The “Democracy-Politics Paradox”: The Dynamics of Political Alienation Gerry Stoker University of Canberra, Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis
[email protected]
Mark Evans University of Canberra, Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis
[email protected] A democratic paradox has been observed by contemporary political scientists crystallised around the disconnection between how citizens imagine their democracy and how politics is practiced. Citizens continue to believe in the values of liberal democracy but are increasingly disillusioned with how their political systems work and the politics that are practiced in the name of democracy. This article revisits the concept of political alienation as a way into providing a better understanding of this democratic paradox through identifying the complex layers of alienation that lie at its root cause. It provides both a conceptual understanding of political alienation and its domain of action and insights into how the concept can be operationalised and measured in empirical research. It argues that while democracy itself may not be in crisis, the evidence clearly demonstrates that the politics on which its operation rests is in peril.
Key words: citizens, democracy, empiricism, measurement, political alienation, political engagement
Introduction Evidence of negativity towards politics and the political system is increasing across a range of established democracies (Pharr and Putnam 2000; Dalton 2004; Stoker 2006; Torcal and Montero 2006; Hay 2007; Norris 2011). We can capture this complex phenomenon in a few words; the issue in contemporary democracy for many citizens is not disappointment with the idea of democracy but its practice.
Analysts lean towards a view that a basic
commitment to democracy remains strong and that the rights and freedoms associated with democratic politics are prized but that large swathes of citizens express negativity towards the political system; not simply an objection to the government or leaders in power. This 1
negativity is reflected in a range of concerns held by citizens. In the opening section of this article we revisit the concept of political alienation to get to a deeper understanding of the different layers of political negativity. The critical issue that needs to be addressed here is to find an explanation for why alienation is being expressed by citizens in such a multifaceted way. In the second half of the paper we explore how to generate evidence of alienation using examples from various contemporary democracies to focus our discussion. A better understanding of the complex layers of alienation is central to tackling its causes. We contend that while democracy itself may not be in crisis, the politics on which its operation rests is in peril when judged by citizens through an expanded understanding of the nature of contemporary political alienation.
The Five Faces of Political Alienation A valuable wave of studies of political alienation emerged in the context of a deep crisis of confidence in political institutions in the USA and other advanced democracies during the 1960s and 1970s stimulated by problems of urbanisation, the trauma of opposition to the Vietnam War, the demands of the civil rights movement and the emerging forces of feminism and environmentalism. This article proceeds from the argument that it is worth returning to some of the insights generated in studies of that period to see if they can be elaborated and developed to enable us to better understand the trials and tribulations of democracy in the 21st century. We justify this approach on the following grounds. There have been few successful attempts since the work of Melvin Seeman (1959) and Ada Finifter (1970) to theorize the different dimensions of political alienation and then operationalize them in empirical research. Wright argued in the 1980s (1981, p. 17) that the term
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alienation ‘continues to be among the more ambiguously used and ill-defined terms in all the social sciences’. In the 1990s, Bas Denters and Peter Geurts (1993, p. 445) observed: The last twenty years have witnessed an ever increasing differentiation in the concept of political alienation and its measurement…This increase in conceptual and operational sophistication is not matched by a corresponding differentiation in the ‘theory of alienation’…One might characterize the present state in this field as ‘concepts in search of a theory’.
And then in 2005, Russell J. Dalton simply ignored the concept altogether preferring to attribute decreasing trust with changing expectations of government arising from new socio-demographic patterns: These groups are the forefront of the new style of politics in advanced industrial societies, represented by less deference to authority, more assertive styles of action, and higher expectations for the democratic process (see also Inglehart, 1990; and Dalton, 2004, chapter 3).
