Berghahn Books
The Art of the Possible — The Bullet or the Ballot Box: Defining Politics in the Emerging
Global Order
Author(s): Olle Frödin
Source: Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, Vol. 58, No. 128 (SEPTEMBER
2011), pp. 1-20
Published by: Berghahn Books
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41802508
Accessed: 31-10-2019 16:24 UTC
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The Art of the Possible - The Bullet
or the Ballot Box
Defining Politics in the Emerging Global Order
Olle Frödin
Abstract : In the wake of globalisation different social science disciplines have
found themselves entering into similar terrains of inquiry. However, each discipline
tends to draw on different and often contradictory understandings of
the political, and of related notions such as power. The lack of a shared notion
of politics may prevent social scientists from gaining important insights from
other disciplines. In this paper I therefore seek to demonstrate that seemingly
contradictory notions of politics are better seen as different forms of political
interaction. I define politics as activities through which people and groups
articulate, negotiate, implement and enforce competing claims. By distinguishing
different types of claims made within different institutional circumstances,
I outline three basic forms of political interaction: governance,
stalemate and social dilemma, and give examples of how each of these forms
of political interaction has emerged in response to the global integration of
market in different circumstances and areas of the world.
Keywords: constructivism, definition of politics, governance, institutions,
political theory, social ontology
The study of politics is plagued by conceptual confusion to such an extent that
scholars of politics do not even agree on the nature of their subject of study.
Some confine politics to the doings of actors in the formal political sphere,
while others see politics everywhere, suggesting that family matters and monetary
phenomena are always and everywhere political (e.g. Kirshner 2003).
Such conceptual confusion is problematic but perhaps unavoidable since politics,
along with other key social science notions such as democracy and justice,
are typical examples of 'essentially contested concepts', that is concepts
'the proper use of which inevitably involves endless disputes about their
proper uses on the part of their users' (Gallie 1956: 169). Defining politics is
controversial and difficult, not only because different understandings of politics
carry with them different implications for methodology, but also because
'defining politics and specifying the content of the discipline are themselves
Theoria, September 2011 doi: 10.3 167/th.201 1.5812801
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2 Olle Frödin
political pro
tional difficu
was once reached so as to enable a division of the modern social sciences into
separate disciplines such as politics, economics, sociology and anthropology.
The political sphere was thereby analytically disconnected from economics
and social relations, and political, social and economic aspects of human life
came to be studied in separate disciplines, as Wolf (1982: 7-8) notes. Within
the discipline of politics, another distinction was drawn between two different
types of political order, 'ungoverned interaction' or anarchy in the case of
international relations, and governmental authority with regard to domestic
politics (Coward 2006). Given the relative stability of these disciplinary
boundaries, the concept of politics, at least when used as a basis for disciplinary
divisions, is perhaps best described as 'contingently contested' (Ball
1988). Contingent contestability 'remains a permanent possibility even though
it is, in practice, actualized only intermittently', as Ball (1988: 14) argues. In
the last few decades, worldly and scholarly developments have called into
question established notions of politics and concomitant disciplinary boundaries.
The constitution and governance of the global political order have
changed in such as way as to challenge established paradigms and disciplinary
boundaries. In the previously dominant state-centric perspective, which presumed
clear disciplinary boundaries, the world is constituted by states claiming
a monopoly of violence within their borders. In this view, states interact in
the absence of a global government leading to episodic wars between them in
the event that they cannot cooperate. In the wake of globalisation, it is necessary
to acknowledge that increasing transnational connectivity has changed
both the constitution and governance of the global political order (Coward
2006). In a world in which states are best understood as 'disaggregated' sets
of organisations arranged in various networks, many of which are transnational
- where the OECD countries in practice constitute a security complex, where
low-intensity conflicts involving insurgents who do not operate as disciplined
armies are much more common than interstate wars, where transnational corporations
and transnational criminal networks may play major roles in the
development of societies, and where it consequently is difficult to distinguish
clear boundaries between public, private, domestic and international realms disciplines
like international relations, criminology and domestic politics no
longer focus on separate terrains of scholarly inquiry. Social scientists from
various disciplines are now increasingly focusing on how polities and actors
at different levels respond to a dominant global political order (Neumann and
Sending 2007).
