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CONCLUSION
DEMOCRACY AS THE DISPERSION OF POWER
I. From Legitimation to Dispersion
Some of the central questions of political theory center on the issue of legitimacy. What
gives some the right to rule over others? What authorizes the
use of political power and
coercion? Why is the state – whether it takes the form of monarchy, or oligarchy, or aristocracy,
or democracy – legitimate? Though the anti-authoritarian account of democracy I have
presented in the preceding chapters is not a statist account of democracy, it nonetheless involves
the mobilization of political power. Indeed, this was precisely the point: democracy means
situations in which people have power and, thus, practices like direct
action ought to be
considered as having radically democratic potential. However, in making the argument that
direct action has democratic potential, I naturally invite questions about legitimacy. The
disruptive power of direct action interrupts or halts existing institutional processes: blocking
roads, attacking property, stopping commerce. The prefigurative power of direct action
addresses perceived problems, constructs new relationships, and/or builds new institutions,
without going through formal processes of official authorization.
In both instances, the
mobilization of political power has consequences – often coercive consequences – for other
members of society. As such, direct action raises problems of legitimacy: if direct action is
fundamentally a form of political power, then what legitimates this exercise of power? Hardt
and Negri (2004, 79-80) pose the question this way:
It is possible today to imagine a new process of legitimation that does not rely on
the sovereignty of the people [since neither the practice of direct action, nor their
concept of “the multitude” makes claims to sovereignty]…Is there an immanent
mechanism that does not appeal to any transcendent authority that
is capable of
legitimating the use of force in the multitude’s struggle to create a new society
based on democracy, equality, and freedom?
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I do not think Hardt and Negri ever quite get around to answering this most challenging question.
In Chapter III, I aimed to provide some criteria for assessing the democratic legitimacy of direct
actions – criteria that I take to be “immanent” to the democratic ideal itself. For example, direct
actions are democratic when a) they upset power inequalities and make real the political equality
on which democracy depends, and b) open up or create spaces for others
to exercise political
freedom. To the extent that direct actions do both, I see them as a legitimate mobilization of
power or force. However, I do not pretend that such tentative criteria resolve the myriad
legitimacy issues that the practice of direct action generates.
The legitimacy questions are all the more challenging because direct actions always
involve only some small part of the
demos
. They are, in Wolin’s (2008, 277) words, the
“initiatives of a fraction, not a collective whole.” Even in the most renowned cases of popular
democratic movements, only a fraction of “the people” was represented.
During the American
Revolution, no more than 50 percent of Americans actively supported the revolution and some
15 to 20 percent were actively opposed (Calhoon 2004, 235). Similarly, Poland’s Solidarity
Movement against Soviet rule mobilized, at most, a quarter of the population (Canovan 2005,
136). And, in most cases, the participation rates in direct actions are significantly lower. This,
of course, raises a problem: If direct action always involves only a
fraction
of “the people,” does
this practice then not fly in the face of the notion that
all
of “the people” should rule? If
democracy means, at its core, “rule by the people” or “a situation
in which people have power,”
and if direct action only enables
some
people to have power, then is it really a radically
democratic practice?
The basic thrust of the answer – and, I suspect, a major reason why Hardt and Negri do
not directly respond the question they pose – is that an anti-authoritarian account of democracy
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rejects political theory’s focus on legitimation. The basic goal of democratic theory from this
perspective is not to
legitimate
the
centralization
of power, but instead to
enable
its
dispersion
.
The fundamental question for this type of democratic theory is not “How can
power can be
legitimated?” but instead, “How can power be dispersed?” This question involves a shift in
focus. Rather than studying or promoting practices or procedures that legitimate sovereign
power, we should theorize and cultivate practices and procedures that disperse non-sovereign
power.
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