and that the
measures of the early 1980s (with the Auroux1 Laws) together with the recent legislative
provisions of the Laws on the 35 hour week2 can be read as the progress of democracy in
this area which was previously much less open to it.
In institutional and political matters, here
too democracy has been confronted by profound changes. In particular, the institutions
embodying the republican ideal have, since the late 1960s, been subject to new, or
renewed, constraints. They have had to modernise, to adapt to economic, commercial and
financial logic, and it is increasingly difficult for them to conform to their concept and
to the fine words of the motto of the Republic - liberté, égalité, fraternité
[Liberty, Equality, Fraternity].
The temptation of Republican rigidity has
become one of the ways of responding to these difficulties; it consists of contrasting the
Republic with Democracy, abstract principles with the political treatment of problems. But
in practice, on the contrary, other responses testify to the broadening of democratic life
to institutional practice; thus some large public companies take a much more active part
than in the past in the life of the Community, over and above their specific purpose or
task, and institutions, from the early 1980s, have learned to work together, in the field,
in places where once their endeavours were entirely separate.
In order to deal locally with the problems of
poor housing estates in the outer suburbs, for example, a number of organisations have
been set up, CCPDs (Community Crime Prevention Committees), where police officers,
magistrates, teachers and school managers, etc. meet. The renewal of democracy here, is
also taking place through the introduction of procedures which reconcile equity and
equality, instead of setting them against each other to the detriment, ultimately, of
both.
ZEP (Education Priority Areas) policies, in
particular, which make special resources available to schools in deprived areas, or the
creation of free zones, in which companies are encouraged to settle through the offer of
advantageous tax incentives may illustrate this observation: fairness measures, sometimes
called positive discrimination, are here, at least in theory, an instrument in the service
of equality.
Lastly, in cultural matters, democracy faces
a twofold challenge, the terms of which delineate a veritable paradox. On the one hand,
our society is increasingly individualistic, which translates into growing demands which
are of two types. Everyone wants a larger share of modern life, to have access to money,
consumer goods, health, etc., everyone also wants to build their own life, to make their
own choices, to be an individual. On the other hand, our society not only accommodates
cultural differences, and thus community identities, through immigration, but also and
above all, produces this in a great many fields: religion, ethnicity, gender, etc.
These statements of identity lead to claims
that appeal to democracy, the more so since French political culture is unfavourable to
them: the French concept of citizenship, indeed, ultimately only recognises free
individuals with equal rights, in the public arena and not minorities, be they cultural or
other. But in practice, French democracy has in reality made significant progress,
extending, as a result, to the culture, in the broad sense, each time, for example, that
an association run on the basis of a community, religious, ethnic or other group identity
receives a grant or any other recognition, permission to broadcast on the radio, for
example.
New citizenship practices
The traditional forms of democratic life, in
France, sometimes show signs of wear and tear, expressed particularly by the populist
criticisms of politicians. However, they too are taking new forms, not only as a response
to the social, political and cultural changes to which reference has just been made, but
also to bring the democratic spirit into new areas. This is the case especially when major
problems, such as those posed by health or the environment, seem to divide public opinion
with the people on one side and the world of science and experts on the other: the
experimental people's conferences, pioneered in Denmark, sometimes also called consensus
conferences, in which citizens and experts meet and exchange views in depth, as was the
case in France at the recent States General on Health in June 1999, or at the 1998 meeting
of experts and the public on genetically modified maize, show that it is possible to
broaden the scope of democracy to new challenges.
The strengthening of democracy thus calls for
the development of different ways of dealing with problems and social and cultural
conflicts politically. This also implies managing conflict more closely, locally, on the
ground, in the place where those involved can implement and exchange views about
concretely defined goals, rather than mechanically apply government directives. This gives
the social sciences an important role, since they can provide the knowledge needed for
high quality debate and help to ensure the reflexivity of society.
