david apter democracy violence and emancipatory movements

7/29/2019 DAVID APTER Democracy Violence and Emancipatory Movements

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Democracy and Emancipatory Movements:

Notes for a Theory of Inversionary Discourse

David E. Apter

IDEOLOGY. DISCOURSE AND EMANCIPATORY MOVEMENTS

One of the most important and yet elusive concepts in the social

science lexicon is ideology. Ideology is all aro un d us. W e treat it as

a more or less independent form of power, whether as ideas, prin-

ciples or beliefs. Ideologies of nationalism can build the state:

witness the emergence of independent states out of colonial terri-

tories. Or they can dismember it , breaking it up into au tonom ous

units, a s in Y ugoslavia or the Soviet U nion . Ideologies can take the

form of Plato’s ‘noble lies’, in which attributes of an ‘original iden-

tity’ ar e accorded to religious, ethnic, racial, linguistic and similar

affiliations. They may be considered as false consciousness. They

can take the form of ‘scientific’ thou gh t, as with Althusserian M arx-

ism or theories of free market capitalism. Or they may appear as

symbolic templates or pure rationalizations, neither true nor false

(A pte r, 1964; Geertz, 1964). All the sed iffe ren t usages a n d their chief

protagonists have been carefully examined by Raymond Boudon

(1989) an d there is n o need to go over the ground here. However,

if we want to find out how, in what form, ideological beliefs come

t o have power, concretely a s well as analytically, it will be necessary

to explode the concept itself, an d comb ine a stru ctu ral analysis with

a phenomenological one. Accordingly I shall try to show th at ideo-

logy becomes im po rtan t because of the way people interpret certain

negative conditions confronting them. Formed in the process of

thinking one’s way past contradictions and predicaments, ideology

in this context mean s interpreting, an d in turn interpreting requiresthe creation and use of discourses.

The formation of discourses which become consensually

Developmenr an d C h a n g e ( S A G E ,London , Newbu r y Park an d New Delhi), V o l . 23

(1992) NO. 3, 139-173.



140 David E . Apter

validated, bind people together ‘exegetically’ in discourse com-

munities. H ow discou rse wo rks in this way is for present purposes

mo re s ignificant than discussions ab ou t ideology.I

shall thereforeexamine discourse as a combina t ion of narratives an d texts, in the

context of t ranscending or overcoming projects . They take on anindep enden t life of the ir own w hether f rom above , in the form of

the discourse of the s ta te or from below in an anti-discou rse directed

against the s ta te . T h e present em phasis is o n ‘em ancipatory move-

ments’ from below an d the impact o f anti-discourses which confro nt

the s ta te . My basic argument is that confrontat ional acts beyond

ordinary inst i tut ional rules a n d mechanisms of politics which ch al-lenge the accepted conv entional ideologies will alter th e scope an d

meanings of equi ty and make changes in pa t te rns of allocation.

Inclusions a n d exclusions ar e revised. In the se terms , political dis-

course is created ou t of events. This poses the interesting question

of the way such events are coded, something which has less to

do with ideology per se than how people interpret experiences,

especially in the context of violence. Which brings us to the matter

of social movements themselves.There are many varie t ies of social movements, of course. Of

special concern are thos e which, desp airing of regularized chan nels

such as electoral or interest politics, organize alternative mod es of

action. Th e most com m on variety is extrainstitutional protest move-

ments using public demonstrations, sit-ins, strikes, etc. to arouse

attention a n d suppo rt . Historically l inked to th e evolution of de m o-

cracy itself in th e fo rm of civil rights, trade unions, women’s eman-

cipation a n d oth er issues, extrainsti tut ional protest movem ents areconfrontat ional without challenging the poli t ical system as such.

Mainly they are interested in effecting changes in the scope and

prevailing defin itions of equity.

The second and opposi te form is revolutionary insurrection, in

which th e state is regarded as not only lacking equity but standing

as a system for the wrong combina t ion of equi ty , order an d growth.

Th e a im is to generate sufficient mass po wer to first disru pt th e state

and then over throw it root and branch. Such movements can belibertar ian and/or democrat ic , the prototype being the Jacobin

phase of the French Revolution.

A third kind of emancipatory movement, where faith in the first

kind is lacking and the ability to create the mass following needed

for th e second has no t oc curr ed, is ‘terrorism’. T his ha s received co n-

siderable attentio n a n d publicity bu t very lit t le analysis which might



Democracy and Emancipatory Movements 141

fall under the rubric of political theory. The phenomenon itself is

diverse but so widespread is th e use of th e term tha t we shall contin ue

to use it despite its pejorative connotations. Fundamentally itinvolves small groups co mm itt ing violent acts against persons an d

prop erty as symbolic or surrogate for society and state.

All three kinds of m ovemen t can be lef t or right, sacred or secular,

particularistic or universalistic, etc. All share on e thing in comm on.

As movements f o r they are a lso movements againsr. In th is sense

they ar e provocation s, subversive in their own eyes as well as thos e

of the authorities. Theirs is the politics of the mora l moment ,

dis junctive, redemptive or transformational. Claiming legitimacyaga inst cu rren t principles as well a s excesses of power, the defects

of society are interpreted as failures of the state. Movements like

these arouse controversy by their very existence and stimulate

debates over political fundamentals. Their chief weapon is a dis-

course capable of threatening prevailing norms and principles of

power part icular ly when comb ined with confro ntat ion al episodes.

Such a discou rse is negating an d transcen ding. I t is easy to c oun-

tenance in autocrat ic an d auth ori tar ian societies w here em ancipa-t ion has a self-evident logic, equity being a desire for freedom,

independence an d equali ty. But it takes on m ore troubling character-

istics in democratic societies where what is to be negated and

tran scen ded is precisely th e kind of political system which strives to

perfect these three qualities by regularized institutional means.

Clearly emancipatory mov ements of all three types have been intr in-

sic to the evolution of democracy itself . Equally clearly, i t is

necessary in each democ racy tha t no ne of these mov em ents ever fullysucceeds on i ts own terms. I t is at this point that the question of

emancipatory movements and how to consider them becomes

interesting.

To deal with such questions will require a diversion - he

examination of democracy as both a model and a discourse -before showing the consequences of emancipatory movements

which aim to up-end t hem . This is necessary f or tw o reasons. In th e

examination of democracy the role played by emancipatorymov ements has been given sh ort shrif t an d treated as a min or fa ctor .

By the same token, those favouring such movements have lit t le

patience or understanding of democracy. Hence what is imp ortant

is the interplay between demo cracy an d em ancipatory m ovemen ts;

since each h as its ow n dyn amics this interplay can no t be und erstood

without knowledge of both as systems.



142 David E . Apter

From the present perspective what makes emancipatory move-ments interesting is the way in which they try to undermine

assumptions on which democracy rests including self-improvingassumptions in place since the Enlightenment, such as popularparticipation, rationality a nd education (Ba uda rt an d P ena-Ruiz,

1991). Just as venues for con fro nta tion have changed over time, for

example, fro m the workplace to the academy, so the emancipatory

project has shifted fr om rectification of inequalities an d exclusions,

to the undermining of codes an d discourses, with real consequences.Education, for example, once a rou te to social improvement and

mobility, is fro m such a perspective hegemonic, its institutions andinstrumentalities prefiguring hierarch y, with the schoo l the locus for

discrepancies between the ideally free citizen an d the ‘real’ world of

lost opportunities. ’Discourse, then, is the focus because discourse is both a method

of intellectual expression and a means of intellectual oppression.

Any institution using knowledge according to meritocratic prin-ciples is thus intrinsically hierarchical. In this sense schoo ling makes

its victims complicit in their condition. The same system whichrewards merit w ith power at o n e extreme produces marginality at the

other.So considered, the point of departure of today’s emancipatory

movements is not equality but victimization. This is what distin-

guishes them fro m ‘old’ social movements which fo ugh t for equalityor greater participation. Today it is the ‘negativized other’ which

takes the moral measure o f the whole, especially in democracies. N ot

surprisingly, movements of this kind are politically irritating evenwhen they are of minor importance. T o the extent that they down-grade conventional knowledge while claiming superior moralinsight, they challenge order. Critical theory is their privileging

weapon. Such movements claim as exclusive their right to pur-poseful enquiry into what is wrong, bringing the norms and prin-

ciples embodying the idea of free enquiry into disrepute. Suchmovements want it bo th w ays, attack ing the ‘canon’ while claiming

its protection.These remarks apply particularly to the more extreme forms of

eman cipatory movement. W hy pay atte ntio n to theextreme? It is theextreme which best reveals th e more general interplay of conflictual

discourse. lnvers ionary discourse claims ‘emancipation’ as a moral

project rather than a form of alternative organization o r structure.By studying its com ponents we can explore a little understood side




of democracy, asking how a n d why it is that such movements seek

above a ll to rupture th e d iscourse of the s ta te by means of an ant i-

d iscourse which undermines ordered jur i sd ic t ions and s tablenetworks .

INTELLECTUAL PEDIGREES

T he intellectual pedigree, i f not inspirat ion, for these movem ents is

diverse an d includes such figures as M arx, Foucau l t , Batail le an d

Lacan . T hey provide us with th e analytical materials necessary toexamine discourse in terms of the processes which make it signifi-

can t . I shal l use not ion s such as retrieval a n d projec tion, story tell ing

and logical const ruct ion , metaphor and metonymy, narra t ive and

text. For such movements pol i t ical act ion is an engagement with

the past of suppressed events and episodes, submerged pol i t ical

upheavals, abort ive uprisings which, unregistered in orthodox

history, remain in the m em ory, in the ret ina of the polit ical eye. H ow

to t ransf orm the unhistory of the negat ivized, to ma ke the anonymsimpinge on history is one way to put the mat ter . To enable those

penal ized by democracy to gain power through loss is another.

