tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/liberal-democracy-16223/articlesLiberal democracy – The Conversation2024-01-31T18:28:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2213442024-01-31T18:28:58Z2024-01-31T18:28:58ZHow the social structures of Nazi Germany created a bystander society<p>In the initial post-war judicial proceedings to establish what had happened under Nazism, and to punish the perpetrators of crimes, victims’ accounts were often <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/reckonings-9780198811244?lang=en&cc=in#">discredited</a>. Only in 1961, with the high-profile trial of Nazi war criminal <a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/eichmann-trial/about.html">Adolf Eichmann</a> in Jerusalem, did the focus shift.</p>
<p>For many survivors, the concept of “Holocaust testimony” – accounts of what they had lived through – took on almost sacred dimensions. In 1989, author and Auschwitz-survivor Elie Wiesel <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/11/movies/art-and-the-holocaust-trivializing-memory.html">argued</a> that it was unethical for anyone besides surviving victims of the Holocaust to try to represent or explain it. </p>
<p>In some ways, Wiesel’s insistence that only surviving victims could really “know” the Holocaust has contributed to the mystification of this historical period. Holocaust deniers <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24461408">have misappropriated</a> this very process to their own ends. </p>
<p>Examining contemporary non-victims’ perspectives can help us to understand the violence perpetrated as, in part, the result of social systems. <a href="https://ellenpilsworthorg.wordpress.com/knowing-the-nazis/%22">My research</a> explores how accounts by anti-Nazi refugees were received (in translation) by British readers at the time. </p>
<p>Such memoirs <a href="https://jpr.winchesteruniversitypress.org/articles/10.21039/jpr.5.1.96">can illustrate</a> the process by which Nazism transformed the German population into what historian Mary Fulbrook calls a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/bystander-society-9780197691717?cc=gb&lang=en&">“bystander society”</a> – even before the conditions of wartime normalised acts of excessive violence. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An archival photograph from Nazi Germany." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572157/original/file-20240130-23-ou6z5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572157/original/file-20240130-23-ou6z5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572157/original/file-20240130-23-ou6z5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572157/original/file-20240130-23-ou6z5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572157/original/file-20240130-23-ou6z5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572157/original/file-20240130-23-ou6z5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572157/original/file-20240130-23-ou6z5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">German citizens line the streets to see Hitler in Bad Godesberg am Rhein, in 1938.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H12704,_Bad_Godesberg,_Vorbereitung_M%C3%BCnchener_Abkommen.jpg">Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H12704</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Living in Nazi Germany</h2>
<p>In 1939, Sebastian Haffner, whose real name was Raimund Pretzel, wrote a memoir titled <em>Geschichte eines Deutschen. Die Erinnerungen 1914–1933</em> (Stories of a German. Recollections 1914-1933). </p>
<p>It was published after the author’s death in 2000, using the pen name under which he had become famous as a journalist in post-war West Germany. An English translation followed in 2003, titled Defying Hitler. Historian Dan Stone <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230282674_9">has described</a> it as “among the more remarkable contemporary analyses of Nazism and the Third Reich”. </p>
<p>Haffner was a law trainee when Hitler took power. As the Nazi regime destroyed the democratic legal system he had studied, he took up journalism instead. His partner, Erika Schmidt-Landry, had been designated “Jewish” according to the <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nuremberg-race-laws">Nuremberg race laws</a>. When she became pregnant with Haffner’s child, the couple left Germany for England. </p>
<p>In the UK, Haffner started writing a memoir of his life so far, including his view of the rise of Nazism. In one telling scene, he describes how he felt when the Jewish colleagues in his law firm were forced out by Nazi storm troopers (AKA brown shirts) on April 1 1933, the day of the Jewish boycott. Some colleagues paced about nervously. Others sniggered. One Jewish colleague simply packed his bags and left. </p>
<p>Haffner writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My own heart beat heavily. What should I do? How keep my poise? Just ignore them, do not let them disturb me. I put my head down over my work. […] Meanwhile a brown shirt approached me and took up position in front of my work table. ‘Are you Aryan?’ Before I had a chance to think, I had said, ‘Yes.’ […] The blood shot to my face. A moment too late I felt the shame, the defeat. […] I had failed my first test. I could have slapped myself.</p>
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<p>On another occasion, at a compulsory indoctrination camp for law students, Haffner is forced to perform the Hitler salute and sing pro-Nazi songs. He writes: “For the first time I had the feeling, so strong it left a taste in my mouth: ‘This doesn’t count. This isn’t me. It doesn’t count.’ And with this feeling I too raised my arm and held it stretched out ahead of me for about three minutes.”</p>
<p>Haffner’s account illustrates the self-deception and denial by which many people who did not actively support the Nazi regime survived within it. In an interview given in 1989, Haffner <a href="https://www.penguin.de/Buch/Geschichte-eines-Deutschen-Als-Englaender-maskiert/Sebastian-Haffner/DVA-Sachbuch/e226084.rhd">said</a> it wasn’t that all Germans were Nazis but nor did Nazism hardly affect everyday life: “It was possible to live in a way alongside it.”</p>
<h2>A bystander society</h2>
<p>Fulbrook <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/bystander-society-9780197691717?cc=gb&lang=en&">has shown</a> how ordinary Germans were drawn into “processes of complicity”. Under Nazism, standing by as state-sponsored acts of collective violence were perpetrated gradually became the required norm. The personal risks of doing otherwise were very real. “What might be a morally laudable stance in a liberal, democratic regime,” Fulbrook writes, “may be, in other circumstances, both ineffective and potentially suicidal.”</p>
<p>If someone in the UK in 2024 judges German bystanders to Nazi crimes as “guilty” for not standing up for victims, they do so according to the moral obligations of a liberal democracy. Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933, however, had marked the end of German democracy. The Third Reich was a brutal police state. People were encouraged to denounce opponents to the regime. Defiance ran the risk of arrest, imprisonment or political “re-education” in a concentration camp under <em>Schutzhaft</em> (“protective custody”).</p>
<p>Both in Germany and across the international community, everyone had to understand the violence enacted under Nazism on their own terms. Even the words “genocide” and “Holocaust”, by which the era has since been defined, were not yet in people’s vocabulary. </p>
<p>The term “<a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/coining-a-word-and-championing-a-cause-the-story-of-raphael-lemkin">genocide</a>” was coined by the Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, in 1944 to describe the Nazis’ programme of Jewish destruction. “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/story/what-is-the-origin-of-the-term-holocaust">Holocaust</a>”, a comparatively older word, only came to be widely used to formally describe the genocide perpetrated under Nazism against Jews <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/146235200112409">from the late 1950s</a>.</p>
<p>Further, racial segregation was also practised in other liberal democracies at the time. <a href="https://www.crf-usa.org/online-lessons/black-history-month/a-brief-history-of-jim-crow">Jim Crow laws</a> enforced racial segretation across the <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/black-codes-and-jim-crow-laws/%22">southern US states</a>. The notion of racial hierarchy underpinned the British and other European empires. </p>
<p>Engaging with contemporary non-victims’ perspectives can help us to understand the violence perpetrated during the Holocaust as an effect of social systems. American literature and Holocaust studies scholar Michael Rothberg <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=25356">has argued</a> for an approach to historical violence that considers the perspectives of “implicated subjects”. </p>
<p>Rothberg suggests the categories of heroes and villains, victims and perpetrators are inadequate in accounting for the harms done. Moving beyond them can also elucidate the destructive social dynamics of our own period.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ellen Pilsworth receives funding from the British Academy and Wolfson Foundation, and the Martin Miller and Hannah Norbert-Miller Trust</span></em></p>The German population was transformed under Nazism into a “bystander society” – even before the conditions of wartime normalised acts of excessive violence.Ellen Pilsworth, Lecturer in German and Translation Studies, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2217232024-01-23T17:50:38Z2024-01-23T17:50:38ZWaitangi 2024: how the Treaty strengthens democracy and provides a check on unbridled power<p>The ACT Party’s election promise of a referendum to redefine and enshrine the “principles” of the Treaty of Waitangi is likely to dominate debate at this year’s <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/01/23/why-ratana-is-an-important-date-on-the-political-calendar/">Rātana</a> and Waitangi Day events. </p>
<p>ACT’s <a href="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nzfirst/pages/4462/attachments/original/1700784896/National___NZF_Coalition_Agreement_signed_-_24_Nov_2023.pdf">coalition agreement</a> with the National Party commits the government to supporting a Treaty Principles Bill for select committee consideration. The bill may not make it into law, but the idea is raising considerable alarm.</p>
<p>Leaked <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/507090/government-confirms-leaked-document-was-a-ministry-treaty-principles-bill-memo">draft advice</a> to Cabinet from the Ministry of Justice says the principles should be defined in legislation because “their importance requires there be certainty and clarity about their meaning”. The advice also says ACT’s proposal will:</p>
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<p>change the nature of the principles from reflecting a relationship akin to a partnership between the Crown and Māori to reflecting the relationship the Crown has with all citizens of New Zealand. This is not supported by either the spirit of the Treaty or the text of the Treaty.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Setting aside arguments that the notion of “partnership” diminishes self-determination, the 10,000 people attending a <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/507161/in-photos-hui-aa-iwi-at-tuurangawaewae-marae">meeting</a> last weekend called by <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/27167/king-tuheitia">King Tūheitia</a> were motivated by the prospect of the Treaty being diminished.</p>
<h2>Do we need Treaty principles?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/o-matou-mohiotanga/crownmaori-relations/he-tirohanga-o-kawa-ki-te-tiriti-o-waitangi">Treaty principles</a> were developed and elaborated by parliaments, courts and the Waitangi Tribunal over more than 50 years to guide policy implementation and mediate tensions between the Māori and English texts of the document.</p>
<p>The Māori text, which more than 500 rangatira (chiefs) signed, conferred the right to establish government on the British Crown. The English text conferred absolute sovereignty; 39 rangatira signed this text after having it explained in Māori, a language that has <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/read-the-Treaty/differences-between-the-texts">no concept of sovereignty</a> as a political and legal authority to be given away.</p>
<p>Because the English text wasn’t widely signed, there is a view that it holds no influential standing, and that perhaps there isn’t a tension to mediate. Former chief justice <a href="https://natlib.govt.nz/he-tohu/korero/interview-with-dame-sian-elias">Sian Elias has said</a> “it can’t be disputed that the Treaty is actually the Māori text”.</p>
<p>On Saturday, <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/01/20/be-maori-kiingi-tuuheitia-gives-closing-speech-at-national-hui/">Tūheitia said</a>: “There’s no principles, the Treaty is written, that’s it.” This view is supported by arguments that the principles are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14687968211047902">reductionist</a> and take attention away from the substance of <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/translation-of-te-reo-maori-text/">Te Tiriti’s articles</a>: the Crown may establish government; Māori may retain authority over their own affairs and enjoy citizenship of the state in ways that reflect equal tikanga (cultural values).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-redefining-the-treaty-principles-would-undermine-real-political-equality-in-nz-218511">Why redefining the Treaty principles would undermine real political equality in NZ</a>
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<h2>Democratic or undemocratic?</h2>
<p>The ACT Party says this is undemocratic because it gives Māori a privileged voice in public decision making. Of the previous government, <a href="https://www.act.org.nz/defining-the-treaty-principles">ACT has said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Labour is trying to make New Zealand an unequal society on purpose. It believes there are two types of New Zealanders. Tangata Whenua, who are here by right, and Tangata Tiriti who are lucky to be here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Liberal democracy was not the form of government Britain established in 1840. There’s even an <a href="https://nwo.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/MatikeMaiAotearoa25Jan16.pdf">argument</a> that state government doesn’t concern Māori. The Crown exercises government only over “<a href="https://nwo.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/MatikeMaiAotearoa25Jan16.pdf">its people</a>” – settlers and their descendants. Māori political authority is found in tino rangatiratanga and through shared decision making on matters of common interest.</p>
<p>Tino rangatiratanga <a href="https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/2292/65738/2021%20Mutu%20Mana%20Sovereignty%20for%20Routledge%20Handbook%20of%20Critical%20Indigenous%20Studies.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">has been defined</a> as “the exercise of ultimate and paramount power and authority”. In practice, like all power, this is relative and relational to the power of others, and constrained by circumstances beyond human control.</p>
<p>But the power of others has to be fair and reasonable, and rangatiratanga requires freedom from arbitrary interference by the state. That way, authority and responsibility may be exercised, and independence upheld, in relation to Māori people’s own affairs and resources.</p>
<h2>Assertions of rangatiratanga</h2>
<p>Social integration – especially through intermarriage, economic interdependence and economies of scale – makes a rigid “them and us” binary an unlikely path to a better life for anybody.</p>
<p>However, rangatiratanga might be found in Tūheitia’s advice about the best form of protest against rewriting the Treaty principles to diminish the Treaty itself:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Be who we are, live our values, speak our reo (language), care for our mokopuna (children), our awa (rivers), our maunga (mountains), just be Māori. Māori all day, every day.</p>
</blockquote>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-kingitanga-movement-160-years-of-maori-monarchy-102029">The kīngitanga movement: 160 years of Māori monarchy</a>
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<p>As the government <a href="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nationalparty/pages/18466/attachments/original/1700778597/NZFirst_Agreement_2.pdf?1700778597">introduces measures</a> to reduce the use of te reo Māori in public life, repeal child care and protection legislation that promotes Māori leadership and responsibility, and repeal <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-repeal-three-waters-legislation">water management legislation</a> that ensures Māori participation, Tūheitia’s words are all assertions of rangatiratanga.</p>
<p>Those government policies sit alongside the proposed Treaty Principles Bill to diminish Māori opportunities to be Māori in public life. For the ACT Party, this is necessary to protect democratic equality.</p>
<p>In effect, the proposed bill says that to be equal, Māori people can’t contribute to public decisions with reference to their own culture. As anthropologist <a href="https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/12/15/anne-salmond-on-the-treaty-debate-maori-and-pakeha-think-differently/">Anne Salmond has written</a>, this means the state cannot admit there are “reasonable people who reason differently”.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/putting-te-tiriti-at-the-centre-of-aotearoa-new-zealands-public-policy-can-strengthen-democracy-heres-how-180305">Putting te Tiriti at the centre of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public policy can strengthen democracy – here's how</a>
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<h2>Liberal democracy and freedom</h2>
<p>Equality through sameness is a false equality that liberal democracy is well-equipped to contest. Liberal democracy did not emerge to suppress difference. It is concerned with much more than counting votes to see who wins on election day.</p>
<p>Liberal democracy is a political system intended to manage fair and reasonable differences in an orderly way. This means it doesn’t concentrate power in one place. It’s not a select few exercising sovereignty as the absolute and indivisible power to tell everybody else what to do.</p>
<p>This is because one of its ultimate purposes is to protect people’s freedom – the freedom to be Māori as much as the freedom to be <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=pakeha">Pakeha</a>. If we want it to, democracy may help all and not just some of us to protect our freedom through our different ways of reasoning.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-parties-two-deals-one-government-the-stress-points-within-new-zealands-coalition-of-many-colours-217673">Three parties, two deals, one government: the stress points within New Zealand's 'coalition of many colours'</a>
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<p>Freedom is protected by checks and balances on power. Parliament checks the powers of government. Citizens, including Māori citizens with equality of <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=tikanga">tikanga</a>, check the powers of parliament.</p>
<p>One of the ways this happens is through the distribution of power from the centre – to local governments, school boards and non-governmental providers of public services. This includes Māori health providers whose work was intended to be supported by the Māori Health Authority, which the government also intends to disestablish.</p>
<p>The rights of hapū (kinship groups), as the political communities whose representatives signed Te Tiriti, mean that rangatiratanga, too, checks and balances the concentration of power in the hands of a few.</p>
<p>Checking and balancing the powers of government requires the contribution of all and not just some citizens. When they do so in their own ways, and according to their own modes of reasoning, citizens contribute to democratic contest – not as a divisive activity, but to protect the common good from the accumulation of power for some people’s use in the domination of others.</p>
