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Endre Dányi
e.danyi@lancaster.ac.uk
Department of Sociology
Lancaster University
Lancaster, UK

Draft prepared for the µLaboratory: Social Anthropology and Life Sciences¶ session
Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt University*
Berlin, 28 June 2010

In his contribution to the µMaking things public: Atmospheres of democracy¶

exhibition, organised by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel in 2005, Peter Sloterdijk
describes an imagined product that can help spread µthe political culture of the West¶.1
It is an inflatable parliament building that is easy to transport to any country and takes
merely one and a half hours to install. The complete structure (a transparent
hemisphere reminiscent of the new Reichstag dome) seats 160 parliamentarians who,
within 24 hours of the airdrop, can already make speeches, vote, ask questions from
the government ± in other words, run their µinstant democracy¶. The product
description, accompanied by several computer-generated images of the Pneumatic
Parliamentå, explains in detail the characteristics of primary and secondary markets
(µoutposts of tyranny¶ and µfailed states¶), the process of drop-off and installation, and
contains technical specifications for lighting and air conditioning. Everything in the
text is accurate and believable ± indeed, it is the precise tone that makes Sloterdijk¶s
thought experiment funny and scary at the same time. If the inflatable parliament
were ever to be built, it would be the perfect manifestation of mainstream political
theory¶s dream: a model of democracy that disregards local specificities and
conceives of political representation as an inherently technical process.

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*
I am deeply grateful for the hospitality and stimulating intellectual environment provided by the
Institute for European Ethnology at Humboldt University during my stay in Berlin.
1
Sloterdijk & Mueller von der Haegen 2005: 952. The German version of the product description is
available online at http://www.g-i-o.com/

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My PhD dissertation2 is an attempt to respond to and interfere with this dream ± a
dream that in Sloterdijk¶s presentation looks positively like a nightmare. What is so
disturbing about the picture he paints of democracy? How does his ˜


work?

The first problem the Pneumatic Parliamentå brings to our attention is that of
un
  . According to the dominant view in political theory ± often associated
with the works of John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas3 ± democracy is a singular form
of governance that is supposed to be the same everywhere, from Albania to New
Zealand. Central to this understanding is a constant reference to human nature, more
precisely to µreason¶ as an essential human capacity to justify decisions and engage in
deliberations about the common good. Although this approach has its roots in the
Enlightenment, it is important to see that its recent variant was developed as a
reaction against the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century and their attempts to
privilege certain ethnic groups or social classes by marginalising (exterminating)
others.4 Western liberal democracy, in this respect, is not only a theoretical
abstraction, but also a historical achievement: with the defeat of fascism in 1945 and
the collapse of communism in 1989 it is portrayed as the single best way of doing
politics.

There are, of course, many countries in the world today that cannot be considered
democratic, but these µoutposts of tyranny¶ (to use Sloterdijk¶s term) no longer
present real political alternatives to Europe and America. Democracy, as Timothy
Mitchell pointed out, has become impossible to criticise. µIf it fails, as it seems to in
oil states, the reason must be that some universal element is missing or
malfunctioning¶.5 And if it works, as it seems to in Central and Eastern Europe, even
the most profound political transformation becomes a banality ± simply a µreturn to
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2
My doctoral research at the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University is part of an ongoing
project I¶m involved in with Lucy Suchman and Laura Watts. The project entitled µRelocating
Innovation: places and material practices of future making¶ is funded by The Leverhulme Trust, and
focuses on three distinct sites of social, technological and political change. More information on the
project as a whole and the individual sites is available at http://www.sand14.com/relocatinginnovation/.
3
See, for example, Rawls 1973; Habermas 1996.
4
On the rise of democracy as a universal value see Sen 1999.
5
Mitchell 2009: 400

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normality¶. 6 So it should not come as a surprise that according to Habermas, the main
character of the 1989 revolution was a µtotal lack of ideas that [were] either
innovative or oriented towards the future¶.7 If the present political system is by
definition the best, it is difficult to see how it could be improved (and what would
count as an improvement).