Am ong the a im s of such re tr ievals and the projec ted outcom es which

follow from them ar e the capture of the moral in it ia tive an d net

gains in imagination, both necessary to invert the cond it ion of the

‘negativized other’.

T h e co m m on start ing point is the ‘marginalized’. Even the most

economically successful dem ocracies will have s om e qu ota of thepenalized, th e victimized, the margin als. He nce, there will always be

opportuni t ies for emancipatory movements of some kind. ’T h e

que stion is, what c onse quen ces they have fo r usable social policy.

How d o democrat ic societies respond to movements which both

violate the law, and refuse to use ordinary inst i tut ional rules -especially when, because of the magni tude and audaci ty of their

c la ims, they polar ize the communi ty and force the s ta te to act

punitively? M oreover, s ince they have the disturbing qual i ty of ma k-ing visible those groups that tend to be politically invisible, they

shock the mainstream of society. They ‘reveal’ negat ive condit ions

as more than accidents of individual fortune or collective cir-

cumstance and ra ther as fundamenta l defects of the system as a

whole, an d offe r a logic to show why dem ocracies depend o n such

defects in o rder t o survive. Th ey seek t o spread the convict ion that



144 David E . Apter

flaws and gaps in equity are irremedial and decisive in the last

instance. The emphasis is not on mere deprivation but on loss,

dispossession. Th e solu tion is not com pen sation or remediation butnothing less than the repossession of self, society and the state. So

defined the object of emancipatory movements is to provide those

for m s of discourse that play off Marx an d Rousseau, Nietzsche and

Sartre, Althusser with Baudrillard (Rey, 1971). The object is to

naturalize as self-evident the course of action which leads to the

possession of self as a repossession of patrimonies. lnversionary

protest movem ents ar e thus confron tationa l an d violence pron e, and

relatively uninterested in rectifying this or that economic, social orpolitical ill, o r in prov iding greater political access to t ho se deprived

by reason of religion, gender, ethnicity, race, language, class, role

or other affiliations. Such affiliations are interesting only as pro-

vocations requiring the violation of standing jurisdictions.

CONCEPTUALIZING POWER: ORDER VERSUS CHOICE

This raises the question of the discourse of democracy itself. Typi-

cally characterized as a creatu re of its institutions and co nstitutio ns,

examined in terms of decision-making an d efficacy, as a system we

shall call it a choice model. In these terms th e dem ocra tic state is an

ensemble of individuals and groups representing a prevailing sym-

posium of interests rende red i n to priorities an d preferences of choice

by means of th e legislative process, with ma rket as the basis for com-

munity because i t converts individual wants into collective goods(Arrow, 1963). In this, the m ark et is itself a discourse ab ou t forces

using the language of equilibrium based on a balancing in civil

society and the state of recognized needs, w ants an d desires, a cond i-

tion of order balancing equity, allocation and growth.

In practice, of course, dem ocracy lurches f ro m crisis to crisis, each

of w hich tests its weakest links. I t is precisely in the flu ctu atio ns an d

crises so produced that emancipatory movements have their open-

ings, either to produce crises or in response to them. In short, thepredom inant ‘ideology’ of dem ocracy is a discourse embodied in

what is called today a rational choice model. Institutionally, the

discourse is em bodied in mechanisms a nd instruments which enable

choices to be made at different and intersecting levels of state and

society. The common consequence of all these mechanisms and

instruments is the generation of information. Information refigured




in the form of preferential values becomes policies. M arkets then a re

ramified inform ation systems which enable a distribution of choice

priorities.’ T o fun ction m arkets require rules and adherence tothose governing choice. It is the discourse which validates these

rules.

Democracy in this sense implies freedom to choose within an

open-ended political system . Such a system will be relativistic t o the

degree that it is pluralistic. Precluded is some Platonic concept of

justice. Such qualities, built i nt o institutional dem ocracy, represent

what might be called, using Foucault’s term, the modern political

episteme. This institutional democratic model is not one amongseveral plausible altern atives. It is not only the alternative to all othe r

and previous forms but it appears to have history on its side: built

into the discourse is a moral-evolutionary history in which the

‘choice model’ has emerged ou t of an ‘order model’ as morally an d

institutionally superior to all other forms of polity.

T h e transition in terms of discourse can be fou nd in Foucault. H e

com pared the m odern choice ‘episteme’ to the o rder episteme of the

‘classical age’.4 A m on g the prope rties of the classical age were a‘general gra m m ar’ of t he sign; representation meant the names of

things; and knowledge, like algebraic transformations, made tran-

sitive otherwise fixed but relationally flexible qualities. The theory

of wealth depended on use values rather than exchange values. The

discourse was composed of permanent relationships fixed in their

qualities, ordered nature and social life, regularity in change -teleological in the Aristotelian sense or ideally ‘conceptual’ in the

Platonic sense. Comprised of unity and totality, knowledge con-sisted of locating and defining the boundaries and ingredients or

components of this totality, identifying its elements, classifying

them, giving them names, establishing their logical ranks, propor-

tionalities a nd hierarchies in the social a s well as the n atu ral universe.

Or der was organically rather th an mechanically connected. G row th

followed form, a telos of the beginning as well as the end.

Such n otio ns as free will an d choice were abse nt. They w ould have

been unthinkable, subversive, revolutionary, explosive. Indeed, assoon as they cam e to dom inate the language of knowledge the old

principles of order were destroyed. Wealth was transformed into

capital. Use became value. Ranks and hierarchies became func-

tional. Wants and goals became open ended, potentialities open.

Teleology disappeared. The natural as well as the human universe

became the object of change by conscious design. Order and



146 David E . Apter

obligat ion were removed from the centre of politics. T otality was

shattered. The political focus shifted from the collective to the

individual.In cont rast, the choice epistem e was entirely a discou rse based on

rat ionali ty an d exchange, prod uction a n d reproduction. ‘Represen-

tation’ is political, rather than a business of naming an d c lass ifying

things. Ex chang e now includes the realm of value translation. a pples

measured against pears. Individual preferences are changed into

schedules and priori t ies . Embedded in law and manifested in

policies, function al instrum entalities enable ex chang e an d transla-

tion to take place unde r a system of rules where the sole discretionaryauthori ty has only l imited power. A moving equilibrium replaces

centralized power. Balance is represented in the re-equilibration

between econom ic and polit ical marketplaces, the on e fo r good s and

services, the other for policies, laws and orders; the one private,

dispersing power and other public, concentrating i t .

T he t rans it ion f rom a n order to a choice model was rapid an d not

witho ut difficulties. For one thing i t had to deal with the problem

of how to order choice, the solution to which required a n entirelynew poli tical f ramew ork. Ho bbes was perh aps the f irst to recognize

it fully.5 The vir tue of his argument was to show clearly just how

really fundamental was the conceptual change from an ordered

system of mu tual ob ligations and asymm etrical ranks to a universe

of ra t ional choice. He made i t abundantly c lear that order meant

protection . But his solu tion , the conveyance of individual powers to

a sole discret ionary authori ty, was too self-limiting. What was

needed was a political solution which could provide for authorityund er maximal choice condit ions, i .e. f reed om . But freedom, the

only totally open -ended value, poses the prob lem of how to provide

for i ts maximization, a nd in so doing prevent the s trong from pre-

vailing over the weak. T o transform a universe of will in to a u niverse

of choice requires a new polity. The political becomes a form of

order preserving and protect ing choice. In this sense the choice

model defines the problem of order a n d the inst i tut ional democrat ic

model is a system of order protecting choice.What is represented is the self-interested individual pursuing

interests an d by so doing both producing an d consuming informa-

t ion. Inst i tut ional mechanisms transform inform ation into ou tpu ts .

Yet because politics is in this sense a transformational grammar

in which each institutional form of democracy (presidentia l or

parliamentary, unitary or federal) depends o n coali t ional games an d




electoral mechanisms capable of transforming market information

into mediating policy outcomes a nd so enab ling the po litical system

to sustain itself a s a moving equ ilibrium, the individuals a re all partof the same discourse comm unity.Despite crises and lurches, the n, t he two key features of this model

are equilibrium a s a fo rm of naturalized equity and a comm unity of

sharing in the com m on discourse. Justice is a function of the extentto which the political and economic markets are mutually self-

regulating. T o prevent the situation fro m being zero sum , economicgrow th is essential. As suggested, the choice model represents a shift

fro m a rationality of w ealth t o a rationality of grow th. (Choice forHobbes was zero sum.) H ence human beings are at o ne and the sametime atomic particles in a field of political force and m utually inter-

active in a field of discourse. Add growth and the idea of a self-

perfecting never-perfected institutional democracy follows.The evolution of an order model into a choice model is marked

not only by a transition from one to the other, but the transitionitself is constituted by events which punctuate history and con-

sciousness. N o t only different discourses are involved by the ascen-dancy of the on e over the othe r. Hence democratic discourse takes

on the force of truth and history. It is not only an evolution ofpolitical theory but, embodied in concrete struggles, revolutions,

civil wars , it ha s a contextual force, th e force of hum an experiences,

sufferings and sacrifices. In this sense the discourse of democracyis not only theoretical and ab str ac t, but embedded in the immediacy

of people fighting for their beliefs. E mb odied in constitutional laws

and institutional practices, narratives and text as the distillation ofhum an experiences a ppe ar as a triumph of mind over obstacles.

