How Might Mass Democratic Movements Serve the Poor?

Mass democratic movements often do not achieve democracy for all. Even the Indian colonial liberation movement of the 1930s and 1940s, perhaps one among a handful of iconic democratic movements, did not achieve full citizenship for all Indians. Take the cases of the bonded laborers from the scheduled tribes of West Bengal, India, such as the Lodhas, the Mundas, and the Kherias.

Trade Area Agreements Damage Democracy

Everybody is aware of the effects of Trade Area policies like NAFTA and CAFTA.  They promise lower prices and prosperity, freedom and happiness, but deliver draconian policies and enforcement mechanisms that hurt workers, the environment, and democracy.  The latest maneuver in this bait and switch approach to trade, which some know as “NAFTA on steroids,” is called the TransPacific Free Trade Area proposal, or the TPFTA.

Gyatri Spivak

"...an acceptance of radical vulnerability..." - Gyatri Spivak

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.

Wendy Brown

Brown, Wendy: The word democracy means only that “the people” rule themselves, that the whole rather than a part or an Other is politically sovereign. However, as Brown points out, this definition does not necessarily entail “representation, constitutions, deliberation, participation, free markets, rights, universality or even equality.”