The book “Six Proposals for Continuous Democracy” presents a reformist project for the French political system amidst the threats to the stability of the republic and the sustainability of French democratic governance. It addresses the need for adaptation to transformations, structural renewal, and the restoration of the social contract, which has been torn apart by crises of trust in elites, unmet economic and social promises, and difficulties in addressing issues related to cultural and political identity.
The book proposes a framework for fundamental reform by rewriting the constitution of the republic to renew its connection to the promises of freedom, justice, and equality within the framework of a “continuous democracy.” This new form of democracy would possess the tools for adaptation to changes, a proactive spirit of reform, conscious engagement of citizens, maximum efficiency for institutions, and stronger effectiveness and legitimacy for laws.
Dominique Rousseau, a well-known constitutional scholar in the French academic field, has long advocated for a constitutional approach to rebuilding a democracy that, in his view, strays further from the spirit of the French Revolution and its principles of justice, equality, and freedom. For three decades, he has developed this theme into a political research project that responds dynamically to new transformations. He is not an academic isolated in an ivory tower but is recognized for his openly leftist stance and his opposition to populism, whether in its right- or left-wing forms. Rousseau emphasizes the necessity of reconstructing the constitutional text as a social contract charter from which all rebuilding processes evolve.
The critical approach chosen by the author to dismantle the crisis of democracy in France and the content of the proposals he offers as a roadmap for desired reform are shaped by his research and political identity. He is a recognized academic focusing primarily on constitutional disputes. Politically, he does not hide his alignment with the left. He founded and directed the Center for Comparative Constitutional and Political Studies at the University of Montpellier from 1987 to 2010. He served as a lecturer at this university until 2010 and at the Sorbonne University until 2019. In July 2012, he was appointed as a member of the commission for renewing and revitalizing public life, known as the “Jospin Commission.” In 2016, he became a member of the Constitutional Court for the Principality of Andorra, serving until September 2018.
Dominique Rousseau champions the principle of constitutional review of laws as a pillar of vibrant democracy and advocates for expanding citizens’ direct participation rights. Politically, Rousseau supported Rémy Revol, a leader in the Left Party, in the 2010 regional elections while refusing to support Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whom he characterized as “populist.”
In his new book, Rousseau intersects with a rising wave of critical approaches centered around the general theme of the crisis of democracy within its strongholds in the West. Across various aspects of societal life, accumulated failures concerning economic welfare, social cohesion, cultural satisfaction, and global peace have led to skepticism and disappointment towards the democratic model, which proclaimed its triumph after the collapse of the Soviet Union, fostering a swift conviction of its universality and “sacred” efficacy. In both the United States and Western Europe, there has been a proliferation of works drawing from political science, political philosophy, political economy, and others that dissect the mechanisms of power, referencing methodologies for managing public affairs.
This book represents the culmination of an intellectual legal research project that has unfolded over three decades. By delving deeply into constitutional texts to extract the structural dysfunctions hindering the French political system, it extends its analysis to question and critique the entire system of representative democracy, examining its various experiences and national traditions.
This formal observation reinforces the seriousness of the proposal and the depth of the analysis put forth by the author, as well as the accumulation of reflections over these decades rife with crises that have deepened the trust gap between institutions and citizens. The roots of the thesis that Dominique Rousseau presents as a new system for continuous democracy, which seeks to overcome the stagnation of political evolution in France, trace back to 1992, when a seminar was organized in Montpellier by his center to analyze the transformations occurring in the political system of representative democracy. Rousseau coordinated this seminar, the proceedings of which were published in a 1995 book within the “Contemporary Legal Thought” series titled “Continuous Democracy.”
In his introduction to the seminar’s proceedings, Rousseau emphasized that the people are active agents who may express themselves at any time to declare that their expectations and concerns are not necessarily those for which their representatives work, and that there is an increasing gap between political professionals and the populace exacerbated by structural changes in the political field and society. It is a striking paradox in an age of communicative openness that the political field continues to isolate itself with its tricks and stakes while, conversely, the informal avenues for citizens to monitor political activity expand thanks to the revolution in media and communication.
The central idea that emerges for the reader is the need to open avenues for more effective and positive citizen participation in shaping public will against the dominance of an absolute representative formula. Continuous democracy is characterized by a public discourse that transcends the game of majority and minority. The challenge lies in invigorating various circles for the production of public opinion from the lowest local levels to the highest spaces for political debate, so that, according to this renewing vision, public will becomes a synergy between majority and minority wills—in other words, a reconciliation between the driving forces of the democratic system and the targeted grassroots base in political activity.
