Counterdemocracy. Politics in the Age of Mistrust

 
09.02.2014
 
Department of Political Science; Department of Sociology

In contemporary democratic societies we can identify two different spheres of civil activism. The first is expressed when citizens arrive at polls when it comes time to elect the representative branches of government. The second occurs in the creation of various kinds of civic associations and public panels of experts, public debate and criticism, street demonstrations, and the creation of forums and information activism on the Internet, etc. Rosanvallon refers to the first “electively-representative” sphere of activity as the sphere of civil trust. It is here that citizens delegate power to their representatives, and here that democratic state power is legitimized. The second sphere is referred to as the sphere of civil distrust. This sphere, much less institutionalized, is at the same time a necessary element for the normal functioning of democratic systems.

Rosanvallon has named this space the sphere of “counter-democracy.” He is referring to mechanisms of balancing and neutralizing democratic dysfunction associated with the nature of institutions of representation in contemporary societies.

If the sphere of electoral activity and civic trust is the traditional focus of research in political science, then the sphere of “counter-democracy” and distrust has long remained unnoticed by the political mainland. This lecture will be dedicated to an analysis of this sphere and its pathologies, as well as its relevant political practices.

After the lecture, Pierre Rosanvallon presented his book “Utopian Capitalism. The History of the Idea of the Market” in conjunction with the journal “Neprikosnovennyi zapas.”