Although universalism is still the dominant approach in political theory, it has been
challenged by various scholars advocating a pluralistic understanding of democracy.
As people like Michael Walzer and Charles Taylor have argued, for instance, even if
we adhere to a singular normative idea of democracy, we should be ready to accept
that it means different things in different places.8 Albania is certainly not New
Zealand, and if we are to understand how democracy works there, we need to replace
human nature as our point of reference with a concept that recognises the importance
of ethnicity and historical specificity, namely political culture. If we do so, we might
not be able to hang on to our general laws of political development for too long, but it
becomes possible to analyse and even initiate local critique (or innovation ± whatever
it means in this context).

So far so good! But neither universalism nor pluralism seem to address the second
problem posed by Sloterdijk¶s Pneumatic Parliamentå ± the problem of
 n˜˜
n. Both approaches presuppose the existence of well-defined political
communities (usually nation-states), and associate democratic representation with a
standardised way of aggregating conflicting but clearly articulated interests related to
a wide range of issues and controversies. The difficulty ± and this is where science
studies comes in ± is that in an increasing number of cases it is simply impossible to
tell in advance who belongs to a political community and what their interests are.
What is the official view on genetic engineering in the headquarters of the Socialist
Party of Albania? And in the Māori Party in New Zealand? They are likely to be
different, not only for partisan reasons, but also because the latter acknowledge past

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6
Blokker 2009
7
Habermas 1990: 5
8
See, for example, Walzer 1983; 1994 and Taylor 2007. On Central and Eastern Europe see Kymlicka
& Opalski 2001

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and future generations as full members of the Māori people.9 Not-yet-born citizens
might not have a vote in the next general election, but it doesn¶t mean they don¶t have
politics!

The Māori example may not be the best, but it shows that when such quasi-objects as
genetic engineering enter our democratic institutions, the representation of interests
can no longer be seen as a straightforward technical process. What we¶re dealing with
is not the singularity of human nature, nor the plurality of political cultures, but the
multiplicity of collectives, made up of humans and non-humans alike.10 Sometimes
they look like citizens of a nation-state, but sometimes they also include bees and
birds, common cold viruses, and people who are no longer alive or have not been born
yet. Their interests regarding specific issues cannot be assumed to exist prior to any
act of political representation, and so Ã
political representation itself works
becomes a crucial political question.

If this is right, then our concept of democracy, based on fixed political communities
and their interests, has to be opened up. But how? One option is to shift our attention
from the usual institutions of µhigh politics¶ to the unlikely sites of sub-politics
(laboratories, factories, hospitals, farms, museums, supermarkets), and study how
collectives are created/mobilised around specific issues and controversies.11 Michel
Callon calls these sites µhybrid forums¶, Bruno Latour talks about the µparliament of
things¶.12 Although there¶s nothing wrong in principle with this option, in my view it
fails to recognise the extent to which any form of sub-politics is always-already
caught up in the web of µhigh politics¶: when it comes to legislation, citizen panels on
genetically modified organisations are often not alternatives to, but extensions of
national assemblies. So in my dissertation I propose another option, which ± after
Michel Foucault ± could be called an archaeology of democracy.13 It is neither a

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9
I don¶t have a proper reference for this, but I heard this story at a seminar at the Centre for Science
Studies at Lancaster University in 2007.
10
On multiplicity and its political implications see Blokker 2010; Boltanski & Thévenot 2006; Law &
Mol 2002; Mol 1999
11
The term µsub-politics¶ comes from Ulrich Beck (1994). On the analytical relevance of sub-politics
in science studies see de Vries 2007; the importance of issues in contemporary politics is discussed by
Marres 2007.
12
See Callon et al. 2009; Latour 1993; 2004.
13
The obligatory references are Foucault [1966] 2001; [1969] 2002.

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history of democracy from the ancient Greeks through Renaissance city-states to the
European Union, nor a contemporary overview of democracy as an abstract political
system.14 Rather, it is a way of examining political representation in practice, or ± to
be more precise ± a method for showing what count as true representations in a
democratic setting and how they are produced.

