Dr. Trevor Munroe, Contributor
This week, we present part two of a presentation.
MORE effective interventions in eradicating abuses in the rule of law are among the essential conditions for preserving and deepening Jamaican democracy.
It is one of the clearest areas in which the inadequacy of existing channels of citizen voice, participation and Government accountability leads to erosion of confidence in the established system and the rise of alternative centres of extra-legal community power.
The third area in which conventional participation has failed, with deleterious consequences for democracy, relates to the established political parties.
By and large, these are falling short in renewal, amongst the younger age cohorts and the middle social strata, thereby damaging their capacity to aggregate the interests and reflect the voice of important groups.
This is occurring for a number of reasons. For instance, the traditional leader-centred culture of these organisations continues to discourage, even penalise, internal dissent from party positions endorsed by the leader
THE RISE OF
NON-CONVENTIONAL PARTICIPATION
Contributing to the weakening of democratic governance in Jamaica have been important changes in the political and economic environment, which have fuelled non-conventional mechanisms of citizen participation.
Traditional forms of representation have failed to adjust to the new realities. These changes are associated with the particularities of liberalisation in Jamaica and the impact of globalisation.
More so than in many other Caribbean territories, the timing and extent of liberalisation, the reduction of protectionist barriers and the reconfiguration of the role of the state have produced multi-dimensional consequences with serious implications for democratic governance.
Traditional institutions representing the sectors disadvantaged by liberalisation - namely, trade unions, farmers' associations and 'grass roots' party structures - have declined in power and effectiveness within the state and society.
Traditionally, the trade unions in Jamaica have been among the most powerful institutions of civil society and an effective vehicle for working class representation in the system of democratic governance. However, beginning with the onset of economic liberalisation in the 1980s, the power of trade unions has declined substantially.
One important reason for the decline lies in changes in the character of the labour force accompanying the relative decline of the formal economy in agriculture and manufacturing as well as the contraction of the public sector.
Employment has fallen in high-density unionised sectors, while the labour force has grown in the services sector and in the informal economy. As a consequence, today's labour force are, by and large, outside of the ruling coalitions.
The informal sector, which is relatively disorganised and necessarily preoccupied with survival on the fringes of the formal economy, society and the state, faces the challenge of finding effective ways to influence the adversely skewed power relations in the system of governance.
To the extent that the formal institutions have not adjusted to accommodate to the new reality of this sector's substantial significance, the informal sector is compelled to seek non-conventional forms of participation. These can be neither long ignored nor suppressed without damaging the fabric of democratic governance.
Compromise, accommodation, land empowerment of the informal sector are the only sustainable approaches consistent with strengthening democratic governance.
What is required is an across-the-board democratisation of authority structures and processes to share power with the new social forces, adjust rules accordingly and, on this basis, firmly enforce new codes against deviant conduct. This approach is critical in relation to both state institutions and corporate governance. Traditional hierarchies at the workplace, low levels of communication and information sharing between management and labour, exclusionary decision-making and authoritarian practices all translate to low levels of labour productivity.
On the other hand, experience is demonstrating that new qualities of transparency, dialogue and employee involvement in systems of corporate governance are proving to be vital elements in improving efficiency and raising the competitiveness of Jamaican firms and enterprises.
Failure to strengthen Jamaican democratic governance along these lines, in light of a changed environment, is driving the quest, primarily amongst the disadvantaged, for more effective means of influencing the authorities. Periodic fair and free elections and articulation of community needs via traditional institutions is clearly necessary, but not adequate. Newer modes of action and self-expression are gaining momentum.
Foremost amongst these are the mass media. The media in general, and talk radio in particular, have added to their traditional functions of information, entertainment and opinion, the roles of interest articulation, representation and facilitating participation for significant segments of the population.
The Jamaican talk show has in substantial measure become a means through which the voice and concerns of the disadvantaged are brought to public attention and to the authorities, which might otherwise remain distant and unreachable. Through this medium, responses from the authorities are sometimes more readily forthcoming than otherwise to parish-pump issues and to abuses of power of one sector or another.
In this sense, the media has become a means of popular participation and citizen oversight. Institutionalising and strengthening this role of the media is certainly one of the more urgent challenges for Jamaica's democratic governance.
The growth of more or less spontaneous protest and demonstrations as a means of seeking redress to injustice is a second method of non-conventional participation that has proliferated in Jamaica within recent years.
The immediate occasion for such community-based protests may vary widely - poor roads, inadequate water supply, bad sewerage disposal, deficient public transport, or allegations of human rights abuses by the police.
Whatever the trigger, such mass actions share in common a conviction that less aggressive forms of representation are ineffective and go unanswered. Hence, the "road-block," more often than not illegal, has arisen to parallel and ultimately supersede the more traditional letter or petition to the councillor and MP.
Failure to empower the citizenry, through institutions to which political authorities and service providers are obliged to respond, shall undoubtedly sustain the "road-block" as a popular means of non-conventional participation.
In other ways, civil society in Jamaica is undergoing transformation, such as with the now visible density of community-based organizations. Recent research identified over 5,000 such bodies in Jamaica, of which almost 60 per cent are confirmed to be either active or partially active.
Interestingly, it appears that the number of these organizations has grown substantially during the 1990s, i.e. during the very same period that long established political structures have stagnated and the more traditional institutions have declined. There is a clear and unambiguous need to develop appropriate mechanisms to empower community-based organisations as a means of strengthening Jamaican democratic governance.
In addition to geographically-based community groups, the period has also seen the emergence of other kinds of non-governmental organisations. Invariably, these are centred on causes to do with the percieived deficiencies in Jamaica's democracy.
Amongst the more representative of these, drawing primarily on professional groups and the middle strata, are the New Beginning Movement, the Constitutional Reform Network, the Citizens for Fair and Free Elections (CAFFE) and, most recently, Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ).
These organisations, whilst largely set apart from the disadvantaged classes in social terms, have drawn both energy and raison d'etre from the discontent of the masses and the deficiencies of the established politics. CAFFE reflected and addressed popular dissatisfaction with electoral malpractice in establishing an organisation of local election monitors. JFJ arose directly out of the neationwide mass protests of April 1999 and articulated its central rationale as the necessity to sustain agitation for justice-related issues beyond short-lived demonstrations. Organisations such as these clearly have enhanced roles to play in arresting the decline in Jamaican democracy and in strengthening its institutions.
Conclusion next week
