<nettime> counterpowers - executive democracy

[Brian Holmes <106271.223@compuserve.com>]

It's a pleasure to read the Montreal newspapers during the run-up to the
Summit of the Americas. A far cry from what you'd get in the States, or
France for that matter. Take a normally conservative paper like The
Gazette, with the usual-type headline: "Police Worry About Black Blocks."
On page 1 there isn't a single report of fire-bombing or conspiracy, so
you flip to page 7 and it shows a picture of a jackbooted cop dressed
entirely in black, jabbing a machine gun into the face of a protestor
while kicking him in the groin! Mixed message? If your eye drifts to the
bottom left of page 6, another article tells you some church group is
gonna protest right here in Montreal on the night of the 20th, in
solidarity with, apparently, the anarchists up there in Quebec City
wreeaking hell and havoc with those 34 innocent world leaders and their
corporate cheering squads...

But the subject is executive democracy, so here's a tidbit from a
French-language paper, Le Devoir, April 11. Turns out that even
politicians are losing faith in the government! The article is by an
elected representative, a Parti Quebecois member, president of the Quebec
National Assembly, and founder of the Parlementary Conference of the
Americas. OK, it's also a biased view from a separatist party and there's
plenty of Canadian politics between the lines, but check it out if you
still don't get the reasons for what's about to happen in Quebec City:


DEMOCRACY IS MORE THAN JUST ELECTIONS
Parliaments marginalized in the American countries

Jean-Pierre Charbonneau

The first thing to be said is that the behavior of the governments
participating in the Summit of the Americas has weakened and continues to
weaken representative democracy rather than reinforcing it, even though
that was the primary objective sought by the new "partnership of the
community of American democracies."

        When you analyze the official texts and declarations of the heads
of State, you immediately realize that their conception of strenthening
representative democracy is limited to improving the electoral process, to
put a halt to the coups d'etat and the military dictatorships that
poisoned the lives of the Latin American peoples for decades.

        But nothing supports the idea that they are really interested in
representative democracy once the elections are over. If that were the
case, the responsibility of the popularly elected deputies and senators
who have received a mandate to co-govern their societies with the leaders
of the executive branches would be recognized everywhere and at all levels
of state power. In a truly healthy representative democracy, elected
officials participate in framing the important social projects, with
substantial oppportunites to oversee the way they are carried out.

        By acting like elected monarchs at the head of
political-technocratic oligarchies, the continent's 34 heads of state not
only contradict their initally generous commitments, but they accelerate
the trend toward a marginalization of the parliaments by the executive
branch (the governments). What prevails more or less everywhere is not
democratic practice, but authoritarian and absolutist behavior. Nothing to
inspire populations to adopt democratic ideals. On the contrary, when
citizens see their heads of state discounting their voices and ignoring
the peoples' elected representatives, they become ever more suspiscious of
the political class, while becoming skeptical, if not cynical, about the
real usefulness of parliamentary assemblies and their members, the
deputies and senators...

        To this day, none of the continent's some 300 parliamentary bodies
has been able to shoulder its fundamental responsibility to survey the
executive branch and contribute to good public policy with respect to the
FTAA.

        So it's clear that a vicious circle has been set into place,
resulting not only in the weakening but even the devaluation of democracy
itself. The subliminal message that goes out is that an enlightened
dictatorship or an elective monarchy, without any parliament or any long,
fastidious and sometimes excessive discussions, is preferable for the
common good - partiularly when what's at stake is a major project that
involves the future of the multitude. [snip]


So what if we all just said enough is enough?

Brian Holmes


q

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net