As different social science disciplines and branches enter into similar terrains
of inquiry, the potential for interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation seems
greater than ever. However, different disciplines carry with them different
understandings of the political, and of related notions such as power. As a
result, a wide variety of different and often contradictory understandings of
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The Art of the Possible - The Bullet or the Ballot Box 3
politics, and of the nature and role of power and coercion
processes, circulate in the contemporary social sciences. For instan
tively oriented scholars may define politics as reasoned deliber
formal decision-making fora. By contrast, realist IR speciali
Clausewitzian perspective view war as a continuation of polit
means, while Weberians may see the establishment of a monopoly
as a precondition for politics. More recently, social scientists draw
works of Foucault see politics practically everywhere. Thus, there
clarity as to whether the use of force implies the breakdown
whether the establishment of a monopoly of violence is a prec
politics, whether politics is confined to specific arenas or if it is to
all areas of social life. While it can be argued that this concept
merely reflects the fact that scholars seek to do different things
respective notions, the lack of a shared understanding of what co
tics may prevent social scientists from gaining important insight
disciplines in trying to make sense of the contemporary world or
In this paper, I therefore set out to clarify the conceptual confus
to concept of politics by outlining a theoretical framework throug
ingly contradictory understandings can be seen as different form
rather than mutually exclusive activities. I begin with a review of
social science understandings of politics, mainly government-cent
and various power-centred perspectives. I then introduce the conc
work and use it as a basis to outline three basic types of political
Finally, I give examples of how these different types of inte
emerged in response to globalisation in different areas and circum
Classical and Modern Notions of Politics
According to the classical Greek understanding, politics refers to the ways in
which free citizens of a state or polis govern themselves through public debate.
In this view, politics is seen as an activity through which collective decisions
are made through discussion and persuasion. Accordingly, politics breaks down
in cases where conflicting parties resort to coercion rather than persuasion
(Crick 2004: 73). In line with the classical notion, Crick (2004: 67) defines
politics as a 'distinctive form of rule whereby people act together through institutionalized
procedures to resolve differences, to conciliate diverse interests
and values and to make public policies in the pursuit of common purposes'.
Consequently, he concurs with Arendt that the use of violence implies the
breakdown of politics, not its continuation by other means (Crick 2004: 70).
Government-centred notions are probably the most commonly used in
twentieth-century social science. They differ from classical understandings
in that they are linked to the potential use of force on the part of a government
branch that enjoys the monopoly of legitimate violence. Weber formulated
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4 Olle Frödin
the most in
which a polit
ing organisat
imate use of
In this persp
oly of legitim
denotes publ
concerning i
and the pro
the monopo
from those
2004: 14; W
through the
are closely r
wider in sco
The power-c
junction wit
ties'. When
Europe in th
or, more spe
rule in a com
of the doctri
state, in the
means, just o
the classical
tant role in
articulated th
and philosop
tics, the term
tred on stru
In twentieth
of power in
ena, and the
quently cen
matter of 'w
authoritativ
tred definiti
tinguish pol
demarcation
entists adop
(1974) theor
tions, thus c
ity of an act
well as two-d
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The Art of the Possible - The Bullet or the Ballot Box 5
to control and set political agendas. According to Lukes' radical
is located in collectivities sustaining institutions rather than in th
individuals, and can therefore be found even in situations where o
are absent. The matter of power and the political was further com
many researchers subsequently turned to the work of Foucault in an
go beyond Lukes' three-dimensional view of power (Gunn 2006
understanding of power differs from that of Lukes' in that Fouca
believe that power is possessed by social classes. Instead, power
social relations and is therefore not 'localised here or there, never
hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth' (Fou
98). Rather than studying shifts in power between groups and acto
cally, Foucault was interested in the exercise of power at the
Power, according to Foucault, stems from abstract political rationa
than from individuals and groups with specific interests. By focus
'micro-physics' of power, Foucault rejected notions of social power
in specific bodies, such as the Crown, the Parliament, or the r
Foucault thus attacked both government-centred notions of power
sovereignty and Marxist understandings highlighting dominan
coalitions of classes that use states as their instrument of rule. In the Foucauldian
perspective on politics, focus is not on parties, classes or ideologies
but on techniques of rule and strategies and practices through which governance
is achieved. Consequently, in the Foucauldian perspective political
change involves shifts in governmental rationality and the techniques of rule,
rather than shifts in policy or changing class alignments (Gunn 2006).
