300099 Anthropology of Democracy (S) (WiSe 2013/2014)

In contemporary politics as much as in academia, democracy has a unique status as a concept of seemingly universal validity and a point of convergence for the most diverse political projects. For some, democracy promises a society of greater enfranchisement and opportunity for the poor, and others view it as an antidote to terrorism and political violence. The most repressive regimes use elections to legitimate their rule, and the United Nations--quintessential institution of global democracy--enjoy a fair reputation even among staunch critics of Western domination and the liberal world order. It appears that democracy is the one ideal on which the world across most political, ideological, cultural, and religious divisions agrees.

At the same time, democracy is a concept with a history. It has emerged in European antiquity and spread along the pathways of global integration. Far from given by natural law, its practices and institutions are embedded in relations of power and cultural meaning. The anthropology of democracy denaturalizes democracy and draws attention to its cultural dimensions. It asks how democracy is made in specific contexts, and how people around the world appropriate, vernacularize, and combine its ideals, practices and institutions with other, cultural styles of political organization.

In this seminar, we will review some foundational contributions to the theory of democracy to establish its core themes and cultural contents. We will then read and discuss recent ethnographic descriptions of democratic practice in a variety of places. Special attention will be afforded to the question how religious convictions and the participation in faith based civil society organizations inform local practices of democracy.