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184 | THE PROFESSIONALISM OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

problem since the thin democracy is ‘democracy without citizens’. The professionals
provide important services to party elites and particularly to political leaders. An
important service is also provided by the use of professional persuasive
communication to make people believe the inevitability of developments against
which public opinion is overwhelmingly negative, such as the Iraqi invasion or the EU
expansion. The need of this kind of professional service will grow stronger as politics
becomes more the management of elite interests.This makes it necessary, in very skilful
ways, to persuade common people that the decisions taken for them, without them
and often against their interests, are, in some miraculous way, good for them. In a
democracy without citizens professional political communication serves ‘the control of
information by policy elites’as Dahl argues in Bennett & Entman (2001,p.469).

The professionalisation of political communication fits perfectly well in the liberal
theory of democracy. Professionalisation reinforces the role of people not as active
participants but as passive supporters of those who represent them.

The focus of the professionals is very much upon the operation of democratic
institutions. This maintains the suggestion that the efficient operation of these
institutions equals democracy and that these institutions offer citizens real choices and
participation in real choice making.

If one would take a different normative choice and opt for ‘strong democracy’, the
services of the political communication professionals look rather more questionable.
They are not directed at the facilitation of the active engagement of citizens with the
political management of the state. They do not contribute to the creation of a broad
well-informed polity. They protect the elected against the interference of those who
The Professionalisation of Political Communication
elect them.

The current modality of professionalisation renders politics the expert arena where
professionals do what they do, while citizens elect them to do so. And Barber writes,
‘Strong democracy is the politics of amateurs, where every man is compelled to
encounter every other man without the intermediary of expertise’ (2003, p. 152). In a
participatory democracy the citizens are in fact the professionals who communicate
with other citizens.

In the ‘strong democracy’ model, democracy is – beyond an institutional and legal
framework – primarily a way of thinking. It is a modality of thought about the
distribution and execution of power that acknowledges the sovereignty of people.The
democratic way of life requires knowledge, attitudes and skills that are not necessarily
part of the human genetic constitution. The conditions for democratic quality need to
be learned and the learning process should start very early. The training on how to
become a democratic citizen should, at the latest, begin when children reach school
age, but preferably already earlier in families. Since it may be expected that many
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