One response to this observation would be to call for a thorough revision of our present theory of political alienation in an attempt to construct a more compelling understanding. Denters and Geurts, for example, make such an appeal. An alternative response, and one adopted in this article, would be to revisit the seminal research and assess how it might be amended to stay apace with developments in the field of action. Drawing on a seminal article by Seeman (1959) on the general concept of alienation, Finifter (1970) argued that when applied to politics two forms of alienation stand out: political powerlessness and perceived political normlessness. The first refers to the sense among citizens that they cannot influence political outcomes because they lack the capacity to do so. The second refers to the notion that the political system is full of wrong doers; politics is being run at the behest of those who do not observe the commonsense norms of how politics should be conducted. Citizens know what is right but their political masters appear
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either not to know how to behave or, as is more likely, are always knowingly flouting the rules. Both of these understandings of alienation would appear to have an immediate resonance in the 21st century so should certainly be incorporated into our framework for analysis. Seeman (1959) also identified three other general forms of alienation that Finifter made less effort to incorporate into his analysis of the state of politics in the USA in the 1960s. It is worth revisiting them in the context of our 21st century perspective. The first of the three additional forms of alienation goes under the strange title of “meaninglessness” but it captures an outlook on the political system which has some traction. Alienation stems not from a sense of powerlessness or a view that many politicians are corrupt but instead is based on a more general concern that politics and the way that politicians behave makes little sense. The political system operates to rules and practices that appear to be unfathomable and so offers choices where the individual has no basis for making a decision. All parties and politicians appear to be the same and policy debates appear to be largely irrelevant. The political world is an obscure and tenuous “other”: it is not easy to relate to, respond to or understand. The fourth form of alienation that emerges from the work of Seeman and Finifter is categorised under the label of “isolation”; it is borne out of a sense that the values held by certain individuals are systematically excluded from expression in the political system and more particularly by the political establishment. The focus of attention here for Finifter was on potential left-wing alienation from the capitalist norms and values dominant in American politics but in the 21st century it can be observed that various forms of more right-wing populism suffer from commensurable forms of alienation from the perceived “politically correct” liberal norms of the political establishment (Philips 2006; Albertazzi and McDonnell 4
2008.). This form of alienation does not have to be mobilised in support of a new populist party or leader and it may well simply be present as part of the broader disenchantment with politics in many contemporary democracies. At its heart its distinctive feature is that the prevailing goals of the political system are alien to the citizen. This is a perspective not based of feelings of powerlessness necessarily nor of an understanding that political processes are corrupt or unfathomable but one that rests on a rejection of what the political system does and fails to do: its neglect of ordinary working folk, its failure to defend national interests and established communities or its kowtowing to special interests and minorities. The final form of alienation that might be considered to be present drawing from the literature of the 1950s and 1960s can be described – at a stretch – as a form of selfalienation. Its political form could be expressed by the alienation of the individual from some understanding of an idealised citizen held by the analyst. One argument for the emergence of this form of alienation is connected to the rise of consumerism in society and an attendant focus for individuals on self-serving materialism and self-actualisation that, in turn, is perceived as undermining values of citizenship expressed through solidarity, community and collective action (Flinders 2012 comes close to this argument). For the individual “suffering” this form of alienation mainstream politics appear to be irrelevant to their lifestyle, circumstances and future prospects. They are doing it for themselves either in co-operation with other like-minded individuals or simply on their own.
Measuring Alienation Measures for alienation such as “powerlessness” and “perceived normlessness” are relatively easily found. Starting with the former an obvious marker is the extent to which 5
citizens engage with politics. How many engage in actions aimed at trying to influence the decision-making processes of government more or less directly? The standard repertoire of participation in this sense includes contacting public officials. In our recent study of Australian politics in 2013 (Evans et al., 2013), we asked a representative sample of 1,377 Australians about their engagement in conventional forms of participation. We observed that it is possible to be more actively engaged in politics through standing for office, funding political parties, engaging in campaigns or by attending meetings. There are more consumer based examples of participation including boycotting goods or products or through signing paper or online petitions. In addition to asking about all these forms of political participation we also asked about attendance at marches and demonstrations. We found that well over half (54.7%) of our respondents could not remember conducting any political activity in the last two or three years beyond the practice of voting. We also found that only 2% of Australians think they have a great deal of influence over decision-making in the country as a whole or in their local area. Only 9% suggest they have some influence at the national level and that figure rises to 20% who think they have some influence at the local level. About 90% of Australians think they have not very much or no influence at all over national decisions and just over three quarters of Australian feel the same when it comes to local decision-making. Parallel findings emerge in the annual audit of political engagement conducted by the Hansard Society in Britain. In surveys from 2003 asking about a range of political engagement activities (and this study includes voting) on average still only 2 in 10 of the population could recall engaging in any political activity over the previous two or three years (Hansard Society 2012). In the 2013 Report (Hansard Society 2013), when voting was excluded from the list of potential actions, only 50% of respondents were able to remember 6
