A Second Democracy for the Second Economy?

by Richard Pithouse

If democracy is only about contestation between political parties then the elite consensus that the recent election constitutes further maturation into a free, fair and peaceful democracy is largely valid. But if democracy is understood to include the right to express dissent outside of electoral participation, and if the freedom and fairness of electoral processes is understood to require free political activity outside of party politics, then there are less grounds for optimism.

The now pervasive de facto reduction of democracy to electoral processes has no constitutional basis and functions to structurally exclude community organisations through which the poor are often best able to express their agency. This is because all major political parties develop policy in a technocratic manner and then require voters to make choices in the way that consumers choose brands. This precludes bottom up popular engagement in shaping the local and national political imagination.