This paper should (after many revisions) become a part of a book manuscript entitled Democracy Beyond Elections: Government Accountability in the Media Age. There are actually three mini chapters included here: Democracy: Crisis or Transformation? (p.2) The Crisis of Democracy, Elitism and Diversity (p. 20) The Transformation of Democracy and Connectivity (p.40) I would be most grateful for any advice you can give me about any part that you might have read. Thank you again, Gergana Jeremy Haworth Research Fellow in Political Science University of Cambridge Email: [email protected] 1 Democracy: Crisis or Transformation? Is democracy today in crisis or not? The growing body of literature on the state of democracy testifies to the renewed urgency of that question. In this chapter only, I extrapolate more than 100 references to the most recent manifestations of democracy (see table 1 in the appendix). The majority of these studies are published in the last five years and almost all of them are published after 1997. The advances in conceptual innovation, however, sometimes mask the wealth of new insights into the nature of modern democracy. It is not entirely clear what the major dividing lines between the different conceptions of democracy are and where their commonalities, if any, lie. The conceptual ambiguities exceed the confines of conceptual clarity. Do we live in a “post-democracy” (Crouch 2004) or a “counter-democracy” (Rosanvallon 2008)?; “Audience” (Manin 1997), “spectator” (Lippman 1922) or “ocular” (Green 2011) democracy? Unrepresentative (Lewis 2001) or post-representative democracy Green 2011) democracy?; “Rancierean” (Hazan 2012), “Madisonian” (Bergman & Strom 2013) or “Machiavellian” (McCormick 2011) democracy?; A “shareholder” (Dasgupta 2010) or “stakeholder” y (Macdonald 2012) democracy? “Demoicrcay” (Nicolaïdis 2012), “technocracy” (Stie 2012), “mediocracy” (Tassano 2006) or “juristocracy” (Hirschl 2004)?; Is there a “confidence gap” (Lipset 1987), a “confidence trap” (Runciman 2013) or an “expectations gap” (Flinders &Dommett 2013); Are we living in an “electronic republic” (Grossman 1996), a “digital democracy” (Hindman 2008) or an “e-democrcay” (Della Porta 2013)? Are we witnessing the “great degeneration of democracy” (Ferguson 2012) or the “great transformation of democracy” (Warren 2006)?; Is there a “global resurgence of democracy” (Diamond & Plattner 1996) or “global divergence of democracy” (Diamond & Plattner 2010)? Is democracy in a “terminal decline” (Burn-Murdoch 2012) or in the midst of a “democratic revolution” (Schmitter)? The chapters suggest that there are two interrelated principles for distinguishing the models of the crisis of democracy from those of the transformation of democracy. 1. How elitist is the model and in what way? 2. What is the place of the concept of “diversity” in the model? The first and more obvious principal difference is the elitist character of democracy. Critical accounts of democracy tend to see the present state of democracy as being elitist. Elitism here is defined as being either caused by elites, resolved by elites or maintained by elites. The elites are the key driving force behind those models. The second point of differentiation between conflicting conceptions of democracy- the conception of the diversity of the public will. Both the models of the crisis and the transformation of democracy emphasize the fragmentation of the public. There is one crucial difference, however. The critics of democracy see the fragmentation of the public as the final and deplorable state of democratic development, whereas the transformationists believe that fragmentation is a precondition for the regrouping of public opinion. The newly configured public opinion, according to the transformationists, is more autonomous. 2 Ultimately, these two criteria- elitism and diversity - yield two very different concepts of society and governance: a polycentric and a monocentric model reflecting the conceptions of crisis and a transformation of democracy respectively. Figure 1: Monocentric vs. Polycentric Models of Democracy in Crisis and Transformation Respectively Transformation of Democracy: Crisis of Democracy: Polycentric Model Monocentric Model Elites Elites Public Public These two criteria-elitism and diversity- give rise to three additional questions: first, what is the connection between elitism and diversity; second, what are the causal mechanisms which explain why models of the crisis and transformation of democracy reach such different conclusions, based on the principles of diversity and elitism; and three, what are the implications for choosing diversity as a principle for defining the transformation or crisis of democracy? I briefly address each question below. What are