Elections represent the central participatory moment in liberal democracy. By voting in elections, voters provide political legitimacy to the political elite to take decisions for the whole society. The result is the centralisation of power in the elite and the submission of wider society. Such an outcome is one of the limits of representative democracy and corresponds to what is here defined as ‘political-colonialism’. In order to ‘democratise democracy’, which includes the combination of representative democracy with participatory practices, decentralisation may be a method able to counteract political-colonialism by providing space for power and leadership sharing and by increasing social participation in the political sphere. Mahatma Gandhi developed a multicentre idea of democracy based on 700.000 Indian village republics. He used the word ‘Swaraj’ (self-rule) to characterise this model. The Aam Aadmi Party today advocates Swaraj for villages and cities. This paper aims at exploring this idea through existing empirical cases of Swaraj and of decentralised democracy in India.
Elections represent the central participatory moment in liberal democracy. By voting in elections, voters provide political legitimacy to the political elite to take decisions for the whole society. The result is the centralisation of power in the elite and the submission of wider society. Such an outcome is one of the limits of representative democracy and corresponds to what is here defined as ‘political-colonialism’. In order to ‘democratise democracy’, which includes the combination of representative democracy with participatory practices, decentralisation may be a method able to counteract political-colonialism by providing space for power and leadership sharing and by increasing social participation in the political sphere. Mahatma Gandhi developed a multicentre idea of democracy based on 700.000 Indian village republics. He used the word ‘Swaraj’ (self-rule) to characterise this model. The Aam Aadmi Party today advocates Swaraj for villages and cities. This paper aims at exploring this idea through existing empirical cases of Swaraj and of decentralised democracy in India.
Mahatma Gandhi and the AAP: Towards Post-Political-Colonialism through Decentralisation and Swaraj / Gianolla, Cristiano. - STAMPA. - 1:(2015), pp. 921-937. (Intervento presentato al convegno International Colloquium Epistemologies of the South: South-South, South-North and North-South global learnings tenutosi a Coimnra, Portogallo nel 10-12 Luglio 2014).
Mahatma Gandhi and the AAP: Towards Post-Political-Colonialism through Decentralisation and Swaraj
GIANOLLA, CRISTIANO
2015
Abstract
Elections represent the central participatory moment in liberal democracy. By voting in elections, voters provide political legitimacy to the political elite to take decisions for the whole society. The result is the centralisation of power in the elite and the submission of wider society. Such an outcome is one of the limits of representative democracy and corresponds to what is here defined as ‘political-colonialism’. In order to ‘democratise democracy’, which includes the combination of representative democracy with participatory practices, decentralisation may be a method able to counteract political-colonialism by providing space for power and leadership sharing and by increasing social participation in the political sphere. Mahatma Gandhi developed a multicentre idea of democracy based on 700.000 Indian village republics. He used the word ‘Swaraj’ (self-rule) to characterise this model. The Aam Aadmi Party today advocates Swaraj for villages and cities. This paper aims at exploring this idea through existing empirical cases of Swaraj and of decentralised democracy in India.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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