Democratisation with Information and Communication - Essay Example

?Topic: Democratisation, Information and Communication Fredric Jameson (1991) famously defined post-modernism as “the cultural logic of late capitalism,” and following structuralist critiques of the architectures of power within the knowledge systems of modernism as reflected in State practice, such as those developed by Foucault, both democratisation and liberalism can be seen as fundamental characteristics of modernism itself. In the context of global history and the economic development of cultures, it is politically popular in Western political discussion to advocate the position that democratisation is an essential characteristic of modernism, and as such, a paradigmatic and necessary step that societies must take as they emerge from feudalism into modern patterns of behavior collectively. Considering key aspects of the modern to be scientific objectivity, technological development advancing from agricultural communities to complex economies, centralization, industrialization, mass-production, and so forth, democratisation is both conceptually and historically aligned with all of these aspects of modernism. This is important, for the democratisation movement can be dated to the late 18th century with the American and French Revolutions implementing the Enlightenment ideals of philosophers such as John Locke, Adam Smith, Rousseau, and others who built on the cultural heritage of the Renaissance period in Europe. Just as the Renaissance era symbolized a rebirth of the Classical aspects of Greek and Roman culture, particularly philosophy, poetry, art, and mythology after a millennium of “Dark Ages” in Europe, so too Modernism took the best of these developments and made them the foundation for modern secular democratic culture. Yet, historians note an interesting anomaly when it comes to the discussion of democracy historically and its roots in ancient Greek philosophy as politics. As F.A. Hayek writes in "The Constitution of Liberty," - Chapter 11: "The Rule of Law," "Individual liberty in modern times can hardly be traced back farther than the England of the seventeenth century... And for over two hundred years the preservation and perfection of individual liberty became the guiding ideal in that country, and its institutions and traditions became the model for the civilized world." (Hayek, 1960) Hayek makes an important distinction between Greek democracy as idealized by the Enlightenment philosophers and how it evolved conceptually as a practice of government and means of organizing society. He states, ironically, Greek democracy disappeared from the time of its idealized roots in Athens to the time of the American and French revolutions – that it was not used, referenced, or put into practice at all as a basis of government until the fundamental revolutionary change that ushered in the modern era. Thus, it is valid to view democratisation and modernism as both arising out of the ideals of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. On this basis, the capitalists will additionally claim that the free market system is essential and interrelated with this process of democratisation, and that the democracy/free-market system represents a natural stage of development for societies that are evolving out of feudal structures to become modern States. Hayek positions England rather than America or France as the source of “individual liberty in modern times,” relating it to the struggle to institute democratic government in opposition to monarchy and royalty. However, it is extremely important critically that Hayek separates the processes and ideology of “liberalism” from that of democratisation. In simplest terms, liberalism is the ideology of freedom or liberty that seeks the most minimal restraint on self-determination and autonomy of the individual, including the mental, spiritual, and physical aspects of self-development and self-realization. This is differentiated from the “democratic,” which relates more formally to the system of government. This duality is evident in constitutional law, where the formal relations between the branches of a broadly popular government are enshrined in a charter document, but where the “rights of man” associated with liberties and freedom are appended to a separate document. The distinction between liberalism and democracy is critical for Hayek, Habermas, and other political philosophers, because both ideologies can exist independent of each other. For example, Hayek models anarchy as the absolute ideal of liberalism, which is moderated to libertarianism through social contracts between the governed and the State. It is important to note that in this context “democracy” and “democratic” do not actually mean what they are stated to describe, as in the classical Greek practice of democracy, but rather a broadly democratic system which includes elections and is more technically a form of republicanism managed through representatives. "According to the 'liberal' or Lockean view, the democratic process accomplishes the task of programming the government in the interest of society, where the government is represented as an apparatus of public administration, and society as a market-structured network of interactions among private persons." (Habermas, 2006) This duality, between pure democratic ideals and rough, historical practice of the evolution of liberal democracies through war, disease, famine, and other challenges will become an ever greater issue as democracies evolve and age. Philosophers such as Hayek and Habermas join the capitalist and free-market benefits of industrialization as inherent aspects of both modernism and democratisation, though it is never entirely clear why this should be so inherently; (i.e. why communist, socialist, anarchist, theocratic, or monarchist systems of government could never attain liberal states of freedom and economic progress or prosperity equal to the democratic free-market is not provable). It is important to remember that