March 20, 2017

Democracy in the Twenty-first Century

Boaventura de Sousa Santos , José Manuel Mendes e Giovanni Ruocco

Representative democracy is a political system encompassing both theoretical and empirical limitations in realising the principle of democracy as power of the people. The sustainability of this system is based on the "political colonisation", meaning that political power is held by a few subjugating the majority. After this view, socio-political relations are regulated by the political elite (coloniser) while wider society is subdued (colonised). Among the many different alternative democratic paradigms available, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has proposed insightful theoretical perspectives to achieve what Boaventura de Sousa Santos names "democratisation of democracy", which by itself is a struggle against political-colonialism. After a systematic proposal of Gandhian political perspectives and Gandhian movements, this research aims at comparatively analyse two political movements, in India (AAP) and Italy (M5S) in order to understand if and how they struggle for "political anti-colonisation" and a democratisation of democracy, including making use also of civil disobedience. The main idea is that all people of a democratic society are entitled to an equal power sharing and that political representatives are civil servants and not privileged power-holders. This implies a different concept of public sphere where people shape their own socio-political interaction and take decision that concern their lives.