With the spirit and methodology of a constitutional expert, the author proposes in the book, published in February 2022 by the publishing house “Odile Jacob,” a fundamental reform composed of six proposals, which can be grouped into two main axes. The first three proposals aim to return the political process to its original democratic spirit heralded by the French Revolution by placing the citizen at the heart of the process and its goals, while the remaining three proposals cover comprehensive subjects of constitutional and institutional reform that restore balance and effectiveness to public action.
- The People at the Heart of Representative Democracy with Active Citizen Participation Thesis 1: Human Rights Establish the Concept of the People
Dominique Rousseau extracts the people from their abstract concept, approaching it as a collective of concrete citizens with living and active existence. He frequently refers to the concept of the people as a reference point for all democratic and authoritarian systems, but in continuous democracy, it is a reality built by human rights through law and more precisely through the constitution. It is as if the author is invoking the distinction of philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero between the commonwealth as an unorganized collective and the people, who form when the group agrees upon the law. The people are not merely a collective of individuals but a political group, and the constitution serves as a mechanism for transforming the collective into a political body of citizens.
Rousseau invokes the historical development of peoples as a continuous—sometimes conflictual—process of integration among individuals, groups, and sects, who were initially strangers to one another. Thanks to law and the institutions established by the constitution, they find themselves linked through common issues that must be discussed and resolved by shared rules and common facilities, which contribute to nurturing the sense of solidarity that makes the people a political fact.
The historical role of law and the constitution is sometimes overlooked; in the absence of a bond forged by law and constitution, the people turn to other bases for unity, such as ethnicity, blood, or identification with an inspiring leader who embodies the collective, which leads to pathways divergent from democracy.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 states the declared rights enjoyed by “every human being,” “all citizens,” and “members of society”; Article 4 specifies that there are no limits on the exercise of the natural rights of everyone except those that guarantee the same rights to other members of society. The constitution does not address an abstract individual but rather a concrete individual in the context of a group of democratic individuals each endowed with rights that empower and legitimize them to engage and act in various national matters: enterprise, family, education, environment, consumption, health, and law, etc.
The people of continuous democracy are constructed and defined through the rights guaranteed by the constitution for real individuals. Contrary to popular belief, the constitution is not a dead text but a living act and an open space for creating rights. From the equality of the right to expression in 1789 to men’s voting rights in 1848, women’s voting rights in 1944, the right to strike in 1946, and the right to a healthy environment in 2004, the wording of the constitution has evolved along with the pace of the democratic development of society.
Rousseau believes the answers provided in the past to give individuals a sense of shared belonging—whether in the name of God, the nation, the state, or social class—are no longer effective in addressing the current crisis. Conversely, he finds that the constitution embodies a set of rights and freedoms that can serve as the shared mechanism for individuals to achieve their identities, whether in their individual spheres or in the common values defining what Jürgen Habermas calls “constitutional patriotism.”
Thus, human rights do not imply the establishment of closed individual spaces but rather a public space where all identities express themselves and exchange freely; these are connective freedoms, not separative ones, complementary freedoms that forge public will. The diversity of rights—between individual liberties, social, economic, and environmental rights, and solidarity rights—all crystallize into an elevated status for citizens that transcends the single dimension into which they have been confined amid political practice: the individual-voter. This is the added value of continuous democracy compared to the current state of representative governance.
Thesis 2: Citizens are Independent of the Representative Body
At the core of the analytical logic of the first thesis, the author argues in his second thesis against merging the body of citizens within the body of representatives, which Rousseau defines as the leaders emerging from electoral processes (like parliamentarians).
Traditionally, a distinction is made between representative democracy and direct democracy based on their modes of operation. The former is based on national sovereignty, while the latter relies on popular sovereignty. In representative democracy, the power to express public will no longer belongs to natural citizens but is shifted to a political body, a legal person that embodies the nation. This is stated in the 1789 declaration, which attributes sovereignty to the nation. This nation expresses itself through its representatives, unlike popular democracy, where referenda are essential tools for citizens to express opinions on laws directly.
Rousseau’s thesis advocates for recognizing the constitutional independence of the citizens’ body. Continuous democracy is not based on a melting pot representation but rather on maintaining a distinction between the representative (the parliamentarian) and the citizen, who retains the ability to initiate, influence, and partake actively. In any democracy, the role of the people’s representative is to speak on behalf of the group, while for the represented in a melting pot representation, their role is limited to silence and watching as elected officials govern their fate in anticipation of the next elections. In the “differential” representation model that Rousseau advocates, citizens maintain a vital role and duty to energize the democratic life through ongoing will, action, discourse, monitoring, proposing, and assessing.