T h e democratic sta te is not only a primary o r sovereign jurisdic-

tion o r the instrument which safeguards all other co nventional andlegal boundaries of society. I t is also a linguistic achievement. That

is, i t opens up ways of thinking an d doing which did not previouslyexist. It is also the representative of all othe r lesser gr ou p boun daries- nterest, class, ethnic, religious, etc. I t is both their guar dia n and

their means of entering the market and making their priorities felt.In such a state, governments constitute subsystems which representthe stat e as an ensemble of fun ctional instrumentalities. Together

these make possible a n information-generating process whose co m -

ponents include executive accountability, citizen representation,

specific and preferred electoral mechanisms, both centralized anddecentralized administrative structures, thus providing publicly



148 David E . Apter

elected and responsible officials with knowledge of public prefer-

ences an d priorities. In this sense political decision -mak ing is a fun c-

tion of info rm atio n, not coercion, with political parties and interestgroups performing crucial functions in the agenda-setting process.

This, at least in terms of institutional political theory, is the way

democracies work, with citizen sovereignty and state sovereignty

considered as t w o sides of the same coin.6

TH E DEMOCRATIC STATE

Terms like state and civil society, institutions and their linkages,

functions an d processes, con stitu te th e general political ‘grammar’of choice. Because rules restrict choice every concrete institutional

dem ocracy represents a particular balance between cho ice an d order

according to ru les rather than ends. The choice principle requires

that ends remain open. Freedom is the central value. Institutional

democracy is a political system in tension between the freedom of

choice and rules governing freedom.T he maximal unit of the choice model is the state . Th e state is the

predominant jurisdictional boundary around choice. Civil society

(composed of individuals and groups) is constituted primarily of

functional need and demands. Principles are converted into nego-

tiable interests (geographical, cult ural , business, l abo ur, etc.) whose

significance is measured in the dual marketplace in such terms as

wealth, saliency and numbers. Serving as a principal basis of poli-

tical party affiliation the pursuit of interests generates policiesand programmes operating through designated bodies representing

citizens in their diverse capacities.With a limited range of alternative constitutional modes (parlia-

mentary, presidential, etc.) institutional-democratic forms of the

choice model function in terms of th e free exchange of in form atio n,

the minimization of coercion an d the accountability of the executive

to representational bodies, All concrete constitutional polities aim

to realize the m utual reinforcement of choice and or de r, tendencieswhich both repel an d attra ct each oth er. Each exerts a magnetic pull

on the o ther, generating a field of force within which one finds,

sharply posed, the crucial question of how to maxim ize choice within

the limits of order (Barry, 1965; Rawls, 1971). Information in the

political sphere is parallel to the same processes in the economic

sphere. T he same assum ptions and th e same dynamics which work




in th e econom ic marketplace work in the political marketplace.

Political parties replace firms. Votes replace money (Downs, 1957;

Olson, 1965). Particularly relevant is the private sphere. Civil andproperty rights ar e crucially interdependent. Pr iva te property is

balanced by public need. Public power is diluted by economic

power. Political power prevents economic inequality from produc-

ing political inequality because num bers (votes) represent th e

counterweight to wealth (m one y). A n equilibrium of these vectors

will be modified by developmental needs with their attendant

inequalities, and diluted by shortrun political needs, i.e. compen-

sat ory policies fav ou rin g access and participation fo r the relativelydisadvantaged.

A key problem arises when provision of informat ion to decision-

makers fails because of ‘noise’ or ‘interference’ (a failu re of institu-

tional linkages). That is where extrainstitutional politics begins.

Where compensatory policies fail and equilibrium is skewed,

political action, including confrontational social movements, will

arise outside of regularized institutional channels. Reform is a pro-

cess of ‘incorporation’ of t h e excluded by means of improvementsin linkage instruments (Lawson an d Merkl, 1987). T he practical or

institutional evo lution of th e model in terms of ada ptive change has

always included extrainstitutional processes because of informat ion

gaps and failures. The power of the powerless is to threaten the

choice boundaries of th e rationa listic field. By prejudicing choice o n

the one hand and order on th e other, amendment of b oth th e prin-

ciples and practices of democracy is required. In this sense eman-

cipatory movements are part of self-improvement .’I t is also the case that more is required than the purely self-

interested rationality of the economic market. As suggested,

exchange is also a discourse using a langu age of equity, a llocation,

growth an d or de r. Th e terms of these represent at least a residue of

principled discourse defining the nature of political rights and

obligations sufficient to produce - o use Shils’s term - civility.

T ha t is, discourse over the terms of w hat might be called the equity

statement itself generates principles of civic obligation which bothincorporate the self-interest principle and embody to some degree

the public interest. This was a problem of m ajo r concern to Simm el,

Durkheim and Pareto more than modern rational choice theorists.

For them the question was h o w to convert functional aggregations

into a mutualism of responsibility requiring self-denial in the exer-

cise of self-interested rationality rules.*



150 David E. Apter

Above all such mutualism depends o n the relationship of ra tiona -

lity an d civility to edu cation an d knowledge. T h e t w o together repre-

sent potentiality, i.e. th e mo ral evolution of t he community an d theindividual. Such a re the cond itions necessary t o the exercise of free

choice over time. O n them depends that necessary confidence with-

out which there would be little sharing of rights, privileges, duties

and responsibilities and without which people would be unable to

realize preferred ends. In turn, without such confidence the rules

which themselves both govern and make choice possible would no

longer be independently valued. The normative aspects of the

discourse would be undermined. The rules would be less self-mon itored th an a fu nc tion of state compliance. In this sense in the

model of institutional dem ocracy the no rm ativ e represents d iscourse

embedded in the rationality rules of t he m arket as well as its political

instruments. Such a model of the institutional democratic state is

both representational and tutelary.

This does not mean that people must believe in democratic prin-

ciples. All tha t is necessary is tha t people speak , read and act dem o-

cratically. Th is suggests that the discourse of democracy is no t onlya general grammar of the political system, but also a set of ‘meta-

rules’ which include a grammar and a language of politics. Within

this framework markets con stitute certain b oun daries while inter-

secting others. The aim of the inversionary discourse model is

to challenge the meta-rules of democracy, explode the ensembleof choices and disru pt the m arke t. Th e dialectic with violence con-

stitutes the perpetual negative to this positive notion of the demo-

cratic state .Would the choice model be able to survive without fundamental

challenges? P roba bly no t. T o o much self-monitoring, to o effective

equilibration of the market and both the meta-rules and the

discourse of choice would lose their validity a nd mean ing. N o system

of rules is entirely free standing. I t is the danger of their violation

that gives them vitality. The general tendency in the model wouldotherwise be to ritualize them and ma ke them perfunctory.

In this sense democracy requires risk from inside as well as out-side. But the question is how much risk before democracy is over-

whelmed or destroyed? In general 1 would argue that democraciesin which gro wth is sustained a nd th e discourse derived from it, are

much stronger th an might ap pe ar on th e surfac e. This is first because

meta-rules an d discourses ar e embedded in role networks within and

between boundaries, and second because membership in discourse




communities is both overlapping and socially defined, i.e.

interlocking.

This suggests that far from being overwhelmed by them, as longas grow th is non-zero sum , democracy as a mediating instrum ent for

open-ended choice depends on emancipatory movements t o define

its mora l trajecto ry further th an t he effective participants ope rating

within an equilibrating political an d economic m arket. This suggests

that the relationship between choice and order is dialectical. The

dialectic op erate s inside an improving fram e within which ration al

action expresses itself as both self and the collectivity, a function of

access to bargaining and negotiation. Decision-making mediateschoice and reinforces rules while altering the optio ns an d modifying

the m eth od . I n this process the sta te is ‘privileged’. W ithout the sta te,

choice would be rendered nugatory.

BOUNDARIES AN D STICKY CHA NG E

I f the practice is bumpy the principle embodied in the democraticmeta-rules describes instead a smooth generational transmission of

shared values and inco rpora tion into th e ensemble of role and role

networks centring aro un d the rationality of th e double marketplace.

In the democratic model choice is ope n ended but not preo rdain ed.

T h e state intersects w ith society as the sole jurisdiction which sus-

tains all other b oun daries . But in democracies the state is also subject

t o those other boundaries which it is required to p rotec t, since the

conventions governing social boundaries change slowly and arerarely challenged. C hallenges, when they d o arise, cause the state

to respond cautiously. Change then tends to be incremental, in

Lindblom’s sense of the term , an d b oun dary reinforcing. T he mo re

things chang e the more they are the same. T he more they are the

same, th e m ore they change.’

Because of sticky coalitions a n d entrenched an d organized voting

blocs, th e am en dm en t process is slow. M oreover, within the process,

issues must be converted from principle to interests, institutionaldem ocratic politics reducing even imp ort an t concerns to the flat grey

of interest an d bargaining. Ch ang e when it does take place, is more

or less imperceptible. Im po rta nt issues ar e diluted with the m un -

dane, robbing them of their symbolic or moral significance. An

exam ple is aff ord ed by the election of a w om an to the presidency of

the Irish Republic. Such a choice seems unthinkable: compared to ,



152 David E . Apter

say, France or the United States, the Irish Republic discriminates

against women both in public an d private li fe . I t maintains gender

bou ndaries in law as well as cus tom , reinforced by the doctrines ofthe Rom an C athol ic Church. An d not only boundar ies be tween men

an d wom en. H omosexu ali ty, for example, is - n theory at least -punishable by l i fe imprisonment; abort ion and divorce remain

illegal; there are no laws against sexual harassment. The Irish are

deeply con servative on such matters . Nevertheless , M ary R obin son,

member of a small leftist party, was elected president of the

Republic. Intr od ucin g a certain porousn ess in the hit hert o fixed rela-

tionships between men and women in terms of society and sta te , itis a case of incremental reform by means of inst i tut ional modes

facilitating boundary changes within the political system by legiti-

mating previously rigoristically regulated ‘spaces’ between them.’”

