From "democratic erosion" to "a conversation among equals"

Abstract

In recent years, legal and political doctrinaires have been confusing the democratic crisis that is affecting most of our countries with a mere crisis of constitutionalism (i.e., a crisis in the way our system of "checks and balances" works). Expectedly, the result of this "diagnostic error" is that legal and political doctrinaires began to propose the wrong remedies for the democratic crisis. Usually, they began advocating for the "restoration" of the old system of "internal controls" or "checks and balances", without paying attention to the democratic aspects of the crisis that would require, instead, the strengthening of "popular" controls and participatory mechanisms that favored the gradual emergence of a "conversation among equals". In this work, I focus my attention on certain institutional alternatives - citizens' assemblies and the like- that may help us overcome the present democratic crisis. In particular, I examine the recent practice of citizens' assemblies and evaluate their functioning.

Od »demokratične erozije« do »pogovora med enakimi«. V zadnjih letih pravni in politični dogmatiki zamenjujejo demokratično krizo, ki je prizadela večino naših držav, zgolj s krizo ustavnosti (tj. s krizo v načinu delovanja našega sistema »zavor in ravnovesij«). Rezultat te »napake v diagnozi« je pričakovano ta, da so pravni in politični dogmatiki za demokratično krizo začeli predpisovati napačna zdravila. Običajno so se zavzemali za »obnovo« starega sistema »notranjih kontrol« ali »zavor in ravnovesij«, ne da bi se ozirali na demokratične vidike krize, ki bi namesto tega zahtevali krepitev »ljudskih« kontrol in participativnih mehanizmov, ki so spodbujali postopni nastanek »pogovora med enakimi«. Avtor se osredinja na nekatere institucionalne alternative – zbore državljanov in podobno, ki nam lahko pomagajo premagati sedanjo demokratično krizo. Posebej preučuje nedavno prakso zborov občanov in ocenjuje njihovo delovanje.