Reconsidering the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform Phenomena: Castoriadis and Radical Citizen Democracy

Abstract

The British Columbia and Ontario Citizens' Assemblies on Electoral Reform have justifiably generated much discussion on the part of political theorists, who see in these phenomena the actualization of certain deliberative democratic principles that have traditionally not been able to be affirmed within increasingly corporatized political orders. These phenomena, it is argued, give a form to a relatively new model of representation which emphasizes not the reproduction of an already existent popular will, but rather the critical construction of a potential political will under institutional conditions allowing for adequate knowledge acquisition. It will be argued, however, that such readings are in the final instance limited from a democratic standpoint to the degree that politics is still primarily considered in terms of political competency and rationality. Rather than interpret Citizens' Assemblies (CAs) as manifestations of a new mode of representation, the article will attempt to read them through the radical democratic prism articulated by Cornelius Castoriadis, emphasizing the CAs' possible deployment in a germinal project of autonomy which gives an expression to the non-determinate drives of social-historical individuals and communities. The possibility of the CAs contributing to a rejuvenation of the democratic experience is to be located in their shifting of the terms of democracy away from issues of representation and rationality, and toward those of creativity and imagination.

Notes

¹ The first two English-language monographs on Castoriadis, for example, have only appeared in the last few years. Jeff Klooger, Castoriadis: Psyche, Society, Autonomy (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2009); see also Suzi Adams, Castoriadis' Ontology: Being and Creation (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011). For additional introductions to the work of Castoriadis see, for example, Dick Howard, “Introduction to Castoriadis,” Telos, no. 23 (1975), pp. 117–131; see also Bryan Singer, “The Early Castoriadis: Socialism, Barbarism, and the Bureaucratic Thread,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 3:3 (1979), pp. 35–66; Bryan Singer, “The Later Castoriadis: Institution Under Interrogation,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 4:1 (1980), pp. 75–101; and G. Busino et al., Autonomie Et Autotransformation De La Société: La Philosophie Militante De Cornelius Castoriadis (Genève, Switzerland: Droz, 1989).

This research was supported by a fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. My thanks to John Grant, Loren King, David Tabachnick, and two anonymous reviewers at New Political Science for providing me with valuable feedback on this article.

² Cornelius Castoriadis, “The Nature and Value of Equality,” in David Ames Curtis (ed.), Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy: Essays in Political Philosophy (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 136.

³ British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, Making Every Vote Count: The Case for Electoral Reform in British Columbia: Final Report (Vancouver, Canada: British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, 2004), p. 9.

⁴ British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, Making Every Vote Count: The Case for Electoral Reform in British Columbia: Technical Report (Vancouver, Canada: British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, 2004), p. 5; see also Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, One Ballot, Two Votes: A New Way to Vote in Ontario: Recommendation of the Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (Toronto, Canada: Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, 2007), p. 2.

⁵ Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, One Ballot, Two Votes, p. 16.

⁶ Ibid., 18.

⁷ British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, Making Every Vote Count: Final Report, p. 11.

⁸ Ibid., 13.

⁹ Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, One Ballot, Two Votes, p. 19.

¹⁰ Cornelius Castoriadis, “The Retreat from Autonomy: Postmodernism as Generalized Conformism,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 37.

¹¹ Cornelius Castoriadis, “The Project of Autonomy is not a Utopia,” in Enrique Escobar, and Pascal Vernay (eds) and Helen Arnold (trans.), A Society Adrift: Interviews and Debates, 1974–1997 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), p. 206.

¹² Cornelius Castoriadis, “Power, Politics, Autonomy,” in David Ames Curtis (ed.), Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy: Essays in Political Philosophy (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 164.

¹³ Castoriadis, “The Nature and Value of Equality,” p. 132.

¹⁴ Castoriadis, “Power, Politics, Autonomy,” p. 164.

¹⁵ Cornelius Castoriadis, “The End of Philosophy,” in David Ames Curtis (ed.), Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy: Essays in Political Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 20.

¹⁶ Cornelius Castoriadis, “The Imaginary: Creation in the Social-Historical Domain,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 17.

¹⁷ Castoriadis, “The End of Philosophy,” p. 41.

¹⁸ Cornelius Castoriadis, “The Crisis of Culture and the State,” in David Ames Curtis (ed.), Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy: Essays in Political Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 223.

¹⁹ Cornelius Castoriadis, “The Crisis in Modern Society,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), Political and Social Writings, Volume Three (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), p. 111.

²⁰ See, for example, Mark E. Warren and Hilary Pearse, “Introduction: Democratic Renewal and Deliberative Democracy,” in Mark E. Warren and Hilary Pearse (eds), Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 1; see also Matthews Flinders and Dion Curry, “Deliberative Democracy, Elite Politics and Electoral Reform,” Policy Studies 29:4 (2008), p. 377.

