Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

But Swift has fallen into a trap: although he speaks of ‘personal
development’ as being an instrumental benefit, he then explains it
terms of an intrinsic one, albeit using the term ‘outcomes’. The ‘outcome’
of moral and intellectual development is instrumental in terms
of its effect on decision-making (and hence on the quality of those
selected to rule): the moral development is that through participation
(and hearing the views of others) citizens will be less selfish and the
intellectual development is that citizens will be ‘better at gathering and
assessing information’ (Swift 2006: 218). In other words, participation
is still (primarily) linked to its ability to produce better decisions
rather than to its effect on citizens’ self-realisation. Thus while Swift
acknowledges that participation ‘acts over time to change people for
the better’ (Swift 2006: 219) he suggests, somewhat strangely, that
someone who took part in politics only for self-development ‘wouldn’t
be seriously engaging with the arguments of others, or responsibly
exercising her agency as a member of her political community’ (Swift
2006: 219). But surely this is in fact what we mean by participation
– or at least, what we ought to mean if we are going to argue that participation
has intrinsic value, that is, is a requirement of being fully
human? If we do not mean this, then any kind of participation must
be seen as contributing to self-realisation: participation in vigilante
groups, separatist movements and organisations that discriminate
on the basis of race, gender, nationality and so on would also qualify
as an essential part of human flourishing. The point is that any definition
of participation must include meaningful engagement with others
where ‘meaningful’ necessarily entails certain conditions: we must
engage with those with whom we disagree, substantive debate and/
or action on collective political issues must occur under conditions of
freedom and equality and participation must conform to the rule of
law. These conditions are required if engagement is to contribute to
moral self-development [6] .
155
DEMOCRATIC COMPROMISE
OR COMPROMISING
DEMOCRACY: RETHINKING
PARTICIPATION
Heidi Matisonn
6
In previous work I have argued that ‘participatory’ responses to crime in South Africa
(in other words, non-state policing) can be categorised either as ‘responsible citizen
responses’ or ‘autonomous citizen responses’. The former is where citizens seek to find
solutions to crime and security concerns that are within the ambit of the law; the latter
are generally characterised by reactive, ad hoc and often violent methods of control.