Experiences and Strategic Interventions in Transformative Democratic Politics

Abstract

The point of departure for this book has been the observation that the contemporary Global South is characterized by a seemingly paradoxical co-existence of formal institutions that are supposed to support liberal democracy and stagnation of democratization towards its universally accepted aim of popular control of public affairs on the basis of political equality (Beetham 1999). The global spread of liberal democratic institutions and neoliberalism has brought political and economic vibrancy, but also problems of depoliticized public affairs and flawed popular representation. This points to the need for more extensive democratization and especially raises questions about the means by which limited and poor institutions can nevertheless be used in efforts towards extensive and substantive democracy. The general answer provided by the contributors to this anthology has been to highlight the centrality of transformative democratic politics. This refers to political agendas and strategies to use emerging democratic freedoms and institutions to promote improved popular control of public affairs on the basis of political equality. The three parts in the book have sought to give conceptual and contextual depth to this agenda by examining comparative experiences with transformative democratic politics. The present chapter will extract some of the key lessons from these analyses before turning to a discussion of strategic interventions in support of transformative democratic politics.