Democracy Enable And Disable Social Movements Politics Essay

re worldly concern Enable And Disable Social Movements Politics EssayDemocracy has been nonp atomic number 18il of the greatest aspirations of Modernity and one of its greatest disappointments. The passing of centuries among the collapse of the Ancient Greek precursor and the reestablishment of land as a viable system makes its recent globalisation all the more(prenominal) remarkable. The resurgence of res publica was achieved in part through the victories of accessible movements over secure interests. (Esche 2001 17)It is true that hearty movements were determinant for the implementation of republican systems through come forward the world. However, the call into question concerning this root is whether democracies argon determinant to social movements. at that placefore this paper leave explore in which instructions does commonwealth enable and/or hinder social movements. It go out conclude that although bulk rule is, in theory, the system more prone to the app earance of social movements it is in addition a regime that, in practice, tummy prevent and restrict them. The first section of this paper will briefly overview the concepts of democracy and social movements in format to provide a framework for the joust. The second will explore in what ways democracies break provided spaces for social movements to occur. The third, will discuss the opposite. That is, how democratic systems, intentionally or unintentionally, establish constrained the rise of associational forms. both(prenominal) arguments will be illustrated with aspect studies from experiences within the developing countries. Finally, some concluding remarks will be offered in the end.As Tilly (2003) explained democracy as oligarchy, autocracy for example is a var. of regime and that means that it is a set of relations mingled with a presidential term and persons subject to that judicatures jurisdiction (p.25). Democracy faecal matter in like manner support many d imensions and forms and they differ greatly from one another. For instance, there be self-aggrandizing democracies and there are representative democracies there are pluralistic democracies and there are constitutional democracies. This is relevant for the argument because the level of democracy, being the promiscuous democracy the most flexible one, exponent urinate an impact on the intro or restriction at the polite society level. Nevertheless, although they might differ in their construction they also share common values. wizard of the most grand is that it should serve the best interests of their constituents echoing Abraham Lincolns ideal of political science of the population, by the people, for the people. In other words, a democracy allows for debate and for decisions to be made according to the will of the majority. It also allows for the creation of spaces between the nonpublic sphere and the state.These spaces are the ones where mediation is made between the s tate and the people or formally kn deliver as civil society civilised society could be viewed as but one form of the semi governmental relationship between state and society. It is an intermediate associational realm between state and family populated by organisations which are separate from the state, enjoy impropriety in relation to the state and are formed voluntary by members of society to protect or advance their interests and values (White 1996 181-2).From this definition an important characteristic is worth pointing out. Indeed, an in capable civil society is the one who can truly voice peoples discontent. This is because any association with the state can earnestly undermine their intentions. Without an independent civil society the balance of proponent can never be challenged the level of accountability cannot be increased and the chances of having grievances transform into favourable legislation will be impracticable. Furthermore, if the civil society is not independe nt there is the risk of social movements becoming institutionalised as it will be discussed in a further section. Now that two democracy and social movements it is time to look at the main argument and explore in what ways democracy promotes or disables democracy.It was with the introduction of democracy that the world has seen a dramatic increase in social mobility levels, in more opportunities for education and above all a feeling of individual freedom allied with the right to assistant without fear of persecution. Stories from North Korea or China stand to make the argument that democracy is the most unmortgaged and flexible system. It was with the advent of democracy that previously unrepresented groups began to have both political representation and protection in the form of legislation. One of the most discernible social movements throughout history has been the womens movement. Seeking to have representation in the political world women have been fighting in traditional old societies for their equal place in society. In Ghana the transition to democracy opened a space for women to target their grievances by mobilising women to engage in political activity. This was due to two main circumstanceors. First, the pre-democratic regime made impossible for women to even consider the debate of their situation. As soon as democracy was installed women were quick to beat up and bring the issue into public debate. Second, if a democracy means representation of incompatible groups in society surely women had to be also part of the political life of Ghana (Fallon 2008). This is, however, problematic and sometimes even undesirable. If all groups demand representation then it will be harder to reach consensus, e specificly in countries with a large number of different ethnicities or religious beliefs.Another lineament of democracy, besides the right of freedom of association, is accountability. That is, people have the right to question and protest a assumest any m or action taken by their government. A key feature for the success of social movements is working governments institutions such as an independent discriminatory system where everyone, including the government itself, is not free from obeying the law. This was the case in brazil nut where President Lulas government faced corruption charges due to misuse of public money. A free press, independent from the government, led the people in trenchant questions and demanding answers (Flynn 2005 1260). However, accountability is not only related to the rule of law. It is also machine-accessible to a governments position on certain issues as previously mentioned. For instance, the joined States (US) war on terror has taked a lot discontent within their own borders and caused an anti-war movement due mostly to unilateral decisions such as vent to war with Iraq and Afghanistan ironically in the name of democracy and as leadership of the free world. In 2002, Kellner recommended th at the war should be fought not on armed twinges terms but by a global movement reprobate terrorism. Since then there has been a movement, or several, but condemning US use of violent means. Perhaps the best example on how a democratic system allows for social movements lies in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil. In a country with high-levels of inequalities both between classes and between regions the city of Porto Alegre, with an alternative simulation of participatory democracy, exhibits a high level of social re-distribution (Ponniah and Fisher 2003 181).There are, however, several ways in which democracy or the process of democratisation disabling or restricting social movements. The first one has to do with the transition from any kind of authoritarian rule to democracy. A cross(prenominal) problem across several transitions in the developing world is the fact that the same power structures and elite groups remain in place (Garretn 1997, gibbon 1997, Prevost 