Melbourne School of Government Conference: Democracy in Transition. Conference Program. 6-8 December 2015 Venue: The Langham Hotel, Melbourne

Transcription

1 Melbourne School of Government Conference: Democracy in Transition Conference Program 6-8 December 2015 Venue: The Langham Hotel, Melbourne Day 1: Monday, 7 December Time 8.30am 9.00am Registration Welcome & Setting the Scene Plenary 1: 21 st century challenges for democracy This conference looks at the breadth of democracy globally. Current research studies point to a significant retreat of Western liberal democracy not only in terms of citizen engagement, but also the upholding of basic liberal democratic rights and freedoms. Linked to this are the challenges facing the rise of many newly-minted liberal democracies. World-wide we are witnessing an evolution of democratic ideals and models, with new insights and solutions that have the potential to transform democratic societies the forms they take, the challenges they face, and possible collaborative solutions am 11.15am 1 Morning tea Theme s: Problems with 21 st century democracy Democratic disconnect : are citizens really over democracy? Many Western democracies are experiencing a growing malaise in terms of growing citizen distrust, disinterest and distemper with their political leaders, parties and the democratic system more generally. Is the so-called democratic disconnect just another of democracy s periodic crises? Or is there something different and more profound going on? What is causing the disconnect, how does it manifest itself across different democracies and can it be bridged? 2 What s wrong with political leadership? Many narratives accounting for contemporary democracy s malaise blame declining standards of political leadership. Complaints range from a failure of political leaders to focus on the big policy issues, an increasing obsession with style and spin over substance, and a general inability among leaders and their parties to sustain support and trust in the way that previous political leaders were able to do. Has political leadership in Western democracy reached a nadir, and if so, why? Is addressing democracy s contemporary problems simply a case of electing better leaders, or do these accounts mask deeper issues with our political system? Is Federalism a Problem for Democracy? 1

2 3 Whose system is it?: role of special interests and money politics in 21 st century Western democracy Democracy distinguishes itself as a political system in which competing interests vie for scarce political and economic resources through regular elections, a competitive party system and free and dynamic public debate. Yet there are serious concerns that access to political and policy is now skewed overwhelmingly in favour of a narrow band of vested interests. This means little opportunity for ordinary citizens to exert major political or policy influence. These concerns are focused on the growing power of corporate interests on public policy, particularly as political parties rely increasingly on private donations to fund election campaigning. Has the role of vested interests increased to a point of no return? If so, what is the extent of this influence and how is it manifested? Is greater transparency around political and policy decision-making the answer? 12.30pm 1.30pm Lunch Theme s: Potential solutions to renew democracy How does indigenous political organisation influence 21st century conceptions of Western liberal democratic ideals? 4 New models of democracy: Is deliberative or direct democracy the answer? As questions are raised about the capacity of liberal representative democracy to effectively manage the 21 st century, there are calls for new forms of democracy to be explored and potentially utilised. Both deliberative and direct systems of democracy effectively seek to downgrade, or even do away with the role of elected representatives in favour of more direct citizen input into political decisions and policy-making. How realistic are these systems in a large-scale, complex world? How would they ensure effective representative and timely policy-making? What examples can we point to of their success, or otherwise in Western and non-western polities? Organisational Democracy: Is it dead and buried? In the 1960s and 70s, worker participation and industrial democracy conceptualised as the legitimate right of workers to shape their own destiny were central to the programs of unions and activists. Since that time, it appears that the prospects for democracy within organisations have declined steadily and been replaced by a managerially-driven agenda of empowerment, involvement and voice, seen chiefly as a means to drive improvements in business performance. Many have argued that the fight for organisational democracy has been lost and that it is dead and buried. This panel considers the current state of organisational democracy and its future prospects. 5 The role of social media in renewing democracy Internet-based communications and technology (ICT) is often viewed as the panacea to liberal democracy s current woes. Connecting citizens via ICT directly to decision-makers and policy-making will create, it is claimed, a more responsive polity, as well as more functional policy and political outcomes. It is also claimed that connecting citizens to politicians and policy-making through these channels will reverse the growing democracy disconnect among young people. Can ICT, particularly social media, be feasibly connected into our current political system? How is it currently used by political parties and policy-makers? How can ICT be constructively used to increase responsiveness and citizen representation? 6 Reforming the policy process: how do we get better outcomes? Policy gridlock and a growing inability to address the big policy issues of the day are now seen as synonymous with many Western democracies. Fractious electorates are seen as one reason why policy 2

