Power, Conflict and Democracy: The Analytical Framework

Olle Törnquist

doi:10.22146/pcd.25673

Power, Conflict and Democracy: The Analytical Framework

https://doi.org/10.22146/pcd.25673

Olle Törnquist^(1*)

(1) University of Oslo
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract

The point of departure for the Power, Conflict and Democracy Programme (PCD) is the critique of the two conventional explanations for the problems of democratisation in the global South for being empirically mistaken and based on narrow and static theory. We argue that the root causes for the crisis of democratisation are neither poor application of the mainstream model (emphasising elitist pacts and institution-building in return for more privatisation and self management), nor that democracy is premature due the lack of sufficient preconditions. Rather, the more fundamental dilemma is the depoliticisation of democracy and the fact that the paradigms are unable to conceptualise the problems and options involved. This inability is because the proponents of both the dominant arguments agree on a narrow definition of democracy in terms of freedoms and fair election - and then either neglect the basic conditions or say they have to be created beforehand by other means. The result is that both paradigms exlude by definition approaches that focus less on democratic rules of the game in themselves and more on how these institutions may be used and expanded in favour of improved social, economic, and other condition. Given that such social democratic oriented paths have been quite important, especially in the transition of the previously poor Scandinavian countries into welfare states and that adapted versions are now gaining ground in paradigmatic cases such as Brazil, there is an obvious need to widen the perspective.

Full Text:

PDF

References

Anderson, Benedict (1983): Imagined Communities, London: Verso.

Avritzer, Leonardo (2002): Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Baiocchi, Gianpaolo (ed.) (2003). Radicals In Power. The Workers’ Party (PT) and experiments in urban democracy in Brazil. London – New York: Zed Books Ltd.

Baiocchi, Gianpaolo (2005): Militants and Citizens. The Politics of Participatory Democracy in Porto Alegre, Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Ballard, R, Habib, A. and Valodia, I. (eds) (2006): Voices of Protest: Social Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.

Beckman, Björn (2004): “Trade unions, institutional reform and democracy: Nigerian experiences with South African and Ugandan comparisons”, in John Harriss, Kristian Stokke, and Olle Törnquist (eds.), Politicising Democracy: The New Local Politics of Democratisation, Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Beckman, Björn, Akwetey, Emanuel.O. and Lindstrom, Lars. (2000): Labour unions, social pacts and democratisation. Background Paper to UNRISD Visible Hands. Geneva: United Nations Institute for Social Development.

Beetham, David (1999): Democracy and Human Rights. Oxford: Polity Press.

Beetham, David, Sarah Bracking, Ian Kearton & Stuart Weir (2002). International IDEA Handbook on Democracy Assessment. The Hague: Kluwer Law International.

Berman, Sheri (2006): The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Buhlungu, Sakhela (ed.) (2006): Trade Unions and Democracy. Cosatu workers’ political attitudes in South Africa. Cape Town: HSRC Press.

Castiglione, Dario & Warren, Mark E (2005): “Rethinking Representation: Seven Theoritical Issues” (Prepared for delivery at the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, April 6-10, 2005.

Chatterjee, Partha (2004): The Politics of the Governed. Refl ections on Popular Politics in most of the World. New York: Columbia University Press.

CSDS 2007: Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, State of Democracy in South Asia, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Demos (2008), Törnquist, Olle, Samadhi, Willy P, Kariadi, Syafa’atun et.al. Democracy-Building on the Sand. Advances and Setbacks in Indonesia. Executive and Summary Report from the 2nd National Expert Survey on Problems and Options of Indonesian Democracy 2007-2008, Jakarta: Demos.

Esping-Andersen, Gøsta (1985): Politics against markets. The Social Democratic Road to Power. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Fung, Archon and Wright, Erik Olin (2003): Deepening Democracy. Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance. The Real Utopias Project IV. London and New York: Verso.

Hadenius, Axel (1992): Democracy and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hardt, Michael. and Negri, Antonio (2000): Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Harriss, John (2006): ‘“Politics is a dirty river”. But is there a “new politics” of civil society?’. In, John Harriss, Power Matters: Essays on Institutions, Politics and Society in India, Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Harriss, John, Stokke, Kristian. and Törnquist, Olle. (Eds.) (2004): Politicising Democracy. The New Local Politics of Democratisation. Houndmills: Palgrave.

Harris-White, Barbara. (2003). India Working: Essays on Society and Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Heller, Patrick. (2001). Moving the State: The Politics of Democratic Decentralization in Kerala, South Africa and Porto Alegre. Politics and Society, 29(1), 131-163.

Houtzager, Peter P & Lavalle, Adrian Gurza & Harris, John (2005): The Puzzle of the Polity: Citizens, Collective Actors, and States in Large Developing Democracies (Brazil, India, and Mexico). Bellagio Introduction Paper (Preliminary draft).

