Page 185 - The Professionalisation of Political Communication Chaning Media, Changing Europe Volume 3

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182 | THE PROFESSIONALISM OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

The often-cited European democratic deficit finds today a concrete expression in the
low level of participation in elections for the European Parliament. In the most recent
elections this was less than 25% of the citizens in the participating countries. This
should surprise no one as long as European politics operates at a great distance from
the citizens in European countries. There is hardly any democratic decision-making
process on such essential matters as the control over vital resources or public services.
The emerging Europe has a neo-liberal signature yet is steered by market
fundamentalism, in the politics of which the management of essential services (such as
energy and water) is outsourced to private interests, and welfare-type social services
are rapidly thrown away as too burdensome. The real test case for Europe’s political
communication will be the referenda that several European countries organise in the
course of 2005 in relation to the proposed European Constitution. Strong political
interests are at stake in this case, as the EU-governments have already committed
themselves to the Constitution.Apart from those citizens that support the Constitution,
it is clear that a large number of Europeans are ignorant about the matter, are not
interested, are non-committal or, for a variety of reasons, against the project. All the
tools of the professional kit are needed to first inform European audiences about a
difficult document that is ill-understood even by many experts and then to persuade
them to support its adoption. The critical issue with the Constitution is that the text
provides no solution for the European democratic deficit. Not even its most loyal
supporters would claim that the Constitution deals with Europe’s lack of democracy in a
satisfactory manner. The dilemma now is that the more effectively the professionals
engage in a sales campaign to persuade citizens of the European ideal, the more the
political system will be confronted with distrust and cynicism when all the ‘spinning’
provides no role for citizens in the shaping of their own futures. The trouble is that the
more professionally political ideals are promoted, the more manifest the political
The Professionalisation of Political Communication
hypocrisy that is put on the public agenda.This is likely to alienate people even further
from political life.

The tentative conclusion may be that more professional political communication is
likely to enlarge the current democratic deficit.

The issue of power
In the final analysis, democracy is about the distribution and execution of power in
society. In the development of representative democracy, power became increasingly
the prerogative of the elected governments.This left the power of election in the hands
of the people, but the significance of this power turned out to be far less than the
power the election process bestowed upon the elected. Since the elected
representatives claim to represent the people, they also tend to claim to be the people
themselves and could thus accumulate power without questions asked.The more this is
contested, the greater the need for professionals in persuasion techniques. In
representative democracy people have ‘outsourced’ their power to make decisions.This
constitutes an awkward modality of governance that would probably be far more
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