<p>Te Tiriti supports this democratic process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221723/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill assumes Māori have been granted special privileges. But it can equally be argued the Treaty prevents the undemocratic concentration of power in the hands of a few.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2084432023-07-31T19:26:12Z2023-07-31T19:26:12ZThe world’s most powerful democracies were built on the suffering of others<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540042/original/file-20230730-17-i1imbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C31%2C3957%2C2452&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this July 2013 photo, supporters of Egypt's democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi chant slogans against Egyptian Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi at Nasr City, in Cairo, Egypt. El-Sissi removed Morsi two weeks earlier with support from the U.S. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-worlds-most-powerful-democracies-were-built-on-the-suffering-of-others" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>United States President Joe Biden has cast the conflict between the western world and its competitors <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/25/politics/biden-autocracies-versus-democracies/index.html">as a clash between “democracies and autocracies.”</a> This masks the American desire for power and the complex realities of creating democracy.</p>
<p>Democracy is supposed to <a href="https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/democracy">base a state’s legitimacy in its accountability to its people</a>. It supports people’s freedoms and human rights. What these ideals mean in practice and how to achieve them are difficult questions.</p>
<p>But it’s clear the U.S. is no longer a credible champion for, or exemplar of, democracy.</p>
<p>In fact, it has a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/sunday-review/russia-isnt-the-only-one-meddling-in-elections-we-do-it-too.html">long history of overthrowing</a> and undermining democracies abroad. </p>
<h2>A troubled record with democracy</h2>
<p><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/02/egypt-coup-morsi-arab-spring-us-obama-democracy-middle-east/">Barack Obama’s administration, for example, greenlit the military coup</a> that <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2023/7/7/shadi_hamid_obama_egypt_arab_spring">overthrew Egypt’s democracy and ended the Arab Spring</a> uprisings in 2013. </p>
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<p>The U.S. also has a long history of <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/american-tradition-supporting-authoritarianism">supporting authoritarian regimes</a>. It has made it clear that <a href="https://www.rolandparis.com/single-post/democracies-are-certainly-friends-of-canada-but-what-about-the-in-between-countries">being authoritarian does not impede</a> any country from joining its <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/12/fact-sheet-the-biden-harris-administrations-national-security-strategy/">coalition against China</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S. itself is a failing democracy — or perhaps a better description is a <a href="https://www.cirsd.org/en/horizons/horizons-autumn-2020-issue-no-17/democracy-or-plutocracy---americas-existential-question">plutocracy</a> with <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014/">democratic embellishments</a>. </p>
<p>American politics <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/opinion/citizens-united-corruption-pacs.html">have been corrupted</a> <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/168044/united-states-tax-havens-south-dakota-plutocracy">by money</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/12/republican-states-rights-restrictions/621101/">civil rights</a> are under assault, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/17/martin-luther-king-jr-march-family-activists-voting-rights">voter suppression</a> is rife and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/opinion/polarization-nationalism-patriotism-history.html">distrust and social division</a> are ubiquitous. In 2021, <a href="https://www.allianceofdemocracies.org/initiatives/the-copenhagen-democracy-summit/dpi-2021/">only 50 per cent of Americans</a> said they believed they live in a democracy. </p>
<p>Russia <a href="https://www.csis.org/blogs/strategic-technologies-blog/russia-ramps-global-elections-interference-lessons-united-states">has used social media to interfere in elections around the world</a>. China has tried to <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2023/china-target-diaspora-canada/">influence diaspora communities</a>. But there’s not much evidence these activities are co-ordinated and they pale <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/03/12/is-u.s.-hypocritical-to-criticize-russian-election-meddling-pub-75780">compared to the ubiquity and influence of American interference</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S. has not been “defending democracy.” It’s been defending its power and privileges in an unequal global system.</p>
<h2>Western democracy’s grim origins</h2>
<p>This is not the only way the concept of democracy has been misused by the United States and other western nations.</p>
<p>Many countries in the West provide their citizens with the highest living standards and freedoms in the world. How they got there is something many conveniently forget.</p>
<p>The western world’s <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/questioning-western-nations-moral-values/">tendency to see itself as the pinnacle of civilization and morality</a> has been used to justify global domination and intervention in the rest of the world. </p>
<p>The contemporary successes of some of the most powerful democracies are the result of the subjugation and exploitation of other people both within and beyond their borders. The U.S. was <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/11/us-genocide-china-indigenous-peoples-day-columbus/">built on genocide</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist">and slavery</a>. </p>
<p>Canada is only <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/trudeau-s-acknowledgment-of-indigenous-genocide-could-have-legal-impacts-experts-1.5457668">starting to acknowledge its history of cultural genocide</a>. Every European state that <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/economic-impact-colonialism">practised colonialism profited</a> from that brutality. </p>
<p>The British <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/12/19/how-britain-stole-45-trillion-from-india">extracted more than $45 trillion of wealth from India</a> between 1765 and 1938 and <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/watch-shashi-tharoor-says-britain-has-historical-amnesia-about-colonial-empire-in-india/story-an8J11lhdYRGBxyoARxQgK.html">destroyed the country’s economy</a>. </p>
<p>The U.K.’s industrial revolution was financed by Indian plunder. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians">Tens of millions of Indians</a> died as the result of Britain’s economic policies. During the Second World War, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-churchill-policies-contributed-to-1943-bengal-famine-study">Winston Churchill deliberately</a> <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/4/1/churchills-policies-to-blame-for-1943-bengal-famine-study">implemented policies that created and exacerbated</a> the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2019.1638622">Bengal Famine</a> that killed more than three million Indians. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Soldiers in colourful uniforms and head gear march in unison." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indian paramilitary soldiers march during a rehearsal for the Indian Independence Day parade in Srinagar, India. India celebrates its 1947 independence from British colonial rule every August 15.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hiding the truth</h2>
<p>Western amnesia about its brutal history is deliberate. As the British Empire ended, it launched <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2017.1294256">Operation Legacy</a>, the <a href="https://jacobin.com/2016/11/british-empire-kenya-oman-ireland-state-secrecy/">destruction of millions of documents</a> detailing the full extent of British atrocities in its colonies. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Black boys stand beside a toppled statue in a black and white photo from the 1960s." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 1961 photo, the bust of former Belgian King Leopold II lies on the ground on the Avenue General De Gaulle in Stanleyville, Congo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Belgium hid the truth of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520305651">King Leopold’s vicious exploitation of the Belgian Congo</a> that involved the murder of 10 million people. </p>
<p>In the U.S., the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/20/1008449181/understanding-the-republican-opposition-to-critical-race-theory">political right’s campaign</a> against <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-anti-critical-race-theory-movement-will-profoundly-affect-public-education/">critical race theory</a> stifles the historical <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory">reality and legacy of American racism</a>. </p>
<p>Democracy is not a cure-all for human misery and inequity. For impoverished states, democracy can actually exacerbate social divisions. </p>
<p>Exactly what makes a democracy successful is unclear, <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/democracy-alone-is-no-guarantee-of-development">though it seems to lie in “good governance</a>.” What is clear is that democracies cannot simply be wished into existence. Most western states can only offer examples of democracy-building that have relied upon extreme military, political and social violence.</p>
<p>Democracy in principle is a desirable goal. Most of the world supports the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/responsibility-protect">“responsibility to protect”</a> doctrine — the idea that states bear basic obligations to their citizens. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/1875-984X-14010001">However</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogy045">most do not support military interventions</a> to further those ostensible goals. They are aware of the great difficulties involved in making democracy work. </p>
<p>Western states argue that only democracies are legitimate states because they are supported by the consent of their citizens. That isn’t the case for most authoritarian states.</p>
<h2>Chinese prosperity</h2>
<p>However, China — the primary target of the American “democracy versus authoritarianism” campaign — complicates the “democratic narrative.” A <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/">meticulous, long-term Harvard study</a> found that the vast majority of Chinese citizens support their national government. Other surveys have reached the same general conclusion. </p>
<p>This support may reflect, in part, <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/05/what-the-west-gets-wrong-about-china">China’s cultural and historical norms and experiences</a> but it is mostly attributable to how much the lives of the Chinese people have improved. </p>
<p>The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has overseen 40 years of economic growth and technological development unprecedented in world history. Chinese GDP per capita <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/gdp-per-capita">increased from US$195 in 1980 to US$12,556 in 2021</a>. As many as <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience">800 million people have risen out of poverty</a>. Like any government, democratic or not, the CCP’s legitimacy reflects its performance. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Thousands of people at a night-time celebration hold up their smartphones to take pictures of fireworks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 2019 photo, people use smartphones to film fireworks exploding at Tiananmen Square as part of a gala evening commemorating the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China in Beijing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andy Wong)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>China is <a href="http://lv.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/xwdt/202211/t20221104_10800517.htm">not, however, aggressively promoting its political model</a> around the world, unlike the West’s often violent, coercive and selective push for liberal democracy.</p>
<p>Western democracies can best help the world by doing more to live up to their highest ideals and approach their relations with the rest of the world with humility borne from historical awareness.</p>
<p>The one existential threat the entire planet faces is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/07/05/hottest-day-ever-recorded/">climate change</a>. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/opinion/america-china-clean-energy.html">Co-operation within the entire international community</a> is more important than ever and will require global economic and political transformation. </p>
<p>The American and western strategy of fomenting global division to maintain a harmful status quo is counterproductive at best.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaun Narine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Western democracies can best help the world by doing more to live up to their highest ideals and approaching their relations with the rest of the world with humility borne from historical awareness.Shaun Narine, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, St. Thomas University (Canada)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2072772023-06-19T12:25:08Z2023-06-19T12:25:08ZFascism lurks behind the dangerous conflation of the terms ‘partisan’ and ‘political’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532069/original/file-20230614-20687-lrdq4n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C4885%2C3256&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters, including one wearing a t-shirt bearing former President Donald Trump's photo that says "Political prisoner," watch as Trump departs the federal courthouse after arraignment, June 13, 2023, in Miami.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXTrumpClassifiedDocuments/6b13a7ec06c746b8ac6362222e5bf49a/photo?Query=Trump%20supporters&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=13151&currentItemNo=24">AP Photo/Gerald Herbert</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/the-personal-is-political">The personal is political!</a>” is a well-known rallying cry, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199328581.013.31">originally used by</a> left-leaning activists, including feminists, to emphasize the role of government in personal lives and systemic oppression. </p>
<p>It seems that now, it could be equally popular among right-wing politicians and their followers to communicate the idea that “everything is political.” </p>
<p>Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of former President Donald Trump’s recent indictment by the Department of Justice. Trump supporters say that the <a href="https://www.wptv.com/news/political/donald-trump-supporters-question-indictment-claim-its-politically-motivated">decision to charge Trump was “political</a>.” If the department hadn’t charged Trump, that decision would likely have been seen by others as “political.” </p>
<p>In both cases, the critics would have meant that the prosecutors’ decision was influenced by partisan bias, based on whether the decision was good or bad for the Republican or Democratic party. U.S. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/politics-law-drive-supreme-court-decisions-poll/story?id=99168846">Supreme Court decisions are often criticized</a> as “political.” So are actions taken by <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/facing-harassment-and-death-threats-some-election-workers-weigh-whether-to-stay">election officials</a>, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/22069-polarization-climate-science.html">scientific findings</a>, and even <a href="https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/heres-the-long-list-of-topics-republicans-want-banned-from-the-classroom/2022/02">topics taught in school</a>.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.rit.edu/directory/lgtghs-lawrence-torcello">professor of political philosophy</a>, I worry that when both elected officials and citizens use the word “political” to accuse others of partisan bias, it means people no longer understand the distinctions between political and partisan, or public and private, which are vital to liberal democracy. </p>
<p>The preservation of such distinctions is crucial to rejecting <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-tyranny-could-be-the-inevitable-outcome-of-democracy-126158">less democratic and more authoritarian</a> forms of government – including fascism. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532070/original/file-20230614-17-zmkmo9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white flag with a religious symbol and the American flag combined on it and the words 'Proud American Christian.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532070/original/file-20230614-17-zmkmo9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532070/original/file-20230614-17-zmkmo9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532070/original/file-20230614-17-zmkmo9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532070/original/file-20230614-17-zmkmo9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532070/original/file-20230614-17-zmkmo9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532070/original/file-20230614-17-zmkmo9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532070/original/file-20230614-17-zmkmo9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When partisanship gains momentum, people begin to advocate for legislation defining marriage, reproductive rights - as these anti-abortion protestors are doing - and other issues in ways that reflect narrow private and religious values.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pro-life-supporters-gather-on-the-national-mall-in-news-photo/1246394597?adppopup=true">Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is liberal democracy?</h2>
<p>In political philosophy terms, the United States is a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/liberal-democracy">liberal democracy</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.concordmonitor.com/The-meaning-of-democracy-32817134">Liberal democracy comes in multiple forms</a> ranging from constitutional monarchies – such as the United Kingdom – to republics, such as the United States. </p>
<p>Although no democracy achieves the ideals of liberalism perfectly, under liberal democratic governments, citizens have rights and private lives protected from the actions of government. For example, in the U.S. it is inappropriate for legislation to be <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1220/james-madison">crafted based on a religious belief</a>, even if some particular belief or sect is privately endorsed by a majority of citizens.</p>
<p>One way to view the purpose of a liberal democracy is to preserve and nurture the right of every citizen to have a private life independent of the government. In that private life, citizens pursue their own goals and develop connections, associations and activities that are of personal value. </p>
<p>Separate from that private life is the public arena, in which citizens come together to discuss and decide issues of common concern, such as national defense, economic policy and other issues that affect everyone. This is the world of elections, of legislatures, courts and officials.</p>
<p>People with divergent, or even very similar, personal lives could have different views on how to handle matters of public concern. But they can work together to rise above their differences to arrive at solutions to collective problems that benefit society as a whole. </p>
<p>A good example of this is the institution and funding of public educational systems, civil services and public parks, to help ensure every citizen has at least a minimum level of access to goods and services necessary for a healthy private and civic life. </p>
<h2>The rise of politics</h2>
<p>The philosopher Aristotle described <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0086,035:1:1253a">humans as political animals</a>, meaning that we depend upon the formation of cooperative political structures in order to flourish as human beings. </p>
<p>This human need for support networks that allow for mutual cooperation over time is the genesis of politics. In this sense, the concept of politics transcends more narrow partisan affiliations. </p>
