For those who equate democracy with voting in elections once every four years, a recent article by a man I know and admire, Philip Pettit, is instructive and most helpful at this time in our history. He describes this other element in democracy as ‘contestatory’. It is helpful not just for the citizens in the USA who are apprehensive about Donald Trump but for all of us concerned about the future of our planet.
Philip Pettit was a student in Maynooth, studying for the priesthood, during my sojourn there and was a bright spark and a good human being. He did not stay to be ordained to priesthood but left to pursue a career in academia. He is currently professor of politics and human values in Princeton University USA. Philip Pettit decries the election of Donald Trump: ‘I recoil from the sexist, xenophobic and racist persona that he projected in the election, from the disdain for consistency and fact that he displayed and from the reckless positions he maintained on many policy fronts’.
Philip makes an interesting observation about the way democracy works and states that people have the power to contest and confront this new president elect and put him on notice. He goes on to state: ‘democracy flies on two wings, one electoral the other contestatory’. Speaking of Trump’s victory: ’True, democratic election has not served us well in this instance.’ He goes on to say; ‘there is some reason to hope that the contestatory form of democratic power will contain Trump’s excesses in the years before us.’
“The contestatory power is normally imposed on government by active measures such as court action, political mobilisation and civil disobedience’, according to Pettit.
I am so glad to hear someone say this so clearly and so eloquently. It gives us some ground for hope as we are faced with four years of Trump in the most powerful office in the world, And it is important for all of us democrats to realise that our power is not just confined to one day in every four or five years.
‘Yes it is extremely disturbing that someone such as Donald Trump has been elected to the presidency of the United States. But it would be much worse if he had come to power in the absence of constitutionally guaranteed, contestatory institutions. Pettit refers to the governments in China, Russia and Turkey, Hungary and Poland as electoral dictatorships, not democracies in any full sense of the term.
I think we are going to have a lot more Contestatory Democracy for the foreseeable future.
The contestatory element of democracy is much more visible, and valuable, in countries with a written constitution, such as America and indeed , nearer home, the Republic of Ireland. There the constitutional guarantees are clearly stated, their parameters reasonably defined for courts charged with their enforcement. That is not in the case in the United Kingdom. There is no written constitution. The nearest thing to one in the U.K is the Human Rights Act, which until now has been a template for the proper domestic enforcement of individual rights under the Euroean Convention on Human Rights. Following Brexit, it is indisputable that the Human Rights Act will be repealed. The worth to be attached to promises of its replacement by a British human rights act should, rightly, be viewed with the greates of suspicion. In the atmosphere of insularity, and of hostility to what is perceived as unwelcome outside interference in British affairs, the protection afforded for basic, but constitutionally undefined rights, by the U.K judiciary may well be largely procedural. The contestatory element to democracy, which Joe acclaiims, will be seriously weakened.
Democracy in the North of Ireland is a bit like the ostrich! Wings are too heavy to fly! Sinn Fein or sorry Me Fein has delivered very little for the people of the North of Ireland. Where is our bill of rights? I think they are more concerned in condemnation of others than to deliver meaningful government. McGuinness is the modern De Valera! More sorer on Republicans than the British themselves. A question for the above writer? How can rights be enforced as he refers to the “proper” enforcement mechanism of the Human Rights Act – what about Pearse Jordan’s family?