the Main Differences between Contemporary Models of Democracy? This chapter seeks to breathe new life into the most recent insights about the nature of democracy by putting the new concepts in dialogue with each other and by separating them into distinct analytical categories. This is an effort to simultaneously differentiate and integrate the new advances in understanding democracy. I argue that it is possible to reduce the great variety of conceptual innovation into two big but meaningful categories: the sceptics of democracy versus the transformationists, who believe that democracy is transformed, not undermined. Kenneth Newton (2011) distinguishes between a “citizen-centred input theory of democratic malaise” and a “top down output approach to democratic malaise.” I develop this analytical separation further I introduce seven main points of differentiation between models of the crisis of democracy and models of the transformation of democracy. To facilitate the comparison between the models, I use a simple depiction of democracy as the 3 crossover point between public demand for representation and institutional supply of representation. The following criteria differentiate more from less optimistic accounts of present day democracy: 1) emphasis: who drives the model- the elites or the public; 2) approach: is the determining force bottom-up or top-down?; 3) view of the public: is the public homogenous or heterogeneous?; 4) view of the elites: are the elites divided or united; 5) relationship between supply and demand: is there a democratic deficit or democratic surplus?; 6) mechanisms: are the mechanisms that determine the model centripetal or centrifugal; 7) determinants of public demand: are they endogenous or exogenous?; single or multiple? The sceptics believe that democracy is in crisis. The single most common critique of the democracy is that it elitist and oligarchic. According to the sceptics of democracy, a powerful and unified group of political elites dominates over a passive public. The will of the public is dependent and endogenously determined. An endogenous public will is largely created by the elites or by instruments or groups that the elites control, such as (civic) education, the media moguls or by intellectuals. The sceptics’ perception of the public is that it is mostly homogenous. It is not splintered into groups, factions and autonomous centres of power. The crisis of democracy is a top- down phenomenon devised and executed by the elites. Whereas the degrees of totality within the sceptics’ camp vary, the model of the crisis of democracy in its most extreme version propounds that the totality of the elites rules over the totality of public will. The crisis of democracy arises because of a democratic deficit. The transformationists tend to view democracy as being in a state of a progress, reinvention and an opportunity for improvement. It presents a bottom-up conception of democracy, because public will, not elites, are at the centre of activism. Transformationists perceive the public will as created by exogenous factors which are beyond the control of political elites. Part of the reason why the determinants of the public will are exogenous is that they are multiple: globalization, the financial crisis, the rise of the media, technological revolution, the demise of the political parties, the New Public Management and depoliticisation. The result of these multiple exogenous forces is to fragment the public will. Fragmentation, according to the transformationists, creates new opportunities for association, reconfiguration and re- creation of the public will. The public becomes more particularistic but also more autonomous. The multiple and exogenous factors have split up the monolithic elites. There is no immediate and ostensible connection between media moguls, political leaders, globalization firms, educational institutions and intellectuals. While the level and the reasons for diversity vary, the transformationist model can be summarized as portraying diverse elites as being challenged by a diverse public will. The transformation of democracy is activated by a democratic surplus. 4 Figure2: Principle Differences between the Sceptics and the Transformationalists’ View of the Present State of Democracy Criteria Sceptics Transformationists State of democracy Crisis Transformation Emphasis Elites Public Approach Top-down Bottom-up View of the Public Homogenous or Heterogeneous Over- Heterogeneous View of the Elites Homogenous Heterogeneous Relationship between Democratic deficit Democratic Surplus Supply and Demand Mechanisms Centrifugal Centripetal Determinants of public Endogenous: intellectuals, Exogenous: globalization, demand civic education, elites, media, associations, media financial