Acción colectiva: un análisis sobre la posibilidad de la participación de las multitudes

Acción colectiva: un análisis sobre la posibilidad de la participación de las multitudes

It seems to be necessary, as Aristotle says in Book III of Politics, that multitudes, within a democratic system, have some participation in the city’s issues. Nonetheless, the question for how such participation would take place raises. As a first path, we can consider the collective action, but, from an Aristotelian framework, an action, especially a voluntary action, has an inner principle of movement, this is, it depends on the agent (eph’ hemin) – contrasting with actions performed under coaction–. However, in the case of the multitudes, it is at least suspicious to assign only one inner principle of action, because multitudes lack of desires (appetites or deliberated wish). In that way, it remains unsolved the question for in what fashion would multitudes participate in the polis issues. This is a crucial matter because, if they do not have such participation, this could rise factions inside the polis and even provoke its destruction. This article seeks to explain where does reside the complexity of attributing actions as such to the multitudes, and also to show a possible way in which multitudes could participate in the polis.