PTO101

CHAPTER 20
Is Politics Broken?
Is politics broken?
• What does it mean to ask this question about ‘politics’?
• Heywood refers to politics in almost anthropomorphic terms: “Politics…appears to be losing its ability
to engage and enthuse” (763).
• He refers to this decline of politics as taking place mainly in so-called ‘mature’ democracies.
• The main signs of this loss is in a) declining levels of voter turnout and b) falling party membership
• Is political participation not declining but in fact changing, that is, through rise of protest movements
or internet-based activism?
• Who’s responsible for decline?
• Politics and politicians
• Media
• Public themselves
• Possible solutions:
• extending the reach of democracy
• Rescaling politics on a more local basis
• Rebuilding citizenship
• Tackling inequality
Anti-politics
• “‘Anti-politics’ refers to a rejection of, and/or alienation from,
conventional politicians and political processes, especially
‘mainstream’ political parties and established representative
mechanisms” (764).
• Public (political engagement); retreat into private (political
disengagement)
• The idea that anti-politics “spawned new forms of politics”, “articulate
disillusionment with established political structures and offer more
‘authentic’ alternatives”.
• Is it failure of politics or failure of democracy?
Is politics broken?
• Civic disengagement:
• Lower voter turnout
• Political parties not acting as agents of popular mobilization and
political participation
• Less identification with a party (psychological attachment or
loyalty)
Is politics broken?
• “…in the period 1945–97, average voter turnout in UK general
elections usually remained above 75 per cent, with a postwar high of
84 per cent being achieved in 1950. The turnout in the 2001 general
election nevertheless fell to 59 per cent, the lowest figure since
1918…declining voter turnout in Canada has been particularly evident
amongst younger voters, creating a situation in which only about one-
third of first-time voters now actually vote, half the rate of a
generation ago. Similar trends can be found across Western Europe,
in Japan, and in parts of Latin America, leading to the estimate that
voter turnout has decreased globally by about 5 percentage points
since the 1950s” (765)
Is politics broken?
• “There is also evidence of a major long-term decline in party
membership across established democracies. During 1980–2010,
party membership dropped by one million or more in Italy, France
and the UK, around half a million in Germany, and close to half a
million in Austria. Norway and France have lost well over half their
party members since the 1980s, while, in 2010, fewer than 1 per cent
of adults in the UK belonged to political parties, down from 7 per cent
some fifty years ago” (766).
‘New politics’ rather than ‘anti-politics’?
• Is the crisis in politics a crisis of participation then? (low voter turnout and low participation
in political parties)
• Or is there no crisis because participation has just shifted from one form to another?
Upsurge in pressure group politics, protest movements, use of social media to facilitate
political debate and activism)
• That is, ‘new politics’ - reflecting more fluid, participatory, non-hierarchical and, possibly,
more spontaneous styles of political participation
• Anti-capitalist, anti-globalization protest movements since the 1990s
• Citizens are not merely retreating from public into private – resentment, hostility, anger
among the populace (service delivery protests in South Africa?)
• Also, right-wing movements, particularly in Western Europe, US, Canada: opposition to
immigration, opposition to multiculturalism, opposition to globalization
• These translate into electoral gains for right-wing leaders/ parties: “62 million people who
backed Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election; the 17 million people who
favoured Brexit in the UK’s EU referendum, also held in 2016; the more than 10 million
people who supported Marine Le Pen in the 2017 French presidential election; and the 6
million people who voted for Alternative for Germany in the 2018 German general election”.
Who is to blame?
• Neoliberal economics?
• “the spread of neoliberalism (see p. 163) … has encouraged
establishment forces generally to regard political involvement in
matters of economics and social exchange as non-legitimate (Jones,
2015). As the belief has taken root that the economy should, as far as
possible, be ‘depoliticized’, projects of economic and social reform
(such as nationalization, expanded social welfare, and the
redistribution of wealth from rich to poor), which were fashionable in
the early post-1945 period, became virtually unthinkable in
mainstream political circles” (772).
Who is to blame?
• Neoliberal economics?
• “…refashioning economic policy in order to promote equality has also attracted
criticism. For example, the assumption that inequality should be regarded as a
problem, in itself, has been challenged on the grounds that many accept that
unequal rewards are reasonable and just. This applies both when inequality
reflects unequal talents and an unequal willingness to work hard, and when it
promotes a culture of aspiration. Some argue, similarly, that the quest for
equality is sustained not by fairness but by the ‘politics of envy’. However, the
most strident objections to equality are usually made from the economic
perspective. Liberal political economists link social equality to economic
stagnation. This occurs because social ‘levelling’ serves to cap aspirations and
remove the incentive for enterprise. In this view, the sterility and inertia of
orthodox communist systems was largely due to their high levels of job security,
backed up by low income differentials. The poor may therefore be better off, in
absolute terms, if they live in a relatively unequal, ratherthan a relatively equal,
society.” (783-784).
Who is to blame?
• Spread of liberal social values?
• “the spread of liberal social values has generated a backlash among
those left behind by cultural changes (such as gender equality and the
advance of multiculturalism (see p. 185)) that they deeply reject.
Particularly affecting non-college-educated white men in Western
societies, this has generated hostility towards a political system that
seems to ignore some of their deepest concerns (Norris and Inglehart,
2019)” (775).
Is politics broken?
• “Insofar as politics (in the sense of compromise and consensus
building) constitutes a distinctively non-violent means of resolving
conflict, the long- and short-term decline in violence that has
occurred mainly, but not only, in Western societies (Pinker, 2011)
surely provides evidence of both the effectiveness of politics and its
wider use” (764).