The political challenge today is to realize what the revolutionaries failed to achieve in 1789: embodying the citizens’ right to possess and exercise demands on their representatives to build the space and means that enable them to practice their active citizenship.
This involves transitioning from a one-dimensional view of the voting citizen to a dynamic citizen who participates in producing rules and regulations through petitioning and associational involvement. This realm encapsulates the crux of the 1789 revolution and its highest value: equality among citizens in rights. Since public will cannot be reduced to that of representative institutions, it can only be the result of deliberative processes and argumentative exchanges among various actors in the law-making system. This dynamic renders the legal norms governing public affairs the subject of ongoing debate that leads to their amendment whenever new deliberations require it. It is a competitive system constantly open to society.
Thesis 3: Citizens Personally Contribute to Law-Making
Since 1789, the French political system has operated on the basis that citizens designate their representatives, relinquishing their authority to legislate. However, all institutions and modifications that have occurred have not altered the essence of a system based on transferring power; the people remain at the threshold of deliberative spaces, relegated to passive oversight. The slogan echoes, “Rule by the people for the people,” but constitutions contain provisions stripping this power from the people, thereby hollowing out the slogan’s significance.
The political moment created by the “Yellow Vests” movement, in Rousseau’s view, is a manifestation of the disruptions in the representative system. Representatives are no longer aligned with their constituents or their decisions. This movement sought to reclaim the title of “citizen” in its dynamic meaning, thus questioning the legitimacy of the prevailing system and targeting its representative credibility. The slogans of the movement resembled an attempt to withdraw the mandate, i.e., withdrawing trust from the participants in the political scene.
This moment necessitates a cultural revolution raising the political and ethical capacity of citizens. It recalls Rousseau to the roots of the 1789 declaration, which stipulated the existence of an autonomous body of citizens that cannot be swallowed by the body of representatives. The focus lies on affirming the independent existence of citizens qualified to express and exchange opinions. The problem remains that the revolutionaries and their successors could not build the space and means enabling citizens to fulfill their roles, thereby entrenching their independence.
The author succinctly summarizes this discrepancy using political economy terminology, stating that “the capitalist form of economy requires consumers rather than citizens.” It is a fatal paradox that a system claiming to engage citizens in determining their common destiny has devolved into one that concentrates power in the hands of a small faction of professionals who monopolize decision-making, information, and authority while the masses watch from the sidelines.
The above three theses intersect with the author’s concern to reframe the political game in accordance with the spirit of the French Revolution, placing the citizen at the heart of the political process from inception to conclusion; the aim is to empower citizens to reclaim lost initiative and dismantle the absolute mandate enjoyed by rulers and participants in governance. Conversely, the subsequent three theses project avenues for institutional, legal, and judicial reforms that can facilitate the implementation of this new system.
- A New Architecture for the Political Structure: Radical Institutional and Legal Reforms Moving from diagnosing the severance between the political process and its inherent stakeholders—citizens—Dominique Rousseau proposes methods for reforming state structure to better adapt to the realities of globalization. This is the focus of Theses 4, 5, and 6. Thesis 4: The Judiciary is Not an Authority of the State but of Democracy
In the classical view, the judiciary is one of the branches of state alongside the legislative and executive. It is a mechanism for ensuring the proper application of laws. However, the continuous democracy project radically inverts this view, positioning the judiciary as an authority upon which democracy relies. The judiciary serves as “the knee of society,” Rousseau states, expressing its role as a guarantee for flexibility between various domains and stakeholders involved in forming public will. The judiciary represents an open, pliable, and democratic society. It relative displays judicial interpretations reflecting societal opinions, inspired by the spirit of the law and evolving circumstances, thus sending messages to the political scene to produce necessary laws and amend them in response to contexts and conditions. The author illustrates this function by referencing what occurred prior to the enactment of the “Veil Law” in 1975, named after then-Minister of Health Simone Veil. Before its passage, the judiciary received a moral message from civil society asserting that abortion should not be considered a crime; this message was translated to the political sphere, which embraced this new demand regarding women’s rights over their bodies. In numerous cases, judicial interpretation has catalyzed change, acting as an intermediary between society and the political institutions that create laws.
