Political translation: how social movement democracies survive: by Nicole Doerr

In this monograph, Nicole Doerr coins the term “political translation” to refer to an informal and ephemeral practice that has developed among social movements to address the structural inequalities and patterns of marginalization of their deliberative and decision-making arenas. “Political translation” is not only a practical solution to democratic failure but also opens up a new framework for radical democracy, leadership, engagement and translation. Doerr condenses the observations, discourses and reflections of her empirical study into a 149-page book, quite an exploit as she covers a timespan of almost ten years and multiple contexts across countries and regions that include France, Italy, Germany, the UK, Atlanta and a Californian city renamed Santa Brigida.

The introduction lays down the raison d’être of the study (and of the practice of “political translation” itself), with a story of democratic failure followed by one of democratic alternative. In the Californian town of Santa Brigida, the city council convenes its last citizen forum meeting before voting on an ambitious urban development project. Despite the facilitators’ promises that everyone will be heard, they act as “gatekeepers”, excluding citizens who thus strategically resort to their alternative community forum to reverse the communication dynamics. In that alternative forum, different facilitators act as “disruptive thirds” in the interaction to ensure equality and inclusion in the decision-making process.