1 John Schwarzmantel, POLIS, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. j.j.schwarzmantel@leeds.ac.uk Creating community: a remedy for democracy s discontents? Paper presented to IPSA World Congress, Fukuoka, July 2006. Introduction. This paper seeks to shed light on the question of whether the creation and development of an overarching political community can assist the working of democratic politics, and what this would mean in theory and practice. It seeks to investigate, from a general theoretical perspective, the ways in which democratic politics are impeded by the lack of structures which bring citizens together, and what concept of community is theoretically adequate to justify and ground institutions which do satisfy that requirement. In advancing the argument it is necessary to look at a number of rival claims concerning the relationship of democracy and community: in the first place those which are deeply sceptical of the necessity or possibility of political community, secondly those who from a liberal perspective suggest that merely living under the same political institutions is sufficient for democratic community, and finally those so-called liberal nationalists who see in the civic nation the guarantee of democratic community. In contrast to those positions, the argument offered here sees in some version of republicanism a more convincing grounding for an idea of community which both recognises difference and diversity of citizen identity, while at the same time integrating citizens in a common political association. If such a concept of community can be justified theoretically, this still leaves open the question of whether such a theory of democratic community can be successfully applied in practice, and the ways in which this might be done. The basic political assumption underlying this paper is that liberal-democracy as presently
2 constituted is not the only game in town, if by that is meant that no significant alternative to its current form is feasible or even conceivable. The discussion below is designed to contribute to the reshaping of liberal-democratic politics, in ways that extend and deepen citizens loyalties to present-day democracy. Only in such ways, it is argued, can the working of democracy be improved. The argument of this paper thus starts from the broad question posed by the title of this IPSA World Congress, Is Democracy Working?. I propose the hypothesis that one reason why democracy is not working as well as it might is the weakness of a strong sense of community which binds citizens together. Some of the most fundamental aspects of what has been called democracy s discontent (Sandel, 1998) arise from sentiments of marginalisation and exclusion felt by those who are citizens of contemporary liberal-democratic societies, and those who wish to become citizens. It should be made clear that we are not dealing here merely with sentiments which have no basis in fact- these feelings of exclusion reflect real relations of being outside the mainstream of social and political life. If such separation between groups of citizens divided by distinct cultural, ethnic and social identities is a serious problem for contemporary liberal-democracies, then the question is posed of how to overcome, or at least mitigate, this hindrance to the better working of democratic politics. The importance of relations of trust between citizens of a democratic society has been recognised in the literature on social capital. As Putnam remarks in his study Bowling Alone, A society characterised by generalised reciprocity is more efficient than a distrustful society, for the reason that money is more efficient than barter (Putnam, 2000, p. 21). But it is argued here that it is not a matter just of efficiency, but of making democracy work better by increasing the degree of understanding
3 between citizens. Barry argues that we cannot expect the outcomes of democratic politics to be just in a society that contains large numbers of people who feel no sense of empathy with their fellow citizens and do not have any identification with their lot (Barry, 2001, p. 79). Following such a line of thought, the argument proposed in this paper investigates whether an inclusive political community could be a remedy for these divisions within the citizen body, and what such a political community would mean in theory and in practice. Is it possible to create political community, and if so, by what means and agencies? And would any attempt to realise the values of democratic community infringe on core liberal values, so that political community, in anything other than a very minimal sense, is an aspiration which it would be better to abandon, if we take liberal values seriously? These are the questions probed, in broad theoretical terms, in this paper. It is necessary at this preliminary stage to suggest that the answer proposed is an ideal of republican citizenship, offered as a goal which citizens and political elites of contemporary liberal-democracies should strive to attain. The analysis developed here thus gives an affirmative answer to the question of whether political community can be, to a certain extent, one remedy (among others) for the discontent of democracy arising from cultural and social separation. Problems arise however in two respects: what is the kind of community which should be aimed at, given the notorious vagueness and diversity of the concept of community? And if we can indeed establish theoretically a coherent concept of political community, what would its practical implications be for the present structure of liberal-democratic societies, and the demands made on its citizens? The argument thus starts (Part one) from reflection on the lack of community in contemporary liberal-democratic societies, and the ways in
4 which this harms the workings of democracy. It then proceeds to a critique of alternative perspectives on political community (Part two), before seeking to develop a viable concept of democratic political community and assess its feasibility and modes of possible realisation (Part three). Part One: Lack of Community and the discontent of democracy. This paper starts then from the hypothesis that democracy is not working because many of those who live within the ambit of contemporary liberal-democratic societies feel a sense of anger against what have been described as the broken promises of the republic (Wieviorka, 1999). In theory liberal-democracy as a political system rests its claim to legitimacy on three promises. The first of these is the promise of political inclusion, which implies that all those living within the territory of the state (apart from transient visitors and minors in age) are citizens who have an equal say in making the law. This therefore aims at the recognition of the autonomy of its citizens. Such an aspiration finds classic expression in Rousseau s words in The Social Contract (Book I, Chapter VIII) that obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty (Rousseau, 1968, p. 16): to be autonomous is not to be free to do whatever one wants, nor to be dominated by rules imposed in an arbitrary fashion, but to be regulated only by laws in which all citizens have been actively involved in making. Secondly, while this might not find agreement from adherents to a highly minimalist or libertarian perspective on democracy, contemporary liberal-democratic societies offer what Marshall in his classic account (Marshall, 1992) calls social citizenship, the attempt to provide their members with at least minimal standards of education and basic resources of housing and security so that they are able in a practical sense to exercise their citizenship rights. In the absence of certain minimal