2006, White 199 6). Usually, movements that attain power are not organised or powerful enough to constitute a secure government. Therefore they have to make concessions with old power structures such as the military in order to form a government. In South Africa, the African home(a) Congress (ANC) had to stomach that the old government bureaucracy would have to be maintained. It did not have the people to fully replace the existing government bureaucracy both in terms of their sheer number and out of a lack of appropriate skills in a wide grade of areas (Prevost 2006 170).As a consequence the same kind of policies and reluctance in accepting a black majority rule prevented in unique(predicate) the actions of the black movement to be fully realised and in full general democracy to be deepened. In South Korea a similar pattern, of regulatory democracy, emerged in the late 1980s. With democracy a large number of organizations entered civil society causing some social and political unrest. Howev er, the political elite joined the two opposition parties into the government and formed a refreshing hegemonic party. White (1996) explains the advantages of forming the latter. First, it absorbs opposition leaders. Second, by doing that the established elites maintain their power and make in decision-making.The second way in which democracies disable social movements fades when democracy is already in place. If the movements were focused on one aim to weaken the government then when they achieve it they lose their main thrust and, eventually, fail fragmented. As mentioned, democracy opens spaces for unrepresented groups and because within any society there are so many different groups demanding political representation it suffers difficult to mobilise any kind of collective action as there is not a coherent and unique grievance (Melucci 1988, Menon 2000). In some cases, and because there is not a wider movement to support it, some forms of protest are not organised and are destined to fail (Dong 1997). Furthermore, movements might actually compete with each other which further weaken the movements (John 2000, White 1996).A third way in which movements might be disabled is when they become institutionalised (Berger 2003, Flynn 2005, Melucci 1988, Prevost 2006). Becoming institutionalised is when movements lose their independent status. This can happen in three ways. Firstly, in order to have access to power, or resources, social movements might need to associate with mainstream political parties (Houtzager 2000). Secondly, governments in order to gain support but also to avoid contestation elect key community leaders into the political system (Prevost 2006 169). By doing so they are eliminating the radical and influential individuals from their natural habitat the civil society. Both the ANC in South Africa and President Lulas Partido Trabalhador (PT) have used this tactic to gain acceptance and to diminish to possibilities of social movements to m obilise. But movements can also be co-opted by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Disillusioned with the lack of political space offered by the government and lacking funds, movements often resort to NGOs for support. Eventually, this relationship turns into dependency and because of that they have to accept external policies from NGOs which in turn restricts organizations agenda-setting as this becomes set by occidental donors priorities. In Guatemala, the womens movement known as Guatelmatacas became a provider of social services replacing governments functions. This was in part because they were representing the interests of NGOs and not their own. As Berger (2003) describe it womens groups in due course shifted from a strategy of confrontation to one of conciliation (p. 205).A fourth way that accelerates the weakening of social movements is the forward motion of capitalist economy and its instrument modern-liberalism. Esche argued that capitalist economy and democracies have developed a picky relationship, that it to say that capitalist economy prefers democratic environments and that democracy favours the introduction of capitalism. He also argued that this simple account of democracy and capitalism should be avoided mainly because capitalism is also able to penetrate in authoritarian governments. However, Roberts (1998) points out that capitalism and market forces at work in democracies accelerate the fragmentation and weakening of popular collective subjects, the labour movement in particular and that neo liberalism has the remarkable capacity to neutralise and dissolve its opposition (p. 270). Capitalism thrives on inequalities and therefore these have to be maintained in an elegant way by governments. This shows that governments and for that matter democracy itself are unable to protect the interests of their citizens.To specify the argument on how democracies disable social movements it is important to explore the contribution of the medi a. One might think that media and specifically the meshing, is only used as a propaganda tool in authoritarian countries but the fact is that it is also used in democracies such as the US. In other words, net technology can be used .. for democratic or non-democratic means (Hand and Sandywell 2002 212). If the internet is restricted and controlled in China it is also used as a propaganda tool for democratic countries. The war on terror ideology of good versus evil, the election of Barack Obama as president of the US have shown how democratic countries can also use the internet as a political tool. More recently the Tea Party movement is using the internet to mobilise a grassroots movement with vested interests pro-corporate, anti-tax, anti-regulation. (Monbiot 2010 29) However, in the context of social movements this is to ignore the fact that it is also a tool for movements to mobilise groups and create networks of activity beyond the physical world. It is true that the internet is not at the moment a democratic arena but like the majority of the transitions to democracy it will take several social movements to democratise it.This paper has shown that democracy can enable and disable social movements. These possibilities are dependent on the type of democracy but also on how much the civil society sphere can remain autonomous from governments apparatus. If it stay truly autonomous then it is possible to alter the balance of power. As an enabler it was discussed in this paper that democracies allow for the creation of a space between the state and the private sphere. It also allows, on the one hand, for people to associate and express their grievances and, on the other hand, for previously represented groups to engage in political activities. One would say that these two allowances should be enough to assure success for all movements. However, there are several ways in which democracy disables movements. First, the transition to democracy does not mean th at old elites and power structures are removed meaning that although the terminology has evolved maybe the ways of doing authorities have not. Second, on the instalment of democracy movements become fragmented. Movements fight different, smaller, and unfocussed battles and this lead to either their extinction or their relevance. As democracies mature so do their governments. In order to control possible future movements, governments co-opt leaders and thus, movements lose their autonomy. This is aggravated with western NGOs advocating westernised ideals. Finally, the spread and level of capitalism penetration in developing countries means that no means are excluded in order to maintain both inequalities and special interests in place. Regarding the media, and with special attention to the internet it was explained that it can work as a force for both democratic and non-democratic fields but above all it allows for the creation of virtual transnational networks of social movements.