Democracy as theatrocracy? Popular politics and its theatrical forms

Criticism towards populist policies and politicians is regularly expressed in theatrical and performative metaphors. There is talk of ‘political theatre’, ‘mere spectacle’, ‘comedy’, a ‘farce’ or a ‘tragedy’. This appears to be confirmed by the great success of political actors, from Beppe Grillo to Jimmy Morales and former reality star Donald Trump, whose staging skills supposedly give them a head start when it comes to manipulating public opinion and capturing the public's emotions. Liberal populism theorists (Müller 2016) often refer to an ideal model of democratic processes that bears no relation to manipulative staging and the glass bead play of stagecraft. Yet the condemnation of democratic theatre is as old as democracy itself. Solon already saw the pseudologia (‘false speech’) performed in theatre as a danger to truth and sincerity in politics. For Plato, democracy effectively amounts to a ‘theatrocracy’, a rule of the audience. Just as in the contest between playwrights, in democracy all opinions count equally: the applause of the crowd overrides the insight of the experts. At the same time, according to Plato, this audience rule is particularly open to seduction by gifted orators and demagogues. And for Aristotle, the deficient constitution of democracy and the “corruption of the hearer” make skilful orators resort to theatrical strategies of emotionalisation and simplification in steering the people’s political opinion. The paper takes the theatrical condemnation of democracy as a starting point to illuminate the connection between democratic and theatrical practice. Democracy cannot do without political stages on which it constantly renegotiates its contents and values. Democracy must always be represented, performed, even staged, to paraphrase Claude Lefort. Instead of condemning democracy as (bad) theatre, I argue that theatricality, physicality, performance, staging, and affectivity are basic conditions of democratic practice. Instead of distinguishing ‘actual’ politics from ‘mere’ theatre, which is particularly prevalent in the discourse on populist politics, the paper examines the links between democracy and theatre and asks which insights can be gained from this nexus for democratic theory and which forms, practices and figures of democratic staging can be identified. Hence, I claim that criticising the ‘spectacle’ of populist politics under post-political conditions must not lead to discounting of the theatrical aspects of democracy, as a de-theatricalisation of democracy once again amounts to a depoliticisation. In this respect, it is not a viable option to distinguish, with Jürgen Habermas, between ‘communicative’, truly political action on the one hand and strategic or ‘dramaturgical’ action on the other. Rather, in view of the present rise in authoritarian and neo-fascist movements as well as an increasing professional ‘spectacularisation’ of politics, we need to get to the bottom of the theatrical elements of democratic politics and reclaim theatre as a place of political contestation.