Ch ang e by these m ean s is incredibly slow. I t presumes a certa in

satisfaction with things as they are, even a public preference for

political lethargy . I t is precisely here that em ancipato ry mo vem ents

take on significance. M ove fro m th e Irish Republic across the border

into N orthern Ireland an d the world turns upside down . Violence,te rror ism an d na t iona l s truggle towards an emancipa tory end a re not

only directed against British rule, bu t again st the role of the church,

the prevail ing relat ions between men a n d wo men, e tc . Th e tragedy

is that the con dit ions for a solut ion d o not exis t.

Boundaries exist and boundary changes occur in other than

interest, ethnic, ideological or other well-defined groups. Equally

significant may be tho se which fo rm aro un d issues which, while they

fluctuate in importance, may burn with a particular intensity andthu s intersect with all other gro ups in pow erful ways, becoming focal

points of attention an d refract ing issues to the point where a new

discourse is formed . In the United States th e matter of abor t ion can

have that effect. Or, to tak e som ething m uch less well defined like

changing public tastes, the issue may involve challenges to ‘good

taste’. C ert ain ‘speech acts’ obvio usly ‘transgress’ con ven tion al

limits. Violation of such b ou nd aries easily leads to demonstra t ions

an d protest . T he f launting of sexual mores, or obscenity an d por-nography in re la t ion t o a r t , fo r example, tend to be directly diso rder-

ing. But the long-run effect may be to create a discourse which so

reint erpre ts the m ean ing o f ‘speech acts’ themse lves that these rein-

force rather than violate boundaries .

Defining the ‘boun dary’ between life, birth a nd th e definition of

the l iving person is ano the r on e of those ‘intersecting’ issues which




redefine equity and by so doin g shift the focus of allocation from

wealth to power. The state can only mediate such conflicts with

difficulty. For those excluded from the process the meaning ofincremental change is very different. I t is evidence of systemic

disparities between t h e purity of equ ity claims and th e com prom ises

of concre te practices of politics. F or them if violence occu rs it is bo th

self-righteous an d diagnostic. It reveals how glaring these discrepan-

cies may be. T he mo re radical the ema ncip atory movem ent, the

more it challenges not only the w ay in which democracy w orks but

the working assum ptions that over time and by means of an incre-

mental process, the worst gaps will be bridged.

BOUNDARY SMASHING AN D DISCOURSE BREAKS

Emancipatory movements break into the process by challenging

both the meta-rules of democracy and its discourse as a political

system. We have already described t he m ain characteristic types, of

which the most common is extrainstitutional protest, with revolu-tionary insurrection and terrorism as alternatives. But a great deal

of such activity occurs between all three, without in fact being any

one of them. They flirt with all, thus exercising the discourse of

violence, without necessarily engaging in it. A good example is that

of the Situationists w ho attack ing conventional taste, paro dy social

civility at all its most sensitive points and mock the meta-rules on

which the choice paradigm itself depends, by calling into question

the false consciousness of the choices themselves. They w ould arg uethat the basis of rational choice is itself irrational and the moving

equilibrium of the institutional democratic model destructive of

intelligence a n d hum anity. Hence their actions are designed to alter

bo th th e rules governing choice and th e natu re of choice itself. This

requires them t o m ak e language performative. Directed against the

grammar and language of democratic politics, form smashing and

verbal killing are aimed at the principle of rationality itself, an

implosion of i t by caricature.”Movem ents other th an the Situationists also aim t o alter the dis-

course of institutional democratic politics, its grammar and lan-

guage, a nd i ts surrogate, the state as the b ounda ry of the boundaries.

Ac tion is designed t o generate new social texts, semiotic, ‘sign full’.

Occasions, situations a nd happenings pro du ce signifiers directed at

destroying the rationalistic signifieds, i.e. the concepts em bedded in



154 D a v id E . A p t e r

the institutional dem ocratic m odel itself. Sostartling ar e the implica-

tions of this that no matter how small such a movement might be,

it immediately becomes magnified by those in power, blown out ofproportion, a manifestation of visible dangers which not only pre-

judice the transmittal of the discourse of rationality from one

generation to the next but introduce chaos and confusion instead.

Th e movements of the 1960s. an d indeed early 1970s, in Europ e and

the U nited Sta tes co ntin ue to have ripple effects within universities

because they challenged the rationalistic choice episteme. They

sought to undermine th e evolut ionary legitimacy of dem ocracy and

substitute for it a revo lu t ionary legitimacy. T o the extent tha t theysee this as an ongoing product they differ from t h e ‘old’ social

movem ents which accepted th e principles of th e democratic political

system w hile seeking t o widen their scope. T h e ‘new’, em ploying a

critical theory which is continuously inversionary, denies political

solutions. So that what might be called the discourse of the post-

modern variety has a s its aim not only con tinuo us challenging of

boundaries but treatme nt of the dem ocratic discourse a s hegemonic.

Th e only possible condition fo r open-ended choice is in a co ntinu ousbattle against not only the hegemony of power but the power of the

discourse on which it is based.

So considered, the starting point is the perspective of the

‘victim’ - he thief , the homosexual, the m adm an, the pariah. Any

role which den otes m arginality serves as the point of depar ture for

a critical and indeed inversionary discourse different from that of

democracy. Pariahs are the heroes of transform ational change.

Th e usual venue is the m arginal, or the excluded. M ore recently,especially in Europe, it is the victim as ‘outsider’, especially immi-

grants. From the perspective of the state the problem is how and

to what extent immigrants oug ht to be required to be assimilated

in order to enjoy the rights and obligations of citizenship. Or,

conversely, to what extent sh ou ld pluralization prevail so that imm i-

grants will be able to pursue their traditional ways of life in a dif-

ferent terrain. Each alternative involves different limits on choice.

Most states try to integrate outsiders into th e political a nd sociallife of the country . They define permissible boundaries. C ulture and

social life fundam entally different fro m th e rest of society becomes

‘deviant’, hence from the institutional-democratic standpoint, the

problem is the ‘absorption’ of ‘difference’ - nd the difference

that difference makes. The flashpoint is reached when there is

visible occupation of th e sam e space by ‘insiders’ an d ‘outsiders’, a




condition which magnifies all forms of difference within the same

community and raises questions of how much social and cultural

boundary ‘violation’ can be mediated before ‘cultural tipping’occurs. In France, for example, such problems have entered the

political aren a in earnest, in terms of L e Pen an d the National Fro ntand other national political parties, with all the implications of

fascist revivalism as a n ‘emancipatory’ projec t.

O ne sees the predicament virtually every da y. A good example ofthe issue is represented in the recent case of ‘veiling’ in France .

A m on g the visible signifiers of differences which define the outside r,

and which reveal whole social codes, symbolic expressions areclothes, foo d, langu age, the movement of the body in public places,

the wearing of the veil. Th e latter is imp ortan t amon g many A rabsin much the sam e way as the skullcap is for Jew s. It is provocative

as a signifier of difference between A ra b and French culture and ademarcation in the status of men and women in terms of modesty,

sexuality, eroticism , etc. Veiling is designed t o reinforce d ifference ,especially where young girls ar e incorpora ted in to the secular institu-

tions of the French state.”If th e sta te tries to prevent veiling it imposes o n the choice, o n the

‘rights’ of people t o live their lives according t o their o wn cherishedprinciples. Yet to the extent tha t A rab im migration raises the spectre

of cultural tipping, it poses the perennial problem of how far the‘tyranny of the m ajority’ should g o (Olson, 1965). How far are boun -

daries to be altered? How can assimilation be balanced by dif-ference? The answers to such questions depend largely on how

people de fine each o ther . D efine ‘outsiders’ negatively a nd ‘balanc-ing’ includes rectifying wrongs. But wrongs tend to be retrieved

from the past and imposed on the present. In the French casenegative differences redolent of the past a s well as those of the pre-

sent include the residual status of the colonial as pariah. Multiplemarginalities - class, religious, ethnic , linguistic - coincide in thecase of Muslim A rab imm igrants m ore than in any other group of

imm igrants in France.

T ha t being the case, a semiotics of ‘presence’ as a ‘presence’ of dif-ference radiates th roug hou t the co untry . The wearing of Ar ab dressis a signifier for ‘violation’. The charm of exotic custom is trans-formed in to provocation. Th e use of Muslim beads, th e very soun d

of Arabic, the insistence on internally maintained exclusionary

boundaries in matters of sexuality, marriage and the restrictednature of exchange between ‘communities’, all serve to reinforce



156 David E . Apte r

difference socially an d cu lturally while the official po sition is how

t o eliminate difference politically. P ubl ic reaction varies, of course.

Not a few say in effe ct, that if foreigners w ant to live in Fran ce per-manently they must become French, an d i f not they should go back

where they came from . Oth ers see the matter as people w anting it

both ways, to be, say Algerian A rabs enjoying the r ights of French

citizens, an d a s Fren ch citizens, to be free to impose Arab demands ,

cultural , educational , e tc . , on the ways and habits of the French

themselves. Fro m th e point of view of the French, nothing could be

more impor tant to the process of assimilation than the educational

system.l3 Fro m this s tandpo int , French Algerians now face muchthe same si tuat ion as French Jews du ring the Dreyfus period. A nti-

Semitism and anti-Arabism ar e drawn from much the same source

(the followers of Le Pen and the Nat iona l Front not over ly

‘discriminating’ between the two).

Balancing similarity against difference defines gro up s rathe r th an

individuals as the units of political life, an d comm unities rather th an

citizens. In these terms, bo un dary shiftin g becomes symbolically

load ed. Rectifying eq uity gap s, giving voice to those who for what -ever reason are discriminated against or economically disadvant-

aged, have always been what a good deal of politics is about. But

when changing bou ndaries is no longer a fu nction of individuals bu t

rather of group representation, the basis of the institutional model

is undermined. Instead of overlapping roles, cleavages occur. I f in

the past the evolution of democracy was a function of conflict an d

confrontation, civil l iberties, religious freedom, enfranchisement,

trade unionism and collective bargaining, civil r ights, feminism,workplace equali ty, e tc . , the end w as individualizat ion and incor-

pora t ion. T he sus ta ining power of the political system as a moving

equilibrium dep end s less on th e acceptance of differences than their

pluralization an d indiv idualization. Indeed, w hat is assum ed is that

differences will erode (Apter, 1971).

