Popular Development and Democracy

POPULAR DEVELOPMENT AND DEMOCRACY POPULAR DEVELOPMENT AND DEMOCRACY Case Studies with Rural Dimensions in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Kerala Essay commissioned under UNRISD Research Programme on Civil Society and Social Movements Olle Törnquist Department of Political Science and the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo Törnquist, O. (2002): Popular Development and Democracy: Case Studies with Rural Dimensions in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Kerala. Occasional Paper from SUM, No. 3, viii+150 pp. © 2002 Olle Törnquist Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM) University of Oslo All rights reserved ISSN: 0807 1195 ISBN: 82-90391-43-9 Publications Manager: Alida Jay Boye Printed by: Gan Grafisk AS, Oslo Lay-out: Baard Johannessen Front cover design: Baard Johannessen Photo front cover: based on detail of a painting by Siv Lurås Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM) University of Oslo P.O. Box 1116 Blindern N-0317 Oslo, Norway www.sum.uio.no [email protected] Fax: +47 22 85 89 20 The views expressed herein are those of the author and should not be attributed to the Centre for Development and the Environment. CONTENTS Part I: THE DISCOURSE 1 Chapter 1. Development and Democracy 2 1.1 Introduction 2 1.2 Poor people, poor democracy? 3 1.3 The logic of the essay 5 Chapter 2. The Mainstream Arguments 7 2.1 The background: important advances—and major setbacks 7 2.2 The conventional counter arguments 8 2.3 The conventional recipes 8 Chapter 3. Alternative Propositions 10 3.1 The historical importance of leftists and the poor (vs. bourgeois and middle classes) 10 3.2 The vital but superable problems of the Left 12 3.3 Resistance against dominating primitive accumulation of capital and opportunities for democratisation 13 3.4 Divisive uneven development calls for unifying resistance against common enemies 16 3.5 Capitalist expansion, left-authoritarianism, and human rights-based democracy 17 3.6 The primacy of politics and actors 19 3.7 Beyond the crafting of elitist democracy 20 3.8 Beyond elitist crafting of civil society democracy 23 3.9 A third way to democracy 28 Chapter 4. Analytical Framework 31 4.1 The level of substantial democracy 31 4.2 The competing propositions as reflected in the model 33 4.3 Enhancing citizen’s democratic capacity through politics of democratisation 34 4.4 Reading the political opportunities 35 4.5 Politicisation 38 4.6 Disputed propositions as reflected in the framework of politics of democratisation 41 v vi Popular Development and Democracy Part II: PHILIPPINE, INDONESIAN, AND KERALA CASES IN COMPARATIVE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 45 Chapter 5. Cases, Design and Sources 46 Chapter 6. Operationalisations or Expected Contextual Outcomes 48 Chapter 7. Fresh Ideas but Uphill Tasks in Muddy Philippine Waters 51 7.1 A mainstream showcase 51 7.2 Shallow middle class democracy 52 7.3 A renewal-oriented Left 54 7.4 Collective empowerment and democracy 56 7.5 Divisive empowerment and insufficient democratisation 57 7.6 The logics of the stalled popular potential 63 Chapter 8. New but Poorly Anchored Democratic Options in Indonesia 67 8.1 From disaster to showcase? 67 8.2 Pacts without foundation 68 8.3 Unsubstantial crafting of democracy 70 8.4 The rise of a new radical democracy movement 75 8.5 Top-down catalysts enforce but bypass democracy 76 8.6 Grassroots activists foster but limit democratisation 80 8.7 Intermediary cause-oriented groups serve but do not anchor democracy 84 8.8 Dissident political leaders build and bend democracy 88 8.9 Problems and options for new labour organisers 90 8.10 The dynamics of the stumbling blocks 93 Chapter 9. Pioneering Attempts to Renew the Kerala Model 98 9.1 Politicised class-based engineering of democratic development 98 9.2 The old model undermined 100 9.3 Renewal from the Left 102 9.4 Impressive campaigns, insufficient base 102 9.5 Rethinking and counter-offensive 108 9.6 Bold new initiatives on more solid ground 109 9.7 Important advances 113 9.8 Two general problems 114 9.9 Four specific lessons 116 9.10 The dynamics of the lost historical opportunity 123 Contents vii Part III: CONCLUSIONS—THE MISSING LINK 131 Chapter 10. Elitist Democratisation and new Popular Efforts 133 10.1 General Conclusions 133 10.2 Policy implications for elitist democratisation and beyond 136 Chapter 11. Problems of Popular Politics of Democratisation 137 11.1 General Conclusions 137 11.2 Policy implications for substantial democratisation 142 REFERENCES 145 Figures Figure 1: Elements of substantial democracy/democratisation 32 Figure 2: The political terrain for action 36 Figure 3: Politicisation of interests, ideas, and people 41 PART I: THE DISCOURSE Chapter 1. Development and Democracy 1.1 Introduction This essay, dated early 2002, is primarily written for fellow students, reflective activists, and concerned practitioners with an interest in one or more of three major themes. The first theme is about problems of democratisation; the second is on the