Foucault¶s archaeology is not without problems. Many political philosophers ±

including Habermas, Walzer and Taylor15 ± accused it of being too functionalist, too
relativist, too inconsistent with Foucault¶s later genealogical works, and too µinfantile¶
in its own politics. Some of these complaints might have more than a grain of truth in
them, but I¶m less interested in Foucault the political theorist than in Foucault the
methodologist.16 I take his archaeology to be a material-semiotic toolkit that ± with
some modifications ± can be used to analyse the knowledge practices of democratic
politics.17 The modifications I have in mind are all concerned with discursive
formations, which are supposed to go together, reinforce each other, thus producing a
totality called an episteme. Such a totality might be recognisable in the natural
sciences ± Thomas Kuhn¶s notion of paradigm, for instance, captures something
similar ±, but less so in the arts, politics, and economics.18 There¶s a lot more to say
about this, but in my understanding material-semiotics aims to detect scaled down

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14
On the history of democracy see Tilly 2007 and most recently Keane 2009; on different models of
democracy see Held 1996.
15
See their contributions in Hoy 1986.
16
Foucault never considered himself a political theorist ± he didn¶t write books on the state or any
other subject explicitly associated with the field. Nonetheless, he gave a series of lectures and
interviews on politics, which have gradually become subjects of heated debates in political science and
international relations departments all over Europe and North America. See Andrew Barry¶s
contribution to Carver & Martin 2006, and the introductory chapter of Dillon & Neal 2008.
17
It¶s worth quoting at length what Foucault had to say about this: µIt seems to me that one might also
carry out an [archaeology of] political knowledge. One would try to show whether the political
behavior of a society, a group or a class is not shot through with a particular, describable discursive
practice. This positivity would obviously not coincide with the political theories of the period or with
economic determinations [«] Instead of analysing this knowledge ± which is always possible ± in the
direction of the episteme that it can give rise to, one would analyse it in the direction of behavior,
struggles, conflicts, decisions, and tactics. One would thus reveal a body of political knowledge that is
not some kind of secondary theorizing about practice, nor the application of theory. [«] It is inscribed,
from the outset, in the field of different practices in which it finds its specificity, its functions, and its
networks of dependences.¶ Foucault [1969] 2002: 214
18
See Rotman 1987

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versions of discursive formations that are multiple, materially performed, and are
bound for change.19

What I¶m proposing, then, is some sort of an archaeology of representative

democracy. The excavation itself takes place in a parliament, which is understood not
as a general metaphor for doing politics, but as a socio-technical assemblage that lies
at the intersection of distinct political imaginaries. Unlike Sloterdijk¶s Pneumatic
Parliamentå, my research object did not fall from the sky, but was built for 20 years
in the centre of Budapest in the late 19th century. When opened in 1902, it was the
largest parliament in the world. Since then the building witnessed the collapse of the
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the loss of two-thirds of Hungary¶s pre-war territory,
and the rise and fall of fascism and communism. Today this µ³in-the-meantime´
disproportionate monster, tailored for a different, earlier country¶20 functions as the
home of the National Assembly of the Republic of Hungary ± a country that is
supposed to be one of the boring success stories of democratisation. Based mainly on
ethnographic and archival research, in my dissertation I examine the ways in which
versions of a national past, the workings of a political regime, and acts of decision-
making get materialised in the Hungarian Parliament, and the political realities these
narratives render real(istic) while keeping others invisible. Instead of offering a
cultural critique of a universalistic definition of democracy, my aim is to open up the
possibility of interference ˜Ãn the seemingly singular, pre-given model for doing
politics called democracy.

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19
On the semiotics of human and non-human assemblies see Akrich & Latour 1992; Haraway 1992.
On the intellectual influence of Foucault on various material-semiotic approaches, including actor-
network theory, see Law 1994; 2009.
20
This is how writer Lajos Parti Nagy referred to t he Parliament building in his contribution to a
collection of essays on objects associated with Hungary
[http://ittvan.blog.hu/2007/09/28/parti_nagy_lajos_a_parlament_ha_targy]

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