A belief in this role necessitates reexamining the function of the Council of State, given that the dual judicial system arose from political developments post-revolution rather than from rational theory. This council currently operates in competition with ordinary courts, and while Rousseau hesitates to assert that it must be abolished, he suggests reducing its powers to that of a consultative institution. The author’s radical proposals include establishing the position of the Public Prosecutor, tasked with managing criminal policy, abolishing the Ministry of Justice, delegating judicial authority to an independent constitutional body—the Supreme Council of Justice—and establishing a constitutional court with financial and administrative independence. The common thread uniting these reform proposals is the shift of the judiciary from state dominance to full independence in service of democracy.
Thesis 5: Redefining the Role of the President and Parliament
Charles de Gaulle proudly claimed that in presenting the 1958 constitution, he endowed the country with institutions it had lacked since 1789. Yet, this de Gaulle prophecy has not materialized even after six decades. France suffers from an oversaturation of executive and legislative powers and still seeks a balanced organization of state authorities. Thus, the ideal situation, according to Dominique Rousseau, would establish a mediating role for the head of state, with the Prime Minister leading the team while Parliament and the Constitutional Council serve as guardians of the constitution.
Political events have entrenched presidential dominance, in direct contradiction to the original mediating function. Following the developments between 1958 and 1962, including the “Algerian War,” President de Gaulle resorted to successive referenda, all of which yielded positive results, solidifying the personalization of leadership and marginalizing other institutions, including the government and parliament. This trend undermines the parliamentary dimension of the system and contradicts the spirit of the 1958 constitution, which stipulates that the Prime Minister is responsible for “determining and directing the policy of the nation,” controlling the parliamentary agenda, being accountable to the National Assembly, and requiring a majority for his program or resigning, with the possibility of being deposed by a motion of no confidence. In contrast, the 1962 constitution established a presidential system, especially through the direct election of the head of state, which shifted the balance of power from the government to the Élysée Palace.
It appears that France blends two constitutions, one presidential and the other parliamentary. Today, the Fifth Republic’s system is unsound, the author states, even perilous as it creates competitive dynamics between the president and the prime minister. This duality arises not only from a disparity in political affiliation between the two parties but constitutes a structural conflict.
The seriousness of this issue emerged during the presidency of François Mitterrand, particularly after the 1986 elections. Situations of cohabitation between presidents simply represent temporary political compromises, driven by the anticipation of upcoming presidential elections that rearrange power. These are mere patches that must be severed to transcend this constitutional shortcoming.
So, is the solution to transition to a presidential system? The author answers that three conditions must be met for this to succeed: a culture of consensus, federal organization, and an independent Supreme Court. However, France meets none of these conditions, and even in the United States, the presidential system is subject to ongoing debate. Conversely, the author suggests forming a National Assembly elected by proportional representation, allowing for the expression of a diversity of currents within society that surpasses the binary divide between right and left. This form of voting guarantees representation in the National Assembly in accordance with each political current’s strength in society, independent of artificial alliances. It promotes constructive coalitions based on genuine programs. The proposal does not leave much room for sensitivities outside of the major traditional blocs.
This adjusted institutional framework, as Rousseau envisions it, excludes the president from the Council of Ministers, which should be chaired by the Prime Minister. This reinforces the presidency as a moral and mediating figure that secures institutional stability and makes legislative elections the focal point of democratic competition.
But what role do citizens play in this altered democratic architecture? Among the innovative proposals the author presents for establishing continuous democracy is the creation of a parliamentary assembly for citizens in a format akin to a popular parliament. This institution, coined by thinker Pierre Rosanvallon as the “Invisible Parliament,” aims to illuminate the needs and expectations of the common folk, whose voices often go unheard in public discourse. The notion is not entirely novel; it was proposed in its kernel by former Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France in 1962 and even mentioned by de Gaulle himself in 1969. However, like many reformative ideas of idealistic nature, it has remained outside any genuine political agenda of the French elite.
The first half of the twentieth century belonged to classical parliaments, the second to constitutional courts, and the twenty-first century should belong to citizen parliaments. Is this a dream or an expectation in a time of crisis and a stalemate that necessitates exploring bold avenues?
Thesis 6: Rewriting the Constitution
The French constitution has been amended ten times over 30 years (since 1992). This “patchwork,” as Dominique Rousseau terms it, must cease because the constitution is to the country what a national ID card is to a citizen. This card today appears expired. It does not accurately define the country’s identity: is it national or European, centralized or decentralized, presidential or parliamentary?
