scholarly journals ‘A new power structure will be built from the grassroots’: The challenge of radical democracy in Allende’s Chile

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marian Schlotterbeck
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Democratic Socialism ◽  
Grassroots Movements ◽  
Social Bases

Chilean history in the twentieth century poses a number of unresolved questions about the limits of liberal capitalist democracy to effectively include the interests of non-elite sectors. The origins of the contemporary crisis for Chile’s political elites – as well as of neoliberalism more broadly – can be found in the chasm between political parties and their social bases. The parallels faced by Chilean activists and protestors in 2019 invite a closer look at the possibilities for and restraints on popular sector participation during Chile’s experiment with democratic socialism. As an act of radical democracy, the 1972 People’s Assembly in Concepción represented a vital attempt to create new mechanisms for citizen participation within an unfolding revolutionary process. Today, as Chileans grapple with how to construct an alternative to neoliberal democracy, past historical experiments in radical democracy and building grassroots movements can offer important lessons for the present.

Towards the Final Legitimation of the Party

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Sole Source ◽  
The Political ◽  
Party Formation ◽  
Post War ◽  
Dominant Influence

Chapter 3 investigates the process of party formation in France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy, and demonstrates the important role of cultural and societal premises for the development of political parties in the nineteenth century. Particular attention is paid in this context to the conditions in which the two mass parties, socialists and Christian democrats, were established. A larger set of Western European countries included in this analysis is thoroughly scrutinized. Despite discontent among traditional liberal-conservative elites, full endorsement of the political party was achieved at the beginning of the twentieth century. Particular attention is paid to the emergence of the interwar totalitarian party, especially under the guise of Italian and German fascism, when ‘the party’ attained its most dominant influence as the sole source and locus of power. The chapter concludes by suggesting hidden and unaccounted heritages of that experience in post-war politics.

Remedying Diploma Democracy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bovens ◽  
Anchrit Wille
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Political Skills ◽  
Compulsory Voting ◽  
European Unification ◽  
Nationalist Parties

How can we remedy some of the negative effects of diploma democracy? First, we discuss the rise of nationalist parties. They have forced the mainstream political parties to pay more attention to the negative effects of immigration, globalization, and European unification. Next we discuss strategies to mitigate the dominance of the well-educated in politics. We start with remedies that address differences in political skills and knowledge. Then we discuss the deliberative arenas. Many democratic reforms contain an implicit bias towards the well-educated. A more realistic citizenship model is required. This can be achieved by bringing the ballot back in, for example, by merging deliberative and more direct forms of democracy through deliberative polling, corrective referendums, and more compulsory voting. The chapter ends with a discussion of ways to make the political elites more inclusive and responsive, such as descriptive representation, sortition, and plebiscitary elements.

The Progressive Party and the Rise of Executive-Centered Partisanship

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney M. Milkis
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Intermediary Organizations ◽  
Good Government ◽  
Progressive Party

This chapter examines the wayward path of Progressivism from Roosevelt's Bull Moose campaign to the Obama presidency. Committed to “pure democracy,” many early-twentieth-century reformers hoped to sweep away intermediary organizations like political parties. In their disdain for partisan politics and their enthusiasm for good government, they sought to fashion the Progressive Party as a party to end parties. However, the Progressives failed in that ambition, and their shortfall has had profound effects on contemporary government and politics. By transforming rather than transcending parties, they fostered a kindred, though bastardized, alternative: executive-centered partisanship. The transformation of parties set in motion by the Progressives has subjected both Progressivism and conservatism to an executive-centered democracy that subordinates “collective responsibility” to the needs of presidential candidates and incumbents.

Two regimes of the symbolic: radical democracy between Romanticism and structuralism

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-88
Author(s):  
Warren Breckman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
German Romanticism ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Ernesto Laclau ◽  
Constructed Dialogue ◽  
History Of

The ‘symbolic’ has found its way into the heart of contemporary radical democratic theory. When one encounters this term in major theorists such as Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek, our first impulse is to trace its genealogy to the offspring of the linguistic turn, structuralism and poststructuralism. This paper seeks to expose the deeper history of the symbolic in the legacy of Romanticism. It argues that crucial to the concept of the symbolic is a polyvalence that was first theorized in German Romanticism. The linguistic turn that so marked the twentieth century tended to suppress this polyvalence, but it has returned as a crucial dimension of contemporary radical political theory and practice. At stake is more than a recovery of historical depth. Through a constructed dialogue between Romanticism and the thought of both Žižek and Laclau, the paper seeks to provide a sharper appreciation of the resources of the concept of the symbolic.

Forms of Social Solidarity in Russia and the Soviet Union

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Hosking
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Basic Concept ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Russian State ◽  
The Village

Traditional interpretations of Russian society rest on a contrast between Russian authoritarianism and the liberties of Western societies. According to these interpretations, Russia right up to the twentieth century was a ‘patrimonial monarchy’ in which there was no distinction between sovereignty and ownership, so that the tsar's subjects were literally his slaves. There is no denying the highly authoritarian nature of the Russian state, and, in its twentieth-century hypostasis, its unique capacity to penetrate and affect the lives of ordinary people. But the image of slavery is overdone and partly misleading. At the base of the Russian power structure throughout the tsarist centuries was the village commune. The basic concept underlying the functioning of the village commune was krugovaya poruka, literally ‘circular surety’, but perhaps better translated as ‘joint responsibility’. This chapter discusses forms of social solidarity in Russia and the Soviet Union, focusing on the enterprise and the communal apartment as twin arenas of the daily lives of the majority of the country's townspeople.

Introduction: Radical Democracy and Twentieth-Century French Thought

2015 ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Holman ◽  
Martin Breaugh ◽  
Rachel Magnusson ◽  
Paul Mazzocchi ◽  
Devin Penner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Radical Democracy
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