Gardening Democratic Practices

Springer eBooks, pp. 377–397

Abstract

Abstract Diagnoses of a contemporary “crisis of democracy” typically target the liberal-representative model centred on parties and elections. This chapter argues that such diagnoses risk obscuring a broader ecology of democratic practices that are transforming, proliferating, or even thriving beyond this dominant model—especially under conditions of the Anthropocene. We propose a practice turn in democracy studies that shifts attention from predefined normative models to the ethnographic reconstruction of how democracy is actually enacted. Starting from a generic conception of democracy as practices that articulate a collective will ( demos ) and translate it into governance ( kratia ), we develop a heuristic framework for identifying democratic practices without presupposing who “the people” are, how their will is formed, or how governance is performed. Democratic practices are defined by the inclusive, free, and equal engagement of those addressed as members of a collective in articulating and contesting representative claims. Empirically, we highlight diverse sites of democratic enactment, including algorithmic data analytics, aesthetic and affective interventions, and socio-ecological experiments that extend participation to non-human entities. Finally, we propose “gardening” as a reflexive-strategic orientation: rather than technologically designing democracy, scholars and practitioners should cultivate and modulate evolving democratic ecologies in a tentative, experimental, and context-sensitive manner.

Authors 2

1. Jan-Peter Voß corresponding Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

2. Hagen Schölzel

   University of Erfurt

   Affiliation as printed

   University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany