Globalisation and Democracy

Structure and Objectives of the Lecture

• Section One: Assess the extent to which ‘de- politicisation’ in response to changes in global economic structures undermines poplar democracy.

• Section Two: Brief analyse of evolving meaning of citizenship in liberal democracy

• Section Three:Evaluate the extent to which a shift from a politics of ‘becoming’ to a politics of being is taken place and to explore the implications of such a shift.

Section One

• In attempt to offer certainty to market actors remove key aspects of economic policy from democratic control

• Central Bank Independence, Independent Financial Regulators and a more general regulatory framework dominated by independent agencies

• Furthermore, policy is constrained by commitments to supranational organisations

• Add to the mix the effects of sub-contracting and public-private initiatives and we could argue that majority key decisions of social/economic management are outside effective control of central government.

• Reforms are designed to redefine contentious political tasks as apolitical technical tasks

• When we vote for a government what do we actually vote for?

• UK Outside government control: Industrial policy, monetary policy, trade policy, regulatory policy and the basic structure of social policy/ infrastructure provision.

• So we vote over whether we want slightly lower taxes or slightly higher spending on health and education.

• This is a problem? It depends on your perspective

• How different it from before? Depends on country and point of comparison.

Section Two

• Kanishka Jaysurayia • What it means to be citizen in Liberal

Democracy changing in response to globalisation

• Stripping of Economic and Social Content of citizenship and substantive freedoms

• Individual autonomy is equated with capacity to freedom to participate in the market

• Kanishka Jaysurayia analysis can be linked to Cox work on polarisation and even some statements by arch-capitalist like Warren Buffet

• Severe inequality poses a treat to democratic political life

• The market is not conceived of a structure of power from which individual ought to enjoy certain freedoms

• Shift in the citizenship frontier

• These ideas can be linked to Cox’s work on polarisation….

Section Three

• Politics of Becoming: Liberalism and Marxism. Universal Projects of Realisation. Future Perfect. Not confined to particular sections of society

• Politics of Being: Politics of Identity in one form of another. Your politics become defined by membership of particular group and become concerned with that groups struggle.

• Harvey argues in response to space-time compression individuals look for fixed representations of community to belong to. Thus place and identity dominants over project of becoming

• Also we can argue the decline in mainstream notions of social-economic citizenship creates environment were politics of being can flourish

Section Three

• How do we define place and Identity?

All acts of definition involve a act of imaging. All acts of understanding place are aseathic ised

How do we understand ‘the city’ a mass of realities and interactions

Through the consumption of asethicised images

• My favourite city is New York…..

• My understanding of the City has been shaped by….

• Someone else may understand the city in a very different way. Another example is London. For me London is….

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/DocklandsNight.jpg

• For someone else it may be………..

• The city has so many realities as to lack a objective reality

• Equally identities are so complex. What is blackness?

• Movements create aestheticised ideas and counter ideas

• In a sense ‘politics of being’ is about defining and selling a particular notion of identity/place (as opposed to becoming). There is a left and right wing version of politics of being. Although both are in some ways reactionary (as they look to the past). Also emphasis on individual charisma

• A localised example

• Regan and Americanism

• Politics of Image and Representation of particular myth of America…

• Also politics of personal image

• The same can be said about Thatcher. Britain and Power representation…..

• John Major: Warm beer, cricket and nuns on bicycles

• Blair. A young country………

• Brown’s Britishness and Cameroon's Trainers

• Not just UK

• V Open to Extreme Right Wing Manipulation

• Politicised Religion

• Left Wing Version…..

• Also Gay Rights etc….

• A similar obsession with place (identity) can be seem in the evolution of cultural forms…..

• Compare Place in Jazz (50s, 60s) and Hip-Hop (90s, 00s). Hip-hop marked obsession with highly localised sense of place…..

Problems with identity politics

• Many forms obviously pathological (Yugoslavia, Bin Laden)

• Mainstream aestheticism, always dangers of racism and reaction.

• Intrinsic Limitations even in progressive forms (Gay and Racial Rights)…..

Never be ultimately be about universal emancipation

Also tends to produce pathologies

• Large sections of Black Nationalist movement are anti-semantic, homophobic and sexist

• “Cause a Black hand Squeezed on Malcolm X the man” (Public Enemy)

• Images movements create can themselves become repressive…

• Human Emancipation ultimately requires a politics of becoming (a universal vision of emancipation). At best victories of identity politics are likely to be partial.

Conclusion

• Our understanding of the significance of processes of de-politicisation and citizenship is critically dependant on our understanding of democracy

• For scholars such as Schumpeter and Weber this is no need for alarm

• However for social-democratic theorists (proponents) of democracy changes in scope of democratic control and citizenship are far more damaging

• I think it more difficult for anyone to be entirely comfortable with the rise of identity politics. Although clearer some forms have had progressive effects

• Backward Linkages: State, Harvey

• Forward: Labour, Welfare