India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

Saturday 5 Nov 10 am to 5 pm (Hall Silver Oak II)
Sunday 6 Nov 11:30 am to 6 pm (Hall Mahogany)

There has been increasing interest in the role of the political parties in international governance. The making of the European Union has impacted our consciousness on political parties and the scope of their role in all democracies globally. Europe already has many transnational parties in the making, particularly with internationalist ideologies like the European Socialist Party and the European Greens. People who work on issues of participatory democracy and are vigilant on issues of democracy deficit feel that the emergence of trans-national European Parties is because of the European Commission's policy of funding political parties, which have a pan-EU character. These parties are not a consequence of natural evolution from a national to pan-European level in a bottom-up manner.

In India, the debate on the quality of participatory governance and how far the present forms of political parties are conducive instruments for democratic governance is not settled. The internal structure, form of organisation, and principles of coalition-making have undergone a sea change during the last couple of decades. Ousting of the Congress in the nine states of India in 1967 and the subsequent split in the Indian National Congress in 1969 can be regarded as the first watershed which triggered off rapid changes in the party system. The formation of a non-ideological programmatic party (Janta Party) to defeat the 'dictatorial' Congress of emergency era (25 June 1975 - 23 March 1977) is another watershed. Formation of Janta Party resulted in the first non-Congress government. It signalled the increasing salience of the peasant and Mandal communities at the centre stage of Indian party system. The processes triggered on 7 August 1990 by the gazette notification granting 27 per cent reservation in government jobs to Mandal communities radically transformed the social composition of Indian political parties. The identity anxieties and aspirations of a section of Hindus further triggered off a lot of churning in parties like the BJP.

The hegemonic economic globalisation is creating a very peculiar and alarming consequence. This consequence is that whether we are a communist left, a democratic socialist, a green, a conservative or a centrist mainstream party worker, the mainstream political elite tends to think that there is no alternative (TINA) but to negotiate terms of surrender to corporate globalisation. This is not acceptable (TINA) to the majority of the people on this planet. And the most painful paradox of our times is precisely this. Irrespectively of what the majority of the people on this planet feel, the neo-liberal economic globalisers are able to co-opt/coax/coerce the 'mainstream' parties into succumbing to manipulations of the global capital. The voters' helplessness regarding issues of economic democracy is hampering their ability to contribute their might in influencing the party system nationally or globally. In this political atmosphere, an un-nuanced debate on global parties can be very counterproductive. At this historical juncture, a significant part of decision making on everyday governance is taking place in the transnational institutions of global governance. There is an objective need for some form of political instrument that will articulate, represent, communicate and assert people's voices to these trans-national institutions of global governance. In the contemporaty democracies this role has primarily been preformed by political parties within the confines of national boundaries.

We need to reflect on the content as well as form of the political organisation from people's point of view to influence the existing and emerging institutions of global organisations. Since we are most used to thinking about parties as the appropriate instrumentality, we take the discussion on global parties only as a starting point and not as a dogmatic or a fixed point of reference. We need to address the specificities of culture, economy, geography, identity, historical experience/memory while at the same time addressing the universality of the central urge for freedom and self-rule for all individuals on the planet. This is the inherent force of democracy and democratic parties.

With the realisation that the debate on global parties cannot ignore the debate on the health, possibilities and crisis of the existing parties within their national context and, we have entitled our dialogue 'Democratic Politics Globally'. The relationship of the party system with the various utopia and dreams for realising the goal of deepening democracy globally cannot be discussed in the abstract. We wish to debate on the proposals for global political parties from the concrete context of grassroot to national experience. We hope that we are able to bring the most relevant questions to the table.

The dialogue is organised by the Network Institute for Global Democratisation (NIGD). Colleagues from Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Centre for Public Affairs and Committee for Cultural Choices and Global Futures have helped in organising it.

The dialogue is part of NIGD's project 'Elements for a Dialogue on Global Political Party Formations' that aims at identifying topics for further discussion on the party system and transnational political party formations. A first dialogue took place in Helsinki, Finland, on 7 September. Another set of dialogues is planned for the forthcoming polycentric World Social Forums in January 2006.

Warm welcome!

Marko Ulvila, NIGD
Vijay Pratap, Convenor, Democracy Dialogues, CSDS
Rakesh Bhatt, Consortium for the Support of Volontary Organisations

Attachments:

Background document of the NIGD project
Notes from the 7 September dialogue in Helsinki, Finland
Background paper by Heikki Patomäki and Teivo Teivainen, Finland
Contribution by Tord Björk, Sweden
Contribution by Narenda, India