The Disenchantment of Politics

             This post is a summary of two papers. The first is a summary of few pages (starting on page 84) of the book with the title of, "Political Trust and Disenchantment with politics: International Perspectiva."https://books.google.com.br/booksid=Q2TiBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=disenchantment+in+politics+and+how+to+avoid+it&source=bl&ots=uDQ8VrMHRY&sig=6ZZa6. The second was published with the title above in 2008 at  http://kops.uni-konstanz.de/bitstream/handle/123456789/6472/Kersbergen_Disenchantment.pdf?sequence=1

            The aim of this paper is to examine how different means of political participation are affected by individual and national characteristics, in particular levels of political trust. In contemporary democracies, there are numerous ways for every citizen to become active in the political sphere: from wearing a button supporting a candidate or party, writing a letter to a representative, becoming a member of a political party and standing as a candidate, just to name a few, the list of possibilities is almost endless. Voting in an election is the most conventional and widespread form of involvement. More than that, it is a democratic citizen's most fundamental right. Yet, authors like Norris demonstrate a clear downward trend of aggregate turnout percentages in 24 Western European countries, dropping as low as 70% in the most recent years. Also, there is evidence that most Western European parties experience long-term erosion in their loyalties as party identification and party membership rates fall across the continent. Given this situation, citizens find new ways of political expression. These new ways lack the institutionalized form of traditional political engagement, they are sporadic, issue-specific, abrupt, occasionally proactive and requiring a lot of engagement from citizen. They are important political actions connected to specific issues people feel strongly about. Although there is no general theory of trust and explanations vary, scholars agree that without a certain level of trust in others as well as in political institutions, neither society, not democracy can function. We base our work on the definition by Delhey and Newton, who understand trust as,"belief that others will not deliberately ot knowingly do us harm, if they can avoid it, and will look after our interest, if this is possible." From this, we can deduct two different notions of the concept: particuparized trust in well-known persons we interact regularly with and generalized trust in strangers and groups. Scholars like Newton summarize these two as social trust and distinguish them from political trust. This article draws more on the political trust and less on the social aspect of the trust concept as it deals with the relation between trust and participation., although we are aware of the fact that it is not easy to separate the two and that society is the foundation the politics builds on. The concept of political trust includes trust in the system as a whole, trust in the institutions and trust in the political actors. Looking at the system as a whole, the main elements of modern democracies are fair and free elections that let citizens choose their representatives for the next legislative period. These representatives are then assigned with the mission to govern the state while acting in the best interest of the represented. Thus, elections are not only means to select political personnel but also a way to hold politicians accountable. Trust in these mechanisms is the basis of political trust. We see that if people do not trust their politicians, because they feel that members of government or parliament pursue their own interest rather than the public interest. This, in turn, means that the political system is even less able to deliver what is promised resulting in even lower satisfaction and trust, a vicious circle that may end in "government collapse." What encapsulates the good functioning of mechanisms and the good conduct of politicians, are political institutions. They are the core of a well-functioning democracy and they reflect the true qualities of the system. Citizens feel that they are part of the system, that they influence decision making and that their preference are taken into consideration. Disenchantment expressed as lower political trust cut the direct link between represented and representatives.

                The goal of this paper is to understand better the current malaise in and of democratic politics. There is a long tradition of comparative research, starting with Tocqueville's Democracy in America to Putnam's Making Democracy Work,  that connects the fate of democracy to the vitality of civil society. In recent decades, we have learned much about how social capital, that is to say, people's extended bonds within and between social networks, and trust function as the societal glue, which holds a society together. This adhesive also secures an orderly, stable and well-performing democratic system and a healthy political life. Indeed, politics is decisive for the fate of society and concerns all social activities of individuals to handle their collective problems and resolve their conflicts of interests. Politics creates space for human choice and diverse lifestyles. Politics, if done well, creates the positive context and stable environment for you to live your life. Democratic politics then, is critical for the integration of modern societies, each and every one which is after all, characterized by large differences between citizens in opinions. This understanding, that there is something wrong with the way we do politics is joined by a deeper sense that somehow or other we have forgotten what politics is capable of doing, and perhaps, we are unclear about what it can not do. The observation that "the malaise afflicting democratic governance today is that many citizens rather wish they could do without politics. It is a crucial insight to the extent that it points to the accomplishments of politics of democracy that are now taken for granted." The project of democracy have empowered citizens to become more independent individuals, by granting individual political and social security. Politics is about collective decisions, balancing conflict and cooperation, in order to promote human purposes. However, it seems that it is exactly this sense of purpose that have been lost. What is the point of citizens participating enthusiastically if one can not identify any purpose other than solving petty daily problems of party power and personal position?  Similarly, democracy is about achieving liberty, political equality, just exchanges in social and economic life, political and legal reliability and protection against the arbitrary power of the state. With the extension of the possibilities of active and passive political participation, and equal political rights, democratization established fundamental and inalienable basic rights, included the whole population in the political system, increased predictability of state and government behaviour, greatly advanced opportunities of self-determination, all of which instituted a crucial sense of political security. Disenchantment describes the loss of "utopian realism" that characterized the enchanting political projects. The oxymoron now has vanished, leaving only pragmatic realism to be the most significant feature of politics. Politics now seems to have deteriorated into an entirely pragmatic and disengaged practice of professional politicians who are submerged in the exercise of power over a populace, which increasingly indifferent to any collective project, or worse more engaged in voicing protests against a by now autistic leadership, or worst, entirely disengaging from democracy and cynically protecting purely private interests. The disenchantment of politics, that is to say, the gradual elimination of politics an instrument of worldly salvation is causing the decline of political allegiance, that is to say, a deteriorating relationship of exchange and power between the rulers (political elite, government) and the ruled (people, citizens). Disenchantment occurs, because of the failure, and the unintended effects of interactions of the projects. Pondering over the possible consequences of waning political allegiance, one might hypothesize that the disenchantment of politics causes a political void in democratic societies, an emptiness of collective power, which exerts a pull on various political escapades, some of which could imperil the very existence of democracy. One could think of the decomposition of the political centre and the increasing importance of fringe politics that many democracies are currently experiencing. As a result of this, coalition building and effective government on the basis of beneficial exchange are becoming increasingly difficult. Ungovernability not only contributes to the further disenchantment of politics, but also reinforces the image of a impotent political elite that seems to have only one rationale left to govern: the protection of its own petty profitable position. The popular dissatisfaction with the performance of government, and the political cynicism with respect to political elites that comes with it, is a revolt that attacks elitism, the closed nature of political recruitment, and the lack of representativeness of politicians more generally.