²¹ Law Commission of Canada, Voting Counts: Electoral Reform in Canada (Ottawa, Canada: Ministry of Public Works and Government Services, 2004), p. 3.

²² Cornelius Castoriadis, “Modern Capitalism and Revolution,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), Political and Social Writings, Volume Two (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), p. 238.

²³ Cornelius Castoriadis, “The Greeks and the Modern Political Imaginary,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 85.

²⁴ Castoriadis, “Power, Politics, Autonomy,” p. 160.

²⁵ Ibid., 159.

²⁶ Ibid., 169.

²⁷ For secondary treatments of these themes see, for example, Stathis Gourgouris, “Philosophy and Sublimation,” Thesis Eleven, no. 49 (1997), pp. 31–43; See also Joel Whitebrook, Perversion and Utopia: A Study in Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995); Fernando Urribarri, “Castoriadis: The Radical Imagination and the Post-Lacanian Unconscious,” Thesis Eleven, no. 71 (2002), pp. 40–51; and Christopher Holman, “Autonomy and Psychic Socialization: From Non-Alienated Labor to Non-Surplus Repressive Sublimation,” Critical Horizons 12:2 (2011), pp. 139–167.

²⁸ Cornelius Castoriadis, “Psychoanalysis and Philosophy,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), The Castoriadis Reader (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), p. 351.

²⁹ Cornelius Castoriadis, “Psychoanalysis and Politics,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), The Castoriadis Reader (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), p. 356.

³⁰ Cornelius Castoriadis, “Psychoanalysis: Project and Elucidation,” in Kate Soper and Martin H. Ryle (trans.), Crossroads in the Labyrinth (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1984), p. 95.

³¹ Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1997), p. 321.

³² Ibid., 315.

³³ Ibid., 133.

³⁴ Ibid., 372.

³⁵ Cornelius Castoriadis, “Why I am No Longer a Marxist,” in Enrique Escobar, Myrto Gondicas, and Pascal Vernay (eds) and Helen Arnold (trans.), A Society Adrift: Interviews and Debates, 1974–1997 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), p. 53.

³⁶ Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, p. 315.

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ R.S. Ratner, “A Second Chance for the Single Transferable Vote,” Canadian Parliamentary Review 32:1 (2009), p. 33.

³⁹ Jonathan Rose, “The Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform,” Canadian Parliamentary Review 30:3 (2007), p. 10.

⁴⁰ Ontario Citizens' Assembly Secretariat, Democracy at Work: The Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform: A Record of Ontario's First Citizens' Assembly Process (Toronto, Canada: Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, 2004), p. 44.

⁴¹ Ibid., 46.

⁴² Ibid., 62.

⁴³ Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, One Ballot, Two Votes, p. 24.

⁴⁴ Amy Lang, “But Is It for Real? The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly as a Model of State-Sponsored Citizen Empowerment,” Politics & Society 35:1 (2007), p. 43.

⁴⁵ The data was similar in British Columbia, where only one of 161 members left, and attendance was “close to perfect.” British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, Making Every Vote Count: Final Report, p. 15.

⁴⁶ Hannah Arendt, “Thoughts on Politics and Revolution,” in Crises of the Republic (New York: Harcourt Bruce Jovanovich, 1972), p. 203.

⁴⁷ Rose, “The Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform,” p. 13.

⁴⁸ R.S. Ratner, “British Columbia's Citizens' Assembly: The Learning Phase,” Canadian Parliamentary Review 27:2 (2004), p. 24.

⁴⁹ Lang, “But Is It for Real?,” p. 38.

⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ Lang, for example, argues that the BCCA was sufficiently independent from elite manipulation in a double sense: “First, the Assembly process allowed participants freedom from external pressures and created time and space for the extended interaction of participants. Second, that independence and extensive interaction enabled the crystallization of specific criteria and interests that guided the Assembly members' decision making.” Ibid., 37–38; R.S. Ratner, “The BC Citizens' Assembly: The Public Hearings and Deliberations Stage,” Canadian Parliamentary Review 28:1 (2005), p. 33.

⁵² Cornelius Castoriadis, “Socialism or Barbarism,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), Political and Social Writings, Volume One (Minneapolis, MA: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), p. 81.

⁵³ Cornelius Castoriadis, “Recommencing the Revolution,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.) Political and Social Writings, Volume Three (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), p. 40.

⁵⁴ Cornelius Castoriadis, “On the Content of Socialism, II,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), Political and Social Writings, Volume Two (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), p. 94.