(*Centre for Sociological Analysis and Intervention,
Director of Monde des Débats. )
(Courtesy: Label France Magazine, Embassy of France)
Three-dimensional savings
What does social justice mean today?
An essay by Otfried Höffe
Justice is a curious concept. Many different
cultures and epochs have been – and are – united in their yearning for it. Yet
its content is so controversial that people who demand justice are often suspected of
morally embellishing their own self-interest. Nevertheless, there is a common core that
has been recognized from antiquity to the times of John Rawls, the twentieth
century’s most prominent theoretician on justice. Admittedly, this core consists in
an irritatingly empty concept: that of equality and/or impartiality. The concept of
"social" justice involves a second peculiarity: its high status stands in
contrast to its late birth. In the case of the concept of justice, the distinctions that
are still relevant today can be traced back to Aristotle; "social" justice, by
contrast, does not appear until the mid-19th century – and not in legal or
constitutional theory, but in Christian social ethics.
Within the sphere of social morality, justice
means only the elementary part whose recognition people morally owe each other. The two
elements are indispensable. This mutuality follows from the core thought of equality;
justice is a matter of rights and obligations, of gifts and return gifts. Anyone who takes
advantage of only the rights or only the gifts has left the sphere of justice. Many people
think only of distribution when they think of justice. However, the resources available
for distribution do not fall like manna from the sky. The proverbial cake has to be baked
first, and this requires both ingredients and energy, which in turn have to be created
through work.
One precursor of social justice is the tacit
contract between parents and children on a phase-delayed yet nevertheless mutual form of
assistance: since human beings are extremely helpless when they come into the world and
are helpless again by the time they leave it, after a period of relative autonomy,
children can "repay" the assistance received at the beginning of their lives by
assisting their parents when they grow older. Because social relations have become more
complicated, this "family contract" has long since been extended into a
suprafamilial "generation contract." The advantage of this extension lies in
compensatory justice, the addition that is always needed in order for the exchange to be
just. Since our community has legally and financially taken over power from the
institutions that used to be responsible (families, clans, municipal authorities, guilds),
compensatory justice demands some form of reimbursement; the welfare state becomes an
indemnity bond. Its basic form is not that of patronizing care. Receiving alms does not
represent the highest possible level of dignity, even if a person has a legal entitlement
to them. On the contrary, there is a danger that the non-material value of dignity might
be surreptitiously redefined in material terms. Because there is the alternative of
"helping people to help themselves," attempts should be made wherever possible
to increase incentives to work and create jobs.
A further need for decision-making stems from
the fact that developments such as globalization generate a complex of both opportunities
and risks. Although, collectively speaking, this complex is supposed to be advantageous,
it nevertheless leaves some groups worse off. Another new social question concerns
relations between the generations. There is a wide range of areas – the natural
environment, the legal, cultural and scientific infrastructure, population development,
capital accumulation, etc. – that needs a three-dimensional concept of savings,
certainly not just cutting costs in an economic sense. These three elements are
"saving" institutions and resources in the sense of conserving them;
"saving up" (a stock of) capital, infrastructure and future technologies as an
investment; and not least "sparing" things as a preventive measure: i.e.
preventing wars and economic, social, cultural and ecological disasters.
It is no secret that the opposite is
happening in political reality: a gap has opened up between rising expenditure on
day-to-day tasks (social services, health, debt repayment) and falling investment in life
opportunities for young people (schools, universities, research) – and the gap is
widening. This development represents an injustice to our children and children’s
children. The alternative is clear: if the so-called welfare state wants to be socially
just, it must broaden its frame of reference from that of a welfare and social insurance
state to that of a social investment state. This entails making provisions for young
parents – affordable housing, flexible regulations on working hours, generous family
benefits – which moreover give them the freedom to choose between engaging in either
extradomestic gainful employment or educational work in the family.
(Courtesy: Deutschland Magazine , Embassy of Germany) |