<p>Political parties are just one aspect of political development – one, in fact, that <a href="https://theconversation.com/do-we-need-political-parties-in-theory-theyre-the-sort-of-organization-that-could-bring-americans-together-in-larger-purpose-199723">George Washington warned against</a> in his farewell address – that begins to blur the line between the public good of politics and narrower group interests. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A vintage portrait of a man with white hair, dressed in a black coat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532233/original/file-20230615-13634-3rtdan.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532233/original/file-20230615-13634-3rtdan.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532233/original/file-20230615-13634-3rtdan.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532233/original/file-20230615-13634-3rtdan.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532233/original/file-20230615-13634-3rtdan.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532233/original/file-20230615-13634-3rtdan.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532233/original/file-20230615-13634-3rtdan.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Washington warned about the potentially malign influence of political parties on democracy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/george-washington-portrait-painting-by-constable-hamilton-news-photo/507014168?adppopup=true">Constable-Hamilton, NY Public Library, Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of my own work pertains to how people’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12179">commitments to partisan identity</a> undermine their ability to understand scientific issues of public concern, such as human-caused climate change, and influence the spread of <a href="https://theconversation.com/bad-beliefs-misinformation-is-factually-wrong-but-is-it-ethically-wrong-too-196551">disinformation</a>. </p>
<h2>Lurking fascism</h2>
<p>As partisanship gains momentum, citizens and elected representatives alike become <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-all-polarization-is-bad-but-the-us-could-be-in-trouble-173833">less likely to constructively engage</a> with those they disagree with. People who differ on issues come to see each other as threats to their own private values. </p>
<p>Government power begins to be used not in service to the citizenry at large, but as a tool of narrow interest groups. This is where people begin to advocate for legislation defining marriage, reproductive rights and other issues in ways that reflect narrow private and religious values. </p>
<p>Whereas “the personal is the political” was originally meant to flag ways in which government decisions unfairly affect and define personal lives, the mindset that “<a href="https://erraticus.co/2020/02/19/suspending-politics-save-democracy-private-lives-political/">everything is political</a>” creates a situation of perpetual conflict between divergent groups. </p>
<p>That’s the opposite of what politics is for and what a liberal democracy does: A liberal democracy specifically guards against using <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-populist-challenge-to-liberal-democracy/">government power to further the agendas of distinctive groups</a>. It seeks to prevent government encroachment into the private lives of individuals, and vice versa, in order to constrain the worst impulses of politicians and citizens alike. </p>
<p>Fascism, by contrast, seeks to make government power an aspect of every dimension of its citizens’ lives. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schmitt/">Nazi apologist Carl Schmitt</a> conceptualized politics as an all-consuming and literal life and death struggle between friends and enemies.</p>
<h2>Partisan dysfunction</h2>
<p>The current state of polarization in the U.S. highlights the problems that arise when liberal democracy’s division between private and public realms disappears.</p>
<p>Trump has posed many challenges for the United States’ constitutional democracy – <a href="https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/legacies-january-6">not least the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection</a>. His current situation is another. <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-indictments-wont-keep-him-from-presidential-race-but-will-make-his-reelection-bid-much-harder-197677">There is no constitutional obstacle</a> preventing him from running, or serving, as president even if he is found guilty of some of the charges against him, not even if he is sentenced to prison.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-indictments-wont-keep-him-from-presidential-race-but-will-make-his-reelection-bid-much-harder-197677">practical obstacles</a> to serving as president while in a prison are obvious. Even someone who agrees with Trump’s views on key issues can recognize the challenges an incarcerated president would face. </p>
<p>If the nation were <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-all-polarization-is-bad-but-the-us-could-be-in-trouble-173833">less polarized</a>, less focused on winning or losing the power to impose regulations on Americans’ private lives, lawmakers and the public might equally prioritize avoiding such an obvious problem. They’d seek to preserve the rule of law in a way that would benefit the nation as a whole.</p>
<p>But they haven’t. Instead, Trump supporters will <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06/trump-indictment-not-politically-motivated-clinton-emails-biden.html">dismiss his indictments as “political</a>” maneuvers intended to influence the balance of power in the U.S. government, rather than as necessary checks on abuses of that power.</p>
<p>And if Trump is eventually cleared of the charges, or avoids a prison term if convicted, I believe his critics will view those developments as a product of politics, of the struggle for power, rather than the operation of a deliberative justice system.</p>
<h2>Shifting perspectives</h2>
<p>As political partisanship takes hold, <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-polarization-is-about-feelings-not-facts-120397">citizens come to trust only those institutions</a> that are run by members of their favored party. They no longer engage in the work of democracy and do not seek to ensure that independent, democracy-wide systems and institutions are protected from partisanship.</p>
<p>Rather than a means to living together peacefully, politics is treated as a <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-politics-of-enemies/">contest between combatants</a>. Government institutions meant to serve all are treated as if they are inevitably capable of only serving a particular few – and the struggle begins over which few they are to serve.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the full solution to this problem is, but I believe one step in the right direction is for people to identify themselves more as supporters of liberal democracy itself than as members of, or backers of, any particular partisan political party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lawrence Torcello does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When everything is seen as political – indictments, Supreme Court decisions, scientific findings – a democracy may be on its way to fascism.Lawrence Torcello, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1993112023-02-15T08:38:29Z2023-02-15T08:38:29ZInvisible Trillions review: global capitalism operates beyond the rule of law and threatens democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508894/original/file-20230208-15-42994g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Achieving greater transparency and accountability in democratic governance and in capitalist economics must occur simultaneously. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Secrecy has become as important for corporations as transparent and taxable profits used to be, according to Raymond W. Baker in his new <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60978837-invisible-trillions">book</a> Invisible Trillions. Global capitalism, he argues, operates beyond the rule of law. This contributes to extreme inequality that threatens liberal democracy.</p>
<p>Deals in the financial secrecy system account for half of global economic operations. This is far beyond illicit transfers of funds through corporate under-pricing and overpricing of exports and imports, or the drug and other criminal networks 50 years ago. Tax havens, “shell companies”, anonymous trust accounts, fake foundations and new digitised money laundering technologies have proliferated. Add to that falsified trade. All of this is facilitated by international lawyers, accountants and financial strategists based mostly in rich countries. </p>
<p>The book’s timely contribution is how financial secrecy threatens both free enterprise and political freedoms. Both are critical to dealing with current inequalities afflicting humanity and to meeting challenges in public health, climate, and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Baker indicts the United States as the biggest user of the financial secrecy system, and the biggest recipient of dirty money from around the world. A key indication of the cost of this is that gaps between top and average wages in the US have shot up from 20 to 1 in 1960 to 350 to one today. Had this not occurred, Baker told me he estimates, the middle class would now be better off by US$50 trillion. </p>
<h2>Pioneering work</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Capitalisms-Achilles-Heel-Free-Market-System/dp/1119086612">pioneer</a> in exposing illicit financial flows, Baker is a member of the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/40545-doc-IFFs_REPORT.pdf">High-Level Panel</a> on the subject commissioned by the African Union (AU) and UN Economic Commission for Africa. It was chaired by former South African president Thabo Mbeki from 2011 to 2015. It is suspended pending further funding. Invisible Trillions should spur renewed work by the panel.</p>
<p>The panel’s <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/40545-doc-IFFs_REPORT.pdf">2015 report</a> estimated that in the previous half-century, Africa lost over a US$ trillion in illicit money flows. This is about what Africa received in official development assistance over the same period. Baker made a similar finding in his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Capitalisms-Achilles-Heel-Free-Market-System/dp/1119086612">2005 book</a>, Capitalism’s Achilles Heel. </p>
<p>He began his career as an entrepreneur in Nigeria after independence, applying his 1960 Harvard MBA to launch several successful local businesses in the 1960s and 1970s. After relocating to Washington, DC in the 1980s, he became a guest fellow at the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/">Brookings Institution</a>. He eventually founded <a href="https://gfintegrity.org/">Global Financial Integrity</a> in 2006. The research institute continues to produce seminal research and policy analysis on all aspects of the secretive world of illicit financial flows.</p>
<h2>Clean up must begin from above</h2>
<p>Baker is cogently critical not only of the complicity of the US and its corporations, but also law firms, auditors and consulting companies that abet tax avoidance, concentration of wealth, and corruption of government officials. He accuses the US and China, which together account <a href="https://statisticstimes.com/economy/united-states-vs-china-economy.php">for over 40% of the world’s nominal GNP</a>, of knowingly exploiting secrecy in global economic relations. </p>
<p>Little wonder that 193 members of the United Nations have pledged to halt illicit financial flows, but with little discernible effect. Meanwhile, the COVID pandemic, the war in Ukraine and climate change worsen inequality within and among nations.</p>
<p>Concise and accessible, Invisible Trillions has three parts:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Democratic Capitalism at Risk</p></li>
<li><p>Corroding the Commons</p></li>
<li><p>Renewing Democratic Capitalism.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Rogue capitalism</h2>
<p>I found Baker’s criticisms of capitalism in the US to be reasonable, his indictments of corruption and authoritarianism illuminating, and his emphasis on fairness, justice, equity and human rights hopeful. America’s leading democracy scholar, <a href="https://politicalscience.stanford.edu/people/larry-diamond">Larry Diamond of Stanford University</a>, wrote the book’s foreword. As he asserts:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Only radical improvements across the globe in financial transparency and accountability and in regulatory capacity and integrity can break this cycle of political decay and despair. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Baker, however, carefully avoids analysis of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/06/united-states-isnt-democracy-and-was-never-intended-be/">structural deficiencies</a> of US democracy. He defers to others to build on his analysis of how secretive concentrations of wealth became possible with the complicity of banks, corporations and “complicit governments” in key chapters of Part II.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508892/original/file-20230208-26-mlr1kw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508892/original/file-20230208-26-mlr1kw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508892/original/file-20230208-26-mlr1kw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508892/original/file-20230208-26-mlr1kw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508892/original/file-20230208-26-mlr1kw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508892/original/file-20230208-26-mlr1kw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508892/original/file-20230208-26-mlr1kw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although the book is mainly about the “rogue capitalism” of the US, it includes the impact of secrecy on economic behaviour further afield, using seven country case studies. Featured are the two dictatorships – Russia and China – plus a flawed pluralistic democracy, South Africa, an example of <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-state-capture-commission-nears-its-end-after-four-years-was-it-worth-it-182898">state capture</a>. Other examples of where secrecy serves autocrats are Guatemala, Venezuela, Myanmar and Iran.</p>
<p>The South African case shows well the role played by foreign corporations, international lawyers and public relations firms in corruption. Baker concludes Part II with a very short chapter, “Hiding in Silos”. It is critical of western attempts to spread the rule of law while ignoring</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the degree to which the capitalist system (is) operating increasingly beyond the rule of law.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This sets up Part III, in which he proposes ways and means for “Renewing Democratic Capitalism”.</p>
<h2>Renewing democratic capitalism</h2>
<p>In Baker’s view, democracy is self-correcting, but capitalism is not. His main message is: reform capitalism or forfeit democracy.</p>
<p>His suggestions focus on the US and its potential for either causing disaster or preventing it. This will depend, he argues, on the US government requiring greater transparency, accountability and governance reforms by corporations.</p>
<p>He advocates forcing banks and other financial institutions to once again separate lending and investing. And audit firms should not offer costly financial advice – another conflict of interest.</p>
<p>Baker recommends government action on increasing minimum wages to $15 an hour, ensuring universal healthcare, waiving student debt, and a reckoning with “race”. He also urges a reducing inequality among nations. In sum, an agenda much like that of the Biden administration.</p>
<p>Unless national Democratic majorities continue to grow and press effectively for <a href="https://www.amacad.org/ourcommonpurpose/report">bi-partisan democratic reforms</a>, it is difficult to imagine the country playing the kind of constructive democratic role at home or abroad that Baker calls for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199311/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John J Stremlau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Raymond W. Baker says the estimated hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden wealth a decade ago has skyrocketed to trillions today.John J Stremlau, Honorary Professor of International Relations, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1803052022-03-31T22:07:45Z2022-03-31T22:07:45ZPutting te Tiriti at the centre of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public policy can strengthen democracy – here’s how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455365/original/file-20220330-5009-oi8dn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C7%2C4903%2C1555&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>ACT party leader David Seymour’s demand that a <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/03/24/act-party-wants-referendum-on-co-governance-with-maori/">referendum on Māori co-governance</a> be a bottom line in any coalition agreement with the National Party was, if nothing else, well timed. </p>
<p>With the prime minister confirming public consultation on <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/co-governance-firmly-on-top-of-political-agenda">co-governance</a> will begin this year, the place of <a href="https://www.archives.govt.nz/discover-our-stories/the-treaty-of-waitangi">te Tiriti o Waitangi</a> (Treaty of Waitangi) in the nation’s life is front and centre once more.</p>
<p>Specifically, Seymour says successive governments’ interpretations of the English language version of te Tiriti – which differs in important ways from the Māori text negotiated at Waitangi in 1840 – is <a href="https://www.act.org.nz/david_seymour_speech_to_milford_rotary_club">creating an “ethno-state”</a>. He was later <a href="https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/audio/barry-soper-cabinet-to-consider-next-steps-on-maori-self-determination-plan/">reported as saying</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[The government] believes there are two types of New Zealanders. Tangata whenua, who are here by right, and Tangata Tiriti who are lucky to be here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>ACT’s referendum would ask voters to agree that the Treaty means:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>all citizens of New Zealand have the same political rights and duties</p></li>
<li><p>all political authority comes from the people by democratic means including universal suffrage, regular and free elections with a secret ballot</p></li>
<li><p>New Zealand is a multi-ethnic liberal democracy where discrimination based on ethnicity is illegal.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1508593807398297600"}"></div></p>
<p>Government ministers, the Māori Party and others have argued Seymour’s policy is itself divisive, and National Party leader Christopher Luxon has <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/luxon-rules-out-co-governance-referendum-seymour-says-dont-run-away-from-hard-issues/QC6ZKQXM7BIA3UNQPNKZULNYGA/">ruled out</a> a referendum if he forms a government. But away from the electoral front line, important work on how te Tiriti can be applied at a policy level is already going on. </p>
<p>In 2020, we developed a policy evaluation method called “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1468796819896466">Critical Tiriti Analysis</a>” (CTA) to address the problem of policy failure by ensuring distinctive Māori voices are heard. We recently explained these ideas to over 300 people at a public seminar.</p>
<p>CTA could be used by co-governance entities, but it doesn’t require them. It is especially relevant at the policy evaluation level, and is being used in government departments and elsewhere to help give Māori people – and their values and expectations – a fair chance of influencing policy decisions.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-crown-is-maori-too-citizenship-sovereignty-and-the-treaty-of-waitangi-111168">The Crown is Māori too - citizenship, sovereignty and the Treaty of Waitangi</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How CTA works</h2>
<p>CTA uses five indicators to evaluate policy against te Tiriti’s main elements: the preamble, three written articles and the oral commitment to protect “wairuatanga” (an expression of custom, spirituality and psychological well-being):</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1412&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1412&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Part of the original Tiriti o Waitangi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<ol>
<li><p>The preamble creates an expectation of good government, so CTA asks how policy has been informed by substantive Māori values and expectations, and seeks evidence that Māori are equal or lead parties in the policy process</p></li>
<li><p>Article 1 granted the British Crown “<a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/kawanatanga-maori-engagement-with-the-state/page-1">kāwanatanga</a>” over non-Māori people in Aotearoa. CTA requires the demonstration of equitable Māori engagement or leadership in prioritising, resourcing, implementing and evaluating policy</p></li>
<li><p>“<a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=tino+rangatiratanga">Tino rangatiratanga</a>” was promised in Article 2, so CTA requires evidence of meaningful and expert Māori involvement in policy drafting, and measures the influence and authority of Māori values in the policy process</p></li>