EMANCIPATORY MOVEMENTS AND COLLECTIVEINDIVIDUALISM

This way of putting things should not be taken to imply that the sole

or even the predo mina nt way that reform occurs is throu gh em an-

cipatory movements . For the most part i t occurs through horse

trading, bargaining over interests which one way o r ano ther become




inputs in the decision-making process. But it emphasizes that such

movem ents d o more tha n simply elevate to th e public gaze issues

which are troublesom e. I t emphasizes the symbolic aspects of em an -cipatory movements and what has been called the symbolic capital

this can generate (Bou rdieu, 1977; Apter and Saw a, 1984). It is when

people are excluded categorically fro m th e market an d play a limited

role in th e political bargaining process m ore or less perman ently th at

a good many emancipatory movements become inversionary and

collectivized.

W ha t that means is. for example, that individualism in theco ntex t

of the choice model becomes defined as an abdication of respon-sibility as people refuse to concern themselves with changing the

natu re of the gam e itself. Inversionary movem ents then want to alter

the ‘taken-for-granted’ co m m on sense quality of the political world

of interest group bargaining and party politics. In these terms the

‘new’ ema ncipatory mo vem ents aim at exploding the doxu of con-

ventional democracy (Bourdieu, 1977).

For this reason a lon e they a re different fro m older social move-

ments. The latter believed that their actions would come to havesalutary effects on democracy, resulting in net gains in the range

and scope of equity, increasing the participation of the hitherto

excluded, ma king th e political system m ore representative, etc. Even

when acting outside the boundaries of the legal and appropriate

institutional structures of democracy, they raised the question of the

m ora l limitations of th e politically possible within th ose structures.

T h e difference between ‘old’ an d ‘new’ social m ovem ents c an be

overem phasized, however. Illegal act ion s an d the question of moralscope have always been troubling questions. Actions outside the

boundaries are tak en because they ar e disruptive of ord er in its most

fundamental sense. There is always a question, too, of how much

‘emancipation’ people can absorb within a limited time frame,

befo re they begin to react negatively. W hile there is no clear ‘absorp -tion limit’, how change is mediated is as importan t as what changes

need to be negotiated. I n a democracy, majorities may feel that

enough is enough, and consider the social fabric more threatenedthan enhanced by the emancipation process. I f too much change is

imposed by a minority on a majority, or those in power become

threatened with a sudden loss not of power but of authority, they

will strike back, using the state as their ins trum ent. H ence, em an-

cipation projects need to be evaluated not only in terms of the

worthiness of their projects, goals and objectives, but also of their



158 David E. Ap ter

political consequences. Yet it is precisely this last question which

change-oriented emancipatory movements are least likely to

address.Thus the paradox of eman cipatory movements is that o n the one

hand they are intimately connected to the democratization of the

state while, on the other, to be effective they promote responses

which prejudice the institutionalization of democracy itself. Two

concerns immediately arise fro m this way of defining the situ atio n.

Every emancipatory movement poses risks. T o consider negative

political consequences or pose the needs of democracy against the

claims of a movement would emasculate virtually any such move-ment from the start. Cleavage politics are a necessary consequence

because movements need to mobilize sup port in the face of political

risk and danger. A small amount of protest tends to bring abo ut a

relatively high degree of reaction from the state. However, confro n-

tation al violence leads t o m ore th an specific dem and s and actions.

Challenges to power an d autho rity become loaded with emotive and

symbolic significance, triggering normative responses on all sides.

This being the case, neither the virtues nor the faults of emanci-patory movements are to be evaluated with Olym pian deta chm ent.

But because such movements ar e better at identifying what needs to

be remedied than at providing acceptable remedies themselves, they

raise the question of how to regard them. Such evaluation is never

easy. Meanings change with events. Events change with meaning.

The outrageous emancipatory movement of one generation is the

glorious history of another. An d this tends to be the case whether

on e is dealing w ith ‘h ard ’de mands, involving, fo r example, a specificreallocation of resources - and to the peasants, food t o the poor,

housing for the homeless - or the larger theoretical and moralfactors a ttend ing them; how t o change ‘the system’in orde r to elimi-

nate marginality, discrimination, the inadequacies of representa-tion; how to alter institutional m echanisms to provide better access,

greater accountability; how to open new routes to political access

and power, enlarge the rights of minorities, reduce the tyranny of

majorities, and so on.Despite th e diversity of the issues an d the ambiguities they entail,

i f we define a political spectrum one end of which represents th e ero -

sion of democracy and the other its improvem ent, then we can think

of emancipatory movements no t only in terms of the absolute prin-

ciples they favour or the intrinsic virtue they may claim to representbut their relative effects on democracy as an ongoing process. The




same movement in o n e context m ay lead t o a progressive e volutionof democracy, while in another it may seem misplaced, dang erous

and inappropriate .Th is would suggest tha t there are n o universal sta nd ard s of judge-

ment th at ca n be meaningfully applied in som e purely ab stract waywithout considering other factors. Ethical fine tuning which results

from social protest against, say, gender discrimination, race, reli-gion, damage to the environment or against nuclear power plants,

may be entirely ap pro pri ate in Great Britain o r France and involve

improvements in the terms of their democracy, while they may

impose such burdens in say India o r Brazil that they would p rejudicedemocracy itself.

THE NEW EMANCIPATORY MOVEMENTS

While there is nothing new about inversionary discourse, Marxism

being a good example, unlike Marxism inversionary discourse

theory challenges the assu mptions of the rationalistic discourse ofboth politics and economics. Economics represents commodifica-

tion and false consciousness. Politics represents the hegemonicpower of the state disguised in the discourse of equity and represen-

tation . lnversionary discourse seeks t o connect the tw o not as a d ou-

ble marketplace leading to a moving equilibrium but as a doubleconspiracy against boundary and jurisdiction changing.

Hence such 'inversionary discourse' challenges both the institu-

tional democratic model an d modernism a s demo cracy. In doing soits aim is t o constitute a new episteme with which t o displace the o ld,and dismantle the privileged role of sta te, especially its position as

the Archimedean lever between choice and rule.

lnversionary discourse is not concerned with formal or represen-tational notion s of equality, participation or access precisely becausethese sustain the boundaries they seek to mod ify. N or is it concerned

with compensatory responses by the state which merely serve to

perpetuate th e moving equilibrium which is the basis of the institu-tional democratic state.

In this sense on e might consider inversionary discourse theory as

anarchic in character, but without the improving formulae of doc-

trin al fo rm s of a n a r ~ h i s m . ' ~hese involve the difference between

criticism of the dem ocratic sta te and critical theories of the state.T h e whole point t o inversionary discourse theory is to exploit what



I60 David E . Apter

might be called the postm ode rn para dox . T he mo re finely tune d the

concepts of post-Raw lsian equ ity, the m ore enlarged th e definition

and scope of justice, the more hegemonic and dominant the stateappears to be. Indeed, the less discriminatory democracy is at the

institutional level, unless it explodes the boundaries themselves as

distinct fro m ‘merely’ giving access to those within the m , the mo re

hegemonic t h e sta te, because its interest a nd societal interests ar e the

same.

Since this is presum ptuo us to the extreme it is impo rtant for thos e

engaged in creating a n inversionary discourse t o use examples where

the democratic state denies its own principles - marginalizedgroups, the poor, t h e black, the Arab, the Chicano - n terms

which involve loss, lack of patrimony, pariahdom, alterity and dif-

ference. Since equity gaps can always be found even in the most

advanced and successful versions of institutionalized democracy,

the social welfare or the social democratic state, inversionary

discourse theory both au gm en ts the fine tuning of political sensi-

bilities, and casts doubt on both the sincerity and efficacy of

remedialism. By the sheer enlarging of participation or the expan-sion of social services, in so far a s it acts to sustain th e moving equili-

brium, the institutional democratic model also maintains intact the

common sense universe of exclusionary boundaries. T h e point to

emancipatory movements is that, in ord er for them to be effective,

they must test the democratic stat e by threatening to divide it at the

point where it normally mediates. They take for granted that even

if the outer limits of a democratic polity were reached it is highly

doubtful that they would be breached. Democratic solutions areregarded as reductionist and dehumanizing. The more concrete

the conditions to be rectified t h e more o ne becomes complicit in th e

bargaining enterprise. Each fresh solution becomes a target. The

condition is one in which democracies becoming breeding grounds

for discontent. Conventional civilities are boring, restrictive, and

self-monitoring the worst consequences.

I t has already been suggested that emancipatory movements as

such rarely pose great dangers for democratic states and that theyshould be expected as a form of periodic disturbance. The re is no

happy condition out there which will eliminate their causes and,

indeed, i t is am on g the m ost privileged th at o ne is likely to find th e

least satisfied, rath er th an am ong th e marginals themselves, who on

the whole remain relatively inarticulate about their condition. The

worst consequence of the new emancipatory movements is the




erodin g effects of ever m ore finely tuned s tandard s of equity when

applied t o the give an d ta ke of democratic politics - not to speak

of the im pact o n mo re fragile an d tentative dem ocratic regimes likeCzechoslovakia or Argentina today. ''

It has also been suggested that institutional democracy, becauseit is democratic, tends to be self-rectifying. It co-opts those who

make equity claims. It mollifies and reconciles (without giving too

much away in the process), alth ough m ore often later th an so oner.