capitalism, democracy, and science were allies that joined together in a power struggle against feudal forces such as religion, the church, royalty, and their entrenched interests for political and ideological control of the society. In practical historical terms, the ideological battle between the feudalist power structures by the modernist advocates was undertaken through education and the publication of literature as a means to build solidarity, understanding, and mass-movements that are fundamental to modernist identities but quite foreign to the isolated, local communities in the medieval era. Hayek and Habermas display a Hobbesian type of disdain for the feudal and medieval, but it is highly influenced by Nietzsche and generally advocated behind the mask of Locke, who becomes also the forefather of modern liberalism in this tradition. Samuel P. Huntington writes in “The third wave: democratization in the late twentieth century,” "The concept of democracy as a form of government goes back to the Greek philosophers. Its modern usage, however, dates from the revolutionary upheavals in Western society at the end of the eighteenth century. In the mid-twentieth century three general approaches emerged in debates over the meaning of democracy. As a form of government, democracy has been defined in terms of sources of authority for government, purposes served by government, and procedures for constituting government." (Huntington, 1991) The technical differences between republicanism as implemented practically by the liberal democracies and the general “democratic spirit” that is generally symbolized by elections can be seen in Huntington’s definition also. Even the republican system of representatives is technically based on a social contract between the people who are governed and elect them. Hayek makes another important distinction about the process of democratisation, which regards the importance of the constitution in establishing democratic systems of government. Hayek and Habermas contend that there do not exist liberal democracies without a formal system of constitutional law anywhere in the world. "In short, there are legal systems without a rule of law, and a rule of law may exist without democratic forms of political will-formation. Both come together only within the frame of constitutional states." (Habermas, 2008) The constitutional documentation serves as a protection of popular sovereignty and also a charter where liberal rights can be established in association with the democratic basis of the electoral system of governance. Thus, in establishing elections as the primary important characteristic of democratic systems of government, the importance of free and open social communication is made evident by the need of the citizenry to openly discuss the issues that relate to their own well being. David Potter shows the extent that this process has taken historically in his essay, “Democratization,” where he writes: "Democratization has been a major global phenomenon during the twentieth century. It has spread with particular vigour since the 1970s. In 1975 at least 68 per cent of countries throughout the world were authoritarian; by the end of 1995 only about 26 per cent were authoritarian, all the rest having held some political and civil right. This rapid political transformation began in Southern Europe in the mid 1970s, spread to Latin America and parts of Asia in the 1980s, and then moved on to parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s." (Potter, 1997) Jurgen Habermas (1994) writes of “Three Normative Models of Democracy” in describing the process of democratisation as it proceeds historically. These are: Assembly Democracy – This is the ideal of the Greek system of Athens where all the adult citizens in the community would gather in a location like the amphitheater to discuss the pertinent social and cultural issues that required attention by civil society. This is considered a pure form of democracy where each citizen would reasonably debate and vote on each issue that arose in the assembly. Representative Democracy – This is the Republican system of electing representatives from the community to do the active tasks of debating the issues, voting, and creating legislation and generally only involves an annual participation of the public. Monitory Democracy – This is modeled after contemporary society where the citizens are a type of guardian of natural rights and liberties from abuse by power and the State, and is represented in the human rights and activist groups which keep the public informed of important developments in politics around the world. News media can also be seen as an integral aspect of monitory democracy, with the free press as a fourth branch of government. (Habermas, 1994) Following this division, Jurgen Habermas defines civil society as “a sphere of interaction between economy and state, composed above all of the intimate sphere (especially the family), the sphere of associations (especially voluntary organisations), social movements, and forms of public communication.” (Cohen and Arato, 1992, p. ix in Fleming, 1997) A good example of monitory democracy is the work of Freedom House, which has kept independent statistics on the democratic process as it is implemented in nations across the world for the last 40 years. “Freedom in the World, Freedom House’s flagship publication, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. Published annually since 1972, the survey ratings and narrative reports on 193 countries and 15 related and disputed territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World data and reports are available in their entirety on the Freedom House website.” (Freedom House, 2011) Benjamin R. Barber creates a different interpretive model for the process of democratisation proceeding with modernism in his essay, “Which Technology and Which Democracy?,” where he distinguishes three types of democracy, "thin" or representative democracy, plebiscitary democracy, and strong democracy. (Barber, 2003) To each, technology serves as a very different instrument. "In the case of ‘thin’ democracy, representative institutions dominate and citizens are relatively passive. They are at best what Michael Schudson yesterday called ‘monitors.’ They choose representatives, but leave those representatives, who remain accountable to the voters in the abstract, to do most of the real governing. This is not so much self-government as (in Jefferson's term) elective aristocracy... Under thin democracy, experts and elites to do the actual work of government, while citizens remain watchdogs and monitors, primarily engaged in private lives and private affairs.” “A second version of democracy can be understood as primarily ‘plebiscitary.’ This form of democracy is associated with mass culture and is sometimes even labelled ‘totalitarian," since it is a form of democracy that eschews significant deliberation and debate and throws important decisions at an otherwise passive and propagandized public, who rubberstamp Party choices by shouting out their prejudices...” “A third version of democracy can be understood (in the terms of my earlier book) as ‘strong’ democracy --democracy that, while not necessarily always direct, incorporates strong participatory and deliberative elements. This is my preferred normative alternative, where citizens are engaged at the local and national levels in a variety of political activities and regard discourse, debate and deliberation as essential conditions for reaching common ground and arbitrating differences between people in a large multi-cultural society. In strong democracy, citizens actually participate in governing themselves, if not in all matters, all of the time, at least in some matters at least some of the time." (Barber, 2003) The relation of modernism to the process of democratisation allows for the same historical processes to be seen in many fields and disciplines simultaneously as a collective or cultural evolution, yet it is also clear how the open standards of liberal democracy, such as the emphasis on the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to assembly, and other human/civil rights can lead to a greater standard of progress or development than other systems because of the synergetic aspects of the free exchange of information and communication. This can be seen increasingly as both capitalism and democracy develop and age in a culture. For example, many states in Africa, Asia, South America and other developing nations emerged from feudal structures of society to modernism in the same manner as the developed nations, or as Hayek and Habermas state, in association with free-market capitalism and the progress it brings interrelated to liberal democracy. The current Arab revolutions are yet another stage of the process of democratisation globally, yet the social and economic conditions as represented in GDP, per capita incomes, and the distribution of wealth in society suggest that the economic middle class is only just developing and the countries are really only now entering fully into the stage of modernism collectively. At the same time, the developed economies in a stage of late capitalism may be seen or interpreted as entering into a stage of post-modernism. As this era is yet uncharted and very new, it can be seen in examples to go beyond democracy or to continue the reform process of the Western democratic systems to become more open, more ideal, more inclusive, and more egalitarian in the way that minority interests are represented. John Dunn writes in his essay, “Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy”: “What we mean by democracy is not that we govern ourselves . . . It is that our own state, and the government which does so much to organize our lives, draws its legitimacy from us, and that we have a reasonable chance of being able to compel each of them to continue to do so. They draw it today from holding regular elections, in which every adult citizen can vote freely and without fear, in which their votes have at least a reasonably equal weight, and in which any uncriminalized political opinion can compete freely for them [pp.19–20].” This as a basic standard for modern democracies, free and fair elections of representatives to assemblies to make legislation in the interest of the electorate, is considered the fundamental characteristic of “democracy” as it is conceived popularly in civil society internationally today. Some fascist and authoritarian regimes still use the symbols of elections to claim a democratic system of government, but this is publicized by human rights groups and international aid type agencies as a characteristic of monitor democracy, exposing the regimes at least externally to the world as being undemocratic. That others or outsiders can judge democratic standards within a sovereign is a unique feature of modern activism and historically rather new in relation to advances in global communications technologies that facilitate this type of communication and analysis. Thus, it can be argued, that the contemporary mass-media environment, of commercial television, large corporate interests dominating fundraising, and the minority interests of wealthy sectors buying legislation through representatives as a matter of general functioning represents the modern, monitor style of “democracy” with the citizen in need of being informed constantly to preserve the individual rights from being violated. That even the most liberal of modern democratic regimes may act undemocratically, be controlled by minority interests, violate human rights, lie, engage in rampant militarism without the public consent, loot the public wealth through waste and taxation, imprison the population or restrict freedom unjustly is taken as a matter of fact and daily occurrence. Yet, for Habermas, Hayek, and others this does not change the fact that those who suffer still accept and appeal to liberal democratic ideals and structures for petition and redress. This is a basic negotiation of the social contract between the government