3 outcomes are harder to achieve, while others blame a paucity of political vision and leadership. Are Western democracies now more prone to gridlock and if so, why? Are there better ways, or even better systems, to construct public policy that balance the need for effective input from citizens while maximising policy certainty and effectiveness. Should citizens have more or less say in policy making? Should we rely more on experts to construct policy in a hyper-complex world? What do these potential changes mean for conventional political notions of representativeness, accountability and legitimacy? 2.45pm 3.15pm Afternoon tea Plenary session 2: Performance of democracy This session brings together the key themes of the afternoon session in order to discuss and evaluate specific proposals that can potentially improve the performance of Western-style liberal democracy in the contemporary world. Specifically, it asks which alternate models or processes to liberal democracy have worked, or are seen to work effectively in other jurisdictions? It also discusses potential obstacles to renewing democracy s performance in an age where Western-style liberal democracy despite its flaws continues to be seen as the main legitimate way to organise and order contemporary political systems. The session provides a segue into Day 2 which will focus on how 21 st century challenges to liberal democracy relate to alternative approaches to political renewal emerging in a number of non- Western jurisdictions, as well as current debates around illiberal and radical democracy. 4.30pm 4.50pm 6.30pm Summary session Conference close Conference drinks and dinner Day 2: Tuesday, 8 December 2015 Time 8.30am 9.00am Coffee Plenary session 3: Conflict and democracy It has become well established that conflict and democracy are not antonyms. Democracy is not necessarily an antidote to conflict, and conflict may stem from a lack or an excess of democratic politics. Protracted societal conflict typically pertains to contentions around the very fundaments of political order: the basic demarcation of sovereignty, territory, people and the nature of state institutions. Engagement with the conflict-democracy nexus thus requires us to grapple with precisely those fundaments that tend to escape much of the debate on democratic politics. This panel will engage with the fundamental questions of democratic politics in relation to conflict in the context of post-war transition. Is democratization feasible when the nature of a supposed nation-state has not been worked out? How does conflict endure after military victory or a peace settlement? How do wartime power and authority translate into the post-war political landscape? 10.30am 11.00am 7 Morning tea Theme s: Political contestation and democratic boundaries Political laboratories: contested environments as sites of sovereign innovation and political experimentation This panel approaches war-torn contexts as political laboratories where new forms of sovereignty and political legitimacy are being invented and tested, as unsettled sites where the normative bases and contradictions of legitimacy have not yet sedimented into naturalised order. This provides an interesting vantage point for scrutinizing rebel rules as forms of political experimentation, but it also forces us to engage with international efforts of democracy promotion in the name of liberal peace. It 3

4 has become well-established that such initiatives are not an unreserved success particularly when they come on the back of a military intervention. But what if we move beyond the debate of unrealistic time frames and expectations, problematic double standards and normative questions of failure and success, and instead explore the actually existing political notions and narratives that emerge when democracy promotion hits the ground? What is the actual political economy that emerges out of elections with highly internationalised political stakes? What forms of democratic innovation emerge in the liminal spaces between contradictory renderings of political legitimacy? 8 Post-war democratic politics: new rules, old games? The end of war is often understood as a break point where the rules of the game change. Bullets start yielding to ballots. At the same time, it is clear that positions of power and repertoires of authority are not simply erased by a peace deal or fresh elections. Many war-time leaders manage to reinvent themselves by obtaining amnesty, securing tenure in public office, capitalizing on their military triumphs as a base for legitimacy and by crafting their mastery of the democratic narrative. Many of these observations remind us of a similar, but rarely compared set of democratic transitions, namely those of post-communist countries that established democratic systems. What can we learn from comparing these cases and literatures? 9 Erasure and exclusion: The politics of democracy itself Countries emerging from war often undergo some form of democratic transition. Despite the liberal ambitions of such a transition, this inevitably means setting bounds and boundaries. After all, democratic arrangements enable some forms of politics while pacifying or erasing others. Some forms of representation become viable, others demise. Ironically, it is often the key conflict issues that are excluded from the arena of legitimate politics as threats to the democratic order. They direct us to the politics of democracy itself and thus raise critical questions about erasure and exclusion in mature democracies pm 1.15pm 10 Lunch Theme s: Illiberal democracy The power to deliver: patronage politics and public goods There is a fine line between corruption and material welfare as the basis of democratic legitimacy. Many voters expect their political leaders to not only deliver public goods, but secure the material interests of their constituencies as well. Can state patronage be a solid basis for mature liberal democratic politics? How do accounts that underline the supposed normality of patronage, position with widespread dismay about allegations of corruption? Does the narrative of public goods resonate with vernacular understandings of legitimacy? 11 Democracy in divided societies: majoritarianism and plurality Divided societies are prone to majoritarianism, be it along lines of ethnicity, language, religion, regional affinity or otherwise. The standard theoretical prescription in these contexts would be checks and balances, rule of law and forms of affirmative action. Getting these right is difficult enough in practice, but they also direct us to more fundamental questions around liberal democracy. Premised as it is on the individuals that make up a nation, what does it take for it to be able to capture other kinds of collective groups or a multiplicity of nations and doesn t that put in question some of its foundational principles? Is it capable of grappling with contested questions of genealogy, belonging and migration if the basic tenets of citizenship appear to become part of the problem? 12 Populism: sovereign power, nationalism and illiberalism with an electoral mandate? 4

5 Democracy has a long tradition of producing undemocratic leaders. In recent years, we have many such leaders walk the tightrope between electoral legitimacy and strong-arm rule. Malaysia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Indonesia and Russia are a few among many countries that have witnessed populist leaders that derive their authority from blatant (and often divisive) nationalism, an aura of political potency and guardians of sovereign order. Do democratic thought and practice provide us with effective ways of engaging with populism? 2.30pm 3.00pm Afternoon tea Plenary session 4: Is democracy secular? The debates on illiberal democracy in the previous session raise a broader question that resonates with democracies across the globe: is democracy secular? And what do we mean by secular in this context? Is it the neutrality of the state in relation to religious diversity in society or is it the hegemony of one rendering of the politics-religion nexus over others? 4.00pm 4.45pm Closing Panel Conference close 5