<li><p>Article 3 of te Tiriti confers the right of Māori to actively engage in and influence <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-33-4172-2">policy development, implementation and evaluation</a>. CTA involves evidence of Māori exercising their citizenship as Māori in policy development</p></li>
<li><p>And finally, in terms of wairuatanga, CTA seeks policy acknowledgement of the importance of wairua, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/rongoa-medicinal-use-of-plants/page-1#:%7E:text=Rongo%C4%81">rongoā</a> and wellness.</p></li>
</ol>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-parihaka-to-he-puapua-its-time-pakeha-new-zealanders-faced-their-personal-connections-to-the-past-164553">From Parihaka to He Puapua: it’s time Pākehā New Zealanders faced their personal connections to the past</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>CTA in practice</h2>
<p>In 2020 we used CTA to review the <a href="https://www.health.govt.nz/publication/primary-health-care-strategy">New Zealand Primary Healthcare Strategy</a>. It has since been used to evaluate government policies and practices including <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213538320300448">cancer control plans</a> and disability strategies.</p>
<p>In 2019, Cabinet published a <a href="https://dpmc.govt.nz/publications/co-19-5-te-tiriti-o-waitangi-treaty-waitangi-guidance">Te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi Guidance</a> which set out questions policy advisers should consider in their advice to ministers. Our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14687968211047902">CTA review</a> of the guidance suggested te Tiriti might also require asking the following questions:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>what contributions have Māori people and ideas made to the drafting of this advice?</p></li>
<li><p>what do Māori say are the issues to consider and their interests in this issue?</p></li>
<li><p>what evidence is there that this policy preserves Māori authority, peace and good order?</p></li>
<li><p>could this policy disadvantage Māori in ways that it does not disadvantage others?</p></li>
<li><p>why is the government (or local government) presuming to make this decision?</p></li>
<li><p>why does the decision not, in part or whole, belong to the sphere of tino rangatiratanga?</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Te Tiriti and liberal democracy</h2>
<p>Ultimately, CTA could strengthen the pillars of <a href="https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/43138/book.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">liberal democracy</a>, which developed precisely because people bring different values, experiences and aspirations to public life. Societies need to find fair and orderly ways of managing those differences. Suppressing them is not liberal and it’s not democratic.</p>
<p>When the ACT party formed a <a href="https://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/0811/NationalAct_Agreement.pdf">confidence and supply agreement</a> to support a National minority government in 2010, the <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/national-govt-support-un-rights-declaration">government agreed</a> that New Zealand would accept the United Nations <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf">Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/two-inquiries-find-unfair-treatment-and-healthcare-for-maori-this-is-how-we-fix-it-144939">Two inquiries find unfair treatment and healthcare for Māori. This is how we fix it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The declaration says treaties such as te Tiriti (the Māori text) should be honoured and that Indigenous democratic rights are no less important than anybody else’s. It explains how culture, language and resource rights have implications for what freedom and equality actually mean.</p>
<p>However, democracy doesn’t always meet these ideals. Māori have long been excluded from policy-making, leading to poor outcomes in areas like <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/inquiries/kaupapa-inquiries/health-services-and-outcomes-inquiry/">health</a>.</p>
<p>CTA is intended as a mana-enhancing process based on the intent and actual wording of <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/">te Tiriti</a>. This focus can help ensure government policies reflect Māori understandings, expectations and aspirations. Because if policy making doesn’t reflect these things, Māori are not politically equal – and that’s not liberal or democratic.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-recognition-is-more-than-a-voice-to-government-its-a-matter-of-political-equality-154057">Indigenous recognition is more than a Voice to Government - it's a matter of political equality</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Ensuring a Māori voice</h2>
<p>These are first steps. Further development of CTA would consider how policy processes could be strengthened and how examples of effective policy making may be replicated. </p>
<p>We particularly want to see an active presence of Māori and Māori values in policy processes. This reflects our belief that effective public policy requires robust, critically and culturally informed engagement with the diversity of Māori policy thought and aspirations.</p>
<p>The CTA rationale involves meaningful Māori input throughout but also calls for a “final word” from Māori in the overall policy evaluation process, which should carry considerable weight.</p>
<p>At the same time, CTA does not diminish anyone else’s right to be well served by government policy. It doesn’t interpret te Tiriti to make anyone else feel “lucky to be here”. But it does provide protections against some people using policy to cause harm to others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Came receives research grant funding from the Marsden Fund. She is affiliated with STIR: Stop Institutional Racism.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan and Tim McCreanor do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>David Seymour says misinterpretation of the Treaty risks creating an ‘ethno-state’. But ‘Critical Tiriti Analysis’ aims to enhance democracy by ensuring a Māori voice at the heart of policy making.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityHeather Came, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Public Health, Auckland University of TechnologyTim McCreanor, Professor Race Relations, Health and Wellbeing, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1745092022-02-01T16:34:17Z2022-02-01T16:34:17ZIt’s no surprise liberal democracy is giving way to authoritarianism<p>In recent years, discussion of politics in the west has been peppered with ominous warnings –- democratic backsliding, authoritarian populism, neofascist movements and the end of liberal democracy.</p>
<p>This is of particular concern in countries like the US, which spent much of the last century touting itself as the leader of the “free world”. Now, some are warning that the democracy underpinning America’s role in the world is <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-american-polity-is-cracked-and-might-collapse-canada-must-prepare/">teetering on the brink</a> of far-right authoritarianism.</p>
<p>The history of liberal democracy -– the phrase itself and the countries that claim to represent it -– is rife with cruelty, slavery and disenfranchisement. These have long undermined states’ claims to be liberal democracies. A turn towards authoritarianism is an unsurprising consequence of so-called western liberal democracy itself.</p>
<p>Influential liberal scholars of international relations Michael W. Doyle and Francis Fukuyama both claim that the US was a “liberal democracy” by the late 18th century. Yet the first US census, in 1790, counted 697,624 enslaved people, while the 1860 census showed this figure had risen to almost <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7716878/">4 million</a>. Women, meanwhile, remained without voting and other civil rights. </p>
<p>Doyle and Fukuyama list Great Britain as a liberal democracy at the height of its imperialist activity in the 19th century. They call Belgium a liberal democracy while it <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53017188">routinely mutilated</a> Congolese children to extort more labour from their enslaved parents as recently as the early 20th century.</p>
<p>What was “liberal” or “democratic” about societies in which half the population had no vote because of their sex, and in which millions faced the indignity and dehumanisation of enslavement? In this sense, as anthropologist <a href="https://culanth.org/fieldsights/we-have-never-been-liberal-occidentalist-myths-and-the-impending-fascist-apocalypse">Lilith Mahmud put it</a>, in the west “we have never been liberal”.</p>
<h2>The myth of liberal democracy</h2>
<p>Liberal democracy is what Mahmud calls an “occidentalist myth”, a way of representing the “west” as a coherent political space. It only entered our popular vocabulary <a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=liberal+democracy&year_start=1900&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=0&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cliberal%20democracy%3B%2Cc0">in the 1930s and 1940s</a>, accelerating in use at the height of the second world war. As a concept, it provided a way for Allied countries to define themselves in opposition to the fascism of their Axis enemies. </p>
<p>But fascism – a form of far-right, authoritarian politics often associated with eugenicist racism – is not as alien to these western societies as many of their historians, politicians and citizens suppose. In their imperialist international relations, which were only beginning to wane at the onset of the second world war, self-proclaimed liberal democracies freely practised many of the things that came to be associated with German fascism in the 1930s-40s. </p>
<p>In the societies they colonised, these states exercised <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-colonial-rule-predisposed-africa-to-fragile-authoritarianism-126114">authoritarian political control</a>, used <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/13/france-state-responsible-for-1957-death-of-dissident-maurice-audin-in-algeria-says-macron">arbitrary detention and torture</a>, and pioneered <a href="https://theconversation.com/concentration-camps-in-the-south-african-war-here-are-the-real-facts-112006">concentration camps</a> and <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-shocking-savagery-of-americas-early-history-22739301/">genocidal violence</a>. The poet and anticolonial theorist <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3044019">Aimé Césaire</a> dubbed the rise of fascism in Europe the “boomerang effect”: violent dehumanisation honed in the colonies returning home to Europe.</p>
<p>Authoritarian tendencies are part of the fabric of the liberal democratic state. This is plain enough to see in our current era, where black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups are regularly subjected to <a href="https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/news/our-podcasts-and-blogs/stop-and-search-undermining-confidence-policing-black-communities">racialised police</a> tactics and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53407560">brutality</a>.</p>
<p>A society where this happens may be more accurately described as “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy”, a term coined by the late feminist critic and social theorist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/26/opinion/bell-hooks-death-black.html">bell hooks</a>. It describes a system that benefits from inequality and exploitation, and privileges wealthy, white men at the expense of other groups. </p>
<h2>The neofascist response</h2>
<p>Fear about the rise of fascism and decline of democracy in the west is not the effect of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/nigel-farage-u-k-outsider-finds-a-home-in-donald-trumps-orbit-1490952602">“outsider” populist politicians</a>. It is the internal contradictions of liberal democracy reaching a critical moment.</p>
<p>The actions of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/america-fascism-legal-phase">neofascist forces</a> are a response to newly-energised progressive social movements that have emerged in recent years. In denouncing “political correctness”, attacking feminist and anti-racist values and defending statues of colonialists and slavers, the new far right <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/06/trump-warsaw-speech-us-west-nato-russia">demands a return</a> to the very western values that truly underpin liberal democracy. As bell hooks wrote in 1994:</p>
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<p>The public figures who speak the most to us about a return to old-fashioned values … are most committed to maintaining systems of domination –- racism, sexism, class exploitation and imperialism. </p>
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<p>These sentiments map squarely onto far-right movements in the US, the UK, <a href="https://theconversation.com/pauline-hanson-built-a-political-career-on-white-victimhood-and-brought-far-right-rhetoric-to-the-mainstream-134661">Australia</a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-28/le-pen-joins-french-conservatives-seeking-immigration-referendum">France</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/09/how-matteo-salvini-pulled-italy-to-the-far-right">Italy</a> and the wider west. Until we can recognise that western liberal democracy itself contains the seeds of fascism, and develop viable alternatives, it remains an ever-present danger.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Whitham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The turn towards neofascism is a natural result of so-called western liberal democracy.Ben Whitham, Lecturer in International Relations, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1689472021-10-06T14:18:09Z2021-10-06T14:18:09ZCombating COVID-19 anti-vaxxers: lessons from political philosophy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424223/original/file-20211001-22-1otz9lz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Challenging the scepticism and resistance in the public response to the COVID-19 vaccine is deeply important to the state of public health. This is a critical conversation because people are protesting the COVID-19 vaccines not just in South Africa, but globally too. </p>
<p>As a teacher of political philosophy, I think it’s important to dispel the notion that the call to vaccinate is an infringement on acceptable liberal freedoms. </p>
<p>Based on a significant number of years of studying, reading and teaching the works of the world’s most important philosophies, I am of the view that the anti-vaxxer position that being “forced to take the vaccine is an infringement on their liberal rights” is a misinformed stance. </p>
<p>Through a liberal lens that looks at <a href="https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/philosophy/two-concepts-freedom/content-section-3.3">positive freedom</a> versus <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/">negative freedom</a>, I want to show how taking the vaccine essentially creates positive (or nett) freedom. Anti-vaxxers against the COVID-19 vaccine may be considered selfish by demanding freedom in an absolute sense. Negative freedom supports the idea that there should be no restrictions or boundaries on any free activity. This can become incredibly problematic when it comes to public health.</p>
<p>For example, think of restricting where people can smoke. These are in place to ensure that the majority of people (non-smokers) are protected from the risks associated with passive smoke inhalation.</p>
<p>In a similar vein, anti-vaxxers should perhaps be reprimanded and regulated for not willingly taking the COVID-19 vaccine. The ethical focus is to promote universal immunisation and positive freedom for everyone in society.</p>
<p>The liberal philosophies that we might use to challenge the “anti-vaxxer’s freedom to choose” position are <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/BENITT">Jeremy Bentham’s (1789) Utilitarianism</a>, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/">JS Mill’s (1859) Harm Principle</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3877074">Isiah Berlin’s (1969) reflections on Positive Freedom</a>. </p>
<p>This trajectory of liberal thought over the last 200 years is pivotal to the development of the liberal democratic freedoms we experience today. Let’s unpack the theories a little more.</p>
<h2>What the philosophers have to say</h2>
<p>Let me start by addressing the philosophical dilemma of the anti-vaxxer’s “freedom to choose”.</p>
<p>The need to maintain individual freedoms is the most important mandate of the modern liberal state. </p>
<p>Today’s liberal democratic understanding of freedom (with acceptable restraint) was an idea first conceived over 200 years ago. In political philosophy, Jeremy Bentham’s (1789) Utilitarianism suggests that policies should be created to provide the greatest amount of felicity (or happiness) for the largest portion of society. </p>
<p>This forms the crux of the conversation surrounding COVID-19 vaccinations. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-immunisation-record-risks-being-dented-by-anti-vaccination-views-153549">South Africa's immunisation record risks being dented by anti-vaccination views</a>
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<p>Presently, it is understood that for the sake of public health and the “common good”, all citizens should take one of the certified COVID-19 vaccinations. The reason for this is that it will create a greater nett freedom for everyone in that given society. </p>
<p>The alternative is absolute and unrestrained freedom not to vaccinate, which puts pressure on our common freedoms and could prolong lockdown measures.</p>
<p>Continuing this theme on a positive application of freedom, J.S. Mill (1859) provides us with a sophisticated ethical proposition, the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/utilitas/article/john-stuart-mills-harm-principle-and-free-speech-expanding-the-notion-of-harm/F1D77D5D5F9A4B8AA3BAD4058A9708B4">Harm Principle</a>. This principle suggests simply that we should be free to pursue our individual will, as long as it does not cause harm to someone else. </p>
<p>Whereas it may be an indirect influence, this principle nestles neatly into the ethical position held by many laws and policies passed in liberal democratic societies.</p>
<p>Many countries, including South Africa, have used it in public smoking legislation for instance, by regulating smokers to confined areas in public so that they do not bring harm to non-smokers.</p>
<p>This leads us to ask the same questions about the freedom of movement of unvaccinated people in public. It is unquestionable that someone who refuses the COVID-19 vaccine could effectively bring harm to their broader community. The science is clear on this, crowded hospitals all over South Africa are reporting that almost all COVID-19 related hospitalisations are presently coming from the unvaccinated portion of society. This creates a further detriment to the implementation of positive freedom in society.</p>
<p><a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berlin/">Isaiah Berlin</a>’s (1969) thoughts on positive freedom best diagnoses the dilemma of the anti-vaxxer, as it allows us to ponder their desire for the unrestrained “freedom to choose”. </p>
<p>Absolute and unrestrained freedom is also known by theorists as negative freedom. While negative freedom may sound enticing, it could be severely detrimental to society and communities if applied strictly. It is acceptable in a progressive society that we accept limitations on our freedom, so as not to infringe on the freedoms of others. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/compulsory-covid-19-vaccination-in-nigeria-why-its-illegal-and-a-bad-idea-167396">Compulsory COVID-19 vaccination in Nigeria? Why it's illegal, and a bad idea</a>
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<p>It is important then to convey that the verifiable science on vaccines should not be politicised further.</p>
<p>There is also a link to be made between the African communitarian philosophy of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-archbishop-tutus-ubuntu-credo-teaches-the-world-about-justice-and-harmony-84730">Ubuntu</a> (Humaneness) and positive freedom. Ubuntu remains somewhat of a clichéd call to civic nationalism and the fostering of a mutual help society in a fractured South Africa. </p>
<p>However, the isiZulu phrase, <em>Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu</em>, (I am, because we are) proves an important building block in society. “I am because we are” simply implies that: I am part of my community, where the good I do reflects back onto the society. This can be incredibly significant in the face of vaccine scepticism and anti-vaccination ideas. </p>
<p>South Africans in particular should heed the call of Ubuntu to mobilise toward vaccination, as it advocates for the “common good” and encourages communitarian benefits for broader society. This in turn promotes positive freedom.</p>