The author believes that the president elected in 2022 should establish a committee to rewrite the constitution. This committee would comprise 20 members, half of them citizens chosen by lottery and the other half academics and experienced personalities appointed by decree from the Council of Ministers. It should hold decentralized general assemblies across the country to gather proposals from citizens. Subsequently, it must draft the new articles for the constitutional project along with a memorandum explaining the spirit of the new provisions, which would be passed for discussion in a mixed committee evenly composed of the National Assembly, the Senate, and the Economic, Social, and Environmental Council before the final phase of rewriting the constitution.
Among the new proposals he suggests for the new constitution, aiming to implement the continuous democracy project:
- Stipulating the federal form of the state (Article 1), asserting that sovereignty belongs collectively to all citizens, exercised directly through grassroots citizen assemblies encompassing voters from each electoral district and indirectly through representatives elected by proportional representation and through referendums (Article 3).
- Electing the president for seven non-renewable years (Article 6).
- Granting the Prime Minister the right to dissolve the National Assembly (Article 12) while the Prime Minister heads the Council of Ministers (Article 21).
Legislative initiatives may come from the Prime Minister, members of the parliament, and citizens based on petitions backed by a million voters from five states.
Additionally, Article 61 enshrines the role of the Constitutional Court in overseeing the legislative process while reinforcing the Supreme Council of Justice’s role in ensuring the independence of the judiciary.
- Critical Insights: Possible Reform Between Idealism and Reality’s Stubbornness Dominique Rousseau, who combines academic expertise with public engagement, recognizes that a good constitution does not alone create a good political system. It also concerns the prevailing political context, historical background, prevalent mentality, and the psychology of those in power, among others. Nevertheless, he believes that the foundational text is a necessary starting point and an indicator of moving in the right direction for reform… and rescue.
The citizen is the most significant absentee in various contemporary political forms, despite being systematically invoked in rhetoric. From an assumed central figure in the inputs and outputs of the democratic process across its many channels and interfaces, the citizen has devolved into a mere voter, a weighted number in regular electoral contests. This concept represents the general flaw affecting Rousseau’s analysis across a wide array of democratic experiences; the problem lies not in the idea itself but in the particulars and mechanisms of its application.
This idea was addressed by the author in the collective book previously referenced titled “Continuous Democracy,” and has been refined to adapt to transformations and particularly the strengthening of populist tendencies that raise concerns among elites and the masses about the future of the state and communal living.
Today, the populist threats underscore the reality that democracy is an ongoing and renewing struggle. The researcher believes that the path to continuous democracy flows through law, particularly the constitution. Thus, he proposes these six theses for discussion, hoping to lay the foundations for an era of continuous democracy that, through reading Dominique Rousseau’s endeavors, appears as a corrective movement for representative democracy.
The political and social ferment unleashed by the “Yellow Vests” movement, along with the violent spirals that accompanied it, was likely a motivating factor for the author to revise his constitutional approach proposed in the 1990s—this time, under an acute concern about the severity of division and the imminent threat of an explosive rupture that could dismantle an existing system without providing a viable alternative.
Critical approaches to the ongoing debate on the crisis of representative democracy, in its various experiences and with differing intensities and formats, are abundant, generating countless publications. Yet, the question remains open regarding the innovative proposals that hold practical feasibility for bringing about the desired change.
Most approaches diagnose tangible manifestations of dysfunction within the failed promises that democrats have made to their peoples and humanity as a whole. However, few remain steadfast in prioritizing the dismantling of crisis-laden structures through foundational texts of the social-political contract.
This may not be an enticing entry point for the general reader or even for some among the elite who view the constitution, like other legal texts, as merely a draft disconnected from its original aims and literal contents, enslaved to power dynamics, the positioning of dominating classes, competing interests, the strength of counterpowers, and other factors.
The foundational text may be aligned with the popular saying that it is a book for the victors, colored by shifting transformations and stretched by the will of the rulers. This reflects the interpretive elasticity resting in the hands of the majority ruling the institutions, speaking on behalf of the people.
Moreover, there is a widespread impression that constitutional scholars—seen as guardians of the universities—are preoccupied with narrow readings and issuing fatwas on the constitutional document’s meanings, detached from the realities of the political game transpiring behind the text and the actual circles of owning and distributing power.
Rousseau adopts an idea suggesting that power has shifted from a shared trust to a domain of ownership and privileges held by representatives of the people. Conditional mandates have effectively meant a complete relinquishment of public will. Thus, a “hijacked democracy” has emerged due to the people’s abdication from exercising their democratic right/duty, settling for a delegation of power to representatives presumed capable of making decisions in the collective interest while the representatives have developed a mindset equating representation with controlling the community’s fate, stemming from the notion that representation amounts to a final concession of a right that was originally non-transferable: the right to participate in public affairs.
