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Democracy in Crisis
Political elites in many established democracies perceive their system of government
in a state of crisis. Evidence for this claim can be found in the rhetoric of public
officials that highlights downward trends in electoral participation, the decrease in
organizational membership during the past decades as well as survey data that signal
waning trust in political institutions.
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This rhetoric of crisis is voiced in various
political arenas carrying different implications regarding its status on the political
agenda. Its venue ranges from individual public statements to large scale government
sponsored inquiries in the state of democracy, particularly in Scandinavian countries
such as Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
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Despite differences in agenda status, this
rhetoric shares a common denominator which relates to the meaning attached to
downward trends in political participation. The all encompassing underlying
assumption is that downward trends in political participation indicate that citizens are
turning their back towards democracy and that this system of government is thus in
crisis.
Political elites usually do not acknowledge a crisis without having a cure ready at
hand. Consequently, policies that would provide new opportunities for political
participation are up on the political agenda as an answer to this perceived crisis of
democracy. In Sweden for example, a commission on democracy deliberated between
1998 and 2000 on institutional reforms to increase political participation. It submitted
a report which put a special emphasis on suggestions to strengthen the local basis of
democracy (Swedish Ministry of Justice 2000). In Germany, the red-green
government coalition introduced a bill in 2002 to change the countries constitution to
allow for measures of direct democracy at the federal level. This bill was explicitly
promoted as a means to revitalize the veining interest of German citizens in political
affairs. It could not mobilize the necessary support of ⅔ of the members of the
German Bundestag but the issue remains to be on the agenda for years to come. In
Canada in 2004, Jacques Saada, then Government House leader, tabled a Democratic
Reform Action Plan in the House of Commons that outlined parliamentary reform
measures to cure the “democratic deficit” (Seidle 2004). These initiatives can be
subsumed under the concept of participatory engineering. They reflect purposive
attempts on the part of political elites to positively affect political participation via
institutional reforms.
Convention