importance of democracy in efforts to overcome obstacles to development suffered by marginalised people; the third is about the dynamics of politics and society in Indonesia, the Philippines and the Indian state of Kerala.1 For about two decades now, democratisation in the third world has been at the top of the agenda. While development, earlier, was often assumed to come first, many then said that the two could (and should) come together. The problems, however, have been mounting. Much of the mainstream crafting of democracy is in crisis. This is a study of the dynamics of these difficulties. But it is also, and primarily, an essay about the challenges and options for exciting popular efforts to promote more substantial democracy in order to further their attempts to combat problems of development. Part one is a discussion of these fundamental issues. Part two brings the central arguments to empirical test through case studies over a period of some ten years in the different contexts of the Philippines, Indonesia, and Kerala. Part three summarises the results and the policy implications.2 1 Hence, these themes also reflect the difficult but necessary combination of discipline-based political science, interdisciplinary development research, and contextual area studies. 2 This is an empirical study, but in contrast to many of the conventional political studies of problems of development, its point of departure is that a fruitful discussion presupposes three partly normative assumptions—two on what development and one on what kind of politics one should focus upon. The first assumption is that significant antagonisms between different groups and classes in society render it impossible to discern any self-evident common interest in development issues (in relation to which special interests can then be defined). Despite this, there are various ways of promoting development. One can invest, certainly, in the social groups who are already strong. One can count on the likelihood, certainly, that if these people are granted higher profits and a better business climate, some of them will also increase their investments. One could assert, certainly, that this would improve the conditions of the common people in the end. We agree, however, with those who argue that the result, in terms of development, would be at least as good—and of greater benefit to the majority besides—if investments were made, instead, to have the greatest possible dynamic effect on redistribution of resources. This means investing more in the popular majority—whose aspirations and capacity for hard and innovative labour are not fully utilised under prevailing conditions—than in the minority who are already strong. The second assumption (which follows from the first) is that since capitalism in the third world does not just imply industrialisation and ‘modern’ services but also marginalisation and the fact that so many people (especially in Asia and Africa) still live in or depend on rural areas, the politics of developmental redeployment must also include these people. One classical case is 2 Development and Democracy 3 The essay (produced between July 2001 and April 2002) is the first attempt to bring together my analyses produced within a project that since the late 80s has focused on the mainstream crafting of democracy and (especially) the potential of alternative popular efforts. What follows below are brief summaries of major and still tentative conclusions. An unfortunate consequence is that full references have been impossible to include. A book will follow, but meanwhile readers with particular queries are welcome to contact the author ([email protected]).3 Comments are most welcome! 1.2 Poor people, poor democracy? There are four main theories that claim to be universally valid about how democratisation may come about and be promoted in late developing countries. The first thesis, by Lipset (1959) and so many others, is that capitalist market-based socio- economic modernisation also promotes human rights based democratisation. This implies, for instance, that marginalised and ‘informal’ and often rural sectors prevent democratisation. The second thesis is that it is not popular masses—particularly not in rural areas and particularly not when under radical influence—but rather the urban bourgeoisie and associated middle classes, with the support of the West, that tend to oppose state or private authoritarianism, thus promoting the rule of law, liberalism, and democracy. In his Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Barrington Moore the redistribution of land from feudal-like landlords to industrious and independent peasants, in order thereby to increase production, reduce poverty, prepare the way for industrialisation, and create preconditions for democracy. Another example is decentralisation of politics and resources to balance the central powers and build linkages and alliances on an equal basis between rural and urban areas and people—ideally without enabling local bosses to monopolise the resources.

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