Stopping this conceptual drift and plugging the ever-widening gap in the sky of French democracy—all due to the representation taking on a character that is more absolute and inclusive—becomes the guiding goal for the legal interpretations framed by Dominique Rousseau under the title: “Continuous Democracy.”
In a conversation with Le Monde about this thesis, Rousseau emphasizes that the essence of continuous democracy lies in the preamble to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from 1789, which stipulated that citizens contribute either personally or through their representatives to law-making. This declaration affirms the political independence of the citizen, which does not negate their representation in institutions.
The markers of the crisis in the democratic system lead Rousseau to speak of the end of an era, that of representative democracy as conceived by the end of the eighteenth century. This is not merely a heralding but rather a call for action to construct a new system on the ashes of a collapsing structure, amid the silence of those responsible for it.
The current political context in several countries pressures the erosion of the liberal foundations of the democratic system, prompting the author to emphasize the necessity of stipulating in the constitution the formation of deliberative associations for citizens (local parliaments) incorporating citizens from each electoral district. The envisioned constitution, according to this thesis, obliges parliamentarians to present projects and proposals, reflecting the author’s parallel with Rousseau—an advocate for social contract theory—who opposed representative democracy more radically as it deprives citizens of their liberty since nothing guarantees that the representatives’ will aligns with the public will. However, Dominique does not advocate for a complete rejection of the representative idea but aims at rationalizing, reforming, and pruning its totalizing tendencies. Similarly, Carré de Malberg speaks of confining democracy to an electoral oligarchy replacing the sovereign people.
It is a situation defined by Benjamin Constant as he identifies representative systems as delegations granted by a populace to a select number of individuals meant to defend their interests without having the time to do so.
Dominique Rousseau amalgamates scholarly competence with field experience in political life to cast a stone into the stagnant pool of a political system exhibiting symptoms of declared senescence. Still, the distance between the proposed radical reforms and the political field’s responsiveness remains significant, particularly as these proposals are directed at an elite benefiting from the existing status quo. It would be naive to believe that they would smoothly hand over the torch to actors knocking on the doors of institutions where decisions are crafted and power hoarded.
This does not imply a futility in believing in reform amid the troubled context; rather, the democratic space, with all its flaws, allows for ideas to take flight and communicate with those whom they concern at various levels, penetrating the sphere of public discourse, and pushing for the implementation of minimum prescriptions to ensure the system’s sustainability and popular legitimacy.
Moreover, the constitutional approach serves merely as a façade within a series of multifaceted reform processes. Yes, the constitution has a foundational role and structures the dynamics that govern the political system; however, it loses much of its procedural efficacy if it remains isolated from a robust movement within the political landscape, backed by social and intellectual forces of significant presence and weight.
The results of the presidential elections confirmed the shared leadership between neoliberal currents embodied by Macron and the hardline nationalist tendencies represented by Le Pen. Following defeat, leftist parties launched a movement for unity perceived by some as belated and facing internal resistance expressed by various leaders, notably former socialist president François Hollande and former prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve. The challenge confronting the proposals laid out by Dominique Rousseau is the lack of readiness among elites capable of implementing them, which, in addition, carries significant practical difficulties, especially regarding the idea of expanding the scope of direct democracy through a legislative process inclusive of citizens during law-making. While the political process faces sharp critiques due to bureaucratic overload and slow responsiveness to rapid societal, economic, security, and other transformations, there are legitimate fears of replacing this bureaucracy with a more obstructive one.
Aside from that, proposals regarding redefining the presidential position within its mediatory role, entrusting executive power to the Prime Minister, and reforming the judicial structure towards greater independence appear more feasible to achieve, provided that there is political will and consensus to halt the hemorrhage of legitimacy and efficacy in the French political system, and also in many similar systems, both in form and in dysfunctionality.
In “Six Proposals for Continuous Democracy,” the author presents a case study focused entirely on the French system while offering few comparative references to situations in other countries. Nevertheless, the book remains rich with lessons and critical mechanisms that can be drawn upon to broaden the perspective on the predicaments facing democratic systems in the age of globalization.
Book Information
- Title: Six Proposals for Continuous Democracy
- Author: Dominique Rousseau
- Publisher: Odile Jacob
- Publication Date: 2022
- Language: French
- Edition: First
- Number of Pages: 170
