|
December 17, 2004
Parliamentary sovereignty means executive dominance after June 30 2005.
If deliberative democracy is to flourish in the new political situation of executive dominance and parliamentary sovereignty, then we citizens require more than the standard constitutional checks and balances. As Margo Kingston points out, we are lose a lot when the control of the Senate passes to the Conservatives after June 2005.
Important issues for deliberative democracy are at stake here. As Ali Rizvi says in his post, 'Towards Theorising Postmodern Activism,' at Foucauldian Reflections:
"One of the main functions of capitalist governance is to normalise the ideas, to neutralise them, take the sting out of them etc. through placing them within the discourse, and then constantly multiplying the discourse rather than repress them through inhibiting the discourse. Repression is not a chosen strategy because it is not effective in the long run among other things." (See papers, work in progress, notes etc. if link does not work).
To counter this we citizens will need a variety of spaces for us to express our views and to engage in political debate on public issues. A lot of work will be required from liberals and radicals to contest the spin and normalizing of what Margo calls an alliance of Big Government, Big Media and Big Industry.
These spaces for genuine political deliberation in a liberal polity by citizens have been few and far between in the past, as indicated by this passage from Tom Fitzgerald's last Nation editorial, when he passed the baton to Nation Review in July 1972:
"The liberal and radical strains in Australian intellectual life, though substantial in number, are always struggling to have a vehicle of communication… whatever the reasons for the difficulties they are persistent and liberals and radicals, without sinking their differences, must love one another or die as an articulate force in this country."
Nation Review eventually expired, sometime in the late 1970s I think.
This lack of public space to engage in political debate means that our oppositional discourses (ie., the shared means we have of making sense of the world embedded in language) become impoverished. Often the assumptions, judgements, contentions, and dispositions lie unquestioned by others, and we become dogmatic and closed in our thinking. We cannot afford to allow that to happen over the next six years.
We need to create new spaces.
Margo Kingston's recent book, Not Happy, John! indicates that she is alive to this, and has been thinking about it off and on for a while. (See my previous posts here and here. ) She argues that the Liberal Party under John Howard has become a party of social conservatism and market fundamentalism, and more closely aligned with the conservative English Tories and American Republicans, than any genuine (social?) liberal party.
Margo explicitly addresses the renewal democracy in her last chapter of Not Happy, John! Entitled, 'Democrazy: Ten Ideas for Change', it starts from this quote by 'Gara LaMarche at the Open Society Institute’ in the US. He says that progressives:
"...have been in the posture of criticism for so long, have had to spend so much time fending off attacks on hard won gains, and on values and institutions we hold dear, that we have virtually lost the capacity for critical imagination. We can't see the forest we would like to dwell in because we are trying to protect tree after tree from the buzz saw."
I've suggested that 'the forest we would like to dwell in' is best described as deliberative democracy. Maybe, just maybe, it is liberalism that depletes our democratic political imagination?
I would argue that constitutional liberalism is thin on creating the diverse spaces that would enable debate and dialogue, as the institutions of the state have been their main focus of political deliberation. They focus on the House of Representatives, the Senate, the judiciary etc. Thus Carmen Lawrence's focus is on strengthing the parliamentary institutions so as to empower parliament against the dominant executive. Lawrence suggests:
"* establishing joint Estimates and Legislation Committees with power to question public servants and Ministers from either House, take submissions and commission independent research;
* giving Parliamentary Committees the power to put up legislation arising from their inquiries - especially if the government has refused to respond to its recommendations;
* allowing private bills with the backing of a set percentage of voters to be brought on for debate by a sponsoring MP;
* commissioning citizens' juries or deliberative polls on contentious and complex policy matters – getting together cross-sections of ‘ordinary Australia’ to hear the arguments and discuss the merits of issues as wide-ranging as water conservation and free trade agreements;
* inviting expert and community representatives to address the chamber in session and engage in debate with members; and
* strengthening freedom of information legislation."
Good ideas. But that kind of reform of Parliament is out of the question for many a long year. Remember the radical centre has been wipped out. The Greens? Not until they obtain the balance of power in the Senate. That is up to a decade away.
Carmen's proposals suggest a benign inclusion into the institutions of the state. The ACF is an example of this inclusion through its linkages to the ALP. As conservatives traditionally act to repel destablizing threats to the established order, so they will be wary of political inclusion. We need to look elsewhere. To active citizenship.
So what do Margo and her social liberal colleagues suggest on how to address the above problem? Do they shift beyond the institutions of the state to civil society? Do they start developing the idea of an oppositional civil society?
The suggestion in this post suggests a new website where journalists and Australian citizens can trust each other and work together. This is what Antony Lowenstein calls internet activism, which is idea 8 in 'Democrazy: Ten Ideas for Change'. Presumably, this is going to something along the lines of the US sites that Antony mentions, such as MoveOn.Org, and Prwatch.org and Adbusters.org
It is at this point that we need to introduce some theory by returning to Ali Rizvi's work on Foucault's understanding of the double character of freedom. Ali says:
"The apparent paradox of capitalism is that in order to increase the utility and productive capacity of individuals and populations it requires to keep expanding the ambit of freedom and diversity, but in order to make individuals and populations docile and hence governable and manageable, it needs to limit this diversity by setting limits so that it remains manageable. ....
....Capitalism resolves the dilemma through realising the double role freedom can play. Freedom is central for the functioning of a capitalist system not only as the precondition for enhancing utility and diversity, but for its double role as the precondition of enhancing diversity and imposing singularity on multiplicity."
It is here that Foucault makes an important point. On Ali's interpretation:
"Foucault’s claim is that in capitalism the governance of diversity is maintained through freedom itself and not (primarily) through repression. Capitalism’s interests are not fulfilled by curbing and limitations per se. ... Foucault defines "government’ as the structure (ing) of the possible field of action of others" ,....The Capitalist logic is based on a realisation that freedom is the essential element of ‘government’ (management) in the sense that capitalism recognises the ‘double’ character of freedom. To desire freedom is not only to expand the arena of choice (diversity) but it is also to make oneself governable (manageable)."
The net activism being created by Margo is situated itself within the double character of freedom and government rationality.
|
