What democracy is and is not, de SCHMITTER et KARL

Résumé du document

Fiche réalisée dans le cadre d'un exposé pour un cours de Democracy and Democratization of South and East Asia. Il s'agit d'une fiche de lecture de l'essai de Philippe C. SCHMITTER et Terry Lynn KARL "What democracy is and is not" disponible ici : //www.ned.org/docs/Philippe-C-Schmitter-and-Terry-Lynn-Karl-What-Democracy-is-and-Is-Not.pdf

Extraits

[...] THE ARTICLE The authors First of all, this article is written by Philippe C. Schmitter, an emeritus professor of the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute whose publications are quite numerous concerning comparative politics or the transitions from authoritarian rule and democratization processes. To that extent and to reward his work over those issues, he has received varied prices such as the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science in 2009. Terry Lyn Karl is a professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Political Science in the Political Science Department at Stanford University and also received several rewards such as the Rio Branco Prize. [...]

[...] Third, "experience has shown that democracy too can lose the ability to govern". Conclusion Finally, in their conclusion, Schmitter and Karl advocate that democracy may not necessarily bring economic growth, social peace, political harmony or "the end of history" to take the words of Fukuyama. To that extent, it is not the holy regime that we should praise: it does not have the legitimacy to be praised as such. The high expectations placed in democracies, especially after the Cold War, are quite a disappointment to the two authors. [...]

[...] A few limits may be: The instrumentalization for the benefit of imperialist interests, The difficulty of joining the collective and the individual, The problems related to the representativeness of citizens: can we reconcile power granted to the people and representation of it? Democracy is regularly threatened by the rise of extremes, Abstention in elections and non-political participation, The lack of confidence of the citizens regarding the political class, The perception of political powerlessness due to its structuration. What about democracy legitimacy, traditionally passing by the vote and the representation? [...]

[...] The despotism that the democracies must fear is that of a state which little by little, taking advantage of citizens' lack of interest in political life and their inclination to centralize power, would extend its administration in such a way as to control absolutely everything. So, this is a first way to contest democracy legitimacy, but we will detail this further. Procedures that make democracy possible Schmitter and Karl continue their essay by making a list of the tools indispensable and necessary to democracy's persistence, but not "sufficient conditions to its existence", to use their words. [...]

[...] Democracy thus takes shape according to the unique conditions in a given country: it is a more complex political system than it seems. Then, Schmitter and Karl give a definition of modern political democracy and define the very terms they use in their definition to make it clearer: System of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives. According to them, a system of governance is a regime and depicts the "method of access to the principal public offices, the characteristics of the actors admitted / excluded of those offices, and the rules of policy's making". [...]