The%20role%20of%20political%20parties%20in%20finding%20democratic%20answers%20to%20contemporary%20political%20challenges

1
The role of political parties in finding
democratic answers to contemporary political
challenges

• Workshop animated with a contribution by
• Andreas Gross (Switzerland)
• (Political Scientist, MP, PACE)
• Info_at_andigross.ch www.andigross.ch
• at the CoE / Duma - Forum for the Future of
  Democracyabout
•  The Role of Political Parties in the Building
  of Democracy
• Moscow, October 18th 2006

2
One expression of the current banalisation of
democracy is the regression of political parties
to power machines

• Many today dont look for engaged citizens as
  active members anymore, but just for
• fans (uncritical followers)
• sponsors
• voters
• future power holders

3
Today - the classical duties political parties
have to fulfill are more necessary than ever - in
all parts of Europe

• Places of regular deliberations in order to find
  political orientation and influence
• Opportunities for (mutual) political education
• Places to elaborate political programs
• Links between representatives and members and
  electors Both have to listen to criticism,
  hopes, needs, disappointments and alternative
  propositions

4
By doing this they are (would be) (again)
essential parts of an improved democratic
processes

• Legitimacy of political decisions
• Understanding of political situations and social
  realities
• Social and political learning
• Inspiring and designing policy change in time
  and substance

5
In a country with a strong and healthy democracy
the main parties have active sections in every
bigger village and town

• There one listens, speaks, thinks, exchanges
  experiences, alternative propositions and hopes
  with each other
• Formulates interests and tries to transform them
  into concepts, programs and practical suggestions
  for parliaments and governments or common
  collective actions
• Officials have to defend their actions,
  non-actions, shortcomings

6
Nobody knows what the general interest and
the public cause isThat s why we need
different partys who try to formulate them based
on different philosophical believes

• Parties are places where different people with
  different philosophical convictions, interests
  and perspectives try to formulate how they
  understand the General Interest and the Public
  Cause and
• where they try to find others who share their
  views in order to
• organise together political power

7
In a democracy you are alone powerless - to
develop your potential power you have to organize
yourself with likeminded men and women

• Alone you may politically despair
• If you want to change something you have to find
  likeminded citizens
• You have to act together in order to make a
  change and a difference
• In doing so you are free - passively and by
  trying to consume it, you cant act and you cant
  be free

8
The more a party on all levels is marked not only
by professionals but also ordinary citizens,
the stronger the party and representative
Democracy are

• The more ordinary citizens are, the more they
  bring the experiences of daily life into
  politics
• The better citizens can speak, express their
  needs and observations, the more all others,
  especially officials may learn

9
In a democracy the life of and in a party is the
expression of how lively and practical the really
existing democracy in the state and the society
is

• Reforms, changes, and transformations of the
  society may start and find their expressions in
  the quality of the life of a party
• The better a party gets the more it works as a
  collective intellectual (AG)

10
Pan-European Design elements of many modern
parties which undermine the legitimacy
representative Democracy

• Centralisation
• Personalisation
• Professionalism
• Expertokratisation
• Etatisation
• Hierarchysation
• Overcrowding of the political centre
• Difficult to show a real pragmatic difference

11
(Neg.) Expressions of the decline of democracy in
states dominated by such parties

• Decline in Partys memberships
• Citizens find NGOs and associations more
  attractive
• Increasing distance between institutional
  politics and citizens
• Feelings of political frustrations and
  anti-party-resentments
• Increasing Demagogy and Populism

12
In old democracies with a hegemony of private
economy media and the market try to substitute
political parties - in new democracies they
contribute to have to built them up

• Media are primarily business oriented
• They favour conflicts and persons over
  deliberations, background and ideas
• Markets are not able to express all needs and in
  a suffiently rapid way

13
In order to restore representative Democracy
political partys first have to restore themselves

• Back to the better roots under new (partially
  also better ) historical circumstances
• New interface between individual and collective
  group (Representative/Represented Society/State)
• Intellectual policy Laboratory of
  deliberation,acting and developing
• Open workshops for interested citizens