5 social provision, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to function as a citizen sharing to some degree in the deliberation and debate out of which, theoretically, laws should emerge. Liberal-democracy in theory is thus a political system which promises political inclusion, an effective voice in deciding the laws and the regulations which affect all who live within its reach, and also a degree of social equality, even though this is a theme which has been downplayed with the current rise of neo-liberalism in a world context. The third promise of liberal-democracy, in theory, is perhaps of most significance in the contemporary world. That is the promise of the recognition of difference, or the promise of respect and recognition, with the aspiration that the distinct and diverse identities of its citizens will be equally respected. Contemporary democracies thus should be alive to the reality of diversity and difference, and reject the idea of assimilation to one standard of normality in culture or life plans. Thus firstly, political equality as a guarantee of autonomy, secondly a degree of social equality, and thirdly recognition of and respect for difference constitute the promises held out by contemporary liberal-democratic societies. It is argued here that one of the chief hindrances to the realisation of these promises is the fragmented nature of contemporary liberal-democracy and the lack of interaction between different sections or groups of citizens. The argument thus points to the creation of a form of community as a remedy for the broken promises of democratic societies. However, the crucial point is the nature of community. Community, as is well known, is a very vague word which covers a range of possibilities: it ranges from what Bauman calls the aesthetic communities which are communities of taste and fashion, shifting and evanescent (Bauman, 2001), to communities exemplified by the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft, which deny difference and any form of pluralism,
6 excluding those who do not fit in to the racially defined closed community of the Volk. So it is obvious that the concept of community can refer to such a variety of forms of society that it cannot automatically be seen as providing the foundation for a democratic association of self-determining citizens. The proposal in this paper is for a form of community that can be called republican, in that it provides the kind of overarching political community that bridges the differences between citizens, without negating particular identities and cultural affiliations. However, republican perspectives have often been presented in such a way as to imply assimilation to a common goal, and to one shared concept of the good political life. The argument presented here suggests that political community has to be conceptualised in different ways, which emphasise interaction and dialogue between the holders of different identities. Some philosophical arguments, drawn from the work of the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy and his essay The inoperative Community (Nancy, 1991) will be used to suggest a concept of community as a communicative process, a form of being-in-common which does not involve a common being, to use Nancy s concepts. Community can indeed be one of the remedies for democracy s discontents, and the creation of democratic community could mitigate the feelings of exclusion referred to above. However, the difficulty lies in analysing the kind of community which is appropriate for contemporary liberaldemocracy. The difficulty lies in two dimensions: the problem of conceptualising community, and explaining what distinguishes acceptable from non-acceptable forms of community, since the concept is so protean and multi-faceted. If one can present a theoretically acceptable form of community, the next problem is that of seeing how it could be realised in practice, and what it would mean in institutional terms. If liberal-
7 democracy can be transformed in directions that genuinely create a form of inclusive political community, in what respects would this challenge some of the theoretical bases and political institutions of liberal-democracy? In short, would a more communitarian liberal-democracy represent such a radical transformation as to be qualitatively different in kind from liberal-democracy as it currently exists- could it indeed be called liberal-democracy or do we need another description for a system which provides a greater degree of solidarity than liberal-democracy can provide in its present form? By communitarian here is meant not a society in which particular distinct communities assert their identity within the broader polity, but rather one in which citizens feel an affiliation with other citizens over and above their particular group loyalties: in other words broad or macro community rather than community on a micro scale. If there is to be the development and strengthening of a form of democratic political community as a remedy for democracy s discontent, then this has to be consciously created, and this itself involves a number of problems. As Brunkhorst notes, we cannot rely, if we ever could, on the automatic reproduction of solidarities since in modern society All traditional forms of civic and brotherly solidarity are eventually undermined in the aftermath of functional differentiation (Brunkhorst, 2005, pp. 82-3). Following on from Bauman s analysis of the liquid character of modern society (Bauman, 2000), it is clear that contemporary liberal-democratic societies are ones whose pluralistic nature makes community a more difficult goal to achieve. It can also be hypothesised that those institutions and structures which historically were highly functional for developing forms of political community are now less able than they were to overcome difference and include all citizens in a common community of fate.
