INTERVIEW | Mariano Torcal: “Nations have lost the capacity to respond to democratic problems”
Only a few parts of the world have not experienced any kind of stability crisis or significant protests throughout the year. Hong Kong, Chile, Catalonia, Bolivia, Baghdad or UK are some of the places in the world that have fulfilled the news headlines only in the last two weeks because of their claims against their political situation. The general dissatisfaction of citizens with the institutions that govern them has led to a general questioning of the current political scene. But… when did we go wrong?
Mariano Torcal, researcher and Professor of Political Science at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, believes that the main reason why political news appear to be interesting now is what he calls “political disaffection”.
“Political disaffection is a perception or feeling of the citizens towards their political system. It is mainly characterised by a lack of confidence in the institutions and representative bodies. This disaffection also manifests itself in the disengagement and frustration of the people, stemming from the inability to understand what goes on in politics”.
The protests staged around the globe seem to have a common factor: the citizens are now aware and informed about their political rights, which generates a feeling of dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of the system they live in. The social demands of the collectives are expressed in two different ways: through the exercise of the protest vote or social mobilization. The main problem that this type of demands face is the government’s inaction in seeking answers. “There is a general problem which has to do with the fact that the nations have lost the capacity to respond to democratic problems”, says Torcal, “against these protest mechanisms, the systems are not reacting. What this passivity does is to further feed the protests”.
Thus, when citizen uprisings arise, governments don’t know how to manage it, making the social crisis persist and worsen. It’s an endless cycle. This context of negativity and inefficiency is the main driving force behind political disaffection. The effect it causes is usually shown in citizens who have been excluded from the educational system and in the oldest and youngest sectors of society. However, “for these young people, political disaffection is not manifested by a generational motive, but rather is linked to their life cycle. A person who at the age of 16 has no interest in politics for whatever reason, can develop that interest in politics when he reaches the age of 25”.
All this climate of political instability seems to point the need to renegotiate the relationship between the citizens and their leaders. Perhaps one of the ways of calming social tensions could be through more active involvement of society on political life. However, as Mariano Torcal puts it, this is still difficult to achieve. Polarization, excess of information or fake news are just some of the main problems presented by social networks in political terms. “It is complicated. Local and more decentralized mechanisms of participation, such as social media, are not bearing the expected results. The appearance of the Internet made us think that this interaction was going to be more positive and it’s not going as it was expected”.
“What is the solution? Not so much thinking about reinventing democracy, but that democratic systems have sensitivity and find mechanisms to compensate the sectors of the citizenry that are more affected by globalisation and that need support”.
