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Lockdown Skeptics
Voltaire NetworkVoltaire, international edition
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Democracy, Disillusion and The Political Process![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Democracy or just simply Demopsefia? A new nationwide opinion poll in Ireland has shown that people are becoming more and more disillusioned with the political process leading one to wonder if democracy (people rule) has simply become demopsefia (people vote). This type of disillusionment is becoming widespread across Europe in general. While no one is naive enough to believe all the promises of politicians, in recent years the desires of the electorate seem to be ever more blatantly subsumed to the financial interests/problems of recent governments. While in the past clientelism and patronage produced some semblance of benefit to the voters, the deepening financial crisis and unemployment is breaking down the old ways of thinking and behaving. Voters are becoming just that, voters. And as such, are starting to wonder what is the point of voting at all? Thus we have an increase in the third main aspect of the current crisis, emigration. According to Aideen Sheehan emigration is ‘at famine levels' as 200 leave the country every day: ‘Some 87,000 people emigrated from Ireland in the year to April 2012, three times as many as the annual exodus during the boom years.’ Another source states that: ‘More than half of those who left the country in the 12 months up to April [2012] were Irish and almost 36,000 were under the age of 25, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said.’ |
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Jump To Comment: 1I'd say we never really had proper democracy and it has been demopsefia (people vote) as the author says except it has been this way for quite a while. It just that some fraction of the population are finally beginning to see through the farce although there are still plenty around that seem to think voting makes a difference.
I think this sentence "The sleight-of-hand conversion of the citizen into consumer only works insofar as the consumer has the wherewithal to consume.. " is spot on. However the quote from the recent new citizen from the Philippines "I am very excited today because I have been here for so long working hard to get my citizenship’ probably reflects the relative difference between here and the Philippines which has Third World level poverty, slums and the whole lot and corruption would be at levels that we would find hard to believe. In countries like these for example almost nobody sees the police force as something there to keep the peace and protect but see them as a parasitic layer that constantly abuses their position and is simply a career in extracting bribes. By contrast Ireland would look a lot safer and more functional.
I'd argue though that over the next few decades we will slip very much in the downward direction unless of course as the author optimistically suggested: Is it possible that this enthusiasm for citizenship ignited by a newly globalised population will push the superficial concept of consumer (not to mention its manipulability) over the edge and bring about a return to a national ideology of rights and duties of citizenship? I sure hope so.