Contemporary debates are sometimes confused by the fact that scholars
may draw on either classical, government-centred or Foucauldian notions of
politics. For instance, in a paper comparing how liberal scholars like Rawls,
Honig and Connolly and the illiberal philosopher Carl Schmitt address problems
of intractable and intolerable disagreement, Skorupska concludes that
they all see politics as a solution. This may sound paradoxical but is explained
by the fact that they use very different notions of politics. A disagreement is
intractable and intolerable in cases where there is disagreement over which
right should be protected in cases where two actions are conflicting, and where
there seems to be no way of reaching rational consensus to settle the conflict
in a non-coercive manner acceptable to all. In their various ways of addressing
this problem, Rawls, Honig and Connolly fall back upon a normative definition
of politics as a non-coercive activity based on reason and reflection
through which 'the elementary problem of human living-together' is settled
by peaceful means. By contrast, Carl Schmitt did not believe in peaceful, rational
solutions to problems of intractable disagreement. In his view, peaceful
rational solutions were only viable when politicians shared similar perspectives
and where controversial questions could be excluded from the political
domain. Schmitt held that in case rational consensus to intractable and intolerable
disagreements is not possible to achieve, a decision, enforced through
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6 Olle Frödin
coercion, mu
ultimately a
This brief r
and sometim
lishment of
politics as a p
decision-mak
ing feature.
essentially c
and influenc
which they s
Against this
whether poli
all areas of
whether it r
peaceful acti
Is Politi
These definit
nomically. A
criterion ind
we refer to
in that schoo
ally being c
force by the
politics too n
characteristi
politics in te
defining wh
Drawing on
the possibilit
politics is a c
essential. Po
a 'family re
erty require
that politics
and 'aggrega
collections of
behaviour. A
politics rem
tiveness' and
tennis leagu
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The Art of the Possible - The Bullet or the Ballot Box 1
hock (1978) points out, meaning that we still need further criteria
politics. Recognising the problem of defining politics in a too narr
recent works have simply acknowledged that politics may be f
where in social life. For instance, Squires (2004: 119) argues 'politics
where because there is no realm of life immune to relations of conflict and
power'. Similarly, Leftwich holds 'politics consists of all activities of conflict
(peaceful or not), negotiation and co-operation over the use and distribution
of resources, whether they may be found within or beyond formal institutions,
on a global level or within the family, involving two or more people (Leftwich
2004: 15). White (1993) adopts a similar view of politics as a 'process
whereby power is mobilized and exercised to achieve individual, institutional
or collective goals'. In this perspective, politics pervades society and the economy.
White holds that markets can be seen as complex political systems with
their own specific distributions of power and diverse sets of power relations,
in which market actors seek to adjust the rules of the game to promote their
own interests, or use their control over economic assets to constrain the
choices and opportunities of other actors (White 1993). In a similar vein, Kirshner
(2003) argues that monetary phenomena are always and everywhere
political. Such broad definitions of the political beg the question of what we
are to do with them. Even though it can be argued that politics is everywhere,
what analytical purpose does it serve to equate social and economic interaction
in general with politics?
I believe that while power can be found everywhere in social life, not all
power relations are by definition political. Politics, thus, is not everywhere.
However, all social relations may become politicised. In the following, I outline
a conceptual framework through which this line of argument will be clarified.
