Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
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52<br />
DEMOCRACY TODAY<br />
The democratic element is brought in by the theory of political<br />
representation as it sets the context for the permanent possibility of<br />
feedback, i.e. the continuous circularity between state and society.<br />
Representative democracy is thus incomplete without the process-element<br />
(the temporal narrative). To sum up: the (spatial) division between<br />
ruler and ruled installs power, and the division of time in different<br />
legislatures creates the possibility of control to power. Periodic rule<br />
and the implied opportunities for contestation form the conditions for<br />
a system in which the representative can appropriately and creatively<br />
‘use’ the (originated) power. The temporal sequence thus prevents the<br />
embodiment or possession of power and ascertains that the place of<br />
power remains empty.<br />
Representation becomes a democratic instrument once the representational<br />
relationship becomes political. [9] I am alluding here to the<br />
way in which a partisan, and thus particular, viewpoint can temporarily<br />
fulfill the role of representing the whole of society and thus represent<br />
the general. The plurality of social and cultural identities that exist in<br />
society gets translated into political “alliances and programs” (Urbinati<br />
2006, 37). These alliances try to provide an answer to the fragmentation<br />
of society, by “articulat[ing] the ‘universal interest’ from peripheral<br />
viewpoints” (Ibid.). Although partisanship is concerned with the<br />
interests of its followers, the fact that their aspirations are “to represent<br />
the general” makes that they translate their partial interests “in a<br />
language that is general” (Ibid.). Laclau gives the same characterisation<br />
of “the only truly political society”. “Universality only exists incarnating<br />
– and subverting – particularity, but, conversely, no particularity<br />
can become political without being the locus of universalizing effects”<br />
(Laclau 2001, 10).<br />
9<br />
Urbinati states this clearly in the following citation. “This temporal perspective transforms<br />
representation into a political resource, a way to perfect democracy by emancipating it<br />
from the destabilizing force of presentism and the one-dimensional character of the will”<br />
(Urbinati 2006, 225). But we could phrase the sentence also the other way around. Politics<br />
would not be politics without the role of representation as it fulfills the role of mediation<br />
through “voice and gesture, spacing and temporality” (Ibid., 37).