<h2>What it adds up to</h2>
<p>There are many debates to be had in an evolving society where freedom of speech and choice will take centre stage. But, in my view, the COVID-19 vaccination shouldn’t be one of them. Armed with ideas such as utilitarianism and the harm principle, the application of positive freedom might see many liberal democracies eventually prohibit the anti-vaxxer’s spread of misinformation and protests against vaccination.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-covid-19-vaccines-should-be-mandatory-in-south-africa-165682">Why COVID-19 vaccines should be mandatory in South Africa</a>
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<p>It is imperative that citizens are made to understand that this is a matter of public health, the science is verifiable, and that 99.9% of the global medical community backs the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. </p>
<p>Hence, getting vaccinated is for the “common good” of society and promotes the more desirable aspects of positive freedom.</p>
<h2>There is no time to delay</h2>
<p>South Africa is a tinderbox for COVID-19 outbreaks and potential virus mutation. Embracing positive freedom’s emphasis on utility and minimising harm, while emphasising the communitarian benefits of vaccinating, provides a clear imperative for action. </p>
<p>The country needs to vaccinate as quickly as possible so that its people can return to some semblance of normal life. A life where all can freely pursue their goals, remaining mindful that freedom without reasonable restraint will inevitably bring harm to others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Giovanni Poggi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many countries, including South Africa, use regulations to control smoking in public so that they do not harm non-smokers. Likewise, getting vaccinated is for the common good of society.Giovanni Poggi, Lecturer in Political Science, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1586982021-08-02T16:13:37Z2021-08-02T16:13:37ZWhy spite could destroy liberal democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414182/original/file-20210802-28-5vfp81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=221%2C565%2C5218%2C3071&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some people spite those who are more successful than them.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/inequality-between-people-concept-1159942408">fran_kie/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As communism imploded in 1989, the American political scientist <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24027184">Francis Fukuyama</a> asked if liberal democracy was “the end of history”, being the form all societies were destined to take. The past decades have suggested not. <a href="https://theconversation.com/europes-illiberal-states-why-hungary-and-poland-are-turning-away-from-constitutional-democracy-89622">Illiberal democracies</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879366509000025">hybrid democratic-authoritarian</a> regimes continue to emerge.</p>
<p>Fukuyama foresaw this possibility. He felt that citizens dissatisfied with liberty and equality <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/133/13399/the-end-of-history-and-the-last-man/9780241991039.html">could destabilise</a> liberal democracy – restarting history as it were. One way they could do so, I realised while <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/simon-mccarthy-jones/spite/9781541646995/">writing a book</a> about spite, is if such dissatisfaction led to spiteful acts. </p>
<p>I therefore believe defenders of liberal democracy must understand the danger of spite. </p>
<h2>The need for recognition</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/133/13399/the-end-of-history-and-the-last-man/9780241991039.html">Fukuyama argued</a> that political struggle causes history. This struggle tries to solve the problem of <em>thymos</em> – an ancient Greek term referring to our desire to have our worth recognised. </p>
<p>This desire can involve wanting to be recognised as equal to others. But it can also involve wanting to be recognised as superior to others. A stable political system needs to accommodate both desires.</p>
<p>Communism and fascism failed, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/133/13399/the-end-of-history-and-the-last-man/9780241991039.html">argued Fukuyama</a>, because they couldn’t solve the problem of recognition. Communism forced people to make humiliating <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Power-of-the-Powerless-Citizens-Against-the-State-in-Central-Eastern/Havel-Keane/p/book/9780873327619">moral compromises</a> with the system. Fascism offered people recognition as members of a racial or national group. Yet it failed after its militarism led to defeat in the second world war.</p>
<p>In contrast, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/133/13399/the-end-of-history-and-the-last-man/9780241991039.html">Fukuyama claimed</a> that liberal democracy could solve the problem of recognition. Granting universal human rights, acknowledging the dignity and worth of all, moved to address desires for equality. Encouraging entrepreneurship, competitive professions, electoral politics and sport created safe outlets for those wanting to be recognised as superior.</p>
<p>But liberty can lead to inequalities, frustrating the desire to be recognised as equal. And measures taken to reduce inequalities can impede the desire to be recognised as superior. </p>
<p>These frustrated urges can lead to a spiteful backlash. This could lead to decision-making that weakens a liberal democracy. It could even rip apart the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueaa004">delicate net of rights</a> that holds liberal democracy together.</p>
<h2>Counter-dominant spite</h2>
<p>A desire for equality is <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/christopher-boehm/moral-origins/9780465029198/">found in</a> contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. Whenever someone gets above themselves, the group will bring them down. Means can range from gossip to murder. </p>
<p>If ancient humans evolved in comparable conditions, we likely evolved <a href="https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/2656">“counter-dominant” tendencies</a>. Indeed, we can see this today in games devised by economists. </p>
<p>In such games, the majority of people, when anonymous, will <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20076295">pay to destroy</a> someone else’s undeserved gains. Furthermore, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165176509002912">nearly half of people</a>, if anonymous, will destroy others’ fairly earned gains. We even see people <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18323447/">paying to</a> punish others who help them, finding the esteem gained by generous people to be threatening. This is called do-gooder derogation.</p>
<p>Counter-dominant spite can weaken liberal democracies. During the 2016 Brexit referendum, <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/simon-mccarthy-jones/spite/9781541646995/">some people in the UK voted Leave</a> to spite elites, knowing this could damage the country’s economy.</p>
<p>Similarly, during the 2016 US presidential election <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/simon-mccarthy-jones/spite/9781541646995/">some voters</a> supported Donald Trump to spite Hillary Clinton, knowing his election could harm the US. Regimes hostile to liberal democracy encouraged such spiteful actions in both the <a href="https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/20720_Ellehuus_GEC_FullReport_FINAL.pdf">UK</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-us-what-is-the-impact-of-russian-interference-in-the-us-presidential-election-146711">US</a>. Ultimately, counter dominance achieved by spitefully <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Road-to-Serfdom/Hayek/p/book/9780415253895">pulling others down</a> risks destroying <a href="https://mises.org/library/ethics-liberty">property rights</a> in a communistic <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-tragedy-of-liberation-9781408837573/">race to the bottom</a>.</p>
<h2>Dominant spite</h2>
<p>The desire to be superior to others, regulated by hunter-gatherer societies, <a href="https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/2656">broke loose</a> about some 10,000 years ago, when agriculture started. People <a href="https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/2656">then lived</a> in larger groups, with more personal resources. Dominance-seeking, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Evolutionary-Psychology-The-New-Science-of-the-Mind/Buss/p/book/9781138088610">also part</a> of our evolved nature, could no longer be easily constrained. </p>
<p>The desire to be seen as better can be socially productive and motivating. Yet it can also lead to what is known as dominant spite. This can involve accepting a loss to retain an advantage over another. For example, many of us would rather <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-11242-003">earn less</a> yet be ahead of our neighbour than earn more and be behind them. Similarly, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9325591/">around 10% of people</a> will accept less if it maximises how far ahead they are of others. In short, dominant spite <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170419-why-paradise-lost-is-one-of-the-worlds-most-important-poems">reflects a desire</a> to rule in hell rather than serve in heaven.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Image of a man spying on neighbour across a fence." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414124/original/file-20210802-16-19ku910.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414124/original/file-20210802-16-19ku910.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414124/original/file-20210802-16-19ku910.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414124/original/file-20210802-16-19ku910.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414124/original/file-20210802-16-19ku910.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414124/original/file-20210802-16-19ku910.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414124/original/file-20210802-16-19ku910.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Keeping an eye on your neighbour?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/mature-man-spying-through-wooden-fence-1173386929">Stephm2506/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Dominant spite is also seen in some people’s <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/6m4ts/">need for chaos</a>. Researchers have found that <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/6m4ts/">around 10%-20% of people</a> endorse statements such as that society should be burned to the ground. This may represent frustrated status seekers who think they could ultimately thrive in the ruins.</p>
<h2>Liberty, equality, democracy?</h2>
<p>To prevent a spiteful descent into hell, we need to understand what triggers spite. We know that spite increases as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.07.007">inequality and competition rise</a>. Do-gooder derogation is <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18323447/">greater in societies</a> where the rule of law and co-operative norms – how acceptable people find tax evasion or fare dodging – are weaker. </p>
<p>An economically growing liberal democracy, seen as lawful and fair, may be the most effective way to address the problem of recognition. Yet this society must still deal with some members believing all inequalities are <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/academic-professional/cultural-studies/Cynical-Theories-Helen-Pluckrose-and-James-Lindsay-9781800750043">the result of oppression</a>, while others think any brake on inequality <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Democracy-The-God-That-Failed-The-Economics-and-Politics-of-Monarchy/Hoppe/p/book/9780765808684">is immoral</a>. Such feelings still leave the door ajar for destructive acts of spite.</p>
<p>Yet, although spite can threaten liberal democracy, it may also save it. When people violate values we find sacred, the activity in the part our brains that deals with cost-benefit analyses <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.181585">is dampened down</a>. This encourages us to act regardless of what harm may come to us, allowing us to spite the other.</p>
<p>At the end of history, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/133/13399/the-end-of-history-and-the-last-man/9780241991039.html">Fukuyama argued</a>, people would no longer risk their lives for causes once deemed sacred. But if no one felt liberal democracy was sacred, who would risk themselves to defend it?</p>
<p>To defend liberal democracy, it must be held sacred. This is what motivates its defenders to “go on to the end… whatever the cost may be”, as Winston Churchill <a href="https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1940-the-finest-hour/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches/">once put it</a>. Spite may pull liberal democracy apart, but it may also be the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/moral-man-and-immoral-society-9780826477149/">sublime madness</a> that saves it from tyranny.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158698/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon McCarthy-Jones receives funding from the Irish Research Council.</span></em></p>Some people may be spiteful to pull others down, while others act this way to get ahead.Simon McCarthy-Jones, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1348942020-03-27T08:10:05Z2020-03-27T08:10:05ZTracking your location and targeted texts: how sharing your data could help in New Zealand’s level 4 lockdown<p>New Zealand and much of the world is now under an unprecedented lockdown. <a href="https://theconversation.com/overjoyed-a-leading-health-expert-on-new-zealands-coronavirus-shutdown-and-the-challenging-weeks-ahead-134395">Public health experts say</a> this is the best way to suppress the spread of the virus. But how long will such a lockdown be socially sustainable? </p>
<p>As someone who’s worked in the mobile device software industry and now lectures on business analytics at the University of Auckland, I’d argue technology could play a bigger role in ensuring more New Zealanders <a href="https://covid19.govt.nz/government-actions/covid-19-alert-level/">stay home</a> to save lives. </p>
<p>Data analytics, based on our <a href="https://theconversation.com/privacy-vs-pandemic-government-tracking-of-mobile-phones-could-be-a-potent-weapon-against-covid-19-134895">mobile phone usage</a>, would allow us to provide a mixture of incentives and gentle <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-richard-thaler-won-the-2017-economics-nobel-prize-85404">nudges</a> to do the right thing, while also supplying crucial information for health researchers. </p>
<p>But using mobile phone data can be a threat to personal privacy: critics rightly warn that once tracking systems are put in place, those in power have little incentive to remove them. While we need to act quickly to stop the virus spread, we also need to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/technology/coronavirus-surveillance-tracking-privacy.html">respect personal privacy</a>. </p>
<p>So what more could New Zealand be doing to use our phones and our love of the internet to fight COVID-19?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-nz-goes-into-lockdown-authorities-have-new-powers-to-make-sure-people-obey-the-rules-134377">As NZ goes into lockdown, authorities have new powers to make sure people obey the rules</a>
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<h2>Using big data for the greater good</h2>
<p>Different nations have chosen different models to fight coronavirus – and some of those approaches clash with our values in New Zealand. </p>
<p>While some point to the success of China’s lockdown of Wuhan as a model of how to stamp out transmission, the scenes of people literally <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/06/warning-chinese-authoritarianism-is-hazardous-your-health/">welded inside</a> their apartment buildings shouldn’t be forgotten. Clearly, that is not what we want our society to look like.</p>
<p>But the social problem we face in New Zealand now is a classical liberal dilemma: pitting individual rights to free movement and privacy against those of the community. Right now, given the scale and severity of COVID-19, it is currently the right choice to prioritise community health and safety over individual rights. </p>
<p>That means some of our normal concerns about digital privacy may have to be temporarily overridden in favour of a greater good. However, we must remain true to our liberal traditions and continue to try to balance individual and community rights. </p>
<h2>What New Zealand can learn from overseas</h2>
<p>Europe has strong privacy laws but has also <a href="https://apnews.com/711ec49215d39d1c420622ade1a18f93">endorsed the use of personal data</a> in a limited set of circumstances to fight the spread of the virus.</p>
<p>While the United States and Europe struggle with containment, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-singapores-coronavirus-response-worked-and-what-we-can-all-learn-134024">Singapore</a> seems to have escaped some of the worst effects of the virus. Tracking information voluntarily provided by <a href="https://www.gov.sg/article/help-speed-up-contact-tracing-with-tracetogether">a contact tracing app on mobile phones</a> has made it possible to find people who have been in contact with infected people. </p>
<p>Other nations are beginning to <a href="https://www.top10vpn.com/news/surveillance/covid-19-digital-rights-tracker/">implement similar solutions</a> but valid concerns about privacy remain.</p>
<p>Tracking applications on phones or using the data mobile network operators collect could allow authorities to trace the prior movements of people found to be infected, and test those they came into contact with. Israel has implemented a system designed to <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-unveils-app-that-uses-tracking-to-tell-users-if-they-were-near-virus-cases-1.8702055">protect user privacy</a>.</p>
<p>Crucially, both <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/25/coronavirus-singapore-to-make-contact-tracing-tech-open-source.html">Singapore</a> and <a href="https://medium.com/proferosec-osm/hamagen-application-fighiting-the-corona-virus-4ecf55eb4f7c">Israel</a> have committed to making their software freely available through copyright-free, open-source licences. This means software developers wouldn’t have to start from scratch in implementing similar solutions here in New Zealand.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-singapores-coronavirus-response-worked-and-what-we-can-all-learn-134024">Why Singapore's coronavirus response worked – and what we can all learn</a>
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<h2>Safeguards and time limits on digital surveillance</h2>
<p>We can and should take advantage of this opportunity. Until recently, the adoption of such <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/countries-tracking-citizens-phones-coronavirus-2020-3?r=US&IR=T">tools for surveillance would be unprecedented</a> and concerning for many, myself included. Before the crisis, tech companies’ use of big data to monitor and track people’s everyday habits was increasingly coming under scrutiny by legislators across the globe. </p>
<p>To gain acceptance, the public needs to have confidence that more intrusive data collection is necessary for public health, that it will not have negative effects for them or enrich others at their expense, and that it will be shut down after the crisis. </p>
<p>Any system implemented in New Zealand needs to have a clear end date, with public reporting and independent oversight. For instance, that public reporting could be done via <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/412520/special-committee-set-up-as-parliament-is-adjourned">the new cross-party committee</a> led by opposition leader Simon Bridges, which is scrutinising the government’s response to COVID-19. Once the crisis is over, the program needs to be shut down.</p>
<p>What kind of tracking and targeted public health prompts might be possible in New Zealand? </p>
<p>Mobile phone companies can use standard GPS and triangulation between phone towers to track your location when you’re out. One possible idea would be for mobile phone network providers to use their real-time data to text message people who appear to be a long way from home – in breach of the <a href="https://covid19.govt.nz/government-actions/covid-19-alert-level/">level 4 lockdown rules</a>, unless you’re working for an <a href="https://covid19.govt.nz/government-actions/covid-19-alert-level/essential-businesses/">essential business</a>.</p>