and the people which must be periodically refreshed in the view of the American founding fathers. As Guillermo A. O'Donnell writes in, “The Perpetual Crises of Democracy”: “Democracy is and always will be in some kind of crisis, for it is constantly redirecting its citizens' gaze from a more or less unsatisfactory present toward a future of still unfulfilled possibilities. There is in these crises something that belongs to what is best and most distinctive about democracy. For the crises underline democracy's intrinsic mix of hope and dissatisfaction, its highlighting of a lack that will never be filled. The capacity for hope is the great capacity of democracy, one which under the right circumstances can and should nourish other, more specific capacities that may promote improvements in democratic quality.” Similarly, in “A passion for democracy: American essays,” Benjamin R. Barber discusses the role that public consent has in the process of democratisation as the very foundation or basis for the social contract. He, too, relates the development of both capitalism and democracy within a society as subject to stages of growth and development that may be quite different in character. Yet, what binds each stage is the inherent state of consent between the democratic government and the populace, and where that consent wanes or evaporates, there will inevitably be deterioration in the civil society. This is the pragmatic aspect of democratic liberalism as it combines with free-market capitalism, in that it provides the people with the means to exchange information freely that can build resistance and activism to unjust or unwarranted policies that are implemented by minority interests in control of the State. The modern developments in information technology create a state of development unparalleled in history. "Consent plays a central role in all liberal theory, but it is differently construed in Hobbes, in Locke, in Nozick, and in Rawls. As consent changes the forms it takes, liberal democracy changes its colors. Yet in every form it permits liberal ideas to take precedence over democratic ideas. Moving from the weakest to the strongest, three primary forms of consent can be discerned: we may understand them as original consent, periodic consent, and perpetual consent." (Barber, 2000) In “Why Conversation is not the Soul of Democracy,” Schudson cites Habermas, Rorty, and other prominent political philosophers as situating ‘conversation’ with a primal role in liberal forms of government, while suggesting that in many cases it may also serve as a detriment or hindrance to democracy’s actual goals. (Schudson, 1993) This conversation is the public discourse of the press, the radio, television, and internet and highlights how the media has been used historically to build political identities through communication of ideas. Without this exchange of information, there would be no liberal democratic system of government, for functionally they are equivalent, or different sides of the same whole. Michael Schudson writes in "The Sociology of News" that "news, then, like bread or sausage, is something people make," emphasizing the constructed nature of social reality as a critical characteristic of the post-modern development of culture related to information technology and idea exchange. (Schudson, 2003) By nature, this is a subjective process and one highly charged with ideology, but Schudson is correct in stating this is also the place where much of the manipulative aspects of modern democracy occur, and it may be additionally something there are no established historical checks and balances to reference relating to the social contract. Nevertheless, the new social technologies of the internet have been influential in the Arab revolutions of 2011, allowing people to organize into a mass-movement that crossed borders with rapid speed. It is easy to see the reflections of the French and American revolutions in the uprisings that occurred in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Lybia, Yemen, and other countries across the region, and this is the best example that the process of democratisation is proceeding alongside with modernism in the region. As Bruce Allen Bimber writes in “Information and American democracy: technology in the evolution of political”: "Over the space of about five years, we have witnessed the adoption of new means of communication and management of information by virtually every political organization in the country... The pace of these changes has precipitated much speculation about political change and transformation, from visions of direct democracy and erosion of processes of representation and institutional deliberation because of new technology to enhancement or degradation of the 'public sphere' and the state of citizen's civic engagement. Such speculations resonate strongly in a period when democracy in America is enervated by many problems: low voter turnout, the distortions of money and campaign finance arrangements, low public trust, a political culture dominated by marketing and polling, and the profound influences of one particular technology, television." (Bimber, 2003) Following the McLuhan theory of media, as new forms of human communication arise technologically, there will be a subsequent transformation of society and re-patterning of traditional behavior around the new media. Thus, with social media such as Facebook or Twitter, these websites can be viewed as tools, just as a printing press or pen and paper, which facilitate human communication and integrate with the global telecommunication system. Just as Hayek and Habermas posited this union of economic and social freedom as critical characteristics of the process of democratisation, McLuhan predicted that the new media would incorporate and transform old systems into new forms. This is the chance that the technology can giove to post-modern critics of the inequalities and injustices within the developed democratic government systems in the West, a political problem very different