⁵⁵ Castoriadis, “Modern Capitalism and Revolution,” p. 274.

⁵⁶ Ibid., 295.

⁵⁷ This, though, should not blind us to the fact that for the most part the CA experiments received widespread elite resistance from both politicians and the media. See, for example, Denis Pilon, “The 2005 and 2009 Referenda on Voting System Change in British Columbia,” Canadian Political Science Review 4:2–3 (2010), pp. 73–89; see also Lawrence LeDuc, “Electoral Reform and Direct Democracy in Canada: When Citizens Become Involved,” West European Politics 34:3 (2011), pp. 551–567; and George Hoff, “Covering Democracy: The Coverage of FPTP Vs. MMP in the Ontario Referendum on Electoral Reform,” Canadian Journal of Media Studies 5:1 (2009), pp. 24–49.

⁵⁸ Amy Lang, “Agenda-Setting in Deliberative Forums: Expert Influence and Citizen Autonomy in the British Columbia Citizens' Assembly,” in Mark E. Warren and Hilary Pearse (eds), Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

⁵⁹ Ibid., 87.

⁶⁰ Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, One Ballot, Two Votes, p. 14.

⁶¹ Cornelius Castoriadis, “On the Content of Socialism, I,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), Political and Social Writings, Volume One (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), p. 298.

⁶² Cornelius Castoriadis, “Proletariat and Organization, I,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), Political and Social Writings, Volume Two (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), p. 197.

⁶³ Aristotle, in The Politics, trans. Carnes Lord (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 1294b 7–10; see also Bernard Manin, The Principles of Representative Government (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

⁶⁴ Cornelius Castoriadis, “The Greek and the Modern Political Imaginary,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 90.

⁶⁵ John Ferejohn, “Conclusion: The Citizens' Assembly Model,” in Mark E. Warren and Hilary Pearse (eds), Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 213.

⁶⁶ Cornelius Castoriadis, “Unending Interrogation,” in anonymous (ed. and trans.), The Rising Tide of Insignificancy (The Big Sleep), 2003, p. 265, < http://www.notbored.org/RTI.pdf>.

⁶⁷ Cornelius Castoriadis, “Self-Management and Hierarchy,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), Political and Social Writings, Volume Three (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), p. 222.

⁶⁸ See, for example, André Blais, R. Kenneth Carty, and Patrick Fournier, “Do Citizens' Assemblies Make Reasoned Choices?,” in Mark E. Warren and Hilary Pearse (eds), Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 127–144.

⁶⁹ Dennis Thompson, “Who Should Govern Who Governs? The Role of Citizens in Reforming the Electoral System,” in Mark E. Warren and Hilary Pearse (eds), Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 26–27.

⁷⁰ Prior to the learning phase the average member response to the question of “How informed about electoral systems do you feel?” was 4.3, while after it was completed it was 9.1. British Columbia Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, Making Every Vote Count: Technical Report, pp. 65–68.

⁷¹ Lang, “But Is It for Real?,” p. 53.

⁷² There have, however, been some who question the representative interpretation. John Grant, for example, reads CAs as a part of a renewed republican revival in political thought. CAs cannot be representative, he claims, because (1) there exists no direct relationship between the supposed representative body and the public, thus neutralizing accountability, and (2) CAs do not represent an already existent public will, but exist precisely in order to generate such a will. The CA is thus “a formative and radically non-representative body.” John Grant, “Canada's Republican Invention? On the Political Theory and Practice of Citizens' Assemblies,” in Political Studies (forthcoming); John Ferejohn, “Conclusion: The Citizens' Assembly Model,” in Mark E. Warren and Hilary Pearse (eds), Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 192–213; see also Guy Lodge, “When the People Spoke,” New Statesman, January 17, 2005.

⁷³ Mark Warren, “Citizen Representatives,” in Mark E. Warren and Hilary Pearse (eds), Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 51.

⁷⁴ For the most detailed account of the nature of descriptive representation with respect to the CA phenomenon see Michael Rabinder James, “Descriptive Representation in the British Columbia Citizens' Assembly,” in Mark E. Warren and Hilary Pearse (eds), Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens' Assembly (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 106–126.

⁷⁵ Philip Pettit, “Representation, Responsive and Indicative,” Constellations 17:3 (2010), p. 427.

⁷⁶ Ibid., 432.

⁷⁷ Nadia Urbinati and Mark Warren, “The Concept of Representation in Contemporary Democratic Theory,” Annual Review of Political Science 11 (2008), p. 405.

⁷⁸ Castoriadis, “The Greek and the Modern Political Imaginary,” p. 90; see also Cornelius Castoriadis, “What Democracy?,” in Figures of the Thinkable, trans. Helen Arnold (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), pp. 128–129.

