Osvajanje prava glasa u Engleskoj : postajanje građaninom u sistemu privatnog i javnog

Abstract

Ova studija nastoji da razmotri i objasni obuhvatne procese osvajanja prava glasa kao širenja prostora građanstva. Pravo glasa se uzima kao sredstvo i simbol uvećanja tog prostora. Da bi se istakla složenost, procesualnost i postepenost osvajanja prava glasa, ovo istraživanje se usredsređuje na Englesku u XIX veku, koja predstavlja paradigmatski reformski prostor. Tekst se organizuje oko tri središnje tačke (1832, 1867. i 1884. godine), kada su donošeni reformski zakoni (Reform Acts, zakoni kojima se širilo pravo glasa u Engleskoj), jer se posredstvom tih zakona i njihovog reformskog okvira tumače procesi koji su uslovljavali način na koji se razumelo građanstvo, način na koji se ono uklapalo u šire normativne okvire, i način na koji se formulisao zahtev da se pravo glasa proširi da bi obuhvatilo one koji ga nisu posedovali. Ključno pitanje koje ova studija postavlja jeste kakvi su normativni zahtevi postavljani pred one koji nisu polagali pravo na zvanje građanina, odnosno kakva su bila inherentna ograničenja samog građanstva. Zbog toga se u središtu ovog istraživanja nalaze entitet pola i entitet klase. U epistemološko-metodološkom smislu, ova studija spaja pitanja, uvide i metode različitih humanističkih disciplina i nauka. Da bi bilo moguće pisati o razvoju građanstva kao institucije u XIX veku u Engleskoj, ali tako da taj proces ima značaj i za nas danas, ovaj tekst je koncipiran kao pokušaj pisanja istorije sadašnjosti. Taj oblik razumevanja istorije, ali i način na koji su analizirani raznovrsni diskursi (pravni, reformatorski, medicinski, naučni, itd.), u najvećoj meri duguje genealoškoj metodi Mišela Fukoa. Jedan od ključnih zahteva kojim je rukovođeno ovo istraživanje – da se ustanovi da li pol ima istoriju i na koji je način ta istorija politički relevanta – dolazi iz savremene feminističke teorije, i to posebno iz radova filozofkinje Džudit Batler. Da bi se, dakle, u ovom svetlu čitalo široko postavljeno pitanje građanstva, ova se studija najvećim delom oslanjala na arhivsku građu (od pamfleta i novinskih članaka, do strogih studija i danas opštepriznatih velikana XIX veka) i na sekundarnu literaturu iz oblasti političke filozofije, društvene, političke i kulturne istorije, i feminističke teorije. Ovakav metodološki pristup treba da opravda nastojanje da se jedna kanonska tema čita na nekanonski način. Pojam građanstva se ovde posmatra u konjunkciji s nekoliko ključnih pojmova oko kojih ova studija gravitira. To su, pre svega, pojmovi pojedinca (shvaćen kao sastavni deo kategorijalnog aparata XIX veka), pola i klase. Okvir unutar kojeg se ti pojmovi smeštaju, koji generiše njihova specifična značenja i omogućava norme njihovog pojavljivanja i cirkulisanja, jeste sistem privatnog i javnog. Pojava sistema privatnog i javnog u nerazlučivoj je vezi s transformacijom političkog koja se smešta u XIX vek. Procesi u kojima se ta transformacija pokazuje jesu reforma i nastanak države, države koja prestaje da funkcioniše kao commonwealth i postaje država u savremenom smislu reči (state). Zahtev za proširenjem prava glasa utoliko se posmatra kao zahtev koji je upućen u reformskom duhu, namenjen državi, i formulisan pod pretpostavkom transformacije političkog. Način na koji se taj zahtev upućuje u neraskidivoj je vezi sa sadržajem pojma pojedinca. Normativni okviri koji omogućavaju sadržaje ovog pojma sa svoje su strane na unutrašnji način povezani sa sistemskom i sistematičnom distribucijom prava na zvanje pojedinca, odnosno sistemom privatnog i javnog. Sistem privatnog i javnog funkcioniše kao podloga za reformske politike i nastanak savremenog modela države, koja se istovremeno javlja i kao „noćni čuvar“ i kao „univerzalni staratelj“. Drugim rečima, ne samo da se unutar tog okvira dodeljuje pravo na zvanje pojedinca, već on funkcioniše i kao matrica koja dodelu tog naizgled univerzalnog prava iznutra ograničava.

The dissertation seeks to address and to explain comprehensive processes of extending the space of citizenship. Suffrage is seen as a means and a symbol of this extension. In order to highlight the gradual, processual and complex nature of enfranchisement, my research was focused on 19th century England. The text is organized around three focal points (1832, 1867 and 1884), when Reform Acts, Acts which extended the suffrage, were passed. These Acts and their reformative frame form an interpretative matrix for the processes which conditioned the understanding of citizenship. This matrix is also used to explain how this understanding fitted into wider normative frameworks, and how the requirements for the extension of suffrage were made to include those dispossessed of it. The substantial question of this study is therefore what normative requirements were presented to those who were not entitled to citizenship, i.e. what were the inherent limits of citizenship itself. In this light, the centrality of the categories of class and sex for this research becomes understandable. In terms of epistemological and methodological framework, this study links issues, insights and methods of different disciplines. It is conceived as an attempt to write the history of the present, because its elaboration of the development of citizenship as an institution in 19th century has an emphatic relevance for us today. This form of understanding of history, as well as the modalities of discursive analyses (legal, reformative, medical, scientific etc.), owes to the genealogical method devised by Michel Foucault. On the other hand, the idea that guided this research, revolving around the need to demonstrate that sex has a history and to show the specific political impact of this fact – comes from contemporary feminist theory, particularly from work of Judith Butler. In order to elucidate the broader aspects of citizenship, this study relied greatly on archival material (from pamphlets and newspaper articles to scholarly studies and books by renown authors still widely read today), and texts in political philosophy, social, political and cultural history, as well as feminist theory. This methodological approach should justify why a canonical topic was addressed in a non-canonical way. The concept of citizenship is interpreted in conjunction with several other key concepts. Above all, those are the concepts of individual, sex and class. The specific frame within which these concepts are positioned, which engenders its particular meanings and enables norms of its appearance and circulation, is the system of private and public. The appearance of of private and public as a system is inextricably related to the transformation of political that occurred in 19th century. The processes through which the transformation of political is revealed are reform and the emergence of the state, the apparatus that ceases to function as a commonwealth and becomes the state in contemporary sense of the term. The claims for the extension of suffrage are thus understood as the requests made in reformative spirit, aimed at the state, and formulated with an assumption that transformation of political had already occurred. The way the claims are made is intrinsically related to the contents of the concept of individual. In other words, it serves not only as a framework within which the right to entitlement is assigned to an individual, but also as a matrix which limits the assignment of this apparently universal right. The aim of this research is to show how systemic production of knowledge and norms, according to which the right to entitlement was assigned, assumed parallel production of those who did not have the right to be entitled individuals. Those entities are summarily defined as sex and class. Individual chapters of this study show how situatedness in sex, or class, precluded or impeded the processes of extension of citizenship.