The ISN and Elections: Basic Principles:

What follows is the ISN’s policy document on elections and parliamentary democracy. It briefly outlines the organisation’s fundamental principles with regard to electoral contests.

First Principles:

In terms of our long-term objectives, we see ourselves as social revolutionaries, who wish to fundamentally overturn capitalism and its political superstructure. We are not radical social reformers, who wish simply to extend democratic rights and fight for social change within the dominant socio-economic formation. We do argue and fight for progressive reforms, but the ISN does not view these as our maximal objective.

It is clear that our view of elections and parliamentary democratic systems should be consistent with our long-term political objectives and this has clear consequences for our political behaviour. To begin with, what do we understand by the overturning ‘of capitalism and its political superstructure’? What do we understand by ‘democracy’? Marx argued, correctly we would suggest, that socialist democracy must be centred on genuine and direct control and ownership of the means of production by the working class. Political democracy without economic democracy is a worthy thing, but it is not socialism. We believe that the social relations of production and distribution need to be altered for the benefit of working people.

Consequently, our ultimate objective must be participatory democracy, at an economic as well as at a political level.

Participatory democracy Versus Representative democracy:

Socialists make a clear distinction between participatory democracy and representative democracy. We don’t do so because we are better democrats in a liberal or libertarian sense; we do so because socialism – involving direct control of the means of production – cannot be brought about through the mediation and gate-keeping intrinsic to representative democracy.

Our project is to encourage the emergence of participatory politico-economic democracy from below; our view of representative democracy takes this as its starting point.

Representative democracy is a political system that has arisen in tandem with capitalism and it facilitates a disjunction between democracy and economic power. Participatory democracy means more than local democracy. For socialists, it involves direct control of the means of production.

The ISN places itself firmly in the left communist tradition, which supported authentic participatory democracy, and not in the Bolshevik tradition, which supported authoritarian rule by the party. The workers’ councils and soviets that sprang up across Europe after the First World War provide a model, albeit short-lived, of participatory democracy in action.

The Politics of the Present:

Ireland in 2006 is not passing through a revolutionary period; this is not Russia or Germany after the First World War. Representative (parliamentary) democracy may not satisfy socialists, but it currently has a legitimacy in the minds of most Irish people, not necessarily because they support capitalism, but because they believe that it represents true ‘democracy’. We cannot ignore this. Our political behaviour cannot be based on a crude rejectionism that ignores the widespread support for parliamentary democratic systems. Moreover, it must be recognised that representative democracy is itself the product of centuries of struggle for improved democratic rights; the widespread assumption in Ireland that we have reached a democratic zenith is underpinned by popular knowledge of these struggles for greater democracy.

That, however, does not mean that we should reinforce illusions about the current political structures. In fact, we must actively challenge these illusions and point to participatory democracy as a better model.

Should socialists contest elections to local councils and national parliaments? Is this giving credibility to bourgeois institutions? The answer can vary, depending on the circumstances, but the ISN does not oppose participation on principle. It is a tactical issue. The contests themselves may allow us to reach out to, and engage with, large numbers of working-class people. Moreover, in some circumstances, not to contest might be misunderstood negatively by communities in struggle.

This said, it is important to ensure that candidates and elected representatives are not projected as the most important figures or ‘leaders’ in the organisation. This is a real danger, and experience has shown that those elected to parliament on a left-wing ticket are likely to be depicted as the ‘leaders’, partly because this suits the structures of representative democracy. Indeed, this is in the very nature of representative democracy, where those elected are not recallable before their term expires. To avoid the danger of ‘leadership’ migrating to elected representatives, socialists need to devise structural safeguards and a culture of participatory democracy within their organisations.

Finally, electoral contests cannot become the primary, or even a prioritised, activity of the ISN. It is only one tactic among many and a time-consuming one at that. Our primary focus must be on building an organic grassroots organisation within working-class communities and workplaces. The ISN will grow by participating in real struggles for social change in communities and workplaces. Groups that try to build through electoral contests build election machines, not revolutionary movements, and rarely succeed in maintaining strong local organisations. This type of short-cutting sows illusions in the prevailing political system, is top-down and is self-defeating in the long-term.