Uusien yhteiskunnallisten liikkeiden demokratia- ja organisatio-ongelman teoreettisista juurista politiikan sosiologiassa

Authors

• Martti Siisiäinen

Abstract

The article examins the similarities and dissimilarities between the theoretical discussion in new social movements about the relationship between the form of the movement and the form of the party, about their inner organizational democracy, and the theoretical concepts of Robert Michels and Max Weber. In the new social movements, the way in which questions about the relationship between the form of the organization and democracy are usually posed is similar to that of the young Michels. The basis of this way of questioning is the recognition of the discrepancy between Rousseau’s idea of democracy and the prevailing political reality. The adoption of the idea of direct democracy in the new social movements implies the necessity of criticizing Weberian sociological and political »realism» and the theory of »democratic élitism». Theorizing within the movements and also about the movements has to come to grips with exactly the same problems which Robert Michels failed to solve: first, how to overcome, historically and dialectically, the contradiction between the form of the movement and the form of the party, and second, how to find a solution to the problem of applying the idea of direct democracy to the practice of complex organizations and complex societies.