Jacques Ranciere

Rancière, Jacques: Rancière believes democracy is neither a governmental or societal structure. Rather, it is the underlying principle which makes both possible.  For Rancière, democracy is the equality at the heart of inequality. Democracy, equality, is the underlying condition of politics, and not a goal or structure to be attained.

For Rancière, “the power of the people, the power of those who have no special entitlement to exercise power, is the basis for what makes politics thinkable” (79). In other words, the very idea of politics—whether referring to government or individual acts of agency—assumes that regular persons interact with other regular persons through the systems of authority and power (such as money, influence, or even race and gender). If politics is only done by the strongest, richest, and wisest, then it is not politics at all, but oligarchy. Politics therefore begins with the assumption that everyone is equal, and people only become unequal through the application of troubled systems. Political action is the taking back of influence from those with no special entitlement by others with no special entitlement. According to Ranciere, people have mistakenly called certain governments democratic because they claim to seek equality. But for Ranciere, the role of all governments, inherently, is to resist the democratic efforts of the public to expand the public realm, and to keep as few voices in charge as possible. Governments (even “democratic” ones) are inherently threatened by democracy (equality): Democracy (as government) is threatened by the demos (the people). If democracy is truly the radical  equality of each individual and their desires and efforts in public sphere, then Rancière rightly associates democracy with a sort of anarchy. The principle of equality and democracy acts as an anarchic force that bursts through the limits and undermines the power structures of public sphere. Neither anarchy nor democracy ever truly prevail as a form a government. Rather, they are wrenches “of equality jammed…into the gears of domination, (they are) what keep politics from simply turning into law enforcement.” - Rebekah Sinclair

References:

• “Democracies Against Democracy,” in Democracy in What State. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.
• Hatred of Democracy. London: Verso, 2006.