The Pharmakon of Democracy
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663917731615 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Social & Legal Studies
2018, Vol. 27(6) 755–775
The Pharmakon of
ª The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663917731615
Will and the People in
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the Context of the
Greek Referendum
Dimitrios Kivotidis
University of the West of England, UK
Abstract
This article examines the role of the Greek referendum of 2015 in the context of the
Greek socio-economic and political crisis. The analysis of the mediating role of refer-
endum in the process of class struggle leads to a more general argument relating to
fundamental concepts of public law, namely, ‘general will’ and the ‘people’. Central to the
analysis is the question of whether referendums are a remedy for the problems facing the
institutions of representative democracy. By analysing the process of the Greek refer-
endum, with a focus on the formulation of the question and the interpretation of the
verdict of the Greek people by the executive power, a more general argument is con-
structed regarding the mediating role of the referendum in a crisis and the legitimating
role of such concepts in a class-divided society. In a context of rising inequality and
furthering distantiation of the popular strata from decision-making processes, the
referendum is shown, on the one hand, as a remedy for the failings of representative
institutions on behalf of capital and necessary for the reproduction of capitalist relations.
On the other hand, on the background of a discussion of the relation between
democracy and capitalism, it is argued that the referendum acts as a different kind of
poison for the people themselves and the struggle of the popular classes.
Keywords
General will, Greek referendum, katechon, Marxism, people, pharmakon, referendum
Corresponding author:
Dimitrios Kivotidis, School of Law, University of the West of England, Coldharbour Ln, Stoke Gifford, Bristol
BS16 1QY, UK.
Email: dimitris.kivotidis@uwe.ac.uk
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Social & Legal Studies 27(6)
Introduction
On 27 June 2015, the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic invoked the sovereign
nature of the popular will in order to justify his proposal for a referendum. The Greek
people were to decide on the acceptance or rejection of the proposal (or ultimatum) of the
social partners of Greece (i.e. the European Commission, the International Monetary
Fund and the European Central Bank; commonly referred to as the ‘Troika’) for a new
set of measures which would accompany a programme of financial assistance. This issue
of fundamental importance was referred to ‘the people’ and, on 5 July 2015, the Greek
people expressed their sovereign will in a decisive manner: 61.31% voted to reject the
proposal. Subsequently, the Greek government resumed negotiations with the Troika and
they agreed a new Memorandum of Understanding, consisting of a new programme of
financial assistance and a fresh set of accompanying measures, the third such interven-
tion in 6 years.
In the similar development, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, addressed
workers in Wales on 26 February 2016, shortly after the announcement of a referendum
on the continued membership of the United Kingdom in the European Union. He argued
that the referendum was about ‘the people’s choice’:
This is bigger than local elections, assembly elections, it’s bigger than a British general
election. This is about the sort of country we’re going to have for the next 20 or 30 years –
our place in the world . . . it’s a massive decision. This is a decision for the British people:
you are sovereign, you are the boss. (Cameron, 2016)
In this instance, the sovereign will of the British people was invoked to resolve a question
of fundamental importance.
Although this article analyses only the first of these examples, its conclusions can be
applied more widely to those situations in which a major political issue is referred
directly to ‘the people’ in order for the sovereign will to be expressed. Thus, the central
issue with which this article deals is the function of referenda in representative democ-
racies. More specifically, it concerns the role that referenda might play in situations of
crisis, such as intense socio-economic and political antagonisms as illustrated by Greece of
2015. To understand this phenomenon, a bidirectional analysis is proposed. That is, the
analysis will not be limited to understanding why a ‘no’ vote turned overnight into a ‘yes’
result. In addition, on a more abstract level, the ideological effect of public law concepts –
such as the people, popular sovereignty and popular (or general) will – will be interrogated.
A brief methodological point is pertinent here. In this article, I subject the institution
of the referendum in general, and the Greek referendum in particular, to a dialectical
analysis. The term dialectic is employed consistently with those who claim that dialec-
tics cannot be characterized as merely a method. Rather, it is a mode of conceiving
reality in its many-sided and contradictory movement. In other words, dialectics is
identified with the many-sided analysis of complex processes in their interconnection.
As a consequence, dialectics helps us to grasp the totality of the processes in a social
formation. Legal and political processes are assessed in terms of their mutual unity with
social and economic ones.
Kivotidis
757
In analysing the Greek referendum, this article will concentrate on the referendum’s
internal mechanism. It will examine the fundamental concepts at play in the process –
such as ‘will’, ‘popular sovereignty’ and ‘representation’ – and challenge the generally
understood meaning of these concepts in a democratic constitutional regime. This inter-
nal analysis, however, would remain one-sided without reference to the socio-economic
contradictions which informed the referendum in the first place and the purpose served
by these concepts in relation to those contradictions.1 For this reason, the element of
class struggle forms the backdrop to the analysis.
I argue that the role played by the referendum, in the context of intense socio-
economic contradictions which affect the normal functioning of representative institu-
tions, is a mediating one. The referendum is part of a process intended to exhaust the
class struggle through parliamentary means in order to prevent the canalization of
struggle into other forms (such as strikes and trade union organization more generally),
which would contest the regime of power, property and productive relations. More
specifically, I submit that the Greek referendum is an example of a system-logical
solution which posed no threat to this regime.
However, in developing this Marxist argument, I make reference to two concepts
alien to Marxist analysis: the pharmakon and the katechon. Pharmakon has an ambig-
uous meaning in the Greek language: it signifies both remedy and poison. It will be used
to emphasize how the referendum was simultaneously a remedy for capital as well as
poison for the labour movement. The referendum contributed to the reproduction of the
capitalist relations of production by mediating the intensified contradictions and chan-
nelling class struggle into non-threatening forms. Central to this process is the role
played by the referendum in the mediation of the relationship between ruler and ruled
(in this case, the executive and the people). The katechon is a politico-theological
concept employed by Carl Schmitt to refer to the sovereign who ‘holds back the apoc-
alypse’ (Schmitt, 2006: 59–64). It helps to illustrate the function of the referendum – and
the role of bourgeois institutions in general – in ‘holding back the apocalypse’ that would
result from the radicalization of the toiling classes.
These formulations are deployed cautiously in order to make a Marxist point on the
role of bourgeois institutions in reproducing the capitalist regime of power, property and
productive relations. In appropriating Schmitt to these ends, acknowledgement must be
made of Schmitt’s diametric ontological and epistemological opposition to Marxism.
Nevertheless, Schmitt, as an immanent critic of parliamentary democracy, provides a
fruitful source of insights on the role and function of fundamental public law concepts.
Therefore, in this article, reference to his work is always in the context of a Marxist
perspective which assesses Schmitt as a reflection of the socio-economic contradictions
of the Second World War Germany. To be clear, at no point do I wish to uncritically
adopt Schmitt’s reactionary and decisionistic theoretical apparatus, nor do I claim the
potential for a left wing reading of him. Rather, the core of my argument is a Marxist
inspired analysis of socio-economic conditions.
The article is structured as follows. The first section begins with an analysis of the
referendum as a remedial supplement to the representative institutions of bourgeois
democracy. With reference to Carl Schmitt’s analysis of plebiscites, two points are
considered which contradict the above position: first, the utter dependence of the ruled
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Social & Legal Studies 27(6)
on the question posed by the ruler; and second, the claim that a referendum expresses the
sum of private opinions rather than the general will. I then continue with a discussion of
the role played by the general will in a plebiscite. In this regard, I argue that the
referendum serves a legitimating role in a bourgeois democratic regime.
The second section examines the Parliamentary debate on the wording...
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