A
democracy is said to be efficient if it has a civil society that is
independent from the state and represents the people without bias.
However, the existence of civil society has led to the stereotype and
assumption that it automatically represents the will of the people.
In my essay, I will set out to question whether or not the
representation of the people’s will is automatic if existent at
all?. This essay will also look at the main ideas behind civil
society and the importance of the will of the people and compare and
contrast as to whether, in reality, they exist or function as they
should. I will also make reference to real-life examples in India and
South Africa to see if civil society does indeed automatically
represent the will of the people. The question that will also be
raised is that if civil society does not, in fact, represent the will
of the people- then who or what does? Are the wishes of the people
then just ignored? Furthermore, we need to question the importance of
civil society within a democracy and whether or not democracy can
still be said to exist if civil society is actually dysfunctional.
The
meaning of civil society
According
to Chatterjee, (2004: 33), civil society is a public sphere made up
of civic and social organisations and institutions that operate
independently of the state but are consistent with its laws; it thus
forms the social base for capitalist democracy. Furthermore, it is of
paramount importance because without civil society, notable is that
the creation and sustaining of freedom and equality in the political
realm become quite impossible (Chatterjee, 2004: 33). In this view,
civil society becomes the pivot of a successful democracy in that it
makes sure that democratic values are promoted. For instance, the
role of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations), has been described as
being civil society organisations which are also dominant actors in
the advancement of universal values around human rights. Thus civil
society is the ‘social base for capitalist democracy’
(Chatterjee, 2004: 33). However, as flowery as this all may sound in
theory, we need to question whether or not, in reality, this is how
civil society actually functions. The constant human rights
violations, within democratic countries, makes one wonder if civil
society does truly represent the will of the people. Noteworthy are
critiques of the role that civil society has, in reality, taken;
Arundhati Roy (2010), in an interview, answered a question on her
view to the role of NGOs by stating that, “I
believe NGOs are dangerous. They do what the missionaries used to do
in Colonial times. They are Trojan Horses. The worse the situation,
the more the NGOs.”.
In
India, most NGOs are not independent from the state or the market
(Chatterjee, 2004: 49). Instead, most NGOs today are actually run on
a professional basis, like capitalist co-operations. One would wonder
why it is that in places like South Africa and India, were most of
the poor people are homeless or do not have access to the resources,
there are so many NGOs which are introduced in the name of human
rights and yet the situation either remains the same or even becomes
worse. The meaning of civil society is not at par with the actual
state of affairs; in reality, not everyone has equal access to this
‘public sphere’. Marx was of the argument that civil society is
actually made up of middle class society because the third class are
poor and hence do not have access to it. Chatterjee further argues
that, civil society is in reality a ‘...demographically limited’
space (Chatterjee, 2004: 39). Hence, civil society is actually
limited to a small section of culturally equipped citizens and
thereby representing the upper side of modernity whilst the rest of
the citizens are actually excluded. Yet in order for civil society to
automatically represent the will of the people- it needs to be
inclusive and not exclusive. In other words, everyone needs to be
involved and not just those with access to this “public sphere’.
As in the same way that Chatterjee (2004), is arguing that just
because India is a democracy does not mean that the people of India
experience a democratic life. Notable is that the same applies to the
question above, just because civil society exists in a democracy does
not automatically guarantee the representation of the will of the
people.
The
problem of Governmentalisation
Governmentalisation
is an idea by Michel Foucault, which he used to explain how the state
‘...secures legitimacy not by the participation of citizens in
matters of state but by claiming to provide for the wellbeing of the
population’ (Chatterjee, 2004: 34). Hence, the people do not
get to participate in the rule of power as citizens; instead they are
converted into populations which need to be regulated and monitored
by the state. This is how state politics is shaped now and thus as a
result, the will of the people is not heard because they are now
‘populations’ and not ‘citizens’ who have a political right
to be involved. According to Chatterjee (2004: 34), the states no
longer justify their claim over power by saying they ‘represent the
will of the people’, instead they use service delivery as being
their sole purpose. The problem here is that citizens of a state have
political agency and thus are recognised as being agents of change,
they are heard and hence their will is known or made known as they
are political actors. Populations, on the other hand are passive
receivers of services from the government, they do not have political
agency and are not heard. Hence, all that populations need is to be
cared for and not given a political voice, they need to be managed
and ruled (Chatterjee, 2004: 34). This ‘modern power’ of the
states curtails the possibility of a participatory democracy; it
cannot exist where there are no citizens and where they are just
passive populations. Hence, most strikes in South Africa, by the
masses, tend to be about service delivery- not many demand the right
to participate in a participatory democracy.
