By Teresa Da Cunha Lopes
The fragmentation of citizenship has been accentuated in the context of political representation. Voters, and citizens in general, are less and less recognized in their representatives because they serve institutions that can no longer exercise the rights guaranteed by the welfare state.
In fact, due to institutional deficiencies, a political duality was generated, with two distinct groups in our society. On the one hand, there are people who enjoy full citizenship depending on their ability to maintain their own rights: economic and social. Second-class citizens, on the other hand, are those who suffer obstacles in the exercise of these same rights because they do not have the means to do it themselves.
The present global crisis of COVID 19 only came to make this process visible and increase the gap. Political fragmentation is not only real, but it is also presented with elements of discrimination and moved to narratives of hatred and exclusion.
This “divisive summa” of society thus generated a hidden segregation in the participation and political representation of citizens. Those in the first category, with socioeconomic status, participate and have a voice in political assemblies and in public life. The latter can, at most, passively participate in the elections in which they are sub-represented. Examples of this sub-representation can be found in the participation of vulnerable groups and minorities, limited, punctual and controlled.
Thus, one of the symptoms of this crisis of representation and citizenship lies in the unequal participation between women and men in political and economic governance. Inequality resulting in a lack of opportunities for women to participate in the exercise of elective mandates and functions, for example, even though legislative progress has been progressive. But from the legal norm to socio-electoral behaviors goes a whole ocean of active and passive discrimination, some with high content of violence(s).
While some argue that the under-representation of women in politics is due to a late recognition of their right to vote, mainly due to the traditional conception of the role of women in societies (Western or other civilisational groups) that, until the second half of the twentieth century, had their activity limited to the private sphere and household chores , while the political sphere was under the almost exclusive responsibility of man.
However, the challenge of redefining citizenship also in women is above all the articulation of social and political dimensions, within the framework of the welfare state and democracy both representative and participatory. When it comes to women’s participation in politics, it is about taking into account their ability to impose a definition of citizenship that includes a social dimension. Women then become political subjects when they regard social rights as a field of struggle and negotiation. They have the ability to have a weight in public and political space because of their involvement in cases of participatory democracy, which consists of a great strength of today’s societies (as it was in the past, in some traditional societies).
Therefore, “female citizenship” must take on a participatory, non-passive character. In other words, women should be able to represent civil society as a whole and not just be able to voice their voices when asked for a referendum, legislative or local election. . It is up to them to assert and claim an effective presence in political places.
What happens, too, by the evolution of mindsets and the need for political renewal, I emphasize again.
Between the evolution of mindsets and the need for renewal of the political class, all political parties, whatever the trend, and governments are obliged to seek and ensure effective representation of citizenship., women and other vulnerable groups included.
For this, it is mandatory to implement positive affirmation measures for the participation (real, concrete and, in places of decision) of women in political life.
Recognizing the need for political renewal, and ultimately full citizenship, not only of law but indeed for women, standards and measures have been adopted for some decades to facilitate their access to elected positions and positions, under the principle of parity. Inspired by international lawto and experience in developed democracies, several legal orders have introduced so-called measures of action or positive discrimination into the system of political (and socioeconomic) representation.
In general terms, positive measures (action and discrimination) are defined as tending to (r) establish equality in favour of a person who is discriminated against because they belong to a minority group, diverse or who – even a majority such as women – are disadvantaged by ideological, cultural, social, religious, economic, etc. Its objective is to achieve, within a certain period, equality between this group and others who are not discriminated against. The characteristics and the various forms of positive measures make them, we must not forget, experimental exceptions with regard to the principle of equality.
Indeed, the introduction of these positive measures has become a “revolution”, which national or global crises call into question and send to the limbo of “non-priority” concerns. Consequently, any surveillance is little, so that, covered by a pseudo-sectarian and/or restrictive justification, on the basis of emerging arbitrary justifications for combating the pandemic, the rebirth of drug war and economic stagnation, we will not fall into “recession” of political, social, economic, cultural and fuzzy rights.
To address these risks, present and in the medium term, we need a political renewal, of a “refoundation” of the world
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