Institutions and Social Interaction
The mere existence of power relations does not necessarily entail conflict. In
most areas of social life, institutionalised power relations are generally
accepted and most interaction within institutional environments is therefore
peaceful. A brief discussion on the ontology of social reality will clarify this
statement. Searle (1996: 7-12) distinguishes between 'observer- independent
features, - features of the world that are entirely independent of human attitudes
and observer relative features, that is institutions, like money, parliaments,
property, marriage and elections, that only exist in social relations
Since institutions depend on shared understandings, e.g. subjective attitudes,
for their existence, they can only be maintained as long as they enjoy a requisite
degree of collective acceptance (Searle 2001 : 207). Institutional facts exist
within frameworks of constitutive rules that enable various organised soci
activities. Institutions also determine various deontic powers, that is rights
duties, obligations, authorisations, permissions, empowerments, requirements
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8 Olle Frödin
and certific
types of con
forms of rul
what those g
rules that spe
determine di
as well as int
multiple iden
interests var
course of a
seller, citizen
Belgian, whit
mines in wh
Each identity
tions, powers
able practices
1994: 385). Fo
tify themselv
imising ways
within mark
therefore de
actors are usu
tified as fri
indeed be pr
little thought
invoke differ
institutional
On the basis
rationalities a
Thus institut
parent, or cit
what to do, a
way, institut
ing to which
institutional
called 'transaction domains'. The term transaction domain refers to a mutually
agreed-upon definition of a situation according to which a particular
logic of interaction, exchange or decision-making is considered socially
acceptable Transaction domains lay down particular routines according to
which certain logics of action, such as profit-maximisation, relational rationality,
legal rationality, reciprocity, commitment, duty and so on, are considered
appropriate or lawful. Moreover, each transaction domain is associated
with different deontic powers, namely rights, obligations, permissions, authorisations
and empowerments, pegged to a particular role or identity. Power
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The Art of the Possible - The Bullet or the Ballot Box 9
and authority therefore tend to be differentially distributed with
domains. Hierarchical forms of governance may be accept
domains, whereas consensual forms of decision-making are requ
ers. For instance, civil servants may be obliged to comply with ord
members of a political committee are expected to make decision
consensual manner (Frodin, 2009).
In everyday life people tend to encounter a range of different t
domains in which they draw on different roles, identities and for
sion-making. As consumers, family members, politicians, voters or
vants, people enter into different transaction domains where
different rights and obligations and where they consequently act a
different logics of action. For example, in a liberal-democratic, cap
fare state, actors may carry out different informal obligations as
family members; they accept that most rights to make collective d
delegated to politicians and officials; they may invoke their rights
in relation to different welfare institutions while they simultaneou
edge the authority of public officials; they also recognise that
goods are allocated via the market, and that 'democracy stops at
gates' as the well-known aphorism goes. This suggests that liberal-d
societies are not democratic in all respects. Rather, in some domain
the corporate sector, the family, and in various branches of the ci
tration and the military, hierarchical forms of decision-making ar
accepted. Democratic decision-making is only expected in some
which the parliament is the most notable. Political transaction d
exist separately from market and civil society domains given that
sensus has been established on such an institutional structure. Domain consensus
is a concept borrowed from organisation theory (Thompson 1967: 27).
We here use this term to signify the acceptance of a set of transaction domains
within a particular area of social life. This definition applies to expectations
about what actors will and will not do in certain social situations. Domain
consensus is established when interacting actors share similar cognitive dispositions
regarding behavioural expectations, rights and obligations that apply
to a set of transaction domains (Frodin, 2009).
Complex institutional orders are made up of a multitude of transaction
domains that structure social relations in different ways, each of which cannot
rely solely on the probability of third-party enforcement. Most people accept
a shared 'script' according to which they are officially expected to invoke different
logics of action in the roles of consumer, party member, citizen, public
official, friend, relative, politician and private company employee. This means
that institutions must be collectively accepted or complied with, reluctantly,
carelessly or willingly, not only by groups in control of coercive means but by
a wider stratum of the population. This suggests that much power is in the
hands of ordinary people who may restrain elite actions. For instance, people
may find it hard to accept that particular logics of exchange, such as market
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10 OlleFrödin
principles, ar
education or h
Having outlin
distinguishing
Governance and Politics
All domains of social life may indeed be considered political, that is politicised,
but only if someone questions a certain institutionalised practice or an
entire institutional order and calls for reforms or revolutionary changes. For
instance, power relations in the family or in private companies may be politicised.
However, as long as a specific institution or practice is generally
accepted, we may speak of governance. Governance here denotes the coordination
and conciliation of interdependent activities via institutions. For
instance, markets and bureaucracies can be employed to allocate goods and
provide public services without anyone questioning this state of affairs. We
may then speak of governance founded on a mixture of markets and administrative
planning. Governance refers to processes in which different actors and
organisations pursue their own goals and retain their autonomy, while they
simultaneously orient their actions towards common outcomes. Cooperative
relationships, or institutionalised forms of interaction, are prerequisites for
governance. This implies that governance requires domain consensus as well
as goal consensus. From this viewpoint, everyday practices involving institutions,
such as monetary phenomena, are not always and everywhere political
unless someone openly questions why, for instance, central banks are independent
of parliamentary control. A certain institutional structure is consequently
not considered political unless it is politicised. In other words, while
this framework remains open-ended as to which social relations may become
politicised, it does not claim that politics is everywhere by definition. Only if
all social institutions are politicised can politics be found everywhere.