undertaking any actions from a long list of political engagement options. When asked about their degree of influence over decision-making at the national level nobody responding to the survey felt they had a great deal of influence and 12% suggested they had some influence; that figure rose to 24% at the local level. Broadly speaking on both our measures of powerlessness as a form of political alienation it appears that both behavioural and attitudinal evidence of its presence can be easily found. What about “normlessness” or the sense of alienation that stems from an understanding that politicians are people who do not understand or indeed live by the rules that most citizens value? Nicholas Allen and Sarah Birch (2014) offer some survey findings that appear to offer a fairly direct measure of this form of alienation. In a series of surveys conducted in Britain between 2009 and 2010, they asked how much concern citizens had over various behaviours of politicians. They found a consistently high and negative response when asking respondents about their level of concern (on a scale that ran to low 0 to high 10) about various behaviours by politicians. The mean level of disquiet about politicians not giving straight answers was over 8; that they would take bribes reached a mean level of concern of 6; concern over the way politicians claimed expenses achieved a mean level of 8; as did worries about politicians making empty promises. Of course this is only evidence from one country but it does suggest that normlessness as a form of political alienation has considerable efficacy and that it is something that could be measured and assessed in many other countries. The third form of alienation – “meaninglessness” – presents some tricky issues in terms of measurement. Part of the debate is conceptual and rests on the issue of what level of cognitive skill a citizen needs to engage with politics. Generally people in most contemporary democracies do pay a great amount of attention to ‘hubbub’ or fast thinking 7
politics (Marcus et al, 2000). Citizens are relatively inattentive to formal politics and rely on cognitive short cuts and cues to steer them to their political choices. Their preferences on specific issues are rarely fixed but made up on the fly, driven by the most salient and available information to them. Moreover, there is a commonly held view (Norris 1999) that such civic engagement is enough to make democracy work. Time-poor citizens in the information-rich world of politics do not require an encyclopaedic knowledge of the political world but just sufficient information to enable them to make a judgement about proposals, trustworthiness or competence of various political leaders. In the light of these arguments it would appear that the meaningless form of alienation could be measured – with caution – using tests about political knowledge which either ask about what level of knowledge is claimed by citizens or sets a test against which their knowledge is measured. But if it the case that to be engaged by the political system requires not an extensive but just some passing knowledge of politics then it may be that this form of alienation needs to be measured in a way that makes a very low level of knowledge permissible. The Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement (Hansard Society 2012) has asked British citizens in annual surveys since 2003 about how much they feel they know about politics and has consistently found around 1 in 10 respondents who say they know nothing at all. This form of alienation then appears to be amenable to measurement; although a priori it may be that it is strongly felt by only a relatively small section of citizens. As noted above, the fourth form of alienation – “isolation” – is expressed by a sense that politics is just not delivering what is required. Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) in their depiction of the stealth politics understanding held by many American citizens come as close as any analysts to empirically identifying this form of alienation. They devised a set of questions aimed at capturing this phenomenon that could be interpreted as measuring the 8
sense of felt isolation from the political system held by many citizens. Their findings indicated strong empirical support for the stealth view of democracy which in turn expresses an isolated alienation from mainstream politics. Those suffering from isolated alienation hold that politics is all talk and no action; that pressures to compromise among politicians prevents good decision-making and that others, and certainly not elected politicians, could do a better job. Table 1 presents findings from various surveys conducted in different countries since Hibbing and Theiss-Morse conducted their original research in the United States in 1998. On the face of it the questions get a strong response indicating that the isolation form of alienation appears to be both measurable and observable. Table 1: Isolated Alienation from Politics – Australia, GB, USA and Finland Compared % Agree Australia GB(2011/12)** Finland USA USA (2013) * (2007)*** (1998)**** (2008)***** Politicians should stop 95 91 83 86 86 talking and take action Compromise is selling out 74 80 46 60 64 one’s principles Government 35 better if 43 47 18 32 decisions left to successful business people Government 34 51 33 31 35 better if decisions left to independent experts
Sources: *Evans et al (2013) ** Hansard Society (2012); ***Bengtsson and Mattila (2009) **** Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) ****Neblo et al (2010) NB this table excludes all neutral responses that is the “neither agree” nor “disagree” responses and “don’t know” responses.
