Between empowerment and abuse: citizen participation beyond the post-democratic turn

In this special issue on “Democratization beyond the Post-Democratic Turn. Political Participation between Empowerment and Abuse”, we have explored changing understandings of participation in contemporary Western representative democracies through the analytical lens of the concept of the post-democratic-turn. We have investigated technology-based, market-based, and expert-led innovations that claim to enhance democratic participation and to provide policy legitimation. In this concluding article, I revisit the cases made by the individual contributors and analyse how shifting notions of participation alter dominant understandings of democracy. I carve out how new and emerging ideas of participation are based on different understandings of political subjectivity; furthermore, how constantly rising democratic expectations and simultaneously increasing scepticism with regard to democratic processes and institutions point to a growing democratic ambivalence within Western societies. Making use of Dahl’s conceptualization of democracy, in this article, I review changing understandings of participation in light of their contribution to further democratization. The article shows how under post-democratic conditions the simulative performance of autonomy and subjectivity has become central to democratic participation. It emphasizes that what in established perspectives on democratization might appear as an abuse of participation, through the lens of a post-democratic-turn might be perceived as emancipatory and liberating

What is happening? Between utopian populism and the search for a new social contract

Pierwsza część artykułu jest próbą identyfikacji najważniejszych strukturalnych przyczyn „zwrotu populistycznego”. Kluczowa z nich to załamanie się umowy społecznej, której rdzeniem był model opiekuńczego państwa dobrobytu. Druga część artykułu prezentuje reakcje – zarówno rządzonych, jak i rządzących – na tendencje odpowiedzialne za obecny kryzys zaufania politycznego. Strona społeczna oczekuje od rządzących „polityki konkretów”. Ale też staje się coraz bardziej antyestablishmentowa, antysystemowa i coraz bardziej odwrócona od niepewnej przyszłości. Z kolei rządzący przyjmują postawę wyczekiwania albo podążają w kierunku demokracji nieliberalnej. W trzeciej części artykułu podjęta została próba naszkicowania najważniejszych punktów nowej umowy społecznej, za jakie uznano (1) gwarancje bezpieczeństwa statusowego i godnościowego, (2) większe niż dotąd oparcie mechanizmów na merytokracji i demokracji deliberatywnej oraz (3) edukację do podmiotowości, emancypacji i autonomii.The first part of this article is an attempt to identify the main structural reasons for the ‘populist turn’. Of them the key one was the collapse of the social contract the core of which was a model of a welfare state. In the second part, the reactions to the tendencies responsible for the current crisis of political confidence in those who govern and of those being governed are presented. The social side expects from the governors a ‘policy of concrete solutions’. At the same time, the attitudes of those who are governed become increasingly anti-establishment, anti-system and are generally and steadily turning away from the uncertain future. Those who govern, on the other hand, adopt expectancy attitudes or are heading towards non-liberal democracy. In the third part of this article, an attempt is made to outline the main provisions of the social contract, which have been considered to be (i) guarantees of the security of the status and dignity, (ii) a greater than before reliance on meritocracy and deliberative democracy, and (iii) education to subjectivity, emancipation and autonomy

The legitimation crisis of democracy: emancipatory politics, the environmental state and the glass ceiling to socio-ecological transformation

The democratic legitimation imperativeof the modern state has been conceptualised as the barrier that stops the environmental state from developing into a green or eco-state–and thus as the glass ceiling to a socio-ecological transformation of capitalist consumer democracies. Here, I suggest that this state-theoretical explanation of the glass ceiling needs to be supplemented by an analysis of why democratic norms and procedures, which had once been regarded as essential for any socio-ecological transformation, suddenly appearas one of its main obstacles. I conceptualise the new eco-political dysfunctionality of democracy as one dimension of a more encompassing legitimation crisis of democracy which, in turn, has triggered a profound transformation of democracy. Ultimately, exactly this transformation constitutes the glass ceiling to the socioecological restructuring of capitalist consumer societies. It changes democracy into a tool for the politics of unsustainability, in which the legitimation-dependent state is a key actor

