PARTY HEGEMONY, GUILD CO-OPTATION, AND LEGISLATIVE SCLEROSIS: THE DESTRUCTIVE DIVISIVENESS OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNANCE VERSUS DIRECT PARTICIPATION

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study provides a critical analysis of representative political architectures by examining how political parties systematically infiltrate, co-opt, and divide professional associations and civil society bodies to establish partisan hegemony. Within a representational apparatus, political parties extend their reach far beyond legislative chambers into professional guilds—including legal, medical, educational, and journalistic associations—transforming independent civic spaces into partisan arenas for power accumulation. This quest for dominance inherently leads to legislative sclerosis, wherein national congresses function as rubber-stamp organs executing top-down party dictates without meaningful deliberation or public scrutiny. This paper demonstrates why representative governance is structurally incapable of fostering social cohesion or lasting peace, as its primary objective is the imposition of factional control over the collective interest. Finally, this work establishes how the Direct Participatory System eliminates the structural requirement for partisan intermediation, restoring professional integrity to civil institutions and reorienting decision-making toward collective problem-solving and pure democratic self-governance.