8 This is especially true of the nation-state, whose capacity to unite citizens has diminished, due to the difficulty in maintaining a shared national culture which provides a common reference point for all members of the nation. Defenders of liberal nationalism (e.g. Miller, 1995; Schnapper, 1994) rightly argue that a shared national identity can be the basis for relations of trust and reciprocity between citizens which pull citizens together in ways which few other institutions can rival. This does however raise the question of whether in present-day conditions a common national identity is still able to function in this way to fulfil the requirements for political community. Recent events in France, most notably the so-called revolt of the suburbs of November 2005 (Donzelot, 2006; Mucchielli and Le Goaziou (eds.), 2006) provide one example of how divisions between citizens undermine the aspirations of liberaldemocratic societies. If these are understood as the three goals of autonomy, social equality and equality of respect, then these ideals require institutions which foster the interaction of citizens in a common process of political deliberation. In turn, such interaction would require a socio-economic framework in which citizens have a certain minimum degree of security and provision of material welfare which enables them to take part in such common deliberation. This may be the echo of a theme familiar from socialist thought, to the effect that without a minimal degree of social equality the political equality aspired to in a democratic association remains a vague dream. Furthermore, if members of the society are not afforded respect for their particular identity, then this leads to sentiments of inferiority and exclusion which make it impossible for a true community of citizens to be developed. In present-day democratic societies, which are societies of deep diversity, mutual indifference and
9 hostility between holders of different identities also serve to undermine the ability to participate in democratic politics on equal terms. However, before establishing what kind of political community could remedy these defects of contemporary liberaldemocratic systems, it is necessary to confront some arguments which seem to offer solutions that are different from the one proposed in this paper. Part Two: Critique of alternative perspectives on political community. As noted above, it is well known that the concept of political community is vague and can have different meanings. Before one can establish a defensible concept of political community, one has to show why existing answers to the problem are inadequate. I concentrate here on three such alternative perspectives, which form rival approaches to my own. These can be crudely labelled as first the ultra-liberal approach (Kukuthas, 2003), which holds that no kind of community is necessary or possible; secondly a more mainstream liberal position (Mason, 2000) which takes a slightly less minimal view of political community and asserts that being subject to the same political institutions is both necessary and sufficient for political community, and thirdly the view that a civic conception of the nation is the basis for political community in the modern world (Miller, 1995). Taking each of these in turn, and starting with what is called the ultra-liberal approach: Kukuthas in his study The Liberal Archipelago argues that a political community need be no more than an association of people who recognise the terms of coexistence (Kukuthas, 2003, p. 210), and he further argues that the aspiration of social unity must be reduced to the politics of indifference. In other words, this ultra-liberal view suggests that it is particular communities, founded and maintained
10 by individuals freely associating with one another, which constitute a liberal society. In this perspective, any deeper bonds between members of the different groups are unnecessary, and indeed represent a dangerous attempt at the cultural construction of society. So in this perspective it would not matter that there is no stronger conception of political community, because, as Kukuthas puts it, giving political community greater importance must mean weakening other communal ties (Kukuthas, 2003, p. 177). There are two arguments against this perspective. First, if society is reduced to an archipelago of distinct and different communities, then by definition any interaction between members of these different communities is absent, and it is hard to see how such a situation could satisfy the three requirements of a democratic society enunciated above (autonomy, equality, mutual respect). If there is no mutual understanding or communication between members of different groups beyond the terms of coexistence, then there is really no basis for shared interests, for the consciousness of being part of a common citizen body. Indeed the danger is that any notion of common citizenship disappears because it cannot be upheld by such a thin conception of reciprocity and shared membership. A second argument critical of this ultra-liberal perspective is that it seems to rest on an assumption that a concept of overarching political community can only be purchased at the expense of loyalty to particular groups or associations: either one has a sense of community with the wider political society or one remains loyal to the particular group that encapsulates one s identity and special interests. However, there seems no reason to assume that the achievement of political community is incompatible with affiliation to particular smaller-scale groups which constitute civil society. I could be both British and