This tension between th e co-opting tendencies of political de m o-

cracy an d th e resistance t o them , on e of th e most interesting a nd least

explored aspects of democratic political life, involves a process ofabsorption. Th e state needs to be able t o convert the self-proclaimed

principles of th e movement int o interests an d then engage in negotia-

tion an d bargaining. But this can only be don e when th ose infuriated

by the process can no longer wield principle as their only claim to

equity.

T H E DIALECTIC OF TH E MODELS

This discussion locates emancipatory inversionary discourse at the

intersection between sta te an d society an d between tendencies

towards monolithic beliefs and fragmenting alternatives. The

most extreme invent discourses which up-end normal standards of

rationality. How threatening they will be to institutional demo-

cracies has not been discussed. But it has been suggested that such

movem ents ar e not likely to succeed o n their ow n terms because ofthe w ay the doub le market works as an information and account-

ability system. Th e m ark et, politically and economically, cuts across

the most exclusivist boun da rie s. It stimulates not only a multiplicity

of roles but the cross-cutting of their networks. Nothing remains

impermeable, neither class nor ethnicity, nor even religion. The

political system wo rks because bo th g rou ps an d individuals c om e to

require and indeed rely on fun ds of practical info rm atio n that co n-

tinuously flow through out t he system, from bo ttom to t op and topto bottom . R hetoric works for a while, a nd indeed may gene rate new

truths, but i t has a w a y of disappearing in th e face of the concrete

an d the practical. A nd at th at point everything is reversed. T he new

tru ths appe ar as pretentious an d false. Th e old an d discredited com-

mon sense return s. Onc e the marketplace begins to w ork as a choice

system it is continuously self-reinforcing. Choice creates wants



162 David E . Apter

rather th an wants creating choice. Decisions are designed t o ap pea l,

please or placate voters, break do wn cleavages. Con tinuously refor-

ming coalitions within or between parties, interests and o ther grou psensures that while no problem is decisively resolved if the solution

offends some, few problems are totally ignored if they become

politically relevant as information.16

This, it might be argued, is too complacent a view which pays

insufficient att en tion to those for whom choice is illusory and access

to the market minimal. But it is also the case that the progressive rec-

tification of such conditions for and by particular groups is a good

deal of what th e dem ocratic process is ab ou t. Which poses the ques-tion whether today’s eman cipatory movem ents are really as different

from earlier ones as they might appear.

There certainly ar e some fun dam en tal differences. As suggested

earlier, virtually all the old radical movements accepted the same

principles of rationality and equity embod ied in institutional dem o-

cracy. Their demands were for more equal political access leading

to compensatory social policies. In today’s inversionary discourse

movements, emancipation is fundamentally different in the sensethat it is aimed not at reducing the negativity of otherness, asembodied in the colonial, the subaltern, the prisoner, vis-u-vis the

main str ea m , but t o ‘liberate’ the mainstream from itself. Of course

this is also the oldest and most fundamental principle of eman-

cipatory movements, from C hristianity to Marxism, i.e. th at those

suppressed by the norm al boun daries of the society will redeem the

whole.

Whatever one can say about them, inversionary discourse move-ments are not conten t w ith claiming simply equity or equality. Theywant to liberate society from its own institutional and ideological

structures. They are concerned with fun da m ent al relationships, with

Hegel’s masters and slaves rather th an with the right to vote. They

favour the kind of total uprooting that would put the rest of society

at risk. They consider the differences between theory and practicein democracies to be so great that only a radical project, continuous

and threaten ing the legitimacy not of this government or that but ofthe institutional democratic model itself, will suffice. If in theory,

fo r example, institutional democracies see a freed slave as no longera slave but a citizen and an individual, for a good many eman-

cipatory movements he or she remains a freed slave, i.e. neither free,

nor slave, nor citizen until the language itself changes and new

discourse emerges. W hereas from a sta te point of view no further




‘emancipa tion’ is necessary or desirable, fro m a movement point of

view this represents the myth rather than the substance of demo-

cracy. For modern eman cipatory movem ents this is no t, and cann otbe, good enough.

We have placed in juxta po sitio n, then , two ‘models’, inversionary

discourse and institutional democracy. We now see them in a perma-

nent struggle. T he first challenges th e second , attacking it as a systemof signs, of signifiers which lead t o a reductive consciousness which

only genuine inversionary movements can reveal. Such movementsdraw their inspiration from the broad tradition of critical theory

beginning with M arx. T o seek ou t and identify those for m s of repres-sion which institutional dem ocracy hides or disguises is to expose theinstitutional democratic model in theory, revealing its exclusionaryand repressive characteristics. Eniancipatory movements are seen

to rewrite both the history and pedigree of the state itself and

impose on it their ow n specific age nd a. Inversionary discourse turnsagainst both the democratic political telos of open ends and self-

improvement, and its operating principles: access, participation,

accountability and equality.The point is, of course, that inversionary discourse models pay

little atten tion to the growing range of diversities in the needs andwants of individuals and groups, public and private, and in their

dual roles of consum ers and citizens. They condense by focusing onthose marginalized in the process. This enables them to articulate

tensions at the boundaries of social life and the political system.The re is revulsion a t administered coalition. But in the name of

revealed truths o ne finds also a politics of illusions. Even the mostradical social movem ents of the past understood that n o matter how

necessary it might be to sh ove needed changes down the t hro ats ofclasses or elites anxious to maintain privileges, or get rid of old

regimes, the re were limits to how far on e could go before comm onlyunderstood rationality rules were violated.

EMANCIPATION AS POSTMODERN POLITICS

There is a sense in which the new emancipatory movements, ascreators of myth and theory, an d of symbolic rather tha n economic

capital, represent a kind of postmodern politics. This is true to theextent that they concentrate o n action a s social text an d interpreta-tion as political reality. They are inversionary not only in terms of



164 David E . Apter

classes and grou ps w ho have less economic a nd pol it ical power or

access and a re seeking more, but also in reg arding the discourse of

nor ma l pol it ics as i tself d isingenuous at best a nd th e infor m ationbased on the market as false, myst i f ied, commodified and hege-

mo nic. H ere the emphasis is not only o n shat tering the conve ntional

boundaries of polit ical langua ge an d disc ours e but the validity of the

boundaries imposed by nat ions and states. This then is the per-

man ently subversive projec t, w hich has less to d o wi th the quest ion

of inst i tut ional dem ocracy n o m atter ho w well i t performs, tha n with

the i rr i tations imp osed by social l ife an d the imposi t ions it makes on

unconvent ional forms of f reedom . T he ro le of emancipatory move-men ts in term s of struggles between stat e and society is a n old one .

But the quest ion is whether this new postmodern form as I have

described it is really a claim b ased o n the old fo rm , i .e. a moral claim,

which has a new object , the displacement of all forms of social

discipl ine an d a return of the ideal of ema ncipat ion a s the l iberated

being. I f so no state is tolerable because i t represents a ‘veil of

ignorance’ behind w hich pow er i tself lies. Insti tution al dem ocrac y

then is nothing m ore tha n a pol i tics of disguise, dissimu lation, spec-tac le and m anipula t ion . I t is the job of emancipatory movements

fol lowing an inversionary discourse model to explode democracy as

a mode of consciousness, an d with it the m arket principle an d info r-

mation i tself , and so weaken the hegemony exercised by the state

that its legitimacy will be destroyed. People will become aware of

what is going on in the name of democracy. Democracy itself will

be radically altered - precisely how hardly matters. The grand

design is in the att ac k, not in th e solution. In terms o f inversionarydisco urse, dem ocra cy is the highest stag e of false consciousness, the

mystified shell of insti tutional democracy hiding its rationalistic

core .”These then are some of the objects of crit ical theory as inver-

sionary discourse. To reveal th e audac ity of the enterprise it ha s been

necessary to describe how the inst i tut ional democrat ic model w orks

o n i tso w n term s, expl icat ing the ingredients of i ts discourse an d s tate

which inversionary d iscourse theory aim s to up-e nd. By show ing thedynamics of the inversionary d iscourse model we can also see how

the m ore sweeping an d far-reaching its scope and a ims, the more

likely i t is that power gained will be abused. But what I have also

tried to show is tha t the m ore fundam enta l the desi red t ransform a-

t ion , and the m ore ‘ fundamenta li s t’ the m ovement , the more a con-

version will occu r f o r which its leaders ar e not p repar ed. T ha t is, i f




initially they ar e so able to mobil ize public supp ort th at they com e

to represent society against th e state, onc e in p ower th e situation will

be reversed. For then it is the public which need s to be transform ed.The new state is quickly at odds with the society. Rigoris t ic and

authori tar ian methods are used in the name of principle. Hence

ema ncipato ry mov ements , where they succeed, are l ikely to become

the problem rather than i ts solut ion , the Soviet Un ion being a good

example. One can hardly think of a more dramatic inversionary,

total iz ing, emancipatory project than the Chinese Revolution,

especially in its mo ral m om en t in Yan’an in th e years 1936-47, where

in caves the surv ivors of the L ong M arch created the s imulacrum ofa new society, formed d octr ines out of the dialectical interpretation

of their experiences, modified Marxism to fit local conditions and

indeed, through a process of learning and l iteracy, poring over texts

in the midst of war with the Japanese and revolution against the

Kuomintang, formed a discourse community on the basis of a

process of exegetical bonding. A revolutionary people of the

book, they found in Yan’an their Archimedean point for over-

turning the wor ld as they found it. By the same token, today thoseformer Yan’anites now represent the oppressive state. Once libe-

rat ing principles became hegemonic for those who , in T iananm en

Square, tried to create their own miniaturized version of a demo-

cratic alternative.