Outfit patriotism or how to love the fatherland living in the global village

W dobie mediatyzacji i komercjalizacji współczesna pamięć społeczna w coraz mniejszym stopniu składa się z wiedzy o faktach historycznych, w coraz większym zaś z identyfikacji wizualnej,haseł i działań promocyjnych, a więc tych samych elementów, które tworzą popularne marki i regulują nasze zachowania konsumenckie. W rezultacie symbole Polskiego Państwa Podziemnego z okresu II wojny światowej powszechnie pojawiają się na odzieży, muralach, profilach społecznościowych i politycznych transparentach, stają się punktem odniesienia w aktualnych konfliktach społecznych, służą do wyrażania obywatelskich lęków, niepokojów i sympatii. Publicyści określają ten fenomen mianem "patriotyzmu konfekcyjnego", jednak przedstawiciele świata akademickiego z dystansem przyglądają się nowym formom i obiegom pamięci, stojąc na stanowisku, że nie przyczyniają się one do pogłębienia wiedzy na temat przeszłości, ale kierują przedstawicieli młodego pokolenia na tory wąskiej, stereotypowej komunikacji. Autor artykułu podejmuje próbę przedstawienia okoliczności rozkwitu mody patriotycznej oraz zastanawia się, czy może ona stać się narzędziem społecznego wykluczenia.In the age of mediatisation and commercialization, contemporary social memory is composed not of dates and historical facts but of visual identification, slogans and beams of values, so the components of popular brands which stimulate our consumable attitudes. As a result, the symbols of Polish Resistance Movement during World War II move from historicaland commemorative sphere to the sphere of pop culture. They appear on T-shirts, tattoos, murals, social media profiles and political banners and are used to clarify the present day through the prism of the past, to articulate citizens’ ideas, concerns and affinities. Some publicists call this phenomenon ’the outfit patriotism' but in the meantime the academics keep the distance to the new memory techniques and forms explaining that common manifestation of national symbols and real interest in history are disconnected. They anxiously observe appropriating Polish symbols by nationalistic groups and recognize on T-shirts etc. not fashion, just tribal expression, the return to blinkered, stereotypical communication. The author of this article focuses on the grounds of outfit patriotism phenomenon and wonders whether it may become an instrument of social exclusion

Hidden Paths in Zygmunt Bauman’s Sociology: Editorial Introduction

In the immediate aftermath of his death, a number of excellent articles were written that each provide a different door into the vast room of Bauman’s sociology. In the past year or so, there have also been a number of books that have set about providing a more ‘critical analysis’ of his work whilst also considering how sociology might look anew and move creatively ‘beyond Bauman’ (Blackshaw 2016; Jacobsen ed. 2016; Rattansi 2017). In so doing, these welcome contributions clearly take Bauman’s sociological imagination very seriously and provide useful reference points for both scholars and students seeking a more robust examination of Bauman’s ideas. Each contribution deserves to be read and studied as they provide new and considered insights into Bauman’s legacy for the social sciences and humanities. Throughout the article that follows, we make our own contribution to the curious reader’s deliberations on these debates by shining a light on those aspects of Bauman’s work that may have become somewhat hidden and possibly overlooked in what we see as a growing tendency to focus primarily upon his later writings on ‘liquid modernity’. We argue that in order to grasp fully the meaning of Bauman’s writing in the more popular post-2000 phase, it is vital that one understands these earlier foundations of his thought. In this way, we hope that we may go some way to rebalancing the concerns of some contemporary critics

Eterotopie napoletane. Il nuovo distretto gastronomico e dell’intrattenimento dei Quartieri Spagnoli