11 Muslim, I could be a member of a wider political society without that detracting from my membership of some smaller-scale association in which I realise my cultural or ethnic identity. There seems no reason to accept the notion which is put forward by Kukuthas that political community and its affirmation are incompatible with other communal ties, and would weaken them. On the contrary, it could be argued along the lines of Putnam in Making Democracy Work that each kind of association could boost rather than erode the other: Membership in horizontally ordered groups (like sports clubs, cooperatives, mutual aid societies, cultural associations, and voluntary unions) should be positively associated with good government (Putnam, 1993, p. 175). So I propose that an ultra-liberal form of political community cannot remedy the defects of contemporary liberal-democratic societies, indeed will only deepen those problems and the discontent arising out of them. Liberal-democracies might indeed empirically manifest the politics of indifference, to use Kukuthas phrase, but that is the problem, rather than the solution, because such a politics of indifference cannot sustain the interaction which is necessary for democratic politics. A similar criticism applies to a less minimalist conception of political community, developed by Andrew Mason, which is labelled here a mainstream liberal position. Mason juxtaposes two concepts of political community, belonging to a polity and belonging together (Mason, 2000). The latter is rejected by Mason in favour of the former, since it is argued that belonging together can never be a realistic ideal in contemporary societies of different cultures and identities, where no feeling of common belonging could be effective. The argument proposed here is different: I accept that a concept of belonging together could not work in contemporary liberal-democratic societies if this is meant to imply an idea of a shared concept of the good life, or a common
12 cultural affiliation which could not be realistically envisaged in today s multicultural societies of deep diversity. However, the rejection of such an idea of common belonging does not leave as the only alternative an idea of belonging to a polity, in which people accept the fact of living under common institutions, but for possibly different reasons. Mason defends as a regulative ideal a concept of inclusive political community which has three main features (Mason, 2000, p. 138). Its members have a sense of belonging to it, it is a community with a constitution produced through inclusive political dialogue which aims at consensus, even if it does not necessarily achieve such consensus, and it is ruled by a constitution which protects the basic rights to which liberals are committed. Such a concept of political community goes beyond the minimalist idea presented by Kukuthas, but I wish to criticise it as still too thin, though pointing in the direction of what is required to remedy the sense of separation between citizens that characterises contemporary democracy, to the detriment of its healthy working. The requirement to have as a constitution something that is the product of an inclusive political dialogue narrows the gap between Mason s concept and the more activist conception of republican political community that I wish to advocate. However, a deeper and more sustained concept of community, which goes beyond a mere constitutional dialogue, has to be envisaged, since (so it argued here) it is only such a thicker form of community that could realise the three criteria of a healthy democracy set out at the beginning of this paper. What I wish to argue is that there has to be a more republican sense of community which requires public institutions that foster reciprocal and continuing dialogue between citizens. While Mason s idea of inclusive political dialogue over the constitution may be part of this process, the
13 kind of activist community envisaged here goes beyond that. It requires what will be explained further below, a being-in-common that does not result in a common being which swallows up difference and annihilates the complex diversity characteristic of contemporary liberal-democratic societies. These terms of being-incommon and common being are derived from the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, and will be developed in the third part of this paper as suggesting the kind of political community to be aimed at as grounding an effectively functioning democratic society. Turning now to the position here labelled as that of liberal nationalism, it is clear that one of the most frequently advanced arguments with respect to political community is that it is common membership of the nation that provides the trust and feelings of reciprocity that are both necessary and sufficient for political community. Those who are commonly defined as liberal nationalists see the nation as providing the community which links the cultural and the political, so that national community is ipso facto a political community. The nation and its shared history provide the context and the basis on which a cohesive democratic community can be built. These arguments are commonly cited with reference to the work of such theorists as D. Miller and Y. Tamir (Miller, 1995, Tamir, 1993). The difficulty here is twofold: the first problem is that nationalism is a notoriously slippery phenomenon. If nationalism is defined predominantly in cultural terms, it can militate against rather than support the interactive political community that is held out here as the desirable and necessary basis for democratic society. As Beiner remarks, the more that citizens become fixated on cultural differences within the political community, the more difficult it becomes to sustain an experience of common citizenship (Beiner, 2003, p. 28). Thus
