ABSTRACT
Twenty-first century democracy should have taken into account criticisms of the extant social and democratic welfare state from different decades and viewpoints: from the liberal viewpoint; from marxism; from ecologism; generational critiques; pacifism; feminism; postmodern criticism; or from global peripheries. The Paris Commune of 1871 revived a core democratic element discarded by representative democracy: the revocation of mandates, which was an assault on the liberal concept of political representation. The traditional functions performed in liberal democracies by political parties are no longer the exclusive patrimony of those organizations, even though they continue to be directly responsible for the structural functioning of the state. Political parties, like parliamentarianism, are nineteenth-century realities that continue operating with perilous values, such as the prohibition of the imperative mandate, and the continued legitimization of ideas that no longer work. Indignant politics has gained ground by debilitating official arguments and augmenting the silent majority’s will power.
