Political Experiments

Abstract

We are witnessing experiments with political forms of life not seen for nearly a hundred years. Political forms of life are not limited to preferences for particular policies. They entail competing visions for political form itself—an arrangement of power as democracy, socialism, communism, anarchism, fascism, or some combination thereof—and a way of life that goes with it. My analysis centres on my own political experiment: a classroom-based citizens’ assembly that I see as a microcosm of this wider phenomenon. This experiment reveals a shared desire among participants to exercise authorship over political arrangements, even as they divide between democratic enthusiasts and sceptics. It is this very authorship that liberal democracy has denied people, even when governments have instituted their own citizens’ assemblies. These citizens’ assemblies seek to expand participation on policy creation while ultimately constraining people to answer predefined questions, leaving the liberal-democratic structure of political decision making intact. I propose that contemporary movements, including authoritarian and other anti-democratic tendencies, can be understood partly as responses to liberal democracy’s reluctance to cede authority over political form. The result is a proliferation of “political experiments” through which individuals and groups attempt to reclaim that authorship.