DEMOCRACY AND ANARCHY - ABENSOUR

Miguel Abensour in La Démocratie contre l'Etat (2004) discusses true democracy which he calls (and called it long before the Iraq war) insurgent democracy. This is not a surging up of democracy within the commonly accepted field of the political as defined in the terms of the liberal democratic state. Instead Abensour conceptualises true democracy as situating itself outside of that field, this democracy is against the state:


La démocratie insurgeante n’est pas une variante de la démocratie conflictuelle, mais son exact opposé. Tandis que la démocratie conflictuelle pratique le conflit à l’intérieur de l’Etat, de l’Etat démocratique qui donne son nom même se donne comme un évitement du conflit premier, inclinant du même coup la conflictualité vers le compromis permanent, la démocratie insurgeante situe le conflit dans un autre lieu, à l’extérieur de l’Etat, contre lui, et bien loin de pratiquer l’évitement du conflit majeur, - la démocratie contre l’Etat

Insurgent democracy is not a variant of conflictual democracy, but its exact opposite. Whereas conflictual democracy practices conflict in the interior of the state, of the democratic state, which gives it its own name, it gives itself away as an avoidance of the primary conflict, inclining conflictuality at the same time towards permanent compromise, but insurgent democracy situates conflict in another place, exterior to the state, against it, and well away from the practice of the avoidance of the major conflict - democracy against the state. (2004, 18-19)

This is because true democracy follows an anarchical impulse against the principle of order, and as the key institution in liberal democracy which embodies order is the state, this is democracy against the state:

La démocratie insurgeante prend naissance dans l’intuition qu’il n y a pas de vraie démocratie sans réactiver l’impulsion profonde de la démocratie contre toute forme d’arché, impulsion anarchique qui se dresse donc en priorité contre la manifestation classique de l’arché - à savoir, l’Etat.

Insurgent democracy is born from the intuition that there isn’t true democracy without reactivating the profound impulse of democracy against all forms of arche, an anarchic impulse which stands therefore as first priority against the classic manifestation of the arche - namely, the state. (2004, 18-19)

In much political philosophy there is an impulse to replace the political with the social but with Abensour we can see an alternative vision of democracy which embraces interminable political conflict against the state.

Au lieu de concevoir l’émancipation comme la victoire du social (une société civile réconciliée) sur le politique, entraînant du même coup la disparition du politique, cette forme de démocratie fait surgir, travaille a faire surgir en permanence, une communauté politique contre l’Etat. A l’opposition du social et du politique, elle substitue celle du politique et de l’étatique.

In place of conceiving emancipation as the victory of the social (a reconciled civil society) over politics, at the same time leading to the disappearance of politics, this form of democracy makes appear, works towards, the permanent appearance of, a political community against the state. In place of the opposition of the social and the political, it substitutes that of the political and the state. (2004, 18-19)

At this point another political relationship opens up: the state is knocked off its throne, and instead of seeing the state and politics as natural bedfellows, this relationship is denaturalised:

Détrônant l‘Etat, elle dresse le politique contre l’étatique et rouvre l’abîme trop souvent occulté entre le politique et l’Etat.

Dethroning the state, it puts politics against the state and reopens the gulf too often hidden between politics and the state. (2004, 18-19)

And once the hidden is once more clearly visible it becomes more evident that: democracy is anti-state or it isn’t at all, and that a

démocratie est le théâtre d’une insurrection permanente contre l‘Etat, contre la forme Etat, unificatrice, intégratrice, organisatrice.

Democracy is the theatre of a permanent insurrection against the state, against all forms of state, the unificationist, the integrationist, the organising state. (2004, 9)