While political actions are not necessarily confined to a specific arena, they
usually involve the making of claims. Politics, in its very basic form, is about
claims-making. Political claims are made with reference to someone else. For
instance, sovereignty claims would be meaningless in the absence of others
aspiring to establish sovereignty. Claims imply counterclaims or contestation,
otherwise there would be no point in making them, as Sheehan (2006) points
out. Politics, then, can be defined as an activity through which 'individuals
and groups articulate, negotiate, implement, and enforce competing claims'
to social change or to maintain status quo (Sheehan 2006: 3). Such a definition
may include both classical understandings of politics as well as concepts of
the political related to the potential use of force. It is possible that neither John
Rawls nor Carl Schmitt would have denied that their respective notions of politics
include people making various claims. The difference between classical
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The Art of the Possible - The Bullet or the Ballot Box 1 1
notions centred on reasoned deliberation and power-centred notions o
concerns the basis upon which claims are made, and the means by wh
are defeated or defended. When political claims are made, actor
appeal to some principle, standard of justice and/or a readiness to tak
kind of action (Sheehan 2006). The character of politics is determined
kind of powers that the claims-makers possess, appeal to and emp
the ways in which claims are made, and the power upon which they
are of crucial significance for the character of politics. By singling o
ent types of claims, and different institutional contexts in which they
we may distinguish different types of politics.
Tilly (1976) distinguishes three types of claims. Firstly, competitiv
claim something - a piece of land or an asset - that is also claimed
groups, defined by the claims-maker as rivals, competitors or partici
the same contest. Secondly, reactive collective actions consist of
efforts to reassert institutionalised claims when they are violated or
by someone else. Finally, proactive claims have not previously be
and may aim at higher wages, better working conditions, civil r
widening of existing channels for political decision-making.
An additional distinction can be made between formal and informa
cal claims. By formal activities we refer to activities relying on rules
cedures that are codified, communicated and enforced through
widely accepted as official, unlike informal institutions, which t
unwritten, communicated and enforced outside of officially sanction
nels (Helmke 2004). Actors and groups can make claims and engag
ities that rely upon a shared formal institutional order or ignore it o
from the formal rules of the game. A critical question regarding the
of contemporary institutional orders concerns whether most econ
political activities rely upon, or are harmonious with, formal institut
system of mass democracy, a critical mass of people must accept the
channels for political expression and use them to air their voices and
their collective interests. Discontented groups have to accept domain
sus and seek to change the character of the formal order, rather tha
contest it. Making claims within formal constraints means accepting
consensus. Formal political claims may concern the articulation of
aim at changing the existing institutional order through constitution
ments. Informal political claims can be expressed in a variety of w
contented groups may violate the law, revolutionaries may aim
institutional transformations and insurgents may engage in informal
in which they do not operate as disciplined armies. This means th
tionalised channels for political interaction are bypassed, contested or
In the next section, I combine the concepts introduced above so
tinguish different types of political interaction.
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12 OlleFrödin
Governanc
Conventional
as Parliament
type of politi
activities. Give
be pursued thr
interaction, a
formly across
is a basic requi
recognition by
in societies an
can be institu
that politics 'is
institutionalise
ests and value
poses' (Crick 2
above, I view
claims-making
which two clai
non-political.
making activit
be considered
consensus as
coordination an
in a situation i
claims through
Liberal-democ
ing interests c
reached. How
order is not a
interaction m
political exch
Political inter
involved are u
accordance wit
does not neces
bring about g
where domain consensus has been established.
According to the argument advanced here, the classical notion of politics
amounts to peaceful forms of claims-making resulting in governance, while
politics also comprises a wider set of interactions, including failures to find
solutions to 'the elementary problem of human living-together'. For instance,
if political actors engage in competitive informal claims-making, that is if
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The Art of the Possible - The Bullet or the Ballot Box 1 3
they have not established domain consensus on channels for peace
of political interaction, politics basically boils down to a social dilem
of situation. A social dilemma develops whenever individuals in i
dent situations face choices in which 'the maximisation of short-term selfinterest
yields outcomes leaving all participants worse off than feasible
alternatives' (Ostrom 1998: 3).