Houtzager, Peter P, Acharya, Arnab and Gurza Lavalle, Adrián (2007): Associations and the Exercise of Citizenship in New Democracies: Evidence from São Paulo and Mexico City, IDS Working Paper 285,Brighton: University of Sussex.

Isaac, Thomas. M. T with Franke, Richard. W. (2000). Local Democracy and Development, People’s Campaign for Decentralized Planning in Kerala. Delhi: Leftward Books.

Jones, Peris and& Kristian Stokke (eds.) (2005). Democratising Development. The Politics of Socio-Economic Rights in South Africa. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV.

Khan, Mushtaq H (2005). “Markets, States and Democracy: Patron-Client Networks and the Case for Democracy in Developing Countries.” Democratization, Vol.12 No.5, December.

Kohli, Atul (2004): State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Mouzelis, N. P. (1986). Politics in the Semi-Periphery. Houndmills: Macmillan.

Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel (1967): The Concept of Representation. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Priyono, A.E, Samadhi, Willy P, and Törnquist, Olle (2007) Making Democracy Meaningful. Problems and Options in Indonesia. Jogjakarta, Jakarta and Singapore: PCD Press, Demos and ISEAS. (1st edition 2005)

Putnam, Robert D. (1993): Making Democracy Work; Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Quimpo, Nathan (2004) Contested Democracy and the Left in the Philippines after Marcos, Canberra: Australian National University, 2nd edition: the ANU Southeast Asia Studies Monograph Series, 2008.

Rocamora, Joel (2004): “More than Diffi cult, Short of Impossible: Party Building and Local Governance in the Philippines”, in Harriss, John, Stokke, Kristian and Törnquist, Olle (Eds.) (2004), Politicising Democracy. The New Local Politics of Democratisation. Houndmills: Palgrave.

Rogaly, Ben, Harriss-White, Barbara and Bose, Sugatra (1999): Sonar Bangla? Agricultural Growth and Agrarian Change in West Bengal and Bangladesh. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London: Sage.

Rothstein, Bo and Torell, Jan. (2005) “What is Quality of Government? A Theory of Impartial Political Institutions. Paper to the conference “Quality of Government: What it is, How to get it, Why it matters”, Göteborg, November 17–19, 2005.

Stokke, K. (2002). Habitus, Capital and Fields: Conceptualising the Capacity of Actors in Local Politics. Unpublished paper, Seminar on ‘Local Politics and Democratisation in Developing Countries’, University of Oslo, March 12.

Tharakan, P.K.M (2004), “Historical Hurdles in the Course of the People’s Planning Campaign in Kerala”, in Harriss, John, Stokke, Kristian and Törnquist, Olle (Eds.) (2004), Politicising Democracy. The New Local Politics of Democratisation. Houndmills: Palgrave.

Tarrow, S., (1994). Power in Movement. Social Movements, Collective Action, and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Törnquist, Olle (2002): Popular Development and Democracy, Case Studies with Rural Dimensions in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Kerala. Occasional Papers from SUM, No.3. Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo in cooperation with UNRISD.

Törnquist, Olle (2008a): “Civic Action and Defi cit Democracy”, Forthcoming in Selle, Per and Prakash, Sanjeev (eds) Beyond Civil Society, London and New York: Routledge.

Törnquist, Olle (2008b): Research-based Democracy Promotion. Learning from an Indonesian Pilot Programme with Demos, in co-operation with UGM and UiO, Report commissioned by the Swedish development Co-operation Agency with the Norwegian Embassy to Jakarta. Oslo. University of Oslo.

Törnquist, Olle (forthcoming): “The Problem is Representation! Towards an Analytical Framework”, in Törnquist, Olle, Stokke Kristian and Webster, Neil, Rethinking Popular representation, Palgrave.

Törnquist, Olle, with Bastian, Sunil, Stokke, Kristian and Warouw, Nicolaas, “Introduction to the PCD programme”, in The PCD Journal, Vol 1:1.

UNDP (2002). Human Development Report: Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Uyangoda, J. (2005). Confl ict, confl ict resolution and peace building. An introduction to theories and practices. Department of Political Science and Public Policy, University of Colombo

Uyangoda, J. (2007). Ethnic Confl icts in Sri Lanka: Changing Dynamics. Washington DC: EastWest Center, Policy Studies 32.

Wacquant, Loïc (Ed) (2005): Pierre Bourdieu and Democratic Politics, Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press.

Webster, Neil (1992): “Panchayati Raj In West Bengal: Participation for the People or the Party? Development and Change 23:4.

World Bank (1997): World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Østerud, Øyvind (2003): ”Democracy Beyond Borders? The European Case”, ch. 8 in Øyvind Østerud et al. (eds.): Power and Democracy. Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag AS.

Østerud, Øyvind (ed.) (2005): ”Special Issue on Norway: The Transformation of a Political System”, in West European Politics 28(4).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22146/pcd.25673