Post-crisis hegemonic articulations of democracy: a critical review of the discourse of the anti-austerity protest movements

The economic conditions and austerity policies in Southern Europe have produced a hegemonic crisis of democracy. New social movements have tried to give it a new meaning by radicalizing the democratic idea. Demanding “democracia real ja!”, their critique directly attacked the idea of representation and the political system as a whole. As part of a wider study of the democratic discourses in crisis-ridden Portugal based upon participative observation and interviews, this paper makes a critical analysis of the anti-political and anti-ideological stances of the new anti-austerity movements, and problematizes their possible articulation with the post-political elements of the dominant neoliberal discourse. A first section discusses the concept of depolitization and post-politics and its link with the dominant neoliberal ideology and austerity. Then we will analyse the founding manifestos of a selection of 6 anti-austerity social movements; Movimento Geração á Rasca, Movimento 12 Março, Acampada do Rossio, Indignados de Lisboa, Acampada de Coimbra and Que Se Lixe a Troika. In each of these manifestoes the elements that reflect the post-political discourse about democracy are selected and criticized. These elements include self-identifications as “personal” and “post-ideological”, taking distance of (party-)politics and addressing the crisis as a problem of “politicians” or “political caste”. I will argue that this critique of “the old way of doing politics” and the post-ideological stance; as well as the ilusions in participative democracy as such, actually are Fukuyamaist, and avoid addressing the structural problems of the political economy behind the crisis. I will argue that a conscience of these post-political elements is crucial to avoid a cooptation of the discourse in the dominant neoliberal framework and to make possible an articulation with other anti-capitalist forces in order to bring forward a unified counter hegemonic discourse able to mobilize and politicize the different layers of society against austerity policies