<p>These automated messages would be sent by an algorithm if certain criteria were met, and could remind people of lockdown rules and let them know their choices have consequences for others. </p>
<p>It appears that New Zealand is already exploring how it can use software in these kinds of ways. As <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120518745/could-nz-use-mobile-phones-to-trace-the-contacts-of-covid19-cases">Stuff has reported</a>, the director-general of health has been holding early talks with the private sector – including software developers and mobile network operators – about using technology in the fight against COVID-19.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/privacy-vs-pandemic-government-tracking-of-mobile-phones-could-be-a-potent-weapon-against-covid-19-134895">Privacy vs pandemic: government tracking of mobile phones could be a potent weapon against COVID-19</a>
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<h2>Free data, discounted internet: ideas to keep people home</h2>
<p>Incentives could also encourage New Zealanders to follow social distancing rules. </p>
<p>Modern analytics allow us to target incentives at specific individuals or groups deemed to be at higher risk of flouting the level 4 rules. One idea worth considering would be paying internet and mobile service providers to offer discounts or other incentives for people staying home: such as free mobile data at home for those who don’t have wifi, subsidised internet for those working or studying from home, or game subscriptions or access to online classes.</p>
<p>Such incentives would likely be paid for out of the public purse. But targeted analytics could minimise costs while maximising the health benefits for us all – potentially ending New Zealand’s lockdown sooner.</p>
<p>These types of policies could also have positive economic effects. For instance, at a time when some of those households might have difficulty paying internet or phone bills, such incentives could enable some lower-income people to stay employed by having more opportunities to work from home, or provide children without current internet access at home with the ability to keep learning while schools are closed.</p>
<p>These are just a few ideas that could be effective. The difference between ideas such as these and those employed by surveillance states is that they use analytics to nudge people to make better choices, rather than relying solely on policing people in a heavy-handed manner.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon MacKay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Automated text messages if your phone detects you’re a long way from home, or discounted home internet, are just a few possible technology solutions to make New Zealanders “stay home to save lives”.Jon MacKay, Lecturer, Business Analytics, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1333202020-03-16T16:23:16Z2020-03-16T16:23:16ZIsrael’s democracy is at a crossroads, as Benny Gantz given chance to form a government<p>After Israel’s third election in a year in early March, parties opposing Benjamin Netanyahu – the Israeli prime minister known as Bibi – secured a <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium-israel-election-2020-netanyahu-gantz-1.8627591">small majority in parliament</a>. In a blow to Netanyahu, on March 15 these parties informed the Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin, that his rival Benny Gantz – the leader of the Blue and White list, a big tent political alliance – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/israels-opposition-head-benny-gantz-wins-support-to-form-government">should be given the mandate to form a government</a>. Gantz now has up to six weeks to complete this task.</p>
<p>In addition to losing his Likud party’s parliamentary majority, Netanyahu is due to go to trial <a href="https://time.com/5803405/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-trial-postponed/">in May</a> for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/18/benjamin-netanyahu-trial-to-begin-on-17-march-says-israel-justice-ministry">alleged corruption</a>, facing charges including breach of trust, accepting bribes and fraud. And yet, it’s not clear whether the Netanyahu era is over, as the anti-Netanyahu majority in Israel’s parliament is fractured. </p>
<p>Gantz’s political positions on many of the big issues have remained rather vague, but he has taken a strong stance against government corruption and <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-says-if-he-were-pm-hed-step-down-if-indicted/">in favour of</a> prime ministerial term limits. </p>
<p>To form a government, he will need the support of the remains of the Labor coalition and of the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) list. That is the (relatively) easy part. The more complicated part of forming a coalition will be how to deal with the Joint List, an alliance of Arab-majority political parties which has emerged as a serious electoral force. </p>
<p>Gantz will need to secure support from the Joint List to form a working coalition in parliament, and at the same time, make sure the more hawkish members of his own party do not jump ship. Whether he can or not has long-term consequences for Israeli democracy.</p>
<p><iframe id="XXFHv" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/XXFHv/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Down a slippery slope</h2>
<p>Israel has undergone some significant legal changes under the rule of right-wing governments since 2015. A controversial <a href="https://en.idi.org.il/articles/24241">Nation-State Bill</a> adopted in July 2019 highlighted Israel’s Jewish identity, while ignoring fundamental democratic and equality principles. </p>
<p>Other bills that would weaken the judiciary have been proposed by legislators who support Netanyahu, including the “<a href="https://www.english.acri.org.il/post/___62">override clause</a>” that would enable parliament to bypass the High Court. There have also been attempts to politicise the media. One of the court cases against Netanyahu involves his alleged offer of lucrative deals to media tycoons in exchange for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/world/middleeast/netanyahu-corruption-indicted.html">favourable coverage</a>. </p>
<p>Over the course of the past year, Netanyahu’s party has also negotiated <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/world/middleeast/benjamin-netanyahu-otzma-yehudit-jewish-power.html">various pacts</a> with Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) a far-right overtly racist party, in an attempt to secure a right-wing majority. During the 2019 and 2020 election campaigns, Netanyahu and his partners used <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-elections-netanyahu-body-cameras-arab-voters-a8862131.html">harsh</a> and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium-netanyahu-s-new-election-message-arabs-want-to-annihilate-us-all-1.7832283">inflammatory</a> language against Arabs. The underlying goal of these statements was to question the loyalty of Arab citizens to the Israeli state, and the legitimacy of their political participation. </p>
<p>These actions matter. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/trump-effect-an-experimental-investigation-of-the-emboldening-effect-of-racially-inflammatory-elite-communication/0335108B8E4AF36CBFFA1E45816C6143">Research</a> conducted in the US shows that when leaders use inflammatory language, citizens who hold prejudiced views are more likely to express and act upon their prejudices. Another <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajps.12449">study</a> looking at 17 European countries found that the presence of far-right parties in parliament can cause voters on both sides of the political divide to move further to the extremes. </p>
<p>With attacks on the <a href="https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/03/30/the-success-of-binyamin-netanyahus-divisive-politics-in-israel">elite</a> and references to the “<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-claims-gantz-trying-to-steal-vote-over-bill-to-block-him-from-power/">will of the people</a>”, Netanyahu is practising textbook populism. This is a direct threat to Israeli democracy.</p>
<h2>Threats to democracy</h2>
<p>There are two main groups among the world’s democratic regimes. The first is liberal democracies, characterised by protections of individual and political liberties, the rule of law, judicial and legislative oversight of the executive, and of course: free and fair elections. </p>
<p>The second, the group of electoral democracies, also generally have open and competitive elections and guarantee reasonable freedoms of association and expression. However, in contrast to liberal democracies, they fall short when it comes to protection of individual liberties, the rule of law and oversight of the executive.</p>
<p>Scholars at the <a href="https://www.v-dem.net/en/">Varieties of Democracy Institute</a> (V-Dem) – a democracy studies centre that I was involved with – concluded in 2018 that Israel had moved into a grey zone between <a href="https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/68/51/685150f0-47e1-4d03-97bc-45609c3f158d/v-dem_annual_dem_report_2018.pdf">electoral and liberal democracy</a>. </p>
<p>V-Dem’s data can help shed light on the trajectory of democracy in Israel. The data is collected by administrating thousands of detailed surveys to experts from across the world, asking them to provide scores on various aspects of democracy. </p>
<h2>Democracy holding up, for now</h2>
<p>The graphs below present trends in three key aspects of democracy: the deliberative (the degree to which political decisions are based on respectful dialogue), egalitarian (whether members of all groups are able to participate and exercise their rights) and liberal dimensions. Broadly speaking, higher values indicate a more liberal democratic regime. Alongside the US and Israel, also included are Poland and Hungary: two other countries that have moved into electoral democracy territory from liberal democracy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319808/original/file-20200311-116240-102ij2x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319808/original/file-20200311-116240-102ij2x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319808/original/file-20200311-116240-102ij2x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319808/original/file-20200311-116240-102ij2x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319808/original/file-20200311-116240-102ij2x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319808/original/file-20200311-116240-102ij2x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319808/original/file-20200311-116240-102ij2x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319808/original/file-20200311-116240-102ij2x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The trajectory of democracy in Israel, in perspective.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.v-dem.net/en/">V-Dem</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>The graphs show that overall, Israel experienced a much slower decline in its level of democracy compared to other countries in which liberal democracy has been challenged – at least up until 2018. If we incorporate the statistical uncertainty, captured by the vertical lines on each side of the dots in the graph, we can see that experts are quite uncertain as to whether there has been a decline at all. </p>
<p>Still, there is a caveat: since the data covers the period up to 2018, it doesn’t take into account the recent developments in Israel, including the recent electoral campaigns. </p>
<p>At least in terms of the time period, perhaps most comparable to Israel is the Polish case, where the right-wing Law and Justice party took over in 2015, the same year Netanyahu formed his first genuine right-wing coalition. Although the data indicate that in 2018, the two countries were similar in terms of their overall level of democracy, the Polish decline has been much sharper. Meanwhile, Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has drifted further into electoral democracy in the nine years since he took office. And the data for the US is most alarming for proponents of liberal democracy. </p>
<p>This research could indicate that despite the attacks by Bibi and his allies, democratic norms and institutions in Israel have proven to be resilient. Still, based on recent events in Israel and trends in other countries, supporters of liberal democracy should hope that the forces opposing Netanyahu-style politics will be able to overcome their differences and form a government. </p>
<p>If they fail and Bibi stays in power, there will be more attacks on democratic institution and norms. It may not be the end of democracy in Israel, but it will most likely lead to hollower version of it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eitan Tzelgov does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Benjamin Netanyahu’s rival, Benny Gantz, has improved his chances of becoming prime minister of Israel.Eitan Tzelgov, Lecturer in Politics, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1198942019-07-07T09:03:35Z2019-07-07T09:03:35ZDonor-funded journalism is on the rise in Africa: why it needs closer scrutiny<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282696/original/file-20190704-51278-17ghca9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some African journalists are concerned that foreign funders may influence what they cover and how. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Jayden Joshua</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An enormous and increasing portion of the foreign development aid coming into Africa annually is for media development. Foreign aid funds diverse projects, ranging from investigative journalism in Nigeria, to stories on Chinese building projects in Kenya, or health reporting in South Africa. </p>
<p>The news media landscape and journalism practices – on the continent as well as globally – have undergone massive change in recent times. This, coupled with the collapse of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-economic-questions-are-key-to-africas-media-freedom-debate-96429">familiar business models</a>, and the limited potential for genuinely independent “watchdog” journalism, the relationship between external influences on local cultures and practices of journalism needs to be reassessed.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cima.ned.org/publication/confronting-the-crisis-in-independent-media/">A report</a> last year, by the American <a href="https://www.cima.ned.org/">Centre for International Media Assistance</a>, concluded that about US$600 million a year is spent on media development in Africa by state and private funders. This may exceed a billion dollars if the opaque amount China spends on media operations and training globally is included. <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2018/04/going-out-china-in-african-media">Much of this is focused on Africa</a>.</p>
<p>But how does this aid influence journalism in Africa? </p>
<p>Our recent international <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23743670.2018.1474121">study</a> examined the impact of foreign development aid on media systems in seven African countries. These were Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Senegal, South Africa and Sudan. A <a href="http://www.alaic.org/journal/index.php/jlacr/article/viewFile/315/160">separate report</a> focused on Latin America.</p>
<p>We witnessed parallel and intensifying debates among media workers in developing countries who accept (or depend on) foreign funding. Funders themselves are also increasingly <a href="https://www.peterlang.com/abstract/title/65486?rskey=AIyXje&result=1">reflecting on their objectives</a> and how they measure success. And, the role of foundations in funding journalism is <a href="https://www.cjr.org/analysis/foundation-funding-journalism.php">coming under increasing scrutiny</a>.</p>
<p>Much of the media aid industry still holds the view that media workers and institutions in the South should emulate their counterparts in the North. But, our study took a different approach. We asked to what extent a flow of foreign money has affected the ability of developing regions to foster a critical and independent media sector. </p>
<h2>Chinese versus Western perspectives</h2>
<p>Journalists who took part in our project worried that the foreign assistance or travel they’ve received may limit the stories they can tell, or influence the way they tell them. On the other hand, they often feared that without foreign financial support, critical journalism in their countries would vanish.</p>
<p>The colonial powers of Britain, France, and Portugal still <a href="https://www.surlejournalisme.com/rev/index.php/slj/article/view/73/25">cast a long shadow over Africa’s media</a>. More recently, however, African media has been shaped by the US and China. Many foreign interventions are small like the funding of a single investigative news story, for example. But some are massive.</p>
<p>Since the end of the Second World War in <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/02/world/btn-end-of-wwii/index.html">1945</a>, foreign aid has been directed at disseminating a model of journalism practice and education that aligns with the interests of wealthy, Northern donor nations. Chinese involvement in Africa has led to questions being asked about the assumptions underpinning Western media funding and training. </p>
<p>Because Chinese media are based on a very different model, their initiatives have caused anxiety among journalists and <a href="https://rsf.org/en/reports/rsf-report-chinas-pursuit-new-world-media-order">commentators</a> steeped in the liberal-democratic tradition. This tradition emphasises the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-media-should-beware-of-being-the-voice-of-only-some-85911">“watchdog” role of journalism</a>.</p>
<p>Chinese media, on the other hand, adopt a more persuasive and positive tone and favour official perspectives. This, while taking a critical view of the history of Western involvement in Africa. This approach is sometimes called <a href="https://www.journals.uio.no/index.php/TJMI/article/view/2403">“constructive journalism”</a>. It promises to present Africa in a more positive light than the stereotypes that have <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Africas-Media-Image-in-the-21st-Century-From-the-Heart-of-Darkness/Bunce-Franks-Paterson/p/book/9781138962323">historically characterised Western coverage</a>.</p>
<p>The establishment of Chinese media outlets such as <a href="https://www.cgtn.com/">China Global Television Network</a>, the wire service <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/">Xinhua</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-radio/">China Radio International</a> in Africa have been seen as part of China’s strategy to increase its visibility overseas.</p>
<p>Simultaneously, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23743670.2018.1473271">the cultural diplomacy component of media aid</a> has seen African journalists receive offers for paid travel to Europe, North America, and especially to China. </p>
<p>We know little about how these exchanges – and other forms of foreign investment by corporate or religious institutions – affect African media and the stories they tell.</p>
<p>The fear is that the Chinese model, because of the government’s control over the media, is dangerous to introduce in African countries where press freedom has often come under attack. </p>
<p>But fears about a major shift may be overblown or premature given that <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/7809">research</a> has shown that the influence of Chinese media on journalists and audiences in Africa remains minimal. </p>
<p>For its part, Western aid has resulted in an <a href="https://journals.co.za/content/glomed_africa/5/1/EJC34950">Anglo-American culture of journalism</a> education which has proved impractical to implement in countries with illiberal political regimes. </p>
<h2>A quandary</h2>
<p>Should under-resourced African journalists accept any foreign funding? </p>
<p>This is a difficult question. There are risks that come from shunning aid. This includes missed opportunities to develop African media or report independently on local power brokers. </p>
<p>On the other hand, aid can be used to coerce journalists to change their norms and practices unduly.</p>
<p>Media producers and users in developing countries need to be more vigilant about foreign media support. And they need to evaluate it. For citizens in countries that provide such aid, the challenge is to scrutinise the efforts made in their name.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The study upon which this article is based, was an AHRC/DfID funded project: Development Assistance and Independent Journalism in Africa and Latin America: A Cross-National and Multidisciplinary Research Network (AH/P00606X/1). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Audrey Gadzekpo received funding from the AHRC/DfID for this project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Paterson received funding from the AHRC/DfID for this project.