14 nationalism can too easily slip into a particular form, focused on one culture, which undermines the civic nature and purpose of the kind of liberal nationalism that theorists like Miller and Tamir wish to promote. The second problem is a corollary of the first, but has more to do with wider societal and historical changes. The civic nation-state seen in broad historical perspective certainly brought citizens together in a community of citizens (Schnapper, 1994), sharing a uniform culture inculcated by a common educational system, and bolstered by such institutions as the army which instilled a shared national identity. But in a more fragmented society of deep diversity it seems more difficult to see the nation and a common national consciousness as providing in an unproblematic way the basis for shared political community. Thus, in very summary form, the negative or critical part of this paper can be summed up as follows. I propose the hypothesis, contrary to what is here called the ultra-liberal view, that without a strong shared concept of political community, the working of democratic society is impaired. Living under the same political institutions, which Mason advocates as the necessary and sufficient condition for political community, may form part of political community, but it is not enough, even if the constitution is the product of inclusive political dialogue. Membership of the nation and attachment to a common national identity have worked well in the past, if one may be permitted such a sweeping historical generalisation, but function less effectively in contemporary multicultural societies, where different groups will find it hard to identify with historically given reference points which may have no significance, or a negative one, for certain groups.
15 There is much discussion of these issues in contemporary British politics. The debate here was stimulated by the historian Linda Colley s study of the formation of a British national identity, in which Scottish, English and Welsh people could all find something of value, at least in the 18 th century (Colley, 1992). Forging the British nation was possible on the basis of shared values such as the Protestant religion, war with enemy (Catholic) states of France and Spain, among others, and perhaps most importantly the British Empire, which gave great career opportunities for members of the home nations. But in an age when the British Empire is no more, when religion is not only less important but religious identities are much less uniform than they were (Napoleon is said to have remarked that the English had a hundred religions and only one sauce, but in contemporary multicultural society there are not only more sauces at the disposal of citizens but also many more religions- as well as greater salience of non-religious identities), the concept of Britishness is much more difficult to use as the basis for a common identity of citizenship, as a foundation for the civic idea or what Beiner calls civicism (Beiner, 2003, p. 197). In the British context, there is currently much discussion of whether Britain needs its own 4 th July, a general civic day of celebration which could unite its citizens over and above their particular identities into an affirmation of common British values. The Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown recently regretted the absence of a British equivalent of the US 4 th July or the French 14 th July, and talked about giving more emphasis to the common glue- a Britishness which welcomes differences but which is not so loose, so nebulous that it is simply defined as the toleration of difference and leaves a hole where national identity should be (Brown, 2006). This is turn gives rise to debate as to what these common values are, and how they should be
16 celebrated. In a recent newspaper article Linda Colley maintains that there are many people in the UK now, the vast majority of them perfectly law-abiding, who do not view themselves primarily as British, or in some cases as British at all. She proposes a standardised history to be taught as part of the national curriculum, a new bill of citizen rights and responsibilities, and a new language of citizenship as three ways of refurbishing the glue in this (i.e. UK) polity (Colley, 2006). It would seem that it is more difficult to assert common values of national identity in a much more diverse society. However, the argument to be developed below does not wish to dismiss totally the importance of a shared concept of national identity, but rather suggests that it is only part of a wider concept of political community which has to be theoretically justified, and which would have important practical implications for the nature and structure of liberal-democratic institutions. That is what it is sought to develop in the following section of this paper, which seeks to escape from the impasse that we have to abandon any concept of political community (civicism, in Beiner s terminology) because it is either unnecessary (Kukuthas position) or difficult to achieve (which is the criticism that has been levelled against the position of liberal nationalists). Part Three: Towards a feasible concept of democratic political community. The positive part of this paper then seeks to build on what was said above to suggest both the necessity of an idea of political community for the effective working of democracy, to suggest what this might be, and how it could be created. The first guiding idea is that developed on the basis of the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy s distinction between being-in-common and common being, as put forward in his text The Inoperative Community (Nancy, 1991). While Nancy is no friend of ideas of republican citizenship, I suggest that his distinction can be utilised to create a
