Who is speaking? The Indignados as political subjects

Abstract

Since 2011, the Indignados have been a prominent feature of Spanish politics. Based on the emotional characteristics and framing of the movement, this article argues that our common notions of how democracy and legitimacy should work, and in particular ideas of deliberative democracy, consistently favour political behaviour of a certain kind, namely that of rational action. This article argues that ideas of radical democracy, especially those of Jacques Rancière, could help broaden the idea of politics, in arguing that only recognising rational actions is an exclusionary practice. The article thus uses the case of the Indignados in order to rethink some dimensions of democratic theory. It starts out with an outlook on the current situation in Spain and then moves on to describe the main tenets of deliberative democracy and the problem the Indignados pose to such a theory. In opposition to this it introduces Rancière’s works, and argues that this has much higher bearing for our contemporary problems of democracy. The article concludes by saying that deliberative democracy lacks explanatory power when it comes to the Indignados. By requiring a unified sovereign, a distinction between voice and noise, and a consensual form of legitimate decision-making, the Indignados are not deemed political subjects in deliberative democratic theory. This can be seen as an exclusionary practice, since the Indignados still form a noticeable presence in today’s political landscape. Therefore, there is a need for revising what constitutes a political subject and a political action.

Keywords:

• democracy
• Indignados
• Rancière
• legitimacy
• Habermas
• Spanish politics
• rationality
• emotions

Notes

1. In this article, all of the translations from Spanish are my own.

2. The use of the word marea has become commonplace within the Indignados. The word wave symbolises the network of protests around one issue, for instance the Marea Verde (Green wave) against cuts in the educational system, or the Marea Naranja (Orange Wave) which discusses the decline of social security, and also the Marea Violeta (Purple Wave) for gender equality.

3. The division between the material and the non-material is by no means a sharp or simplistic divide, and this article does not wish to portray it as such. However, there is value added in pointing to dimensions beyond what is commonly referred to as the material (economic factors, banking and housing issues) as to nuance and broaden the general picture of the Indignados.

4. That a movement often contains of a multitude of factions and difference voices is well known, but, generally, movements try to overcome these, which can create problems as described by Michels (1959).

5. The observation on the emotional components of protest deserves a more in-depth explanation than can be provided here. Emotions in protest have over the past 20 years become a growing field of research, which identifies emotions as political practices (see for instance Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2001; Clarke, Hoggett, and Thompson 2006). However, one should also note that there is a growing portion of research on affective politics, stemming from more psychoanalytical perspectives, which are also integral to the understanding of how emotions and affect play a part for the formation of political claims (see Gould 2009; Stavrakakis 2004; Massumi 1995).

6. It should be clarified that the ambition is not to falsify deliberative democratic theories of legitimacy, but to express the need for additional dimensions of the concept, in order to reach a higher explanatory power of our current issue of popular participation.

7. Pre-enlightenment societies had been heavily dependent on the idea of a God-given power, and that the emperor or king was a direct voice for the doings of the deity. Authority and exertion of power became legitimate because the state apparatus and the use of force were all directly connected to the will of God, and this sufficed as a justification. In fact, legitimacy was not really an issue in the first place, since one could hardly question the divine purpose of the emperor or king (Connolly 1984, 3). However, with the arrival of the enlightenment, philosophers started questioning the role of a god in human interactions and public affairs; instead, the man-made condition emerged, based on a political and social situation not as given by God, but as made by Man. This led to an emergence of a human agency, a perception and cognition-based rationality, which entirely transformed the construction of public affairs. The human being, Man, became the groundwork for justification of authority (Connolly 1984, 4).

8. For more information on Luhmann’s systems theory, please see Habermas and Luhmann (1971), Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie?, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag.

9. This article has chosen to focus mainly on Rancière’s thought. However, there are several prominent thinkers within the field of radical democracy whose arguments also hold grounds when it comes to the situation in Spain, Greece and Italy. Such would be the argument of Ernesto Laclau (1994, 1996, 2005, 2006), Chantal Mouffe (1993, 1996, 2000, 2005), Laclau and Mouffe (2001), and Claude Lefort (1989), to name but a few. For an overview of the main radical democratic arguments, please see Thomassen and Tonder (2005). The reason for focussing on Rancière is his distinction between voice and noise, which is particularly important for this article’s argument, but the argument has been generally informed by radical democratic thought.

10. As said, before Enlightenment, political authority was legitimised by reference to a divine instalment. When this statement became increasingly questioned, this opened up for numerous claims to authority, of which none were God-given. The empty space is there for the taking, and political authority can be created on numerous grounds.

11. Rancière operates on an Aristotelian idea of logos, indicating the reasoned discourse. However, when discussing politics we must consider that there are indeed two dimensions of logos which need to be present for a recognisable speaker: the logos of speech and the account of speech. That is, to make valid statements, which are also recognised by others (Rancière 1999, 43). Politics, then, becomes the definition of what logos and alogia are.

12. Indeed, a glance at theories of intersectionality (Crenshaw 1991) confirms the presence and the recognition of the possibility of carrying several identity markers. This argument has also been successfully put forward by theorist of new social movements, arguing for the fluidity of identity (cf. Offe 1985; Crossley 2002; Melucci 2008).