</span></em></p>Western aid has resulted in an Anglo-American culture of journalism education which has proved impractical to implement in African countries with illiberal political regimes.Herman Wasserman, Professor of Media Studies and Director of the Centre for Film and Media Studies, University of Cape TownAudrey Gadzekpo, Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, University of GhanaChris Paterson, Senior Lecturer in International Communication, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1170852019-05-16T21:01:05Z2019-05-16T21:01:05ZAre we witnessing the death of liberal democracy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274456/original/file-20190514-60560-hzguyf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3500%2C2331&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to the White House on May 13, 2019. Strongmen like Orbán are increasingly gaining ground as the death knell sounds for liberal democracy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>All over the world, alarm bells are ringing for democracy. Everywhere we find strongmen in charge, enraged citizens and a desperate search for explanations and remedies. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-philippines-midterm-elections-duterte-20190514-story.html">Rodrigo Duterte</a>’s Philippines. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/13/trump-latest-viktor-orban-hungary-prime-minister-white-house">Viktor Orbán</a>’s Hungary. <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-to-repel-netanyahu-s-attack-on-democracy-the-israeli-left-must-find-its-inner-rage-1.7241480">Benjamin Netanyahu</a>’s Israel. Maybe something’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/13/american-conservatives-are-new-fellow-travelers/?utm_term=.c5b2453d86e2">even going wrong in the United States.</a></p>
<p>In 1992, <a href="https://en.hromadske.ua/posts/francis-fukuyama-on-identity-dignity-and-threats-to-liberal-democracy">political theorist Francis Fukuyama</a> declared there was finally a solution to the riddle: “Who should rule, and why?” The answer: liberal democracy.</p>
<p>A generation later, Fukuyama’s declaration is not wearing well.</p>
<p>As it turns out, the structural flaw that would hobble liberal democracy had actually been identified 30 years earlier, <a href="https://doi.org/10.7202/1032806ar">in a study called <em>Possessive Individualism</em></a> by University of Toronto political scientist Crawford Brough Macpherson.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274457/original/file-20190514-60545-142mb2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274457/original/file-20190514-60545-142mb2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274457/original/file-20190514-60545-142mb2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274457/original/file-20190514-60545-142mb2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274457/original/file-20190514-60545-142mb2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274457/original/file-20190514-60545-142mb2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274457/original/file-20190514-60545-142mb2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274457/original/file-20190514-60545-142mb2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An undated photo of Macpherson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Creative Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He pointed out that liberal democracy was a contradiction in terms. From the 16th century to the 20th, classical liberals of the British tradition had argued for the rights of the “individual.” In theory and practice, though, they only counted a person as an individual (almost always male) who had command over himself and his possessions, including human ones.</p>
<p>For all his inspiring words about government created by and responsive to “the people,” supposedly liberal philosopher John Locke, <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/does-lockes-entanglement-with-slavery-undermine-his-philosophy">investor in the slave trade,</a> had a narrow view of who got to be considered a rights-bearing individual.</p>
<p>The key was property. Society was little more than an agreement among the privileged to respect each other’s property rights.</p>
<h2>Hardly pro-democracy</h2>
<p>These liberals were not democrats, but after the rise of industrial capitalism, they had to respond to growing populations of working people with their own, often democratic, ideas. Generations of liberals, <a href="https://mises.org/library/john-stuart-mill-and-new-liberalism">with John Stuart Mill at the helm</a>, struggled to reconcile their assumptions about free-standing individuals who owned property with the democratic demands of the exploited and excluded.</p>
<p>Until the 1960s, a softer, gentler liberalism seemed to gain ground. The privileges of propertied individuals were preserved, but at a price: welfare programs, unions, public education, housing and health and, worst of all, taxes.</p>
<p>Still, liberals ultimately had to choose between democracy and capitalism. They might find themselves defending both the rights of workers to unionize and of factory owners to fire them, for example. Which should prevail? Macpherson feared the fall-back answer for liberals, whatever their democratic posturing, would often be the owners.</p>
<p>Macpherson’s critics painted him as “yesterday’s thinker.” Didn’t he realize, they asked, that liberals had found a sweet spot — harmonizing the public and the private, the people and the propertied, the many and the few?</p>
<h2>Macpherson’s prescience</h2>
<p>Today, more than three decades after his death, Macpherson’s diagnosis — that the acquisitive drive of unfettered capitalism poses a stark challenge to liberty and democracy — seems very prescient.</p>
<p>Liberal democracy has fallen into a world crisis.</p>
<p>Liberal democrats were working to make democracy safe for property, but to their right were hard-nosed businessmen, economists and politicians working on an extreme makeover of liberal democracy that came to be called “neo-liberalism.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-exactly-is-neoliberalism-84755">What exactly is neoliberalism?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Outraged by infringements on capital, determined to roll back socialism and seeing the market as near-infallible, this determined cadre of conservative intellectuals created a movement of reactionary resistance.</p>
<p>Regulations impeding the free flow of capital were demolished. Once-powerful labour movements were eviscerated.</p>
<p>Liberated from effective regulation, financial institutions developed global chains of indebtedness and speculation which, even after the crisis of 2007, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/aug/06/decade-after-financial-meltdown-underlying-problems-not-fixed">have attained pervasive influence</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-americas-labor-unions-are-about-to-die-69575">Why America's labor unions are about to die</a>
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</em>
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<p>After three decades of pious liberal hand-wringing, the world is set <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-un/global-temperatures-on-track-for-3-5-degree-rise-by-2100-u-n-idUSKCN1NY186">to warm by three to five degrees</a> Celsius by 2100, a catastrophe <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending-climate-change-end-capitalism">attributable to unregulated capitalism.</a></p>
<h2>Liberal toolbox of no use</h2>
<p>The propertied patterns underlying these civilization-threatening developments cannot be grasped, let alone resisted, using a liberal toolbox.</p>
<p>In the possessive individualism of classical liberalism, we find the seeds of today’s democracy crisis. A devotion to property over people is democracy in chains and a planet in peril.</p>
<p>Countless people experience the precariousness wrought by this extreme makeover of the world’s liberal order. A neoliberal world, by design, offers minimal security —in employment, social stability, even in reliable networks of knowledge helping us reach reasoned understandings about the world in the company of our fellow citizens.</p>
<p>People longing for security confront, instead, an unintelligible, turbulent world seemingly bent on destroying any prospect of it. Insecurity breeds acute and often angry anxiety. <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2105%2FAJPH.2017.304187">It prompts a search for sanctuary</a> in anti-depressants, opioids and alcohol. A deliberately starved state sector leaves only a few short steps between you and social and economic ruin.</p>
<p>Even the reasoned consideration of factual evidence recedes in a neoliberal world where every institution — newspapers, universities, the state itself — is rethinking itself in neoliberal terms. This very precariousness is represented, not as culturally and psychologically damaging, but as freedom itself.</p>
<p>In this climate, a pervasive culture of militarism offers beleaguered individuals at least the solace of an imagined national community. Our daily work may be regimented, pointless and insecure, but at least we can imagine, beyond it, a world of collective noble endeavour and selfless courage in defence of the nation.</p>
<p>In this militarized culture, many people are plainly looking for strongmen who can stand up for the nation. And around the world, including our corner of it, they’re finding them.</p>
<h2>Responding to nationalism</h2>
<p>The sovereign political paradox of our time is that a global army of people — precarious, harried, anxious, angry, disenfranchised and above all divested of all social rights to reasonably secure and prosperous livelihoods — <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/political-science/2018/nov/20/why-is-populism-suddenly-so-sexy-the-reasons-are-many">is responding avidly to nationalist movements</a> that, on closer inspection, are likely offer them more extreme versions of the hardships they are already enduring.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274458/original/file-20190514-60537-1ojl7wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274458/original/file-20190514-60537-1ojl7wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274458/original/file-20190514-60537-1ojl7wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274458/original/file-20190514-60537-1ojl7wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274458/original/file-20190514-60537-1ojl7wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274458/original/file-20190514-60537-1ojl7wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274458/original/file-20190514-60537-1ojl7wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nationalism is gaining in popularity. In this April 2016 photo, a man walks during a protest in Stone Mountain, Ga.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Bazemore)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Macpherson challenge — to liberate democracy from its neoliberal chains by rethinking property relations right down to their foundations — is daunting, but not unprecedented.</p>
<p>There will be conflict, pain and sacrifice in the long revolution to retrieve democracy and the liberties once sincerely defended by liberals. There will also be excitement and energy. The 21st century is already echoing with cries of dynamic, often youthful participants in such struggles, as they challenge the extreme makeover that has so convulsed contemporary life and placed liberal democracy in question.</p>
<p>They know the hour is late. The stakes could not be higher.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117085/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian McKay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Liberal democracy is in trouble, and the seeds of its demise can be found in the property rights so cherished by so-called liberals generations ago.Ian McKay, Director of the Wilson Institute for Canadian History, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1148682019-04-10T08:50:23Z2019-04-10T08:50:23ZBrexit: the differing versions of democracy deployed by both sides of Britain’s political impasse<p>Brexit is a deeply divisive issue. Even democracy itself turns out to be a source of disagreement. For some, democracy requires the UK to leave the EU quickly and by whatever means necessary to respect the result of the 2016 referendum. For others, democracy means a second referendum with the possibility of reversing the decision to leave.</p>
<p>How can the idea of democracy support two such seemingly contradictory conclusions? One body of expert knowledge that is particularly good at helping us to make sense of conundrums of this sort is democratic theory, a form of theory that seeks to both define democracy and evaluate actual democratic practices and institutions. </p>
<p>Democracy means “rule by the people”. But since the range of possible meanings that can be attributed to the terms “rule” and “people” are so numerous, democratic theory starts from the assumption that this basic definition does not take us very far.</p>
<p>Democracy means different things to different people and so the word has been attached to a range of different concepts and supporting theories. Liberal democracy, republican democracy, socialist democracy, participatory democracy and deliberative democracy are perhaps some of the more familiar terms.</p>
<p>The fact that there are so many different theories is a reminder that the meaning of democracy is not settled and that actual democracies are a work in progress. But it becomes a problem when people who use the term democracy to defend their views are either unable or unwilling to explain what they mean by it. Which brings us back to Brexit.</p>
<h2>Liberal democracy</h2>
<p>Often those who are pro-Brexit claim that a second referendum would <a href="http://commentcentral.co.uk/the-fallacy-of-a-second-referendum/">undermine people’s trust</a> in democracy. Presumably, those who hold this view believe that a second referendum would represent a departure from “rule by the people”. Yet those calling for a second referendum argue that if parliament were to decide that a second referendum is required, then this wouldn’t represent a departure from democracy <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-vote-theresa-may-ed-davey-confidence-final-say-people-vote-a8729356.html">since parliament is sovereign</a>. </p>
<p>What’s key here is understanding what kind of democracy each side of the debate believes it is upholding. </p>
<p>Presumably, for those arguing that the 2016 referendum must be respected at all costs, democracy means that if I roll the dice and win, I cannot be compelled to role the dice again. For the sake of argument, let us suppose this to be based on <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GxjdOk-ZeccC&pg=PR7&lpg=PR7&dq=Is+Democracy+Possible+Here?+chapter+5&source=bl&ots=a5lngTb49L&sig=ACfU3U0B059ySnqzwwv-ofA1qyF-gmiJZA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjc89OL9MDhAhXbVBUIHZveArwQ6AEwBXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Is%20Democracy%20Possible%20Here%3F%20chapter%205&f=false">liberal democratic theory</a>. </p>
<p>While liberal theories come in different forms, they normally insist that individuals and their rights are what matter most. As long as we act within our rights, government is duty bound not to try to tell us what to think. Each of us has a right to form a view about Brexit. It follows that government must respect those views without further question – its sole job is to aggregate those views into a collectively binding decision. And just as it is not the government’s place to tell us what to think, it is not its place to require us to reconsider our earlier decisions. </p>
<h2>Deliberative democracy</h2>
<p>So what theory of democracy might be called upon to support those who claim that a second referendum should be welcomed? One obvious candidate is <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Why_Deliberative_Democracy.html?id=1qaOH4GWG8cC">deliberative democracy</a>. On a deliberative view, political decisions ought to be decided on their merits. Of course, people are still entitled to their views. But what they cannot do is simply impose those views on others. Since political decisions are collectively binding they should be mutually justifiable. People should give reasons for their views but should be equally willing to listen to what others have to say. </p>
<p>In the ideal case, the result is a consensus. However, since in reality consensus is very hard to reach – time is often short, evidence tends to be incomplete, and risks and benefits can be highly uncertain – decisions will typically need to be treated as provisional. In other words, an initial decision can always be revisited. On a deliberative view, therefore, a second referendum may actually be required now amid the Brexit stalemate. Short of a consensus, people should continue to test their views and in principle be prepared to change them.</p>
<p>The upshot, therefore, is that different democratic theories are likely to give different answers to the same question. Even so, it’s surely better to know what we’re arguing over when we disagree about democracy than to find ourselves at odds without ever really understanding why. </p>
<p>Democratic theory is not easy. But it is parliamentarians’ responsibility to “do” democratic theory on our behalf – and be clearly seen to do so. Unfortunately, all too many of them seem ill-equipped or unwilling. The former might be forgiven, the latter should never be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian O'Flynn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What sort of democracy is now required to break the Brexit deadlock?Ian O'Flynn, Senior Lecturer in Political Theory, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1061362018-11-18T15:31:37Z2018-11-18T15:31:37ZHow schools can foster civic discussion in an age of incivility<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245160/original/file-20181112-83582-16jocfv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Schools have the opportunity to develop students’ voices and agency to shape greater political civility and civic engagement.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/girl-mouth-megaphone-vector-illustration-pop-1007010427?src=_SAScpaVQEW5hCs6xywgZw-1-27">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What is the role of classrooms in an era of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/curi.12000?needAccess=true">political polarization</a> and rising <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec-city-mosque-attack-suspect-known-for-right-wing-online-posts/article33833044/">extremist ideologies</a>, <a href="https://edmonton.citynews.ca/video/2018/11/09/three-edmonton-schools-defaced-with-nazi-symbols/">hate crimes</a> and <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/momjo/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-anti-semitism_a_23578936/">violence</a>? </p>
<p>Schools have the opportunity, and arguably, an obligation to <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Creating_Citizens.html?id=q7PmCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y">address civic engagement and political civility</a>. The extent to which schools foster political deliberation, engagement, understanding and empathy has far-reaching implications for our democracy. </p>
<p>But can schools really do that? </p>
<p>Canadians have become more aware of the troubling realities of the full legacy of educational systems in Canada and how they have worked. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Honouring_the_Truth_Reconciling_for_the_Future_July_23_2015.pdf">The Indian Residential School system</a> emerged as a key tool of colonization that <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/stolen-lives-indigenous-peoples-canada-and-indian-residential-schools/historical-background/until-there-not-single-indian-canada">systemically attempted</a> cultural genocide. The schools wreaked both abuse and intergenerational trauma. </p>
<p>With regards to mainstream schooling, educator and researcher George Sefa Dei looks through an anti-racist lens to examine how “<a href="http://aurora.icaap.org/index.php/aurora/article/view/22/33">gender, class, sexuality, and ethnicity influence teaching, learning and educational administration</a>” and impact students’ involvement. Public education has been characterized by <a href="http://aurora.icaap.org/index.php/aurora/article/view/22/33">racism and exclusion</a>.</p>
<p>Schools can <a href="http://thepoliticalclassroom.com/">do better</a>. They have the opportunity to foster an environment where all students experience respect and actually want to talk to each other across differences. </p>
<h2>Explore nuanced stories</h2>
<p>The aim of all radicalized groups is to create an absolute truth among their members. For this reason, a primary task of schools is to interrupt one particular ideology and world view. Yet historically, schools and in particular
<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269995574_Gereluk_D_Scott_D_2014_Citizenship_education_and_the_construction_of_identity_in_Canada_In_J_E_Petrovic_A_M_Kuntz_Eds_Citizenship_education_around_the_world_Local_contexts_and_global_possibilities_pp_">their history lessons</a>, have been quite poor at telling nuanced stories.</p>
<p>Our curriculum must move away from positioning wars and events as faceoffs between winners and losers. Such caricatures of political and historical strife may heighten polarization and isolation, and encourage a <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8192.html">narrow form of citizenship</a>. </p>
<h2>Address racism</h2>
<p>In Canada, we’re seeing a rise of white nationalist politics and <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2018001/article/54915-eng.htm">reported acts of hate</a>. These facts make it clear that schools should particularly address <a href="http://aurora.icaap.org/index.php/aurora/article/view/22/33">an exclusive understanding of citizenship and Canadian identity informed by racist ideas of who belongs to Canada</a>.</p>
