What To Do To Make Our Voice Sweet

The geography of power
Date: 01-10-2007Sección: ActualidadAutor: Miguel Angel Perez Pirela

The geography of power
Miguel Ángel Pérez Política.Investigador PirelaDoctor of Philosophy Institute of Advanced Studies-IDEA
Before to raise hot issues like constitutional reform proposal, For example, the property re-election or the geometry of power, it is imperative to agree on the "frame of reference" which is inscribed in the discussion. Not addressing the debate from this premise means to perpetuate and specific details that shed light on the essence and rationale of the proposal.
In fact, the proposed amendment to the Constitution is in the discussion about the tension between "representative democracy" and "participatory democracy." Discussion, besides having an important theoretical load, has a strong empirical component covered in 40 years of representative democracy The results were disastrous.
is precisely from this background that, especially over the last decade has brought a passionate national debate regarding the feasibility of a participatory democracy as a system pre-view starting from the horizontal in the power relations . Democracy that would undo the gap between "governed" and "rulers" and the natural result of this phenomenon that the first bodies mere "passive", leaving the leaders the privilege of "action."
Presenting the debate from this perspective means re-establish democratic semantics: no more talk of the "governed" as the terminology itself encourages to think of people as pure passivity. But neither kept the unhappy figure of "rulers." This calls for a re-established configuration of power from the people "conceived as an active entity.
The discussion around the proposed constitutional reform then part of the need to re-think the power from the "action", no longer as exclusive of the ruling class, but also as a possibility (necessity?) Of the people.
This is precisely the problem. Is it possible, through this proposed reform, ending the unique attributes of the ruling class? How can people make an active entity, yet effective, in terms state organization?
The debate about the type of democracy that the country wants to implement without further leads us to what could be the end point of the discussion: the issue of "State." In fact, it would be naive to raise this debate in terms purely conceptual, ethereal, fantasy. If it has the political will to translate this into concrete reality is imperative re-raise the kind of state we want.
obviously can not answer the question "what we state, without regard to clarify" what we state. " It is very difficult to shed light on the latter issue. The state we inherited Venezuelans can be summarized in a few features. We are faced with an inefficient, bureaucratic, corrupt and pyramidal. Perhaps the last point merges the first three. Pyramidal or elitist character of the Venezuelan state takes away the people the possibility to act to give to the people's representatives. Here is the problematic aspects of 'representative democracy / state "that puts in jeopardy the leading role of the people, that is, its very sovereignty. In fact, it is sovereign when it can act, decide. The sovereignty of a people person is a contradiction.
It is in opposition to it arises from the undeniable reference framework which should consider the discussion the proposed constitutional reform. Contentious issues such as reform of the property, the election or the geometry of power can only be justified from a re-thinking of the kind of democracy we want, who will accompany state and, above all, the town site in the geography of power.
The proposal will therefore be plausible only, and only if the same question of representative democracy and the rule pyramid without taking, at the same time, the people as bait to lure the beast that is disproportionate power.