Inversionary discourse then is always potentially explosive

and never innocent . Morever , s ince much of the self-evidential

superiority of democracy is a t tached to moral development throug h

knowledge an d education, it is not surpris ing that a pr ime venue forconfrontat ions involving inversionary discourse has been educa-

tional institutions. In the 1960s it was not only a question of power

but a lso a t ransform ation of the discourse, the smashing of conven-

t ional languages an d the creat ion of situations which up-en ded all

forms of conventionali ty. I t is not an accident that th e evolu tion of

action into theo ry a lon g these lines, the text of language smashing,

was best p ersonified b y the S ituationists, wh o saw in spectacle, the

possibilites open ed u p by sem iotic mo bilization. T here ar e plenty ofthose in au tho rity w ho con sider this radical project in th e university

in terms of confl ic ts over the curriculum, the cano n an d wh at sub-

jects shou ld or should not be taugh t , b ut there was also the question

of who sha l l def ine the na ture of educational experience. Which

leads us to what might be called the current state of the debate .

I f inst i tut ional democracy and inversionary discourse const i tute



166 David E . Apter

adversarial models, they also provide an opening for a third dis-

course, ‘neo-institutionalism’.

Here we ca n fin d critics o n both sides of the conflict. Concernedwith the inadequate scope of the state in the fine tuning of social

justice, they a re aw are that the m ore the state widens its arenas of

responsibility on behalf of citizens and enlarges the scope of its

jurisdiction, the more such intervention spills over, infringes and

imposes the public upon the private sphere. The result is that the

state becomes more an instrument of its own than of societalinterests.

This introduces an interesting paradox. The more institutionaldemo cracy is a project of perpetual reform , the more reform reduces

its responsiveness, that is, it becomes less responsive, less accoun-

table an d m ore bureaucratic. Decision-makers ar e separated fu rthe r

from those whom they a re supposed to serve and the s tate becomes

a vast glacial administration. Not that Evans, Skocpol, Birnbaum,

Offe and others would suggest that reform movements, enlarging

civil rights, en franchisement of the working class an d wom en, tra de

unionism and the wide range of other social movements whichcharacterized the evolution of democratic institutions, make the

state less demo cratic. R ath er, in considering the gaps between theory

and practice an d the history of resistance by the stat e to reform , they

see it as necessarily duplicitous.

Whatever one’s specific political preference there is a genuine pro-

blem here. Dem ocracy tends to sep arate the state fro m society at a

decision-making level even as it becomes closer to i t in terms of

public support. In so far as this renders the content of politicsrelatively empty of meaning, it becomes precisely what critical

theorists consider false consciousness. That is, if democracy which

is based on t he principle o f ch oice, offe rs the illusion of choices, then

the differences between sub stan ce an d reality become th e focal point

of attack. Hence emancipatory movements using inversionary

discourse find ways to show how meaning loss occurs, how the

language, discourse, signs and signifiers of democracy become a

form of ‘magic realism’. It is precisely this kind of attack whichleads one to consider emancipatory movements using inversionary

discourse as a postmodern phenomenon, the more so as a good

many modern democracies move further away from social demo-

cracy and socialism, and towards greater privatization and the

broadening of interest gro up politics (Leca an d Pa pin i, 1985; Apter ,

1987: C h. 1).




CONCLUSION

This leads to a not very satisfactory conclusion to this alreadyoverex tended discussion. For all the talk an d o n all s ides, there are

still very few ideas ab ou t how th e design of the state might be altered

specifically to reflect or respond to its critics. If m uc h critical the or y

has revealed hidden an d hegem onic aspects of conventional ra t iona-

l i ty as it takes different form s - expertise, knowledge, technique,

innovat ion, e tc . - t has been short on prescriptive solutions.’*

Hence its main value is to provide us with terms for evaluating

dem ocracy in ways i t do es not ev alua te itself. Such a view suggeststha t one ought to accept or reject the propriety of demands , the

righting of wrongs, the reclaiming of lost patrimo nies or pretensions

to som e higher t ruth , in terms of impacts on democracy i tself , that

is the enlargem ent of choice such that i t strengthens th e re la tionship

between equity, a l location, growth and order .

By the sam e token on e ough t never to take emancipatory move-

ments at face value, tha t is in terms of their solutions. Experience

show s that mo vem ents which best de fine som e overarch ing or trans-cendental goal and pursue it in the nam e of som e overriding truth

end u p as hegemonic an d restr ict ive, reducing rather th an enlarging

choice. Such movements need to act in this way i f they have any

hopes of being successful. But widely diff eren t exp eriences in Afric a

or in Latin America, or revolutionary transformations as in the

former USSR and C hina , show tha t n o mat te r how pr inc ipled the

ends or admirable the purposes , most movements demonstra te a

remark able lack of success in p rom otin g dem ocratic regimes by an ydefinition of the term. The problem with em ancipatory movem ents

is that even when they bring up the right issues they wind up with

the wrong solut ions. Having said that , on e hastens to add that this

may also denigrate too m uc h a nd too sweepingly. On e needs to know

about specif ic emancipatory movements , examine their internal

system tendencies, their discourses and symbolic power and the

larger political contexts in which they act before assessing whether

the result will generate reform, redefine equity, in a fashionbroadening the scope of democracy itself .”

But the value of inversionary discourse is that by defining

marginality, victimness and otherness are the starting points of

inversionary discourse - homosexual , pr isoner , black, female,

‘orientalism’, colonialism, etc. One becomes aware of the many

levels a n d laye rs of sensitivity there are to forms of domina t ion and



168 David E . A p f e r

hegemony which are obscu re o r entire ly lacking fro m the perspective

of the s ta te , even the most democrat ic s ta te . For example, inver-

sionary discourse is rarely conten t w ith establishing s tra ightforw ardlegal notion s of equity or equality, o n e in which say wom en have the

same r ights a s men, or blacks as whites, but a im at that network of

‘dominations’ built into the total range of customary boundaries

which society and the s ta te take for granted . lnversionary discourse

sees the power of the s ta te in i ts ‘taken-for-grantedness’.

In these terms, th e hidden majo r premise is that the mo re demo-

cratic a society becomes, the more of a facade it really is, a mere

expression of pop ular cu lture masking hidden power interests . Byreflecting institutions as they perpetuate hegemony in the name of

dem ocracy, th e public is complicit in its ow n foolishness. H ence, as

with Hegel’s master a n d slave, it can only be thro ug h th e articulation

of alternative an d sub versive discourses that this complicity will be

revealed, an d democracy ma de, indeed, mo re democrat ic . So behind

the notion of inversionary discourse is the idea of a t ranscending

insight. Just a s the slave, the victim, transcend s the kn owledge of the

master, and understands how limited the latter’s understanding is,so that insight becomes a form of empowerment .

I began this discussion with tw o kind s of ques tion. O ne had to d o

with ideology, the oth er with the ab sorption l imits of democracy, the

quest ion of how far it can ch ang e in response to demand s . Both the

concept of ideology and the grammar or structure of democracy

were ‘exploded’ by means of a theory of discourse. I showed how

ema ncipatory mo vem ents were designed to break that discourse with

its implication of order as an equi ty both def ined by a nd na tura l izedin a market producing a moving equil ibr ium. I also suggested how

such movem ents punctured the language of rationality, self-interest

and bargaining that a choice model implies. as well as how they

redefine boundaries an d go beyo nd limits imposed by the democ ratic

state.

All this raises far larger theoret ical quest ions. H ow far ought o ne

to go in using marginality, victimness or otherness, or any out-

rageous condit ion, as the basis for evaluating democracy as a sys-tem? To what extent should a whole society be held hostage to

inversionary discourse? On the other hand, despite the apparent

dangers to the institution al dem ocratic state posed by inversionary

discourse, in th e long term is its conseq uence not an imp roving on e,

advancing the scope an d meaning of the equity statement (equity,

a l loca tion, growth a nd order)?



Democracy and Emancipatory Mo vem ents 169

To answer this we should distinguish between orders of inver-

sionary discourse. First -order inversionary discourse based o n direct

confronta t ion seems to be the most direct ly threatening but , in fact ,usually leads to med iat ion. Second -order inversionary discou rse is

more threatening because i t discounts the conventional discourse

and seeks to displace i t . By the t ime i t reaches the third order, it

becomes a thing in i tself, a displacing claim which discredits the

ent ire st ructure of mediat ing discourse on which the inst i tut ional

dem ocrat ic model depends. O n e might say then that th e least act ivist

an d the m ost intellectual is in fact the most dan gero us except fo r the

fact that it is largely the plaything of intellectuals whose pieties arelonger than their rem edies.

T h at said, it is not the whole story. So long as there is a certain

deadpan qual ity to the comm on-sense world , an imperviousness to

injust ices that g o deeper than ameliorat ive reform ca n recti fy, inver-

siona ry discours e theor y will be required to shock , to get people to

pay a t tent ion .” O ne needs invers ionary d iscourse no mat ter how

infuriat ing a n d insufferable i ts protagonists . But to accept this point

of view requires one to tak e the long view. I t is especially difficultto accept when i ts imm ediacy, and i ts desire to sho ck, both the text

an d violence, raw an ger , violation , of place a nd c i rcumstances , body

an d soul , the s tuff of which inversionary discourse is m ade, force

one’s attentio n to what o ne might prefer to ignore, not to see, to keep

invisible. In this respect invers ionary d isco urs e violates every thing

that appears to be ordinary , s table an d taken for granted . H ence the

implicat ion of this analysis is tha t o ne must take both the choice

model an d dem ocracy an d inversionary discourse in juxtapos i t ion,to see their alterity as in som e sense m utually necessary. Inve rsiona ry

discou rse by th e very challenges it poses, forces people to react , to

respond and somet imes to think even when such responses are m ore

reflexive th an reflective. This sug gests too that by providing infor-

mation left ou t by the doub le marketplace, inversionary discourse

models provide an a l ternat ive means to checking and balancing

by st imulat ing cont inuous change and al terat ion of boundaries

(Mu d i m b e , 1988; A sad , 1973). Change in this sense is a bumpyprocess, the product of threats, react ions to threa ts and eventual

accommodat ions .

