Issues and images – new sources of inequality in current representative democracy

Abstract

Right from its beginning, representative democracy was criticized for promoting inequality. Nonetheless, for many decades representative democracy has led to more equality – politically as well as socially. Meanwhile, in most Western societies this has dramatically changed. Trying to understand this change, the paper will first identify the immanent egalitarian tendencies in modern democratic representation. I will argue that not only universal franchise, but, paradoxically, also the distinction between society and the stage of political representation have had strong egalitarian effects. I will continue to demonstrate that the development from party to audience democracy together with the rise of non-electoral modes of participation transformed the performative and configurative functions of political representation. Instead of translating social conflicts into reasonably consistent political alternatives, parties try to identify strategically promising issues in order to create attractive media images. Together with the growing weight of issue-oriented, non-electoral participatory activities, this development threatens to undermine the political realm as a distinct sphere of equals.

Keywords:

• democratic representation
• political configuration
• non-electoral participation
• issue and image orientation
• disparity

Notes

1. Some authors would add to procedural equality substantial equality in the sense of diminishing existing social inequalities (Jörke 2010, p. 273).

2. See, for example, the arguments of the Antifederalists against the new U.S. Constitution at the end of the 18th century (Antifederalist Papers 1965).

3. For short overviews on empirical data for the development of income inequality in OECD countries see Alderson and Nielson (2002) and Wehler (2013, pp. 59–65).

4. See, for example, Bartels (2008), Rosanvallon (2013).

5. For a short summary of the debate, see Thaa and Linden 2014. Bartels links the political and the economic aspect with what he calls a ‘debilitating feedback cycle’: ‘increasing economic inequality may produce increasing inequality in political responsiveness, which in turn produces public policies that are increasingly detrimental to the interest of the poor citizens which in turn produces even greater economic inequality, and so on’ (Bartels 2008, p. 286).

6. Both Iris Marion Young and Nadia Urbinati describe representation as a political relationship. See Young (1997), Urbinati (2005, 2006a, 2006b).

7. Following the famous definition of Hanna Pitkin, ‘representation, taken generally, means the making present in some sense of something which is nevertheless not present literally or in fact’ (Pitkin 1967, pp. 8, 9).

8. Inspired by the writings of Claude Lefort, Ernst Vollrath (1992) systematically distinguishes between the representation of unity (‘Einheitsrepräsentation’) and the representation of difference (‘Differenzrepräsentation’). Whereas, the first type of representation, which is typical for totalitarian regimes, implies the claim to embody or incarnate society as a whole, the second type recognizes that political unity can no longer efface social division and that ‘democracy inaugurates the experience of an ungraspable, uncontrollable society … whose identity will constantly be open to question’ (Lefort 1986b, pp. 303–304).

9. This is most obviously the case with the writings of Young (1997, 2000), Mansbridge (1999, 2000) and Dovi (2002).

10. Michael Saward clearly distinguishes between aesthetic and political representation by stating that political representatives are portraying or framing their constituencies ‘in particular, contestable ways’, (Saward 2006, p. 302). However, I doubt that he sufficiently differentiates between political representation in general and democratic representation based on general, free and equal elections in particular. The latter is not adequately characterized by constructing a continuity between the narrower statist and the broader societal domains, based on the argument, that institutions in civil society often follow a logic of election too, and if not, they follow at least a logic of exit in the sense of Hirschman (1970), which simply means that everybody has the possibility to withdraw his or her support. By stating that election is ‘one mode of a logic of exit’ Saward (2010, p. 143) clearly misses the difference between pluralism in the societal domain on one hand and the election of authorized representatives in a democratic state on the other.

11. On the performative character of democratic representation, see Saward (2006), Disch (2011, 2012).

12. On this aspect see Bielefeld (2011), Weymans (2006).

13. The term ‘configuration’ is sporadically used by Lefort (1986a, p. 20) and Disch (2011, p. 100) in the sense of a political shaping of the society as a whole. I use it in a more restricted sense with regard to the structuring of the political field and its conflicting groups (see Thaa 2011, 2013).

14. On the constitutive role of the symbolic dimension for democracy see Lefort (1986a). For an illuminating interpretation of this aspect see Weymans (2012).

15. For the important function of programmatic alternatives for pluralist democracy see Fraenkel (1964/2011).

16. Similarily, Flaig (2013) argues for the ancient Greek polis that the emergence of an autonomous political sphere was closely intertwined with the implementation of majority decisions. The fact that every (male) citizen, irrespective of descent, status or wealth, counted as one is important to differentiate an own sphere of politics, separate from clan and family structures.

17. The making of a representative claim to a public is much older than democracy. It is an essential element of religious communities, feudal systems and also of authoritarian and totalitarian societies. The question is whether representative claims are democratically contested or not.

18. See, for example, Neckel (2008), Paugam (2009), Walter (2011). For a discussion, see Thaa and Linden (2014).

19. For a short overview of this debate, see Thaa and Linden (2014) and in more detail Linden (2014).

20. This was the crucial argument of Kurt Sontheimer’s defense of pluralism against the criticism of Claus Offe. See Sontheimer (1973), Offe (1969).

21. See, for example, Warren (2002), Dalton (2008), Rosanvallon (2008), Keane (2009).

22. Urbinati and Warren (2008) distinguish in a similar way between ‘non-electoral democratic representation’ and ‘self-authorized representation’. I hesitate to use the concept of representation in such a general way, not only because I am skeptical about overstretching the concept of representation, but also, because some of these groups would explicitly refuse to represent anything or anybody.

23. In Germany, the organizers of Internet-based participatory budgets, the so-called ‘Bürgerhaushalte’, consider it as success if around three per cent of the citizens participate (Lieb 2013).

24. See, for example, Dalton et al. (2004), Bödeker (2011), Böhnke (2011), Schäfer and Schoen (2013).