Scholars often frame the history of democracy as a gradual expansion of voting rights and representative institutions. Camille Creyghton, our guest today, offers a different perspective: democracy also emerged from radical movements and everyday practices of self-government.
In her presentation at the CEU Democracy Institute Annual Conference, held in Budapest in June, Camille Creyghton challenged two assumptions: that democracy was gradually built through parliamentary institutions, and that it followed a gradual, top-down approach emanating from the Rousseau concept of nation-building. In many cases, democratic practices emerged from below to find practical solutions to collective problems.
Her presentation was part of the panel “Was Democracy Always This Fragile? A Longer Historical View,” where speakers explored how debates over democracy, self-government, liberty, and equality in the long nineteenth century continue to shape our understanding of democratic challenges today.
In our second part of the podcast, we discuss the thorny concept of crisis of democracy. As Camille Creyghton reminds us, this phrase is hardly new:
“ As a historian, you also very early on discover that “crisis of democracy” is a recurrent phrase. It was already there since the beginning of democracy.“
To a large extent, political scientists, journalists, and think-tankers dominated this field. Historians’ perspective, so much needed, was remarkably absent. In the newly published volume Democratie in crisis, Dutch historians wanted to address the overlooked nuances. In a nutshell, their findings are extremely valuable to contextualize the debate:
”Democracy is always in crisis; it is inherently sensitive to crisis. It is a malleable concept that changes over time, what it means and what it does for particular people. This means that it was never completely uncontested.”
Camille Creyghton demonstrates effectively in our podcast why history is so vital within this debate. The crisis of democracy should always be contextualized within the historical context and the conceptual framework that operated throughout that period. Direct comparisons between past and present when discussing the concept of democracy might often be misleading. For instance, concepts such as equality had totally different understandings during the French Revolution and today, and parallels should always be contextualized.
Creyghton’s historical perspective should be taken into consideration in the debate over crisis of democracy. On a first level, such nuances might offer an antidote to alarmism. Moreover, we might recover ideas that at some point proved to be relevant and effective.
Looking at history can also teach us that democracy is not only connected more than the list of criteria that political scientists, NGOs or institutions like the European Union use; it is also the democratic ethos, and it might also include emotions.
Studying past democratic practices can provide us with a richer democratic heritage than narrow lists of criteria.
Camille Creyghton is an assistant professor of Political History at the University of Utrecht. Her areas of expertise are intellectual history, history of political culture, and cultural history from the end of the 18th century until the first half of the 20th century. Currently, she is working on a research project on the transfer of ideas among political exiles from various national backgrounds in a couple of European cities in the period 1830-1848.
The interview was conducted by Adrian Matus. Lilit Hakobyan edited the audio file.
Photo: CEU Democracy Institute / Daniel Vegel
