Lately, the concern jumps out at me, when thinking about whether what we are experiencing is a new transition, it doesn't hurt to think about the possibilities of developing a new paradigm for politics, "post-democracy."
There are three posts that have a lot to do with this: the first post is post socialism. We are in a post-socialism era, where socialism has ceased to be a mass collective revolutionary reference for the three great competitors that have been behind it: anarchism, social democracy and communism.
The second post, where Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have studied well, is post politics. Post-politics underlines the need to abandon old ideological divisions and resolve new problems with the help of experts and by deliberating freely. Post-politics either reduces the scope of conflicts to a mere negotiation of interests, or pushes them to their extreme consequences.
And finally, the third post, the serious, the profound, the systematic, post democracy, we are building post-democratic political systems, where the self-government of the people, by the people and for the people no longer works as such, they are limited, oligarchic sovereignties that are increasingly firm and anchored with power.
What is observed with concern from civil society organizations are the repeated symptoms of what some authors have called post-democracy, and the passivity with which the parties observe this process, which seems comfortable and adjustable to an elitist political modality.
In this that we call post-democracy, the formal elements of democracy survive, however there is an erosion of the maximum concept of democracy, in the midst of a social context of discredit, saturation, and political disaffection.
An indicator that catches my attention when we talk about discredit, saturation and political disaffection is; "subjective political efficacy". This indicator explains the individual's perception of their own capabilities to understand politics and influence it.
This indicator reflects that subjective political efficacy is scarce and that less than 50% of citizens consider themselves politically competent.
Post-democracy is associated with a devaluation of democracy, the lack of quality of public debates, and the mediatization of politics. Some analysts have spoken of post-democratic politics as the business of persuasion.
Perhaps post-politics, post-democracy, is given by the irruption of the media that have undermined the system, going, as Gabriel Colomer rightly says, from being the political-educator, to the political-seducer. Which in my opinion is the "politician 3.0".
There is also no independent journalism in post-democracy and the private ownership of the media tends to make them lose credibility. Both the written press, as well as radio and television, denote clear ideological biases. We read, listen to and watch those news media that we know what they will tell us a priori.
Post-democracy is also defined by the fact that political parties and the government do not value establishing modalities to communicate with citizens, in terms of a social distribution of power. If we take a look at Switzerland, where they have measures such as the popular initiative, by which if citizens get 100,000 signatures in a period of 18 months, they can propose a reform project to the Government, if it rejects it, a referendum takes place, so that if the majority of citizens support the project, the rulers are obliged to apply it.
There is a certain fear of creating institutions that regulate the right to citizen participation, of generating resources for participation, of creating spaces for public deliberation, of establishing mechanisms for citizen control of public policies, of accountability and of popular initiative of law. Politics is of the people, and for the people. Let's believe again.
There is a driving force more powerful than steam, electricity and atomic energy: will. (Albert Einstein)
David Toledo Niz, student of Political Science and Administration
