While the US presidential election saw the victory of Donald Trump, it is worth considering the concept of democracy as defined by Western societies.The philosopher Florent Guénard warns us against the temptation to make it a universal model that we could "sell" elsewhere as if it meets an expectation ...
Democracy seems so obvious to Western societies that if one knows what it is opposed to - oligarchies, autocracies, authoritarian or totalitarian states - one knows less, on the other hand, what defines it. By dint of seeing it as the reverse of totalitarianism, we have forgotten what might arouse interest in this particular political regime ... In this intense electoral period, French and American, a young philosopher, Florent Guénard wonders On the meaning and eventual "universality" of democracy. Is there a transnational democratic ideal?Under what conditions is this political model exportable in the world? Response with the author of Universal Democracy.Philosophy of a political model (ed. Of the Seuil), lecturer at the University of Nantes.
Is democracy the best of regimes, or worst of all, as Churchill said?
It is the best regime if one considers it not as a mere institutional organization but as a set of values (freedom, equality, justice, dignity) to which the whole population can adhere. The twentieth century has impoverished the democratic idea by reducing it to its minimal meaning, that is to say, by choosing our rulers through free and competitive elections. But it is much more than that, and it is this rich, substantial conception that interests me. The Greek Democrats in Antiquity already said: Democracy is a way of life, a way of getting in touch with each other. In a speech pronounced in front of the Athenians in 430 BC, a funeral oration of those who died in battle against Sparta, Pericles says that if Athens is strong against this military oligarchy it is because she is a democrat, Attached to a way of life, to the defense of values, and therefore "educator" for the whole of Greece. The strength of democracy is to be able to gather the citizens around it, to reach an agreement between the life of the city and the life of the individual.
Plato, however, was a fervent adversary. What was he reproaching him for?
He regarded it as a lie: it proclaims, literally, that it is the power of the people, but in reality it is only the power of the speakers who address themselves to the crowd, and who merely manipulate it. Plato considered that democracy was only a name, a regime without its own form, without a real foundation. But he also underlined the extraordinary force of seduction of this name, whose diffusion seemed irresistible as it is associated with freedom.
This critique of democracy seems very current ...
Yes, she was recently worn by Standing Night. The criticism of democracy is to be reduced to procedures. However, it is difficult to focus on intermittent electoral processes, the significance of which can no longer be seen, as evidenced by the growing abstention ... People feel that they are no longer represented, The verticality of a decision confiscated by a handful of experts. But it is up to the citizens to set up places that correct this; It is necessary to multiply the instances of supervision, the councils, the commissions, etc. So that elected officials can be held accountable.There can be democratic control over what the experts do. The latter must not have the last word, citizens must understand where everyone is talking, if there is a conflict of interest, and so on. We need transparency. We are not therefore condemned to say that democracy is only a name: democracy is something other than institutions, it is a way of implementing social policies, justice, equality , Of dignity within the community to which each belongs. Democracy, in this sense, is a way of existing, of making society.
"Democracy will always be stronger than the barbarity that declared war on it," Francois Hollande recently said in his speech "Democracy versus Terrorism" . Would the defense of democracy be one of the last cards to play in the quinquennium?
Current terrorism targets what the democratic ideal holds to be essential: freedom and individual rights, moderation of power, pluralism of values, and so on. The presidential discourse takes note of this hostility and asks the question, which has haunted all democracies: how can they defend themselves against their enemies by staying themselves, that is, without renouncing what constitutes them ? How can security and freedom be reconciled? Democracy is always on a crest path; Every day, Holland and Obama sign death sentences by drones, authorizations to go bombard.How far can democracies make such decisions without becoming undemocratic? The first reaction of François Hollande to the attacks was to praise the strength of the state to reassure the population. Beyond electoral motivations, it can be assumed that the executive is now seeking to reaffirm the attachment of citizens to their democracy and the strength that it can draw from it. Hollande would like the election campaign to focus on questions of values and not on purely identity issues; He thus defined France as an idea, not as an identity. But this is not going to happen, because the president no longer has a hand in the debate. It is no longer audible.
Is the promotion of democracy a constant feature of US foreign policy?
In the 1980s, the promotion of democracy became an instrument of the Cold War.Ronald Reagan declared in 1982 that the conflict between the United States and the USSR could only end with the triumph of liberal democracy. It is the spirits that must be won, and this requires the diffusion of the democratic idea in the world. It is an ideological war that must be waged. This is the American "mission". The United States then sets up promotional programs to support what they think is the aspiration of peoples to freedom. Public or semi-public institutions, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), also fund political parties, research programs, etc. in democratizing countries, Latin America and Eastern Europe .
What did it play for democracy with the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, and on September 11, 2001?
Reaganism, once weakened, arose again after 9/11. The Bush administration, influenced by the neoconservatives, was animated by the idea that history should be accelerated. The end of history, in the words of the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama, was the inevitable triumph of liberal democracy defined by the electoral process and individual rights. To intervene in Iraq, therefore, was to go in the direction of history, it was to liberate peoples who, according to neoconservatism, were only waiting for that to become democrats. So the United States went, without blinking, to make war for democracy. They thought they could liberate a country by conquest, by invasion, which is of course an untenable paradox.The subsequent events showed that all this had proceeded from unfortunate intellectual simplifications, with dramatic consequences. The democratic idea was simplified, thinking that it was enough to set up electoral processes for whole societies to transform. And we have simplified the history of these societies, considering that their peculiarities were not going to resist a process of democratization that was considered universal.
So democracy is not exportable?
The spread of the democratic model, its universalization can not proceed from an export. Exogenous, it too often recalls colonial imperialism. Democracy demands the support of peoples, which presupposes something other than a simple consent to electoral procedures. There is no expansion of democracy without passion for democracy. Democracy is not a commodity that can be "sold", as if it responded to an expectation, was inserted in a market. To consider democracy as a model does not imply that it can be applied everywhere, regardless of the contexts and historical conditions.
What did the Arab Spring reveal on this issue?
That what makes people want to overthrow an authoritarian regime is not the prospect of freely voting once every five years ... It is more than that, it is a desire for dignity and justice, fight against corruption. The revolt in Tunisia was at first social;The Tunisians wanted to live not only in a democratic state but also in a democratic society that gives them access to a share of the wealth produced by the community.We must be attentive to the concrete way in which democracy is claimed throughout history. Yet the aspiration of peoples to freedom is not enough to create a democracy. This is the other lesson that can be drawn from the failures of the Arab Spring. The Tunisian revolution, the successful exception in the spring, did not consist in an import of democracy, but rather in the adaptation of a model. The Tunisians drew their inspiration from the long history of democracy in order to orient their demands and build a new relationship with power. They have claimed a revolutionary and democratic legacy - human rights have been a constant reference.Yet they did not consider it necessary to apply a pre-established plan, as if democracy was a kit to mount yourself. Unlike Tunisia, the democratic aspiration of Turkey resulted in the restoration of an even more authoritarian regime. The Arab Spring has been disillusioned, but the history of emancipation is thus made, of advances and setbacks, of hopes and discouragement.
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