⁷⁹ David Plotke, “Representation Is Democracy,” Constellations 4:2 (1997), p. 23.

⁸⁰ Cornelius Castoriadis, “Politics in Crisis,” in anonymous (ed. and trans.), Postscript on Insignificancy, 2011, p. 105, < http://www.notbored.org/PSRTI.pdf>.

⁸¹ Cornelius Castoriadis, “If There Is to Be a Democratic Europe,” in anonymous (ed. and trans.) Postscript on Insignificancy, 2011, p. 147, < http://www.notbored.org/PSRTI.pdf>.

⁸² Jean Cohen, “The Self-Institution of Society and Representative Government: Can the Circle be Squared,” Thesis Eleven, no. 80 (2005), pp. 9–37.

⁸³ Cornelius Castoriadis, “Done and to Be Done,” in David Ames Curtis (ed. and trans.), The Castoriadis Reader (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), p. 408.

⁸⁴ Cornelius Castoriadis, “Democracy as Procedure and Democracy as Regime,” in Anonymous (ed. and trans.), The Rising Tide of Insignificancy (The Big Sleep), 2003, p. 346, < http://www.notbored.org/RTI.pdf>.

⁸⁵ For an excellent account of Castoriadis' critique of procedural democracy's masking of political generation see Andreas Kalyvas, “Norm and Critique in Castoriadis's Theory of Autonomy,” Constellations 15:2 (1998), pp. 161–182.

⁸⁶ Castoriadis, “Unending Interrogation,” p. 265.

⁸⁷ Cornelius Castoriadis, “Anthropology, Philosophy, Politics,” in anonymous (ed. and trans.), The Rising Tide of Insignificancy (The Big Sleep), 2003, p. 197, < http://www.notbored.org/RTI.pdf>.

⁸⁸ Cornelius Castoriadis, “On Political Judgment,” in Enrique Escobar, Myrto Gondicas, and Pascal Vernay (eds) and Helen Arnold (trans.), A Society Adrift: Interviews and Debates, 1974–1997 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), p. 217.

⁸⁹ Hubertus Buchstein, “Reviving Randomness: Elements of a Theory of Aleatory Democracy,” Constellations 17:3 (2010), p. 448.

⁹⁰ Cornelius Castoriadis, “The Crisis of Marxism and the Crisis of Politics,” in Anonymous (ed. and trans.), Postscript on Insignificancy, 2011, p. 141, < http://www.notbored.org/PSRTI.pdf>.

⁹¹ Castoriadis, “On the Content of Socialism, II,” pp. 140–141.

⁹² Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, p. 113.

⁹³ Andreas Kalyvas, “The Radical Instituting Power and Democratic Theory,” Journal of the Hellenistic Diaspora 24:1 (1998), p. 18.

⁹⁴ See Jürgen Habermas in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures, trans. Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1987), pp. 327–335.

⁹⁵ Cohen, “The Self-Institution of Society and Representative Government,” p. 25.

⁹⁶ Cornelius Castoriadis, “‘Democracy’ Without Citizens' Participation,” in Enrique Escobar, Myrto Gondicas, and Pascal Vernay (eds) and Helen Arnold (trans.), A Society Adrift: Interviews and Debates, 1974–1997 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), p. 168.

¹⁰⁰ Ibid., 208.

⁹⁷ Castoriadis, “The Imaginary: Creation in the Social-Historical Domain,” p. 40.

⁹⁸ David Graeber, for example, adopts Castoriadis' definition of autonomous communities as “ones that constitute themselves, collectively make their own rules or principles of operation, and continually reexamine them.” David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004), p. 45.

⁹⁹ Jesse Cohn, Anarchism and the Crisis of Representation: Hermeneutics, Aesthetics, Politics (Sellinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 2006), p. 203.

¹⁰¹ Nathan Jun, Anarchism and Political Modernity (New York: Continuum, 2012), p. 147.

¹⁰² Todd May, The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 1994), p. 83.

¹⁰³ Cohn, Anarchism and the Crisis of Representation, p. 209.

¹⁰⁴ Ibid., 210–211.

¹⁰⁵ Murray Bookchin, Remaking Society: Pathways to a Green Future (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1990), p. 174.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid., 113.

¹⁰⁶ Joseph Gershtenson, Glenn W. Rainey, Jr., and Jane G. Rainey, “Creating Better Citizens? Effects of a Model Citizens' Assembly on Student Political Attitudes and Behaviour,” Journal of Political Science Education 6:2 (2010), pp. 103–105.

¹⁰⁸ Castoriadis, “Recommencing the Revolution,” p. 52.