Democratic Ambivalence: Citizens' Democratic Expectations between Liquid Identities and Post-Democratic Managed Participation

Contrary to many accounts of declining participation and rising political apathy that focus on shrinking party membership and declining voter turnout, we are witnessing a qualitative change and expansion of forms and scope of political participation in Western societies (Teocharis; Van Deth 2016; Walker et al. 2015). In addition, the concept of a post-democratic turn conceptualizes a growing ambivalence with regard to the problem solving capacities and normative foundations of liberal and representative democracy: On the one hand, democratic expectations and participatory demands are constantly rising and are being catered to, especially at the local level. Small, experimental and local initiatives are expected to create the much-needed alternatives to confront multiple and mutually reinforcing ecological, social or economic crises (Wright 2010). Direct and undistorted citizen participation in policy-making in this wake has become a new norm at all levels of governance (Saurugger 2010). On the other hand, there are increasing doubts about the suitability of democratic participation to guarantee democratic efficiency. Expert-led top-down oriented forms of decision-making have thrived, too. As a consequence of these paradoxical developments, throughout Western democracies especially representative and mediating structures of democracy have suffered a loss of (political) trust, are regarded as increasingly incapable of delivering solutions, and at the same time organize the necessary democratic legitimation for their acceptance. At the same time, however, the ideal of an ever-more increasing democratic involvement of the citizens cannot be abandoned. This democratic ambivalence is mirrored in the way (normative) democratic theory conceptualizes and understands the role of participation as well as in the participatory reality in Western democracies (Warren 2016). The concept of the post-democratic turn (Blühdorn 2013) conceptualizes these seemingly paradoxical expectations with regard to democratic participation as a modernization-induced effect of changed norms of formerly autonomous subjectivity and identity as the normative foundations of democratic participation. This paper seeks to unpack this ambivalence with regard to citizen participation in local governance. Drawing on subject-theoretical approaches, it analyzes how changing expectations of participation shed light on shifting notions of democratic involvement. Taking Vienna’s smart-city Seestadt-Aspern as a case study, this paper scrutinizes a) bottom-up as well as top-down participatory expectations and democratic values among city-planners and citizens, b) the trust they have in top-down expert-based decision-making and c) analyses how in the light of a post-democratic turn the ideal of an autonomous subject as the core category of democratic participation (and representation) is dissolving and being replaced by managed forms of democratic performance. Thus, the paper addresses the difficult relationship between the confidence and trust citizens have (or lack) in expert-led planning and their demands for democratic participation in planning processes of future living conditions and sheds light on the conflicting expectations between direct, representative and expertocratic procedures of governance.