Dilip Gaonkar on the "Degenerations of Democracy"

Democracy in Question?

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Glossary

Nation-state

(07:01 or p.2 in the transcript)

Nation-state is a territorially bounded sovereign polity—i.e., a state—that is ruled in the name of a community of citizens who identify themselves as a nation. The legitimacy of a nation-state’s rule over a territory and over the population inhabiting it stems from the right of a core national group within the state (which may include all or only some of its citizens) to self-determination. Members of the core national group see the state as belonging to them and consider the approximate territory of the state to be their homeland. Accordingly, they demand that other groups, both within and outside the state, recognize and respect their control over the state. As a political model, the nation-state fuses two principles: the principle of state sovereignty, first articulated in the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which recognizes the right of states to govern their territories without external interference; and the principle of national sovereignty, which recognizes the right of national communities to govern themselves. National sovereignty in turn is based on the moral-philosophical principle of popular sovereignty, according to which states belong to their peoples. The latter principle implies that legitimate rule of a state requires some sort of consent by the people. That requirement does not mean, however, that all nation-states are democratic. Indeed, many authoritarian rulers have presented themselves—both to the outside world of states and internally to the people under their rule—as ruling in the name of a sovereign nation. source

The Yellow Vests Protests

(37:51 or p.10 in the transcript)

In France, in November 2018, the gilets jaunes started as a movement directed against what was considered to beexcessive taxation, especially on fuel. Protesters wearing gilets jaunes – yellow high visibility vests which motorists are legally obliged to have in their car and wear in case of accident or breakdown – blocked major roads as a sign of protest. This thus led to the collective name of the movement: the gilets jaunes (or yellow vests in English). Beyond the sustained blocking of some roads, the movement developed into regular demonstrations on Saturdays across the country blocking roads and city centers. At their peak in November 2018, the movement mobilized between 300,000 and 1.3 million people, depending on sources. Not unsurprisingly, considering the fractured, spontaneous and leaderless nature of the protests, the demands of the protesters spread to include the resignation of the French president, a general reduction in taxes, increases in public services and state pensions, and so on. Some gilets jaunes even called for revolution and said the movement was the start of a civil war. The polymorphous, uncontrolled and uncontrollable nature of the movement also provided an opportunity for some of its supporters to engage in violence against the police and symbols of the state such as motorway tollbooths, police speed cameras (over 50% of which were destroyed), government buildings, locations associated with the elite (such as Fouquet’s restaurant on the Champs-Elysées) and so on. This violence is said to have cost the French economy an estimated at €200 million according to the French insurance industry and has resulted directly or indirectly in 12 deaths and 4000 injured. source