The
formation of Political Society
The
‘will of the people’ seems to be a thing of the past and service
delivery seems to be the most important thing for the people. For
instance, the poor in the townships would rather demand shelter, food
and water than demand their rights. In this light, notable is that
most of the masses find themselves excluded by civil society and made
passive receivers because they are now treated as populations. Such
people now exist outside of civil society; a clear example is that of
Abahlali beseMjondolo. They are a clear example of how in South
Africa, people have no choice but to live outside civil society and
find their political voice despite the fact that they are not
included in civil society. Chatterjee (2004: 38), refers to the
existence of political societies; this is where people make political
complaints on civil society because they are excluded from it or
cannot afford to be a part of it. A clear fault in the ideas behind
civil society, is the assumption that the citizens live according to
the law - this is not accurate when looking at the current affairs in
most developing countries like South Africa and India (Chatterjee,
2004:47). An actual fact is that if a peasant or third class lived
within the boundaries of the law, then they would not survive or keep
up with the capitalist structure of the economic situation in these
countries. As a result, people live outside civil society and are
dismissed as being criminals without even understanding why they
resort to criminal behaviour (Chatterjee, 2004: 47). Their actions
are never looked at through the lens of political action, instead it
is just concluded that they are criminals or are of barbaric
behaviour.
Illegal squatters are popular in India and South Africa because the
poor people cannot afford the expense of renting a home or the
expenses that come with it (electricity and water costs). Therefore
in South Africa notable is that in Townships when the state cuts off
their electricity when they have not met their bills, the people
retaliate by illegally ‘hot-wiring’ their electrical cords to the
main electricity switch. In France, during the French revolution, the
action of the masses of storming the Bastille was expressed by the
philosophers as being a political action- that it represented the
people breaking the chains that once bound them. However, today, such
actions would be expressed by the press as being criminal behaviour
and these people as standing in the way of development. Hence, if the
state took serious notice of the political society, it would notice
that this is indeed a means of incorporating the will of the people,
because relaying on the those who can afford to be members of the
civil society does not cover everyone. We cannot use civil society
alone to attempt representing the will of the people; instead, we
need to recognise the existence of those who exist outside civil
society.
What
does the ‘will of the people’ actually encompass?
In
his interview with Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Hallward (2007), uncovered
the importance of the people’s will in establishing a democracy
that is all in all- participatory. The reason why Haiti experienced a
participatory democracy is because Aristide invited people from
“...sectors that had little or no representation in parliament
to have a voice in the administration, to occupy some ministerial
positions and to keep a balance between the legislative and the
executive branches of government.” (Hallward, 2007). Hence, the
people were not just ‘the ruled’; instead they were involved in
the ‘ruling’. Hallward’s idea of the will of the people is that
it involves “...a deliberate, emancipatory and inclusive process
of collective determination.” and its exercise is “...voluntary
and autonomous..” (Hallward, 2009: 17). The will of the people
is an important factor in a democracy; it is a means of giving people
the freedom and the voice they seek from a democracy. This is
understandable when one looks at the history of oppression,
colonialism and apartheid that would have existed before a democracy
is fought for. People fight for it because they want to be heard, the
want freedom and to have a government that is ‘for the people’,
‘by the people’ and ‘with the people’. One could thus
conclude that the very purpose of a participatory democracy is to
represent the will of the people. Marx’s idea on emancipation was
that the ‘emancipation of the working class must be conquered by
the working class themselves’. He believed that the people
themselves could be agents of change and that they must have a voice
in a state- they should take over the state and not let the state
take over them. The will of the people is thus an idea about
self-determination and self-emancipation.
According
to Chatterjee (2004: 47), popular sovereignty envelops ideas that
people should decide or be involved in decision making- people should
be controlling the city. The will of the people is therefore not only
important but also seen as a tool for development, emancipation and a
way forward. Aristide saw the future of politics as revolving around
the will of the people and not the actions of the state, “Once
the people are genuinely able to participate in the democratic
process, then they will be able to devise an acceptable way forward.”
(Hallward, 2007). The silencing of the people or them
being tuned into populations is therefore going against the idea that
drivers of democracy are the people. Aristide saw citizens as being
valuable and was against governments which want to rule them. The
people should have a voice, “-every person is indeed a person,
every person is capable of thinking things through for themselves”
(Hallward, 2007). This goes hand in hand with Marx’s views
emancipation as being in the hands of the masses; it goes to say that
the will of the people is the driving force behind emancipation and
democracy. Roy (2010) gives the example of Maoism; it stresses
political will rather than structure. Thus people can change
political structure themselves, they are capable of political
thought; it is not just a job for the state of political parties and
as Aristide said- ‘every person is capable of thinking things
through for themselves’. In this light, the will of the people is
an idea that gives people the chance to do this; to think for
themselves and not to be passive populations. The question therefore
is whether people are given this platform?; from the above
discussions- it is clear that people are excluded from civil society,
which is in actual fact supposed to be a forum for their will to be
put in action and their voice to be heard. The people are forced to
live outside civil society as they cannot afford to live within its
boundaries. Hallward, (2009: 18), thus argues that usually, the will
of the people is suppressed and it is assumed that the people are too
barbaric-like to reasonably exercise their will. This is seen in how
the events in political society are made to be criminal rather than
political. Many scholars have thus advocated for the introduction of
emancipatory politics as a solution to this problem.
Will
emancipatory politics re-enforce the representation of the will of
the people?
In
a nutshell, emancipatory politics is the politics of achieving
equality for all people. How this should be done has brought forward
two main arguments; that emancipatory politics should work within the
state in civil society or that it should actually act at a distance
from the state. This, in Halloway’s view, brings us to the popular
theories as to ‘who should change the world’, or more
specifically, the social structure (Halloway, 2002: 11). In this
light, the main problem is deciding whether equality and social
change can be established by reforming the state structures or
through a revolutionary process. Holloway, (2002:13) is of the
argument that “...radical change can be achieved through
constitutional means”, and thus sees attaining state control as
being crucial to bringing about social change. Marx was of the idea
that the people should take over the state and use it to implement
change. However, from the arguments above, it is clear that civil
society is not a representative of all the people and hence one would
question its ability to achieve social change within the state.
Theoretically speaking, civil society is meant to be the ‘social
base in a capitalist democracy’; it is meant to provide a public
forum for political debate where all people can let their voice be
heard (Chatterjee, 2004: 33). Hence it is meant to represent the will
of the people and be a space where “...organs of state interact
with members of civil society in their individual capacities or as
members of associations.” (Chatterjee, 2004: 38). However, in
reality, this is not possible because civil society only represents
those who can afford to live according to the law; those who need to
break the law in order to survive are excluded and hence, as a
result, this forum does not represent everyone.
This
brings me to the second school of thought as to how social change and
equality can only be achieved at a distance from the state. Badiou
(2006), argues that ordinary people could be political actors instead
of just following orders or letting the ‘system’ run everything.
In other words, history has proven that ordinary people are able to
be active in their fight for social change, and therefore do not need
elites or the state being the instigator of social change. Badiou
(2006) uses the Paris Commune as a point of reference to show that
the ordinary man can enforce a democracy. Therefore, in this light,
emancipator politics should not be put in the hands of the state,
in-fact the state should act from a distance. Noteworthy is that the
state has a logic in which it operates, and to operate outside the
logic would be autonomous from the state. Otherwise to operate in the
same logic as the state one would have to accept the rules of the
state. Hence, Badiou (2006) proposes challenging the logic of the
state - the state cannot be left to set the parameters of one’s
logic. The people should act as citizens with political agency and
the ability to bring about transformation rather than just passive
populations that allow the state to take over and do the thinking for
them.
Roy
is of the view that those who run the state abuse its power and that
the only way for the marginalised people to achieve change is through
a revolution. She boldly stated, in an interview, that,
“Every people, every society, needs a culture of
resistance, a culture of being different and disobedient, that is the
only way they will ever be able to stand up to the inevitable abuse
of power by whoever runs the state apparatus....”. (2010).
Hence she is of the view that emancipatory politics cannot be
achieved by working within the state in civil society because in
India, most of the people are not even a part of civil society- they
exist outside civil society. Thus she does not see the reason why
such people cannot have the power to emancipate themselves from such
inequality; a revolution and rebellion from the state will give them
the power they need. As much as mancipatory politics seems to be a
solution to achieving a democracy that recognises the will of the
people, mention must be made of Alvaro Garcia Linera (2005) who
argues that emancipatory theories can also have the consequence of
failing to understand reality. Thus ideas that are emancipatory can
also actually end up silencing the true state of affairs or reality
of what is actually happening. For instance, the idea that
emancipatory politics should be achieved within the state in civil
society would be one that silences the people living in the townships
of South Africa as they are not members of civil society. It fails to
recognise that the emancipatory nature of civil society is not how
things are in reality- that in actual fact, civil society represents
only a few of the people whilst the rest actually exist in political
societies now.