T he genius of the dem ocrat ic model , a nd i ts pr incip le of moving

equilibriu m , is that al on g with the balancing of interests between th e

econom ic an d pol i t ical marke t it also abso rbs these bum ps which are

as necessary to democracy as the smoother process of coal i t ion



170 David E . Apter

form ation and bargaining. For in this way it eventually includes orincorporates even while it appears to exclude. Because inversionary

discourses challenge in particular those negativized boundarieswhose real consequence is to delimit too narrowly choice for some,

dem ocracy re-engages the limits of choice fo r all. Movem ents which

seek to change the meaning of the rules by changing the terms of

choice in effect affirm the rules themselves.

NOTES

I . Th e special significance of educa t i on is that i t enables people to make personal

predict ions based on relevant informat ion, to deal wi th the condi t ions of their

immediate ci rcumstances and connect causes to effects .

2. As. for example, the bit ter protest movem ents in Ja pa n despi te its extra-

ord inary econo mic accompl i shments; see Apter an d Sa wa (1984).

3. The economic market is cote rmin ous with the poli tical o ne , but i t follows i ts

own dynamics . A modern vers ion equivalent o f Adam Smi th’s assumpt ion tha t

everyone has a ‘natural propensi ty 10 t ruck. barter and exchange’, i t represents a

presumption of universal rationali ty - a rationali ty applying to individuals every-

where in their roles as prod uce rs an d con sum ers . Without i t the polit ical m arketplac e

alon e, as appl ied to cit izens. would lead to a Hobbesian choice, a survivalist notion

of sel f-protection. mak ing a n inst i tut ional dem ocr at ic pol ity imp ossible.

4 . See Iou ca ul t (1970). Th e chief qual i ty of the classical age is the representat ion

an d organizat ion of s igns a s resemblances . Th e discourse was a fun ct ion o f recogniz-

ing what those signs signified. See especially pp. 56-69.

5 . Ruthlessly following out the implication s o f the dissolution of the old epis teme.

his redefinit ion of order in t e rms ot cent ra l ized power w as consonant more wi th pro-

tect ing rather th an m aximizing choice. Ho bbe s sought the inst i tutional ground for

a minimal definit ion of choice.6. For a ful ler t reatm ent of such m at ters , see Apter (1991).

7 . In these terms, the m ain improved versions are social welfare an d the social

democratic state. The first evolved out of classic l iberal capitalism as the polit ical

market assumed greater s ignificance. T he result has been a n enlargement of the s tate

i tsel f and especial ly i t s com pen sato ry an d ent i t lement prog ram me s to those ‘marginal’

in term s o f effective polit ical par ticipation. In the US an d elsewhere this has been do ne

o n a m o r e or less tem por ary or ud hoc basis , with f iscal an d mo neta ry policy a ma jor

mechanism of decisional efficacy, i .e. the social welfare state. In the social welfare

state equi ty and just ice are realized f irs t in terms of th e poli tical ma rket an d the n i n

law, the rights of citizens being universalistic.

T he othe r t radi t ion. deriving fro m class-based social ism, is social demo crac y.

Inspired by the recognition that w orking-c lass power co uld be realized by par ty

pol i t ics and electoral superiori ty rather than revolut ion it derived from a diverse

pedigree - Engels (after 1895), revisionism, Lassalleanism. utopianism - a n d

aimed less at revolut ion than cap turin g parliamentary majori t ies , thu s taking execu-

t ive pow er. By this mea ns, social democracy could then use the au thor i ty o f the s ta te

to el iminate private property and increase social jus t ice. Today, however, social




democracy is no longer class based. It accepts private property. I t relies less on

nat ionalization and planning an d has moved away from social ism except in term s of

an app ropr ia te defin it ion of equal ity. S ocial democracy assumes t hat there will be

social casualties which result from the private sector and assumes that accordingly

compensatory or enti t lement programmes are necessary and permanent obl igat ions

of the sta te .

8. Som ething which Ad am Sm ith recognized in his Theory ofMom/ Sentiments

(Smith, 1966). Even in his day th e rationality of the economic marketplace a lone was

too primitive a no tion , too unad orne d a view of hum an natu re . Economic rational ity

defines a world of insup portab le principles: hence his not io n of ‘sympathy’.

9. I f by the very nature of the choice-vector process it can only utilize processes

which a re slow, cumb ersom e and com plex, and ‘boundaries’ can only be readjusted

haltingly. this is because choice involves changing bound aries while ord er m eans sus-ta ining them.

10. Variations in form but not in principle include parliamentary and presidential

systems, consociationalism, pluralism, Dahl’s polyarchy a nd Shil’s civic cu ltur e. On

a right-left spectrum on e can include liberal utili tarianism and socialist tran sfo rm a-

tionalism, the centre-left social democracy and the centre-right social welfare state,

as well as Birnbaum’s dist inctions between stron g and weak sta tes. T he inst i tutional

ou tpu t s so generated are designed to make the political system self-perpetuating in

the form of a m oving equ il ibrium . Th is pol i tical system co ntains an d reinforces a ll

social bo un dar ies within its jur isdi ctio n, and provides rules while leaving choices or

ends open .

1 1 . A goo d examp le is found in Go odm an (1970).

12. T h e veiling issue was significant because it called into question a n um ber o f

these assum ption s. Moreover, it extended‘difference’ into the next ge nerat io n, am on g

those born in France. I t infringes on a principle of French educat ion which since

Durkheim’s day has been virtually sacrosanct, that secular educational institutions

ar e designed to socialize and integrate stu den ts into the civic culture of France. Hence

vei ling, the dem arcat ion of difference for a next generation in the school system, i s

a provoca t ion.

13. Moreover, this was also the case in colonial territories. One could be assimi-lated in a colony by becoming ‘evolved’. One became an evolue mainly in terms of

edu cat ion. an d in French language, c ul ture and social role , as well as dress, e tc .

Assim ilation was a legal statu s. In Algeria those w ho becam e assimilated enjoyed the

rights and privileges of being French, but in France there were no such rights for

Algerians as Algerians, or Musl ims as Musl ims, n or was i t anticipated that there

would be.

14. Am ong the characterist ics of inversionary discourse are the uses of spectacle

and the spectacula r, including visual a l terat ions that violateconventional bou ndar ies,

whether in dress, smearing of bodies and faces, hair , gestures, occup at ion of space ,

the use of graffiti , etc. See for example Marcus (1989).

1 5 . Fragility in this sense m ean s that dem ocratic principles of the sta te ar e weakly

institutionalized in society an d while f orm s an d even practices may be observed , these

are only instru me ntal , that is , they work as long as they wo rk.

16. T h e private sphere includes individual r ights as well as pro perty . Th e public

sphere is secured by law an d a utho ri ty. T he private sector is sepa rate from but not

a u t o n o m o u s of the s ta te . T h e s ta te sec tor is m ore o r less accountable to the pr iva te .

Th e individual is both a c i tizen an d a co nsu me r. As a consu me r he or she is a voter



172 David E . Apter

registering political preferences for leaders , pol icies and part ies . The two roles

intersect in the double ma rke tplac e of goo ds an d services and leadership preference.

17. Th e theory b ehind this interpretat ion goes back of cou r se to M arx . M ore con -

tempo rary rendi tions can be fou nd in the work of Fouc aul t , Baudr i ll a rd , Lyotard ,Jameso n and Offe . See , in par ti cu lar . Off e (1984).

18. For example, Foucaul t’s w ork o n inst itut ions of the insane, prisons, not to

speak o f his analysis of sexual i ty , idcnt i f ies the oppressive bou nda ries in society which

the st ate re presen ts ‘democratically’, or how autho ri ty an d power, validated as ‘exper-

tise’ , perp etua te the hegemony o f th ose wh o define madness , cr iminal i ty an d sustain

conventional boundar ie s . Those wh ose jo b i t is to relieve the condition of the poor

derive power fro m the principle of respon sibil i ty rather th an the respo nsible exercise

of i t . Hence the tyranny of insane asy lums , p r i sons an d the bo undar ies tha t def ine

the very nature of inale and female, and their appropriate relat ions.19. I t is interesting in this regard that Jo seph A. Sc hum pete r ma de a somewhat

similar argument years ago. i .e. that capitalism would give way to socialism not

because i t is a n econom ical ly inferior system to the latter, but because i ts inabili ty

to resolve the unemployment problem would generate al ienat ion and antagonism

especially from intellectuals and others whose support is necessary for i t to survive.

See Schumpeter (1947).

20. This was particularly thediscovery of such f igures as Batai lle . Sa rt r ean d o thers

wh o in the 1930s in F ran ce belonged to the ‘Secret Society’, the ‘College of Sociology’.

See Hollier (1979).

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Economica .

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bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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University Press.

Dav id E. Apter is the Henry J . Heinz I IProfessor of Comparative Political and Social

Development at Yale University (Department of

Political Science, PO Box 3532, Yale Station,

New Haven, CT 06520-3532). He has published

monographic studies and articles on nationalist

movements and state formation in Africa,emancipatory movements in Japan, and

revolutionary transformation in China. He has

been particularly interested in the connection

between developmental change and radical

political discourse. His most recent books are

Against the State (w i th Nagayo Sawa, Harvard,

1984) and Rethinking Development (Sage, 1987).

He is currently working on two books, Mao’sRepublic and Violence and Democracy.

david apter democracy violence and emancipatory movements

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