Love/Hate

This aspect isn’t the subject of a chapter in the book. Although it was selected in the beginning, it was abandoned owing to a lack of space. “It’ll be for next time!" But the theme of the media is henceforth closely linked to politics. Both are interdependent and maintain a love/hate relationship. Preferring to avoid each other, they always end up together because they need each another. For better or for worse. Beginning with the birth of populism, this “political doctrine that supports the rights and powers of the common people in their struggle with the privileged elite”, which has become omnipresent over the past thirty years. A doctrine that relies especially on the media, particularly on television, with its direct, simple and even demagogic style which is appealing to political stakeholders.

“A phenomenon that has been spreading since the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s”, the co-author explains. “Populism isn’t an ideology, because it can lean both towards the left and the right. It has appeared in different countries, especially coupled with the development of television. Any party that wants to exist doesn’t really have any choice: it has to appear on television. And adapt its views so that people will understand.” In other words, complexity must be avoided as much as possible. And yet the political world is full of it... That's how electoral success now works: thanks to media coverage rather than a programme.

Political crisis of faith

It isn’t only the press that is responsible for the emergence of populism. The crisis of representation certainly plays a role as well. Citizens who vow blind confidence in their MPs are now few and far between. The elite are losing ground. Mistrust and pessimism are now an accepted part of democracy.  “The history of representation isn’t very old”, Jérôme Jamin tells us. “It dates from the end of the Middle Ages and the revolutions that took place, first in England, then in France and America. As soon as the people were given a voice, the question then arose how to master it. At the time, it was thought that allowing people to express themselves directly would become uncontrollable or would be hijacked by demagogues, dictators. It was therefore necessary to control this risk through a system where political professionals would be elected by the citizens. The very history of representative democracy begins with its limitation!”

A limit that was all the more delimited since only a few privileged beings had the right, in the beginning, to place a name on a ballot paper. Those who paid taxes, those with a diploma, etc. In other words, the dominant class. But minority. Hence, the outcome of suffrage was under control. And women? Out of the question! In many countries, they had to wait until the end of the  Second World War (1948 for Belgium) to obtain the right to vote. 'Compensation’ for their considerable contribution to the war effort.

From 1945 to 1970, political representation seemed to gain ground in a relatively stable social and economic context. "It was something of a reprieve”, the political analyst confirms. The end of the Glorious Thirty, the oil crisis and the economic slowdown which followed dealt the deathblow. “As of 1980, representation slowly but surely fell into disrepute. Citizens became accustomed to believing that the parties were virtually unable or simply incapable of reducing unemployment, solving population problems, etc.”    

In the 1990s, the project for European construction and the gradual loss of the sovereignty of nations amplified this distrust. From this moment on, power was no longer really situated at a national level, though not really at a supranational level either. The increased dependence of politics regarding the financial markets also weakened the parties as the traditional and intermediary stakeholders between the people and power.