As the second decade in the 21st century comes to an end, popular reactions to the global neoliberal order are proliferating. And they are now truly worldwide – covering a broader geo-cultural range than the assembly movements of 2011 – and mostly driven by youth who see their futures already sold out of reach. These rebellions exemplify the politics of spontaneous organisation – a politics that confirms radical democracy as the only weapon against the consumerist depolitisation of society that follows the bankruptcy of liberal institutions, especially in the Euro-American sphere. And yet, the question remains: how can these spontaneous insurrectionary gestures turn into an affirmative politics of governance?
In the five years since I introduced the notion of ‘left governmentality’, I came to doubt its political efficacy several times. My occasional attempts to elaborate on the nuances and complexities – perhaps even enigmas – of the notion have been motivated by these doubts. After all, what could left governmentality mean outside the real political terrain of our times? The very claim that there can be such a thing, which must exceed the tradition of leftist resistance, makes sense only when it is measured as a reality of governance.
Ongoing governmental politics in the wake of entrenched neoliberalism make left governmentality seem like an impossibility, at best romantic, at worst naïve. It’s given us austerity economics, the dismantling of social welfare institutions, and a media-driven selling out of democracy, all in the name of an encompassing consumer ideal. In turn these have created numerous obstacles to left governmentality: the sovereign debt crisis, racist politics in the wake of labor and refugee migration, and vehement micro-nationalisms within and across borders –
And yet, for precisely this reason, because of what presently seems to be an unprecedented orchestration of politically debilitated societies, left governmentality seems like a necessary, even if daring, aspiration.
What is ‘left governmentality’?
There are four parameters essential to left governmentality. All are predicated on each other with no primacy or sequential order:
1) Left governmentality is more a political attitude than an idea and is only meaningful in the democratic tradition, not the revolutionary one. It is not concerned with the violent overthrow of the state, if nothing else because “governmentality” here exceeds the boundaries of state machinery. It’s not about some technocratic expertise of government or statecraft, merely distinguished by ideological difference. It’s not about management of what already exists, but a transformation of what already exists, and this cannot be reduced to a simple take-over of the state, nor mere inheritance of the state.
2) The operative idea in “left governmentality” is not government but governance – indeed, self-governance. Hence its fundamentally democratic character, for democracy is not about mechanisms of government (parliaments, political parties, elections) – these are necessary symptoms. Democracy is a politics of self-governance above all, and this happens in all facets of society and ideally by all of its members, regardless of their differences. Because social difference remains despite equality being essential to democracy, a politics of self-governance is especially keen to address social and economic disparities pertinent to all without exception.
3) For leftist politics to achieve a governmentality not of management but of social transformation, it cannot remain in the default position of resistance but must develop a capacity to rule. In a democratic situation, this necessarily means to rule in the service of all, not merely an electoral constituency, a particular class, or specific social, economic, or cultural interests. This structural pivot from resistance to rule means that we cannot hold left governmentality to a priori ideological principles, but rather remain alert to those new social and political exigencies that develop as an outcome of left governmentality becoming a political event.
4) At the same time, the primacy of self-governance means that left governmentality cannot be exhausted in governmental practices and institutions. Social change cannot be mandated by law, although it often requires law in order to be sealed. It is always rooted in social movements, and leftist politics in the absence of social movements is an empty shell. So, this shift from a negative politics of resistance to the affirmative politics of governance works only to the degree that social movements retain their full critical and interrogative power. The relation between left government and social movement is one of relative autonomy. In left governmentality, neither the government nor the movement is subservient to each other and yet both the government and the movement are responsible for each other.
The EU battlefield and the dead-end of nationalism
Although part of my overall concern with radical democracy, thinking about left governmentality became urgent for me after the electoral victory of SYRIZA in Greece in 2015. This seminal event of a Left party coming to power in parliamentary elections has lost none of its significance historically, despite the fact that SYRIZA’s subsequent years of rule under the harshest austerity economics ever imposed on a European country were marked by numerous failures and incapacities.
Although radical democratic thinking must be realist thinking, it must also be optimistic thinking; the two are hardly incompatible. Besides, leftist thinking can only be conducted from an internationalist standpoint, so we cannot get bogged down by setbacks or failures in a specific social-historical (national or geographical) situation. For precisely this reason, EU politics remains a provocative terrain for left governmentality.
True, the European Union was never constructed as a political entity. It was instituted and is still governed by economic principles. It was forged from the same imaginary that precipitated the financialisation of capital at a techno-global scale. In retrospect, what was once called the European Economic Community may be financial capitalism’s first large-scale institution.
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Stathis Gourgouris | Radio Free (2020-01-20T14:47:50+00:00) Self-governance in the era of bankrupt liberalism and the rejection of internationalism. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/01/20/self-governance-in-the-era-of-bankrupt-liberalism-and-the-rejection-of-internationalism/
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