State
power vs the will of the people
Halloway
(2002: 14), makes the argument that the state is not isolated,
instead it is interconnected in a global web that, not only
influences but often controls its actions. Hence the state, in a
capitalist system now operates by way of avoiding economical crisis
rather than by way of implementing equality for all its citizens. If
the state wanted to restore equality, it would, for example, charge
less- if anything at all, in terms of electricity bills to the people
in the townships. Instead, the state now runs like a business and
when the people fail to meet their bills, the government disconnects
their connections. This is why people in South Africa resort to
illegal activities like hot-wiring the electricity; it is a copying
mechanism for the marginalised in a capitalist society. Capitalism is
all about profit, thus nothing can be for free hence those who
benefit are those who can afford the cost of living. The will of the
people thus has no place in such a society; the only thing that
matters is the will of the market. Another argument is that which is
raised by S’bu Zikode (2009); he argues that the state feels
threatened by the masses and thus reacts by suppressing them. In the
past, notable is that the masses have proven to be capable of
overthrowing even the strongest of states and rulers. Louis XVI was
the last king of France in 1789 due to the French revolution; he lost
his throne to the masses who were not even made up of powerful men in
politics, but of the peasantry. In this light, it is important for
the state to understand what the people need and not see them as the
enemy, criminals, barbaric or threats to power.
Abahlali
baseMjondolo
It
is a movement of shack dwellers in Durban, of more than ten thousand
members, who chose to rebel and make their voice heard (Zikode, 2009:
1). It started in 2005 as a direct action of people outside civil
society who were demanding to be included within civil society
(Zikode, 2009: 15). If included in civil society then they could
speak out and let their ‘problems’ be known because inclusion
will allow civil society to actually represent the will of the people
and not only of the few who can afford to live within boundaries of
civil society. Zikode argues that in order for a state to represent
the will of the people, we need popular democratisation. He talks
about the importance of ‘living politics’, which arises from the
people’s daily lives and is characterised by their daily
challenges. He states that, “It is a politics that every
ordinary person can understand. It is a politics that knows that we
have no water but that in fact we all deserve water.......It doesn’t
have a hidden agenda- it is a politics of living that is just founded
only on the nature of living.”. Therefore, the state needs to
recognise the fact that the people are free and that they have a
will, it must not hold on to state power because the power, in actual
fact, belongs to the people in a democracy.
Conclusion
As
seen from the different arguments raised in this essay, civil society
does not automatically represent the will of the people. If civil
society, by its mere existence in a democracy meant that it
automatically represented the will of the people then how would we
explain the marginalised people and those who now exist within
political societies? One problem that democracies are facing today is
the influence of the global capitalist system- it has gained control
of civil society as seen by the fact that many NGOs are now being run
like corporations. Hence noteworthy is that this makes it difficult
for civil society to care for the people when it is no longer
‘independent’. Civil society cannot be said to represent the
will of the people when it is actually excluding the majority of the
people who would not survive if they tried living within the
boundaries of the rule of the law. Hence, like Zikode is arguing, we
need to transform society at a distance from the society and
acknowledge the political factor behind political societies. We
should be experiencing a living politics in order for the will of the
people to heard and recognised.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Badiou,
A., 2006, ‘The Paris Commune: A political declaration on politics’
in Polemics,
London: Verso.
Chatterjee,
P., 2004, ‘Populations and Political Society’ in The Politics
of the Governed, Delhi: Permanent Black.
Hallward,
P., 2007, ‘An Interview with Jean-Bertrand Aristide’, London
Review of Books, Vol. 29, No. 4.
Hallward,
P., 2009, ‘The Will of the People: Notes towards a dialectical
voluntarism’, Radical Philosophy,
No. 155.
Holloway,
J., 2002, ‘Beyond the State’ in Change the World Without
Taking Power, London: Pluto.
Linera,
A. G., 2005 ‘Indianismo and Marxism: The mismatch of two
revolutionary rationales’, Links: International Journal of
Socialist Renewal.
Roy,
A., 2010, Interview: NGOs are contemporary Trojan horses, Sol Defter,
http://www.soldefter.com/2010/08/04/interview-with-arundhati-roy-ngos-are-contemporary-trojan-horses%E2%80%9D-kaya-genc/,
Date accessed: 07 September 2011.
S’bu
Zikode, 2009, 'To Resist All Degradations and Divisions'.
