Education for Social Justice in an Era of Democracy Fatigue

Author: Dr Callum McGregor

Reading time: 5 minutes

On Thursday 16^th June, the Social Justice and Inclusion Thematic Hub hosted a half-day seminar entitled ‘Education for Social Justice in an Era of Democracy Fatigue.’ This catered event provided a space for members of the Hub, as well as colleagues from across the School, to engage in convivial dialogue with a view to developing new ideas, projects and collaborations over coffee. Attendees were invited to reflect on the relationship between education, democracy fatigue and populist politics. Around a dozen people attended and the day featured presentations from colleagues at different stages of working with these concepts. After enjoying some lunch, the presentations were followed by structured discussions designed to expand engagement, support ongoing work, and generate new activity.

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We invited participants to prepare for the event by reading Appadurai’s short 2017 essay entitled “Democracy Fatigue”, as a provocation and stimulus for discussion. Appadurai (2017, p. 7) argues that elections “have become a way to ‘exit’ from democracy itself, rather than a means to repair and debate politics democratically”. Democracy fatigue then describes impatience with, and hostility towards, the “due process, deliberative rationality and due patience” that liberal democracy requires (Appadurai, 2017, p. 8). Thus, the concept of democracy fatigue is closely associated with the movement from liberal to illiberal democracy: on the one hand, a dwindling faith in the institutions, values and norms of liberal democracy and on the other, the ascendancy of right-wing authoritarian (even autocratic) populism. Right-wing populism is related to both illiberal democracy and democracy fatigue in several ways: firstly, it is a revanchist, or counter-hegemonic form of right-wing politics which capitalises on raw expressions of discontent with the status quo by opposing nativist, xenophobic and racist constructions of ‘the people’ to a conspiratorial relationship between liberal elites and ‘favoured’ minority groups (Judis, 2016). Yet political theorists such as Mouffe (2019) question the way in which the adjective ‘populist’ is used by those wielding power to deny or smooth over inherent tensions and problems with liberal democracy as we know it. ‘Left populism’ then is a political strategy that seeks to ‘resignify’ populism “in a positive way, so as to make it available for designating the form of counter-hegemonic politics against the neo-liberal order” and for “equality and social justice” (Mouffe, 2019, pp. 82-4). 

The central question animating this particular event was how processes of education and learning aimed at extending and defending democratic life might engage with populist politics. But we also discussed how and where education, broadly conceived,  may be complicit in reproducing these phenomena. We were, in other words, attentive to how education and learning are positioned and mobilised in liberal discourses on democratic crisis. 

 In the panel discussion chaired by Professor Lani Florian, Dr Lindsey Horner got things started by reflecting on her recently published work, entitled  “Oscillating between populism and liberalism in the Philippines.” Lindsey discussed the complexities of populism as well as how education can meet the challenge through a specific example of critical participatory community education in the Philippines. Dr Andie Reynolds reflected on her ongoing work to understand how civil society organisations and social movements are mobilised or suppressed under populist rule and strategies across Nicaragua and Ecuador. Dr Sarah Ward and Dr Neil Speirs reflected on their experience of exploring the relationship between education and populism with international students on the postgraduate course, Learning for Democracy, part of the MSc Social Justice and Community Action. I reflected on my ongoing work to understand the potentials and limitations of left populism as an educative project. After lunch, we engaged in structured discussion about how we plan to develop our work, whether there is scope for future collaboration, what support we might need and what networks we need to develop.

One practical proposal from the event was to work on a developing a large seminar series in order to explore these themes from different international perspectives. One practical outcome was a successful application to run a public engagement event as part of the ESRC’s Festival of Social Science 2022. Dr Sarah Ward , Dr Andie Reynolds and I co-organised this event which was held on Thursday 3^rd November. It offered FE college students, studying Working with Communities, the opportunity to explore the concepts of democratic crisis and populism in the context of their own community practice. This successful follow-on event contributed towards building and sustaining a lively community of practice around ‘learning for democracy’ and was also important for developing SJI hub members’ relationships with the FE College Sector.

References

Appadurai, A. (2017) ‘Democracy Fatigue’, in H. Geiselberger (ed.) The Great Regression, London: Polity, pp. 1-12.

Horner, L. (2022) ‘Oscillating Between Populism and Liberalism in the Philippines: Participatory Education’s Role in Addressing Stubborn Inequalities’, Globalisation, Societies and Education. DOI: 10.1080/14767724.2022.2048799

Judis, J.B. (2016) The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics. New York: Columbia Global Reports.

Mouffe, C. (2019) For a Left Populism. London: Verso.