Shaking Politics, on the new political class

How democracy has given birth to a new political cast?

July 28th, 2016

“The democracy is a bit messy sometimes.” Sen. Bernie Sanders

A new path for democracy

From now on, politics was a matter of parties. The common tacit law that any MP has to follow their leaders was de rigueur. It simplifies everything: one view, one objective, common projects and arguments. The political game was a pitched battle.

But our ‘connected’ democracy system is facing new challenges. Everyone has now access to law makers’ and governments’ most hidden secret files through transparency policies (even if sometimes, this role falls to Wikileaks). This undermines the static and administrative system of parliamentary groups, cabinets and governmental bodies. Two main changes were drawn in the way we consider the democracy to look right. The first one is the integration of the mass to the political scene — through events and organisations from Indignados (Indignates) in Spain to the recent Nuit Debout (Night Standing Up) in France; the second one is the definition of new strategic arguments on the whole political spectrum.

Facing this synergy of people tending to redefine politics, we are attending a birth of a new political class. This class is made up by collaboration but is also restrained by the traditional occidental democracy form for better and worse.

Is the people at the core?

The history of democracy tends to put the people at the core of the decision-making process (aka power) and made it the initiator of laws and justice. It appears to be based on a utopian version of this regime upon which open debates would lead to the realisation of collaborative projects for the public good. However, each ideology who tried to do so — the most known may be communism or the French Revolution — have been a failure (let’s admire the ravages of the Terreur and Staline). Is not democracy ‘a regime of Gods’, to quote Rousseau: idealistic and unachievable?

The 15 de Mayo movement in Spain has not achieved his goal to disrupt the Spanish political architecture and its two-party system. The Nuit Debout spontaneous demonstrations and meetings in France after the November Paris Attacks did not lead to any effective change, even if those events were a bit of posers on the role of politicians in a more democratic democracy, and tend to define a new role in society for non-professional politicians (what we call in French, ‘les administrés’).

But is the mass able to make good choices for societies? Assuming the form of our regimes, we have to construe democracy as the agent for the people to make good choices. Thus, the option of technocracy, which can be seen through the fact that people reproches the EU for its bureaucrats, is questionnable (it is creating an aristocracy). The importance of experts and bureaucrats is essential to clarify situations for the good of the mass: but they should not dictate the law against the civil society.

Hence, to reshuffle the system — I consider this word as a product of demagogy —, or preferably, the constitution, people with goodwill may not have all the opportunities, knowledge and analytical spirit to do so. That is why education is the sole arm to make people aware of how the system works and how it should be reorganized under national (or European) values.

New political figures bear new hopes

If the French tended to prefer eldest politicians who seem the wisest among the politician caste, it is because they considered well-educated men (and a few women) with values able to manage the system. Those days are revealing new politicians, younger, as Mr Macron, who are well-educated and part of the caste, but who in lieu of managing the country want to change its running and values (thanks to a social-democrat model).

In Spain, with different ideological lines, this role falls to Mr Iglesias (lecturer at the Universidad Compultense) and Mr Rivera (alumni of the ESADE). Both studied political sciences and the traditional management of the country. Both had used their critical spirit to promote new constitutional reforms to adapt the regime to the changing society and aspiration of the people. Adaptations are needed but when you change the political organisation of a country a question is left open: can these politicians win the power without compromising the system sentence?

Destroying the effectiveness of politics?

Wining an election without a strong party is something difficult. From Mr Bloomberg, who once again renounced to running for President in spite of his money and influence, to some recurrent candidates in the French presidential election (I am thinking of transparent Mr Cheminade), it is clear that the support of a party is a sine qua non condition to engage voters. Everywhere, parties are a medium to converge ideas and aimed to unite herds of opponants. Today, it is different. For instance, the DNC 2016 Convention has set a mediatic precedent: Sen. Sander’s supporters booed him after he announced his support to Hillary Clinton.

In another way, Mr Macron initiative is quite risky (supposing that he will run). The new political movement he created in April, called En Marche! (Our Own Way) has no clear political project. We should notice that the figure of the young minister is the only thing that carries all the ‘party’ he created: no Macron equals no En Marche!. But this attempt to create a new movement not a real party gives him a great opportunity combining two contradictory attitudes powerful politicians may have in the future. On the one hand, En Marche! gives the opportunity to everyone to speak out loud and to find what s/he wants in Macron’s speeches. On the other hand, Macron is ensuring the creation of a political force (with more than 50,000 registred supporters — or fans?—in just four months) which could help him in any race or alliance in the future.

In Spain, both recent elections in December and June, have shown that leaders which have emerged from the mass (Albert Rivera for Ciudadanos and Pablo Iglesias for Podemos) cannot run the Cortes Generales or form a government without coalitions, or a major party support (PSOE and PP). It then let effectiveness of politics aside for deceptiveness, deceiving the popular jubilation.

In the UK, the effectiveness of the two-party system was dammaged by Mr Corbyn. He has forgotten that the legitimity that led him to power is issued only by his supporters inside the Labour whereas the one given by Labour MPs, through representativeness, is issued by all the Nation. But this opposition between both sources of legitimity enacts the dominant conflict between politicians which seems close to the ‘People’ and policians from Oxbridge. Nonetheless, the experience of administration had allowed part of those Oxbridge politicians to understand well how the machinery of economics and administration work — and they so still win power. They should do so to share it with the People in a reinvented form of democracy. For instance, in France, Mr Macron told the crowd of the first En Marche! meeting that he will gain the power to give it to the doers.

All in all, to have both a wider implication of the people in politics and an efficient political system, we may need to let the professionals of politics with goodwill reshuffle our constitutions: there are bureaucrats in Brussels who proposes to democratize the Union through the allowance of much power to the democratically elected Parliament; there is Mr. Macron who proposes a new way forward for France.

Alexis Chalopin

Student in European Studies (Sciences Po & London School of Economics)

alexis.chalopin(at)sciencespo.fr

© Alexis Chalopin, juillet 2016