the cfp, by itself, is worth a read....plus its for a open-access journal.....
-----Original Message-----
The interdisciplinary academic e-journal COLLeGIUM, hosted by the Helsinki
Collegium for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki, is
announcing a call for contributions for a special issue on the theme:
Dictatorship of Failure: The Discourse of Democratic Failure in the Current European Crisis
Description of the General Theme:
The current Portuguese prime minister recently declared that ‘we [i.e. the
Portuguese people] will only get out of this situation [i.e. the current
crisis] by becoming poorer’. That statement sought to justify the
implementation of so-called austerity measures agreed upon with the
International Monetary Fund and the European Commission in order to make
the Portuguese economy more competitive, while allowing for the hope that
one day economic progress would return. That particular way of formulating
an economic program in times of crisis has at least three interesting
aspects. First, there is the rhetorical use of ‘we’, which suggests that
sacrifices are abstractly requested from all individuals as citizens, even
though as tradition has it, and as specifically proposed financial
measures are designed, only part of society is targeted, with a recurrent
emphasis on civil servants, pensioners, and so on. Large corporations,
banks, and generally individuals and entities at higher levels of the
socio-economic ladder seem to largely escape the new austerity measures.
Along the same lines, a second element in that general picture consists
then in demanding, in a rhetorical manner similar to that expected in
times of war, extreme hardship from a few for the sake of the prosperity
of all, and particularly future generations. And thirdly, the statement is
notable for the economic model it offers: national poverty, as opposed to
a more usual focus on job creation or increased purchasing power, is the
way to solve the problems in the long run for debilitated European
economies. That in turn suggests a novel approach to economic ills, on the
model of “creative destruction”, which takes economic misery not only as a
problem but as part of the solution, and which sounds thus at odds with
the traditional political outlook of recounting social and economic
progress that has been achieved and further prosperity that needs to be
promised. In general terms, the statement assumes poverty not to be a
fact, but an acceptable and desirable way of existence of some for the
greater good of the collective. The political outlook behind the economic
plan thus brackets the project of the Welfare State and points to other
conceptions of the role of the State in the economy, as well as different
ideas about the relationship of democracy to political legitimacy in times
of financial hardship.
The bluntness of that political vision finds echoes nowadays in a type of
political rhetoric at work in many European countries facing the current
continent-wide financial and political crisis. We think that it expresses
in a particular way a wider picture of what is going on in Europe at the
moment, when the possibility and the necessity of dictatorship seem to be
pervading in increasingly explicit fashion mainstream political discourse
at various levels of the European governance architecture. The dictatorial
model comes in different guises, and is variously suggested or implied, if
not openly discussed, as a suspension or paralysis of electoral legitimacy
and the democratic process, sometimes imposed by extraneous factors and
sometimes demanded as a voluntary abdication of democratic control, but
always based on technocratic expertise assumed to be beyond popular
deliberation. Democratically elected governments have been quite openly
forced to resign by unelected European officials. Similarly, the
sovereignty of national states is being openly questioned or bypassed by
“financial markets” now omnipresent as a reference for the trustworthiness
of political programs. A notion of democracy’s inability to serve the
demos in the face of economic trouble is prompting people throughout
Europe to become confident enough to start toying with the idea of
bracketing democracy, bypassing it or supplementing it with technocratic
powers of a higher order, in order to restore order in Europe, solving the
financial crisis and possibly returning then to democracy. All of it is,
however, openly pronounced to be for the general welfare and future of the
“people”, a generally undefined “we” of a national or transnational
nature.
The normalization of that type of discourse in Europe is sufficiently
worrisome from a historical perspective. But what does this say more
generally about Europe as a political project, about democracy as a form
of government and about democracy as it is practiced in western European
countries? Why, and on what grounds, have people become openly skeptical
of how modern parliamentary democracies work, regardless of party lines?
Is it because political parties seem to be unable to find middle paths
between their practical or ideological commitments? Is it on the contrary
because party politics has lost much of its appeal in becoming precisely
devoid of contrasting ideological visions and programmatic innovations,
while the democratic process is focused on short-term electoral schedules,
political scandals, and media sensationalism? On the one hand, it seems
that many citizens of democratic states doubt the ability of their
political representatives to find ways to solve serious crises in a
plurality of voices, and respond to the seductive appeal of reverting
instead to one voice above and beyond the polyphony of democracy. On the
other hand, in a time when individuals are becoming more politically aware
and involved, the technocratic elements of supranational organizations,
backed by the general sense of economic emergency, are promoting
restrictions on access to democratic government in the full sense. The
tendency, especially within “debtor countries”, to replace party politics
with a general recourse to supposedly neutral economic expertise seems to
be a sign of the same phenomenon.
