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Authors
Supervisors
De Schutter, Olivier
 ;
Tom Dedeurwaerdere, Tom
Abstract
(en) Theory and practice of communalist direct democracy. Self-government by the assembled people Whether it is the gap between ruler and ruled, the decline of electoral participation, the rise of the far right or the loss of confidence in institutions, signs of dysfunction of the democratic political system proliferate across modern societies. How to overcome the crisis of representative democracy driving individuals away from politics? Is it possible to re-construct democratic institutions that would allow the people to directly exercise public power and regain control over their lives? How can such self-government be achieved? This dissertation aims to answer these questions by exploring communalist direct democracy as an alternative to representative democracy, both in theory and in practice. The first part of the PhD constructs communalist direct democracy as a theory of democracy that allows for the self-government of the people. The first chapter develops a critique of the existing system - representative democracy - by identifying its limits in enabling popular self-government, despite the amendments made by participatory and deliberative theories of democracy. The second chapter conceptualises the theory of communalist direct democracy as an alternative to representative democracy, proposing that public power be exercised directly by popular assemblies organised at communal level and confederated among themselves. The chapter develops the two main concepts of this theory: the institution of the assembled people and the direct representation of its will by delegates with imperative and recallable mandates. It then responds to a series of objections that can be made to its desirability and viability. The third chapter deals with the strategy for moving towards such a system of self-government, which consists of presenting a list at municipal elections in order to link the mandate of the elected persons to the decisions of the local assembly. It then addresses objections to the feasibility of this strategy. The second part of the dissertation studies the practice of direct democracy by the assembly movement in Commercy (France), based on a two-year fieldwork (2018-2020) combining participant observation, semi-directive individual and group interviews and textual analysis. After narrating the history of this movement in the first chapter, the thesis proceeds to analyse this experience through the development of the dialectical relationship between assembly direct democracy and representative democracy. The second chapter shows that, in the context of the critique of representation advanced by the Yellow Vests movement, the form of direct democracy that is the assembly was built in Commercy against representative democracy. The third chapter analyses the electoral strategy adopted by some of the Yellow Vests in Commercy, seeking to bring about direct democracy based on the assembly through representative democracy. Indeed, the actors undertook to present a citizens’ list for the March 2020 municipal elections, which sole programme was to link the mandate of the elected people to the decisions of the assembly, that is, to use the paradigmatic tool of representative democracy, the elections, with the aim of giving power to the institution of the assembled people. The fourth chapter explains how the movement, after the failure of the elections, tried to rebuild its project of direct democracy of assemblies without representative democracy. The fifth and final chapter sets out the radical democratic imaginary that the movement sought to institute in place of representative democracy. The chapter focuses on the way in which the Commercy actors instituted the assembled people on the basis of their own practice, and on the way in which the concept of representation was reinvented by this experience. The aim is to show how practice both questions and enriches theory.
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Van Outryve d’Ydewalle, S. (2024). Théorie et pratique de la démocratie directe communaliste. L’autogouvernement par le peuple assemblé. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/239612