17 concept of political community that does two things, firstly it creates a sense of common identity as citizens, secondly it accepts difference and diversity as inescapable features of contemporary politics. The difficulty arises not just from the rather cryptic nature of Nancy s ideas, but from the problems of translating them into practical politics and the ways in which this would change liberal-democratic politics as they are presently constituted. What can be gleaned from Nancy s discussion is the importance of community. He rightly draws to our attention that the gravest and most painful testimony of the modern world is the testimony of the dissolution, the dislocation, or the conflagration of community (Nancy, 1991, p.1). However, in his analysis, that does not mean that it is a question of finding or restoring something that was lost, since community seems to be conceptualised by him as constituted by a fluid and never completed process of communication. I suggest that in broad terms this idea of community as a continuing process of interaction between citizens represents a possible way of framing the idea of community appropriate to contemporary politics and that it represents one way of capturing the liquid (Bauman, 2000) nature of political relations. I suggest also that what is useful is Nancy s distinction between being-in-common and common being. He seems to mean by the latter term the congealing of difference into some immanent community which fuses people (or groups) into a totality, thus denying any idea of difference or separation. In more simplistic language, this perhaps would represent the dangers of community, which in its extreme forms results in a totalitarian exaltation of one essence or subject of the community, for example in the Nazi elevation of the racially-defined Volk to be the all-embracing unit. If that is what Nancy means by the community of a common
18 being, then it is easy to see why defenders of democratic and liberal politics have rejected the argument proposed here, that community is necessary for democratic politics. However, need community take such a form of closing down difference, and repressing diversity in this common being? I suggest that this is not necessarily the case, and that Nancy s idea of being-in-common, whatever the author s own intentions in developing this concept, can be useful in indicating a way forward to a more open idea of community. Nancy seems to envisage this being in common as a continuing process of what he calls compearance, in which there is what he calls in his own language a mutual interpellation of singularities (Nancy, 1991, p. 29). If one can translate this into a language more congenial to political science, this would seem to mean that individuals and groups (bearers of distinct or singular identities) would so to speak open themselves up to each other, or communicate with each other, so that democratic community consists precisely in this never-completed process of interaction or communication between bearers of distinct identities, rather than a fusion into one total solidarity. Certainly this is a looser concept of political community, which seems to be related in some way to theories of deliberative democracy, and to involve an idea of bringing all parties in to a process leading to mutual respect for the other. It thus seems to offer a better prospect of satisfying the three requirements of democracy held out above- since all parties are involved, there is participation, as well as equality of respect between those involved. It would be necessary to satisfy certain socio-economic conditions in order to make possible such a being-in-common in which the participants relate to each other on equal terms.
19 However, it has to be recognised that such ideas raise as many problems as they solve, and that as already noted, the most important question is how these very abstract normative ideas can be translated into practice. The title of this paper uses the phrase creating community. This in turn raises the question of whether civic or political community is indeed something that can be created by conscious political action, and whether such an attempt would infringe on liberal values. Thus the problems are those of designing democratic institutions to make possible a more activist and participatory citizenship which brings members of the polity to greater mutual understanding. How might this be done? Can it be done at all? If so, through what institutions, and in what ways would it change the nature of contemporary liberal-democratic politics? This is where I believe that a republican perspective, or ideas derived from the socalled republican revival, could be helpful. The reason for this is that such ideas have as a central element a belief that citizen capacities are at least in part affected or moulded by the structure and nature of the political institutions in place. Putting it very simplistically, a structure of political institutions which makes possible deeper or more intensive citizen interaction will increase the desire among citizens for such action. Citizen capacities and feasibility depend to some extent on the institutions in place which expand or contract the range of possibilities of such action. Thus there are two points to be presented here: the one is the what question: what kind of political democratic institutions should be designed to foster political community, the second is the how kind, how can this task of institutional design be carried out? Indeed, is it possible at all?