than that of the Arab revolutions, but these two types of activism share the shame ideological goal. As Lincoln Dahlberg writes in “Democracy via Cyberspace - Mapping the Rhetorics and Practices of Three Prominent Camps”: "Electronic democracy rhetoric has proliferated with the growth of the internet as a popular communications medium. This rhetoric is largely dominated by liberal individualist assumptions. Communitarianism has provided a resource for an alternative vision of electronic democracy. A third model, deliberative democracy, has recently been employed by electronic democrats who want to move beyond the individualism/communitarianism opposition." (Dahlberg, 2001) Just as modernism enabled the process of democratisation through the processes of education, scientific progress, technology, industrialization, centralization, etc. that led to the growth of educated middle classes with high standards of living, so too do the new aspects of information technology and post-modernism provide the opportunity for new forms of democratic governance to emerge in the logic of late capitalism as a type of reform which renews and refreshes the system to regain its fundamental ideals where they were lost. Thus, the process of democratisation can be seen to develop in accordance with the principles of liberalism and free-market capitalism within a society, and these in turn promote a larger economic and social development that is produced in education and the exchange of ideas within a culture. Lincoln Dahlberg explains this in “Extending the public sphere through cyberspace: The case of Minnesota E-Democracy,” writing: "Over the last decade a lot has been said about the possibilities of the Internet enhancing the public sphere. The two-way, decentralized communications within cyberspace are seen as offering the basis by which to facilitate rational-critical discourse and hence develop public opinion that can hold state power accountable. However, this potential has largely gone unrealized. Instead, cyber-interaction is dominated by commercial activity, private conversation, and individualized forms of politics." (Dahlberg, 2001) The hope is that through these advances in information technology, the next stage of democratic reform can be introduced into post-modern Western liberal democracies to achieve the ideal of Habermas and others of “'discursive democracy' - as founded on the ideal of 'a self-organizing community of free and equal citizens,' co-ordinating their collective affairs through their common reason.” (Cohen, 1999) Sources Cited: Barber, Benjamin R. 2000, A passion for democracy: American essays, Princeton University Press, 2000, viewed 7 April 2011, . Barber, Benjamin R. 2003, Which Technology and Which Democracy?, MIT Communications Forum, 2003, viewed 7 April 2011, . Bimber, Bruce Allen 2003, Information and American democracy: technology in the evolution of political power, Cambridge University Press, 2003, viewed 7 April 2011, . Cohen, Joshua 1999, Reflections on Habermas on Democracy. Ratio Juris. Vol 12 No. 4 December 1999 (385-416) , viewed 7 April 2011, . Dahlberg, Lincoln 2001, Democracy via Cyberspace - Mapping the Rhetorics and Practices of Three Prominent Camps, New Media & Society, June 2001 vol. 3 no. 2 157-177, viewed 7 April 2011, . Dahlberg, Lincoln 2001, Extending the public sphere through cyberspace: The case of Minnesota E-Democracy, First Monday, Volume 6, Number 3 - 5 March 2001, viewed 7 April 2011, . Dunn, John 2007, Capitalist democracy: elective affinity or beguiling illusion?, Daedalus, Summer 2007, Vol. 136, No. 3, Pages 5-13, Posted Online July 10, 2007, viewed 7 April 2011, . Dunn, John 2005, Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy, Reviewed by: Patrick Basham, Cato Journal, Democracy Institute, London: Atlantic Books, 2005, viewed 7 April 2011, . Fleming, Ted 1997, Habermas, Democracy And Civil Society: Unearthing The Social In Transformation Theory, PDF, viewed 7 April 2011, . Freedom House 2011, Freedom in the World, Freedom House, Inc., viewed 7 April 2011, . Gray, John 1996, After social democracy: politics, capitalism and the common life, Demos, 1996, viewed 7 April 2011, . Habermas, Jurgen 1995, On the Internal Relation between the Rule of Law and Democracy, European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 3, Issue 1, pages 12–20, April 1995, viewed 7 April 2011, . Habermas, Jurgen 1994, THREE NORMATIVE MODELS OF DEMOCRACY, Constellations, Volume 1, Issue 1, pages 1–10, December 1994, viewed 7 April 2011, . Hayek, F.A. 1960, The Constitution of Liberty, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960, viewed 7 April 2011, . Hayek, Friedrich August 1944, The Constitution of Liberty, Routledge, 2001, viewed 7 April 2011, . Huntington, Samuel P. 1997, The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order, Simon and Schuster, 1997, viewed 7 April 2011, . Huntington, Samuel P. 1991, The third wave: democratization in the late twentieth century, University of Oklahoma Press, 1991, viewed 7 April 2011, . Malcolm, Noel 2009, The Life and Death of Democracy by John Keane: review, The Telegraph, 31 May 2009, viewed 7 April 2011, . Mann, Michael 2005, The dark side of democracy: explaining ethnic cleansing, Cambridge University Press, 2005, viewed 7 April 2011, . O'Donnell, Guillermo A. 2007, The Perpetual Crises of Democracy, Journal of Democracy, Volume 18, Number 1, January 2007, pp. 5-11, . Potter, David 1997, Democratization, Wiley-Blackwell, 1997, viewed 7 April 2011, . Schudson, Michael 1982, The power of news, Harvard University Press, 1982, viewed 7 April 2011, . Schudson, Michael 2003, The Sociology of News, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2003, viewed 7 April 2011, . Schudson, Michael 1997, Why Conversation is Not the Soul of Democracy, Critical Studies in mass Communication 14 (1997), 297-309, viewed 7 April 2011, . Watzal, Ludwig 1997, Carl Boggs, The Crime of Empire, Rogue Superpower and World Domination, London- New York, 2010, p. 291, viewed 7 April 2011, . Read More