On the basis of the framework presented above, the preconditions for governance
are affected by the ways in which actors define individual and collective
identities and interests, and the ways in which they invoke and act on
these interests in different situations. Informal institutions such as customs,
status systems, gender relations and other non-organisational identities may
affect formal structures in various ways. Consequently, the entire set of both
formal and informal roles and identities must be taken into account in
analysing politics in a particular setting. Different identities and roles may
overlap and people may find it difficult to integrate them into a consistent pattern
of values (Ahrne 1994). 'Informal' group loyalties and roles, such as
those of a caste, may prevail over formal roles. If informal roles and interests
overshadow the formal order on a major scale, formal governance regimes
will collapse. From the viewpoint of this theory, there is no opposition between
Putnam's (1993) statement that a strong society empowers the state and
Migdal's (1988) assertion that a strong society may undermine a state. This is
because Putnam and Migdal simply refer to different institutional orders. Putnam's
'strong society' operates within the confines of a formal institutional
order whereas Migdal's 'strong society' is contesting it. A strong civil society,
in the sense of a counter-hegemonic counterpart to the state, can only flourish
in an environment where the formal institutional order is accepted and sustained
by public, private and civic organisations jointly. Weak states in
Migdal's sense are not sustained by formal rules since they are co-opted or
contested by clans, warlords or patron-client networks that follow other rules
than those formally sanctioned (Frodin, 2010).
The latter form of politics, that is competitive, informal claims-making,
can be found in environments where political as well as administrative institutions
are weakly established, such as in medieval and early-modern Europe
and in contemporary 'failed states'. Competitive 'informal' claims-making
was a dominant form of politics in medieval and early-modern Europe, where
governments basically consisted of shifting coalitions among competing feudal
lords or warlords, of which kings headed the most powerful coalitions.
Most kings faced serious challenges to their hegemony as a great deal of power
was located in city-states, craft brotherhoods, peasant communities, principalities
and semi-autonomous provinces (Tilly 1976). In other words, political
powers were weakly institutionalised and widely diffused. Similarly, in subSaharan
Africa a Western model of statehood carried 'the taint of being a foreign,
white imposition on local, self-governing communities' (Bayly 2004:
265). This was because the specific kind of domain consensus required for the
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14 Olle Frödin
formal model
mal group loy
prevail over f
postcolonial Gh
rules of the bu
obliged them t
consensus has
overtrump the
were establish
tended to be a
result, Africa
making on the
short-term lo
classical notio
political insti
absurd conclus
classify Africa
generating soc
ther the pract
responses to th
outcomes acros
Political Inte
The establishm
eties to respon
process that fo
to the onslaug
development
increased both
(1997) argues. S
to globalisation
conditions. As
coordinated ac
integration, ar
collective iden
on these inter
logic and thus
such identities
educated midd
the upper end
ing risks being
is threatened b
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The Art of the Possible - The Bullet or the Ballot Box 1 5
as the formal political system, or informally by engaging in illegal a
or by taking up arms. Resistance may be expressed in various way
nationalism or religious fundamentalism, and take various forms ran
the rise of xenophobic parties in Europe to armed resistance in Afgh
Finally, some movements may seek to transform rather than reject
order, such as transnational environmentalist movements or coun
monic globalisation movements which call for social protection to ad
short-comings of the dominant market order (Evans 2008)
In order for national societies or regions to respond to globalisatio
with the dominant economic logic in a coordinated way, a considerab
the population has to embrace the existing order and the opportunity
it presents. Such responses are favoured by certain structural condit
are more likely in societies where the level of education is high, whe
resources are widely dispersed, where the majority of the people are
rated into, and dependent on, a formal legal order, and where the m
interests are mobilised into parties and civic organisations on th
inclusive collective identities such as class or ideology, than in societi
the general level of education is low, where valued resources are conc
in the hands of smaller elites, where large parts of the population ar
alised from the formal sector and where the principal societal int
mobilised into patron-client networks on the basis of exclusive i
founded on kinship or ethnicity. Coordinated national governance wi
global order requires both domain consensus and a great deal of goal
sus. The preconditions for such forms of governance may be very di
replicate since they often have evolved through long-term historical
under conditions where nation-wide governance has been absolut
sary. For instance, the Dutch system of 'consensual corporatism' is so
held as an example of a political system that has successfully attained
nance to promote economic development continuously through clo
ation between the public and the private sectors. According to Werli
the Dutch political system is held together by a common devotion to
tics of accommodation, pragmatism and consensus, as well as a shared
for independent experts and for the judiciary. The system of consen
poratism relies upon a context-specific type of domain consensus wh
partially result from the country's particular geographical locatio
cooperation in the Netherlands has always been essential in order coll
to defend the country against the sea, as Hill and Hupe (2006) point o
Some societies such as the Netherlands and Scandinavia have, gi
relatively favourable historical conditions, largely managed to att
nance in response to the global integration of markets, although it is i
to note that even in the most prosperous societies of the world, subs
losses and the partial dismantling of social services have contributed
increasing strain on the social contract (McMichael 2004). In other are
as in Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, it has been more difficult
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16 OlleFrödin
broad social a
in the global
ing governm
In yet other
more contrad
omy has emer
technology p
informal sec
informal sect
2000, while f
(Basile and H
2000s, a mere
IT-sector, sup
million peop
and 93 per ce
mal economy
has been acc
White, the in
adaptive respo
of the Indian
ate classes are
small-scale fa
and co-opted
maintain thei
connections t
an outsider. T
have managed
the intermed
in the libera
lobby associat
sector throug
seen as conce
opportunistic
(Harriss-Whi
to such claim
istic manner.