The suspension of any normal democratic process, and the subtle
questioning of democracy’s “efficiency” as a managerial model, seems to be
a danger in itself, as the temptation of suspending liberal rights in
order to keep freedom has showed in recent and less recent times. The
immediate backdrop to the current wave of democracy fatigue, as
represented by the pervasive war-time rhetoric of national sacrifice while
others decide and others prosper, is provided by the now normalized
question as to whether we should temporarily soften the prohibition of
torture in order to keep our democracies and liberal freedoms safe. The
expanded version of that same logic comes today in the form of whether
democratic legitimacy should not yield to a higher form of legitimacy,
which justifies imposing selective sacrifices in the name of an abstract
good and an abstract people, described in a discourse beyond political
contestation, but also imbued with a form of populist nationalism that
seeks allegiance across ideological fault lines. Symptomatic of that
situation is the fact that to an increasingly shameless undemocratic
discourse corresponds also a wave of extra-parliamentary political
opposition and civil unrest presenting itself, among other things, as
following in the steps of protests that have now been challenging and
weakening dictatorships in the Arab world. In other words, an open
dictatorial ethos of national and supranational governance meets the
perception of democracy as already perverted by forces that stand in the
way of social and economic progress, thus converging in a dire picture of
the current faith in parliamentary democracy. Among the most worrisome
signs of an assumed decline or failure of democracy is the posture of
pride and satisfaction of both political leaders and “financial markets”
when governments are revamped to explicitly exclude “politicians” and
replace them with “experts”. In other words, the crisis opens up the
possibility not only to suspend democracy but, in the minds of some,
including politicians, to bracket politics and the political themselves as
essentially superfluous, or even noxious, elements of social life.
These are trying days for Europe and for the world, and what makes them so
is that we seem to have allowed for the thought of a destruction, or
temporary suspension, of the democratic ideal to enter the political
discourse as a normal fact, in the same way as we seem to have accepted
that our proudly proclaimed western model of life – more individual
rights, family rights, social protection – can be, and should be, junked
in order to be able to keep up with models of society that are more
competitive because they do not spend resources with such kind of values.
It is of course problematic to emphasize a Eurocentric model of society in
the abstract, but the issue lies precisely in the adoption of a political
rhetoric by mainstream political actors that questions the adoption of
such a “model” not on the basis of its desirability but rather its
feasibility. Ideas of respect for the individual, gender equality, non
discrimination along arbitrary lines, right of free expression and free
movement, right to education, personal advancement, social and labor
rights are now increasingly presented as a burden, especially if people
take that model literally to mean a project for each and every member of
the polity. The main questions posed in this context are therefore: in the
name of what is this destruction being proposed, what makes it worth it,
who is the imagined beneficiary of admitting the defeat of democracy, and
what is imagined to be outside of the democratic ideal? Extraordinary
times require extraordinary measures, but despite the proliferation of the
discourse of sacrifice (give up your rights, give up your pensions, give
up your hopes), it remains unclear what the goal is that “we”, beyond
socio-economic differences and political opinions, are asked to pursue on
the other side of controlled inflation and balanced budgets, with those
sacrifices and even a clear awareness of what we are willing to pay. The
suspension of democracy, and especially the hope in democracy, seems to
have exceeded in this rhetoric the bounds of a “state of emergency”, in
that the collective goal of selective sacrifice, the preservation of a
model of society, is precisely being put in question by a pervasive
erosion of faith in its worth as a dispensable tool for the economic
welfare of an undefined “we”. We thought these questions should be asked
and we thought we should ask them now.
Call for contributions
The editors of the special issue are seeking contributions from all
disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives around the general theme
described above. We are looking in gathering perspectives from and on
different countries in Europe, as well as different institutions involved
in the handling of the economic crisis. The overall objective is to
present a varied and critical picture of the situation concerning the
relationship between the economic crisis and the crisis of democratic
legitimacy on the continent. Interested contributors are asked to submit a
300 to 500-word abstract to [log in to unmask] and
[log in to unmask] by February 15, 2012. Selected articles
will be expected to be submitted by August 1, 2012, to be peer reviewed.
The special issue of COLLeGIUM is expected to be published by November
2012.
COLLeGIUM is a scholarly, open-access series of interdisciplinary
publications by the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, a research
institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences at the
University of Helsinki. The series consists of electronic volumes written
or edited by the Fellows of the Collegium. All studies published in the
series are internationally refereed. The first volume appeared in June
2006 and nine more volumes have been published to date. More information
can be found on the website of COLLeGIUM at:
http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium/e-series/
More information on the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies can be
found on the website of the Collegium at: http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium
José Filipe Silva
Alejandro Lorite Escorihuela
Guest editors
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