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The most problematic form of alienation to measure is the fifth form – “self-alienation” – in that although it may be possible to show that consumerist attitudes exist (i.e. citizens make choices) or that some citizens lack the attributes of some form of ideal citizenship, these traits do not necessarily capture a sense of political alienation on the part of the citizen. One survey question that might do this effectively addresses not only the nature of a citizens’ engagement with politics but also their willingness to engage politically. It could be hypothesized that certain citizens when faced with an issue they are concerned about and a range of political actions to consider undertaking but fail to choose any are in denial about their responsibilities as a citizen. Table 2 reports some findings from a question asked in Britain for the 2013 Hansard Society Audit of Political Engagement Report (Hansard Society 2013). Around 8 in 10 would take action of some sort but about 2 in 10 would not even if
Table 2: Willingness to Undertake Political Actions (GB, 2013) If you felt strongly enough about an issue which of these actions would you be prepared to undertake: Contact a local councillor or MP / MSP / Welsh Assembly Member Contact the media Take an active part in a campaign Create or sign a paper petition Create or sign an e-petition Donate money or pay a membership fee to a charity or campaigning organisation Boycott certain products for political, ethical or environmental reasons Attend political meetings Donate money or pay a membership fee to a political party Take part in a demonstration, picket or march Vote in an election Contribute to a discussion or campaign online or on social media Take part in a public consultation Net: Any of the above Net: None of the above Source: Hansard Society (2013) 10
% 41 16 14 35 25 17 14 10 5 10 42 8 14 78 22
the issue was one they felt strongly about. Although more work would be required this finding does suggest that there are maybe some citizens who care about issues (and could not therefore be seen as apathetic) but are alienated from politics and see no point in engaging through the standard mechanisms.
In Conclusion – The Three Pillars of Political Support We began this article by looking back at how analysts were examining political alienation in democracies nearly 50 years ago and found some considerable inspiration in their conceptual work. suggested
that
With some development and elaboration of that original work we five
forms
of
alienation
–
“powerlessness”,
“normlessness”,
“meaninglessness”, “isolation” and “self-alienation” – can not only be identified but can also be measured using a mix of survey questions and responses. To understand 21st century democracy we need to understand better political alienation and this article provides a starting point to a research agenda on what is becoming an increasingly salient topic for both the study and the practice of liberal democratic politics. Further development of the argument is required. For example, there are several conceptual issues that require further consideration. Do some of the forms of alienation on reflection merge into one another? Are one or more forms of alienation exhibited in a citizen?
How are structured forms of inequality – for example, class, gender, race,
education, disability – reflected through different forms of alienation? Are there any further forms of alienation? Do the different forms of alienation all find both attitudinal and behavioural expression and if they do not, are some forms of alienation (perhaps those that
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find a behavioural expression) more problematic for the operation of democracy than others? There are also some problems of measurement that require closer attention. All that we have demonstrated so far is the possibility of developing some measures but composite and richer survey instruments would be better. Moreover, in empirical work we need to understand the mix of alienation both across different systems and within different systems. It would also be helpful to know more about how citizens’ trade-off one form of alienation against another and how constant, elastic or changeable that alienation is towards the political system. In short, we need more conceptual and empirical research but this article has at least demonstrated that political alienation is a complex and politically salient topic that justifies substantial investigation. In his discussion of political support for political systems – the other side of the coin to the discussion of political alienation and developed in the same time period – David Easton (1965) makes a well-known distinction between specific and diffuse support. The former is about support for the government of the day, its leaders and its policies. The latter refers to support for the basic political arrangements of democracy. Our return to the issue of political alienation however leaves us with some questions about the continuing value of Easton’s distinction. It may prove to be more of a block on analysis than an aid. For Easton, political discontent can only come about in one of two forms which are the converse of his understanding of political support. Political discontent could be expressed against the government of the day and its behaviour or it could lead to a rejection of the basic principles of the political system. Easton (1965; 1975) was aware of the 1960s literature on alienation but refused to incorporate it into his analysis. We think he was
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wrong. What 21st century citizens are saying in the empirical studies that we have undertaken is that their political discontent reflects their concerns about the government of the day and not the principles of democracy yet these concerns have diffuse and system threatening aspects. Contemporary discontent has an additional dimension; alienation from the operation of the political system that stretches way beyond any judgement that a different government or leader would automatically make politics better. Political alienation matters because there are three pillars of political support in a liberal democracy not just two. Only one pillar is clearly supported by citizens – democracy and its inalienable political rights. The performance of the government of the day is often judged negatively and as the evidence presented in this article so clearly demonstrates; so too is the general operation of the political system. As the ancient Athenians would testify, an agora with only one fully functional pillar is prone to toppling over. The beginning of the 21st century may well prove to be a crucible moment for liberal democracy.
Gerry Stoker is Centenary Professor of Governance at the University of Canberra and Director of the Centre for Citizenship, Globalization and Governance at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. His book Why Politics Matters won the 2006 book of the year award from the Political Studies Association of the UK. Mark Evans is Professor of Governance and the Executive Director of the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis at the University of Canberra. He was formerly Professor of Politics at the University of York. Mark has been the editor of the international journal Policy Studies (Routledge-Taylor and Francis) since 2005.
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