nious with t
corruption. E
resources to p
structural re
strategy of r
resources. Wh
to neglect pre
tect marginal
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The Art of the Possible - The Bullet or the Ballot Box 1 7
The failures of Indian public-sector organisations to provide social
and services to large numbers of poor people, in combination with co
able land acquisitions on the part of mining companies, have cont
strengthening the armed Maoist rebels, also called the Naxalites,
Eastern India. The history of the Naxalite Movement of India extend
1967 but it draws on a longer history of violent conflict between pe
landlords. While this dimension of conflict is less prominent today,
alites are primarily mobilising against 'imperialism' in the form of t
quences of the globalisation of India's economy. The Naxalite m
which is seen as one the most serious challenges that the Indian gove
has ever faced, has sought to align itself with tribal peoples whose li
is threatened as land, forests and water are acquired for mining or p
eration projects. In order to strike down on the insurgency, the Indi
ment created a special police force called the 'Greyhounds' which is n
by law, and which operates on the same terms as the Naxalites. In ot
the Indian army and police have engaged the Naxalites using the sam
and means, thus violating the formal legal order they are to represe
ties carried out by government forces and privately funded militias
quently given people further reasons to support the Maoists, lea
downward spiral of violence (Harriss 2010).
Unlike areas such as North- Western Europe where the precond
governance have been relatively favourable in that large sections of
lations are capable of reaping the benefits of global market integ
responses to globalisation have been much more contradictory an
ridden in India, since most political and economic interactions occ
of the formal institutional order. In the absence of domain consensu
consensus, both public and private actors have engaged in various
competitive claims-making, giving rise to a social dilemma type o
in parts of the country.
Conclusion
On the basis of the concepts used in this paper, we have distinguished thre
basic forms of political interaction: governance, stalemate and social dilemma.
Governance denotes the coordination and conciliation of interdependent activities,
and is founded on domain consensus as well as the attainment of goa
consensus through processes of deliberation. Stalemate refers to political interactions
taking place within institutionalised decision-making fora that doe
not result in governance. Finally, social dilemma refers to forms of political
interaction in which actors and groups have failed to establish a shared institutional
order and engage in competitive claims-making by any means at hand,
including violence, leading to outcomes that leave all members of the polity
worse off than feasible alternatives. A basic predicament, which philosophers
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18 OlleFrödin
like Hobbes a
lem of establ
systematical
through the
above the rul
and unfortun
the army en
rivals, rather
legal means a
In such situa
scape is vuln
Having defi
through var
politics comm
analytical fr
continuation
ernance, whil
an institutional order on which domain consensus has been reached.
Olle Frödin is a research fellow at the Department of International Development,
University of Oxford and the Pufendorf Institute, Lund University,
Sweden. His current research is on political economic issues surrounding the
emergence of supermarkets in India. His most recent publications include:
'Generalized and Particularistic thinking in Policy Analysis and Practice: The
Case of Governance Reform in South Africa' {Development Policy Review ,
2009), and 'Review: Feeding India. The Spatial Parameters of Food Policy'
{European Journal of Development Research, 2010).
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