I ristoranti non vendono solo cibo, ma assicurano esperienze che strutturano le identità dei luoghi e delle persone . Sono parte di un’economia simbolica che permette di “riterritorializzare il globale”, come a New York per esempio, dove i ristoranti etnici di Little Italy sono raggruppati territorialmente. A Napoli, in un segmento dei Quartieri Spagnoli, si sta sviluppando un nuovo “distretto” della ristorazione e dell’intrattenimento che, adottando una sorta di “auto-orientalismo strategico”, offre nuovi spazi di “esperienza” destinati a una crescente domanda turistica nell’ambito di un processo di “vetrinizzazione sociale” che spettacolarizza il passato e le tradizioni della città (reali o inventate che siano), così come la vita quotidiana e le identità dei suoi abitanti. Si tratta perlopiù di eterotopie che mettono in scena narrazioni di retrotopie

Il sindacato tra funzioni e valori nella ‘grande trasformazione’. L’innovazione sociale in sei tappe = The union between functions and values in the 'great transformation'. Social innovation in six stages. WP C.S.D.L.E. “Massimo D’Antona”.IT – 394/2019

Starting from a recognition of the recent scientific debate on the crisis of the representative role of trade unions, the Author deals with the issue of disintermediation in the post-fordist/uberized economy and with its possible causes. After this introduction on the alternative between the two opposite poles of a nostalgic retreat in a past of glorious unionism or, on the contrary, the acknowledgment of the end of the intermediating and representative role of trade unions, the Author focuses on a possible path of reconstruction of the strategic capacity of trade unions. The renewal strategy, in the Author’s reflections, should be focused on collective - different, but interrelated - strategies ‘enlightened’ by six “polar stars” (values) towards which this path should be directed: unity in pluralism, equality, freedom, participation, solidarity, democracy

La huella

El presente Trabajo Fin de Grado recoge una producción artística preocupada por la relación de una generación fruto de una crisis socioeconómica acolchada por internet con sus falsas realidades.Universidad de Sevilla. Grado en Bellas Arte

“The past does not lie behind us”: Warrior-matriarchs’ retrotopia in Witi Ihimaera’s fiction

Contrary to an apolitical, pessimistic, and non-feminist perception of Witi Ihimaera’s work, this article contends that his early novel The Matriarch (1986) and its sequel The Dream Swimmer (1997) frame Māori communities as an ancient, patriarchal space in need of revision to accommodate women. Reconsidering the role of tribalism and Māori utopian and cyclical land narratives, this study argues that the confessional male narrator of both novels, Tamatea Mahana, learns to embrace a matrilineal genealogy not only of powerful Māori women leaders of chiefly status, but also of charismatic women in the shadow, like his mother Tiana. Beyond Pākehā imperial democracy and Māori “male utopias of domination”, Tamatea and the exceptional gallery of warrior-matriarchs implement a peculiar and controversial retrotopia — a return to the prematurely buried grand ideas of the past — which, even when dangerously resonating with nostalgia, aims at an open-ended model of democracy through spiral temporality.1 A predominantly decolonizing theory and methodology is used, drawing on Kaupapa Māori and Mana Wāhine theories.Research project “Secrecy, democracy and dissidence in the contemporary novel in English” (PID2019-104526GB-100), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Educatio

Fear and Retrotopia – Critical Reflections on the Rise of Defensive Emotions in Liquid Modernity

This article critically addresses the contemporary study of what is called 'defensive emotions' such as fear and nostalgia among a number of social theorists. While it may be true that the collective emotions of fear and nostalgia (here framed by the phrase of 'retrotopia') may indeed be on the rise in Western liberal democracies, it is also important to be wary of taking the literature on the matter as a sign that fear and nostalgia actually permeate all levels of culture and everyday life. The article starts out with some reflections on the sociology of emotions and shows how the early interest in emotions (theoretical and empirical) among a small group of sociologists is today supplemented with the rise of a critical social theory using collective emotions as a lens for conducting a critical analysis of the times. Then the article in turn deals with the contemporary interest within varuious quarters of the social sciences with describing, analysing and diagnosing the rise of what is here called 'defensive emotions' – emotions that express and symbolize a society under attack and emotions that are mostly interpreted as negative signs of the times. This is followed by some reflections on the collective emotions of fear and nostalgia/retrotopia respectively. The article is concluded with a discussion of how we may understand and assess this relatively new interest in defensive emotions