20 With regard to the first question: it is difficult to present a recipe for institutional design which is applicable to liberal-democratic systems in general, since each case is in some sense unique, each national context has specific features which mean that any general prescriptions would have to be tailored to local characteristics. However, the general principle would be to have institutions which foster communication between holders of particular identities. This would mean, for example, that there should be representative institutions which would stimulate dialogue between members of different religious, cultural and social groups. This sounds rather vague, but the proposal is for forums or assemblies, operating at both local and national level, in which people from different communities (of whatever kind) could exchange ideas and come to some mutual understanding. This would be a proposal designed to develop what has been called bridging social capital as opposed to bonding social capital. The former has been defined as based primarily on personal closeness and contract with people across group barriers, that is, the connections are outwards in an open spiral, compared with bonding social capital which is formed by exclusive social networks that are monopolised by a specific group of people whose connections are inwards in a closed spiral (Svendsen, 2006, p. 65). It is easy to see the difficulties of this proposal: say one envisaged a forum in which Muslims, Christians, Jews, and non-religious people could debate with each other in some sort of deliberative forum, would this then confine people in those particular identities, and deepen rather than soften the differences between them? This seems to be the kind of argument used in general by liberal-egalitarians like Barry against defenders of multicultural politics: a situation in which groups live in parallel universes is not one well calculated to advance mutual understanding or encourage the cultivation of habits of cooperation and sentiments of trust (Barry, 2001, p. 88). However,
21 institutions of the forum type envisaged here are designed precisely to reduce the possibility of individuals and groups living in parallel universes. Other critics of this suggestion might object that if such deliberative institutions were seen as supplementary rather than replacing the established representative institutions of liberal-democratic societies, then they could just be seen as talking shops for people (or representatives) with time on their hands, and not important in real terms since they would not be entrusted with taking decisions or making the laws. Similar criticisms have been raised against the idea of deliberative forums in general (Dryzek, 2000): are they just additional extras which have no effective decision-making power, rather than fundamentally altering the institutional landscape of present-day liberaldemocracy? The proposal is offered here as one means by which civic participation could be extended to reach out to those presently marginalised or excluded from participation in liberal-democratic institutions, to make mainstream politics less the preserve of a restricted political class. By creating new institutions, of a forum or deliberative type, supplementary to the established ones of liberal-democracy, further opportunities could be opened up for those who wished to represent the interests of marginalised communities. This in turn would depend on the readiness of at least some citizens to devote themselves to a more activist role. But here it might be possible to use the republican idea of a virtuous circle, or interaction between institutions and citizen capacities. If different institutions (public forums) are created, then this encourages the attitudes and actions of some members of the polity to take a greater part in them, and in so doing to meet with other members of the polity in new
22 ways. Admittedly, this is somewhat visionary, and makes certain assumptions about motives for political action which are at present unsatisfied in liberal-democratic societies as presently constituted. As for the question of whether such a political community, based on new institutions, can realistically be designed or created, a nuanced answer is needed here. A recent study, based on evidence from Central Europe, usefully reminds us that there are different components of a civic political culture, and some of them may be more open to conscious political design than others (Davidson-Schmich, 20006). This study considers three components of a civic political culture: voter turnout in general elections, newspaper readership, and associational membership in the groups of civil society. Comparing Eastern with Western Germany, the findings of the study indicate that the first two components of civicism, to borrow Beiner s term, are more readily changeable in response to political change than the last. Voter turnout in post- Communist systems increased after the collapse of communism, and so too did reading of newspapers. On the other hand, associational life, which is more significant for the health of civic community than voter turnout and newspaper reading, is not so immediately responsive to political change. Participation in groups may reflect longer term patterns of involvement. In the words of this study, associational membership reacts more slowly to political change and as a result is difficult for those in favour of democracy to influence in the short term (Davidson-Schmich, 20006, p. 112). The implication here then is that the design of democratic institutions is indeed possible, but that some aspects of democratic politics are easier to influence than others. In some cases bottom up habits and customs, deeply rooted in history, create obstacles
23 to the design of more participatory institutions and to the transformation of democratic politics in liberal-democracies. The conclusion is therefore that the kind of concept of community sketched out here, based on ideas of a continuing being-in-common, offers a model that is appropriate to modern democratic politics, and that it represents a sort of open republicanism which combines democratic solidarity with recognition of diversity and difference. The problem is to decide what kind of institutions would realise in practice this form of community, and the implications for citizen action. To some extent these institutions can be created, but to varying degrees. Civic community is thus a prerequisite of democracy, but the extent to which it can be created by conscious political action, or democratic design is a matter which depends on the circumstances of each particular society.
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