Rosemary Bechler is a Contributing Editor for openDemocracy.

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An OurKingdom conversation. This is Part 2 of Rosemary's response in our 'Which Plurality?' debate [History: Jeremy Gilbert > Rosemary Bechler > Jeremy Gilbert > first part of this reply > this post > Jeremy Gilbert]

An OurKingdom conversation. [History: Jeremy Gilbert > Rosemary Bechler > Jeremy Gilbert > this post > second part of this reply > Jeremy Gilbert]

An OurKingdom conversation. This is Jeremy Gilbert's response to Rosemary Bechler in OK's debate on liberalism and democracy [History: Jeremy Gilbert > this post > Jeremy Gilbert > Rosemary Bechler (part 1; part 2) > Jeremy Gilbert]

I want to pick up a strand of thinking in Jeremy Gilbert’s stimulating and useful tour de horizon of the left landscape as a potential driver for democratic change. If developed, I believe it leads us to another major source of transformation overlooked in his otherwise comprehensive survey. The strand I’m talking about is plurality – individualisation, diversification, fragmentation – and its relationship not only to deliberative democracy, but to the reinvigoration and rescue of democracy in the modern nation-state as such.

Before picking up on Jeremy’s commanding call for ‘a new kind of deliberative democratic institution… a social forum for us all … vital to the fostering of the kind of democratic climate within which … reforms could take root, flower and grow’ – I want to return to the more uncertain role accorded ‘plurality’ in his previous openDemocracy contribution,‘Postmodernity and the crisis of democracy.’ Here it is regarded with a residual leftwing ambivalence. The ‘full pluralism and complexity’ of our world is laid at the feet of ‘wild, unregulated capitalism’ or ‘globalisation’, as if these were little more than a conspiracy to unpick the organisational capacity of the labour movement. Alternatively, plurality is a siren voice created by postmodern cybernetic capitalism and only narrowly averted in the 1980s, when Baudrillard and Co tempted us to deliver ourselves to ‘the nihilistic thrill of a world without shared values and meanings’. But this is to treat plurality or diversity as the rootless relativism it is reduced to being in a culture like ours.

However, plurality in its higher form - as negotiation with the other, the encounter with difference and differences that is the source of self-awareness and adult intelligence is a very different story. There is an enormous and unstoppable democratic potential inherent in the process of individualisation that has accompanied capitalism throughout its history and this process continues with the boost it has received not only from post-war consumer culture and ‘consumer choice’, but also from the communication channels opened up across the silos of national organisation by war, tourism, the internet and globalisation. This is the energy and intelligence for a new political culture, in which people negotiate how they wish to live side by side in one polity, and win some, lose some, learn how to compromise. This much deeper form of democracy is waiting impatiently in the wings (although I note in a thoughtful if sometimes jaded interview that Tony Wright thinks ordinary people, as opposed to MP’s, incapable of it. He says: ”politics is complicated, it’s difficult, it’s frustrating, it requires compromise and often politicians are choosing the least-worst options and so it’s guaranteed to disappoint vast numbers of people all the time… there’s something about politics that’s a challenge in a consumerist culture, which likes instant gratification through shopping and celebrity and all that.”)

Jon Lawrence's book, Electing Our Masters: the Hustings in British Politics from Hogarth to Blair, was published this March by OUP. Now he has turned his attention to the next election and the urgent need for real-life political interaction. In this paper on ‘The hustings, broadcasters and the future of democracy' in the History & Policy series, he calls on broadcasters to reinvent the old, irreverent spirit of the hustings to ‘deliver both dramatic television and serious democratic politics.' We have a long and valuable tradition of politicians submitting themselves to rigorous interrogation by the general public - one that he has chronicled in detail -  but only broadcasters can now ensure that that tradition survives and flourishes in the twenty-first century.

The problem as he sees it remains residual paternalism and ‘that fear of abandoning professional control'. And the brief recent history that he gives contains few encouraging signs of a major step forward - broadcasters seem only slightly less cautious than their political masters. But Lawrence is clear,  ‘Further expansion of 'vox pop' coverage will not do. Political interaction must lie at the heart of a healthy democracy, and broadcasting is uniquely placed to help facilitate that interaction between public and politicians.'  He is also calling for new ‘public rituals ‘ that bring politicians and public together: ‘Candidates could be selected at open public 'primaries', official nomination hustings could be held in every constituency, and broadcasters could be encouraged to hold Question Time-style encounters across the country during an election, using new technologies to throw them open to the Facebook generation.'

Lawrence lays considerable emphasis on ritual, drama and the ‘theatre and entertainment that must be at the heart' of politics if it is to connect, but this does not dilute his ambition for such encounters between the public and their politicians. His aim is the kind of interaction that ‘allows ordinary voters a chance, not just to have their say, but actually to hold their political masters to account.'

Nobel Women's Initiative calls for the immediate release of Mairead Maguire and other Human Rights activists detained by Israeli authorities on June 29th.