<p>As they begin to confront white supremacy and all forms of extremism, schools must also seriously ponder how to address <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2018/11/faith-goldy-toronto-white-nationalist-poster-girl.html">the narrowing of students’ affiliations and identities to the exclusion of others</a>. </p>
<p>Who shows up in the curriculum, and in what roles is significant. Representations of gender, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/edth.12038">sexuality</a>, racialization and ethnicity matter; discussions of immigration, recent or historic, will also matter in students’ eyes. </p>
<p>Being attentive to the informal and formal ways in which teachers reduce divisions between “us” and “them” will be a step in the right direction. Students who feel ostracized, marginalized or silenced will necessarily not feel part of broader society, but rather as an outcast, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273450968_Othering_An_Analysis">an “Other</a>.” </p>
<p>So how educators create opportunities for students to see themselves as valued members of the broader community matters. Being valued is good for all students and could have a deep impact on those at <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1057610X.2016.1139375">risk of being radicalized</a>. </p>
<h2>Slogans have got to go</h2>
<p>Being truthful about historical injustices, while carefully inviting all students into a dialogue, helps redress how to move forward in ways that might build trust. </p>
<p>The aim is to create an opening for more honest talk about history. The philosopher Judith Butler argues that such an honest examination ultimately allows us to “<a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/112-precarious-life">imagine and practice another future</a>.”</p>
<p>Media portrayals often highlight characteristics of people involved in extremist or harmful acts as abnormal. Such <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Sociology-of-Terrorism-People-Places-and-Processes/Vertigans/p/book/9780415572668">caricatures</a> help to ease anxiety that people doing harmful things may be “among us.” It becomes easy to believe it is <a href="https://theconversation.com/educators-must-challenge-the-politics-of-evil-105928">villains</a> who harm: People totally unlike us and wholly unrelated to our lives. Additionally, we obscure how our societies could better support individuals who become radicalized. </p>
<p>Schools also have an opportunity to challenge the rhetoric and slogans used in the broader political climate. </p>
<p>By unpacking the language that is commonly seen and heard on T-shirts, protest marches, speeches, songs, social media and so forth, schools could build the capacity of students to <a href="http://thepoliticalclassroom.com/">engage in civil conversations</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245598/original/file-20181114-194513-1sm59pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245598/original/file-20181114-194513-1sm59pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245598/original/file-20181114-194513-1sm59pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245598/original/file-20181114-194513-1sm59pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245598/original/file-20181114-194513-1sm59pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245598/original/file-20181114-194513-1sm59pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245598/original/file-20181114-194513-1sm59pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Schools also have an opportunity to teach youth how to analyze and challenge rhetoric and slogans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/FPt10LXK0cg">Robin Worrall/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Teach how to deliberate</h2>
<p>Ideology aims to advance one view and one way forward; the educational response must encourage deliberation. But sadly, the evidence to date suggests that on the whole, most schools’ ability to create the space for political deliberation is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3102/0013189X035008011">negligible</a>. </p>
<p>When classrooms create learning environments that invite respectful dialogue and <a href="https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/pcsbi/sites/default/files/2%20Guide%20to%20Classroom%20Deliberation%20for%20Students%20and%20Teachers%209.30.16.pdf">deliberation</a> students may become better equipped to develop dispositions suited for community. They learn how to weigh the evidence and understand the diversity of values and beliefs at play. They become more apt to listen and consider alternative perspectives. </p>
<p>The simple act of talking and building inclusive school communities
helps mitigate <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/education-extremism-and-terrorism-9781441127860/">extremist ideologies</a>.</p>
<p>In this way, children and youth would learn tools for the future to help them live together in society despite our most fundamental political, religious, and social disagreements about how to live. </p>
<p>Schools have an opportunity to see students having a voice as and as contributing members of society. They have the opportunity to develop students’ voices and agency to develop <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198292589.001.0001/acprof-9780198292586">greater political civility and civic engagement</a>. </p>
<p>Let’s make the most of it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106136/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dianne Gereluk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The extent to which schools foster political deliberation, engagement, understanding and empathy has far-reaching implications for our democracy.Dianne Gereluk, Professor, Educational Leadership, Policy and Governance, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1001652018-07-23T20:06:41Z2018-07-23T20:06:41ZWhy the world should be worried about the rise of strongman politics<p>Back in 2016, The Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman advanced the view in a commentary for <a href="http://www.theworldin.com/article/10504/macho-men">The Economist</a> that the “strongman” style of leadership was gravitating from East to West, and growing stronger. “Across the world – from Russia to China and from India to Egypt – macho leadership is back in fashion,” Rachman wrote.</p>
<p>In light of subsequent developments around the world, he understated the “macho” phenomenon, driven by rising populism and growing mistrust of democratic systems.</p>
<p>That commentary was published before Donald Trump prevailed in the US presidential election and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/will-donald-trump-destroy-the-presidency/537921/">turned upside-down</a> assumptions about how an American president might behave.</p>
<p>Whether we like it or not, the most powerful country in the world – until now, an exemplar of Western liberal democracies and global stabiliser in times of stress – is ruled by an autocrat who pays little attention to democratic norms.</p>
<h2>Spread of authoritarianism</h2>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/17/629862434/transcript-obamas-speech-at-the-2018-nelson-mandela-annual-lecture">lecture</a> delivered just a day after Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-putin-fallout-inside-the-white-houses-tumultuous-week-of-walk-backs/2018/07/20/7cfdfc34-8c3d-11e8-8b20-60521f27434e_story.html?utm_term=.6b188f47094d">appeared to take</a> Russian President Vladimir Putin’s side over America’s intelligence agencies on the issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections, Barack Obama drew attention to the new authoritarianism.</p>
<p>Without referring directly to Trump, Obama issued his most pointed criticism yet of the nativist and populist policies adopted by his successor on issues like immigration, protectionism and climate change.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The politics of fear and resentment … is now on the move. It’s on the move at a pace that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. I am not being alarmist, I’m simply stating the facts. Look around – strongman politics are on the ascendant.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump, therefore, is not an aberration. He is part of a strengthening authoritarian trend more or less across the globe.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-growing-mistrust-in-democracy-is-causing-extremism-and-strongman-politics-to-flourish-98621">A growing mistrust in democracy is causing extremism and strongman politics to flourish</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the Middle East, the Arab Spring has given way to the entrenchment of dictatorships in places like Syria, where Bashar al-Assad <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10202544/Face-the-truth-about-President-Bashar-al-Assad-hes-not-going.html">has reasserted</a> his grip on power with Russian and Iranian help, and in Egypt, where strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi continues to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/egypt-jailed-journalists-numbers-180502195324128.html">curtail press freedom</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-election-season-kicks-off-rivals-to-egypts-leader-are-sidelined-1515431555">incarcerate political rivals</a>.</p>
<p>In Europe, the <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/147102/opportunistic-rise-europes-far-right">rise of an authoritarian right</a> in places like Hungary, Austria and now Italy are part of this trend. In Italy, the bombastic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/23/italy-elections-as-left-splinters-berlusconi-waits-in-wings">Silvio Berlusconi</a> proved to be a forerunner of what is happening now.</p>
<p>In China, Xi Jinping’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/asia/xi-jinping-thought-explained-a-new-ideology-for-a-new-era.html">“new era”</a> is another example of a strongman overriding democratic constraints, with term limits on his leadership having recently been removed.</p>
<p>In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte is using his war on drugs for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/opinion/dutertes-descent-into-authoritarianism.html">broader authoritarian purposes</a> in the manner of a mob boss.</p>
<p>In Thailand, the army <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/will-thailand-actually-hold-election">shows little inclination</a> to yield power it seized in a military coup in 2014, even if there was public clamour for a return to civilian rule (which there is not).</p>
<p>In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is continuing to strengthen his hold on the country, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/24/world/europe/turkey-election-erdogan.html">expanding the powers of the presidency</a> and locking up political rivals and journalistic critics. As a result, Turkey’s secular and political foundations are being undermined.</p>
<p>In Brazil, 40% of those <a href="https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2015/03/25/nearly-half-of-brazilians-support-coup-if-corruption-is-high-lapop/">polled by Vanderbilt University</a> a few years back said they would support a military coup to bring order to their country, riven by crime and corruption.</p>
<p>And in Saudi Arabia, a young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/princes-top-officials-remain-jailed-saudi-arabia-report-180705160815801.html">has detained</a> the country’s leading businessmen and extorted billions from them in return for their freedom. This took place without censure from the West.</p>
<h2>The death of truth</h2>
<p>Genuine liberal democrats are in retreat as a populist tide laps at their doors.</p>
<p>In Britain, Theresa May <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-does-theresa-may-cling-to-power-heres-the-secret-to-her-success-96302">is hanging on to power</a> by a thread against a revanchist threat from the right.</p>
<p>In France, Emmanuel Macron <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/23/macrons-centrism-is-coming-apart-at-the-seams/">is battling</a> to transform his welfare-burdened country against fierce resistance from left and right.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/post-truth-politics-and-why-the-antidote-isnt-simply-fact-checking-and-truth-87364">Post-truth politics and why the antidote isn't simply 'fact-checking' and truth</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In Germany, Angela Merkel, the most admirable of Western liberal democratic leaders, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-08/angela-merkels-migrant-problem/9953192">is just holding on</a> against anti-immigration forces on the right.</p>
<p>In Australia, Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, the leaders of the established centre-right and centre-left parties, are similarly under pressure from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-39111317">nativist forces on the far right</a>.</p>
<p>What Australia and these other countries lack is a Trump, but anything is possible in an emerging strongman era, including the improbable – such as the emergence of a reality TV star as leader of the free world.</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/are-we-losing-faith-democracy">Lowy Institute opinion survey</a> only 52% of younger Australians aged 18-29 years believed that democracy was preferable to other alternative forms of government.</p>
<p>In all of this, truth in particular is among the casualties. All politicians bend the truth to a certain extent, but there is no recent example in a Western democracy of a political leader who lies as persistently as Trump.</p>
<p>Like the character Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Trump lives in his own make-believe reality TV world where facts, it seems, are immaterial.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-putin-and-the-new-international-order-71269">Trump, Putin and the new international order</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Inconvenient information can be dismissed as <a href="https://variety.com/2018/politics/news/trump-north-korea-media-1202844311/">“fake news”</a>. Those who persist in reporting such inconvenient truths are portrayed as “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/21/opinions/both-parties-should-unite-around-freedom-press-weinberg/index.html">enemies of the people</a>”.</p>
<p>This is the sort of rhetoric that resides in totalitarian states, where the media are expected to function as an arm of a dictatorship or, failing that, journalists are simply disappeared. In Putin’s Russia, journalist critics of the regime <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/04/21/604497554/why-do-russian-journalists-keep-falling">do so at their peril</a>.</p>
<p>In his lecture in South Africa, Obama dwelled at length on the corruption of political discourse in the modern era, including a basic disrespect for the facts.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People just make stuff up. They just make stuff up. We see it in the growth of state-sponsored propaganda. We see it in internet fabrications. We see it in the blurring of lines between news and entertainment. We see the utter loss of shame among political leaders where they’re caught in a lie and they just double down and they lie some more. It used to be that if you caught them lying they’d be like, ‘Oh man.’ Now they just keep on lying.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the digital era, it had been assumed technology would make it easier to hold political leaders to account. But, in some respects, the reverse is proving to be the case, as Ian Bremmer, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Us-vs-Them-Failure-Globalism/dp/0525533184">Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism</a>, wrote in a <a href="http://time.com/5264170/the-strongmen-era-is-here-heres-what-it-means-for-you/">recent contribution</a> to Time. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A decade ago, it appeared that a revolution in information and communications technologies would empower the individual at the expense of the state. Western leaders believed social networks would create ‘people power’, enabling political upheavals like the Arab Spring. But the world’s autocrats drew a different lesson. They saw an opportunity for government to try to become the dominant player in how information is shared and how the state can use data to tighten political control.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In his conclusion, Bremmer has this sobering observation: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Perhaps the most worrying element of the strongman’s rise is the message it sends. The systems that powered the Cold War’s winners now look much less appealing than they did a generation ago. Why emulate the US or European political systems, with all the checks and balances that prevent even the most determined leaders from taking on chronic problems, when one determined leader can offer a credible shortcut to greater security and national pride? As long as that rings true, the greatest threat may be the strongmen yet to come.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ideals of liberal democracies are under threat – and not just in the US and Russia.Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1001002018-07-20T11:06:31Z2018-07-20T11:06:31ZZimbabwe poll: the bar for success is low, the stakes are high and it’s a close race<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/228455/original/file-20180719-142432-1pyjir6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of the opposition MDC Alliance in Unity Square before marching to protest outside the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Moore</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the ruling Zanu-PF hope a credible victory in the <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/top-africa-stories-zim-election-date-set-kagame-on-chamisa-20180531">July 30 election</a> will legitimise the power (both party and state) they gained from the “soft coup” that toppled his predecessor Robert Mugabe <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabweans-must-draw-on-years-of-democratic-struggle-to-stop-a-repeat-of-mugabes-militarism-87961">last November</a>.</p>
<p>With victory, they say, the <a href="http://nehandaradio.com/2018/07/14/infighting-between-mnangagwa-and-chiwenga-factions-frustrating-eager-investors/">donors and dollars</a> will flood in to the country they have resurrected from <a href="http://country.eiu.com/zimbabwe">nearly two moribund decades</a>. Zimbabwe is now <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/zimbabwe-is-open-for-business-says-mnangagwa-12913367">“open for business”</a> and will thrive. Zanu-PF’s resurrection will thus be complete.</p>
<p>But a new <a href="http://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Dispatches/ab_r7_dispatchno223_zimbabwe_presidential_race_tightens.pdf">survey</a> suggests Zanu-PF should stall any premature celebration plans. The latest one showed that, in the space of one month, Nelson Chamisa’s MDC-Alliance has closed the gap with Zanu-PF. The surveys are conducted by Afrobarometer, an independent research network that conducts public attitude surveys across Africa and its Zimbabwean partner, Mass Public Opinion Institute, a non-profit, non-governmental research organisation.</p>
<p>If the respondents were to cast their ballot now Mnangagwa would take 40% of the votes and opposition leader Nelson Chamisa would take 37%. The still undecided or not-saying potential voters are at 20%. Split that and you get a 50/47 race. </p>
<p>The numbers are very close indeed. If not a victory for the MDC-Alliance, this looks like a presidential runoff. The MDC-Allaince has a 49% to 26% lead in the cities and towns and in the countryside the figures are 30% for the opposition to Zanu-PF’s 48%. In parliament Zanu-PF would get 41% to the MDC-Alliance’s 36. This is a big change from <a href="http://www.afrobarometer.org/media-briefings/findings-pre-election-baseline-survey-zimbabwe-aprilmay-2018">May’s survey</a>.</p>
<p>Given the MDC-Alliance momentum, the post-Mugabe Zanu-PF’s hopes of a resurrection may be dashed. A great deal hangs on both parties’ ability to manage this interregnum.</p>
<p>Big trade-offs will be negotiated, ranging from coalition governments, which the poll shows has the backing from 60% of respondents, to amnesties for the chief crooks and killers.</p>
<p>Striking deals might indeed lie at the centre of whether or not the election is a success. That’s because this election is about grabbing back the core of hardwon democracy from a military dominated regime. It’s about cleansing out <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-zimbabwe-finally-ditch-a-history-of-violence-and-media-repression-99859">generations of fear</a>. </p>
<p>That is a hard task at any time. It’s harder still when it took a coup to retire its prime source.</p>
<h2>A divided Zanu-PF</h2>
<p>Mnangagwa has been spectacularly unsuccessful at winning past elections in <a href="https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2015/05/26/mnangagwa-cannot-win-elections">his own constituencies</a>, standing for parliament three times and losing twice. </p>
<p>The factions in Zanu-PF that squared up against one another prior to the coup - the <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2016/03/18/what-does-g40-want/">Generation-40 group</a> that supported Grace Mugabe for the party and state president and <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/Lacoste,_Zanu-PF_Faction">Lacoste</a>, which supported Mnangagwa – are <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/zimbabwes-mnangagwa-says-zanu-pf-legislators-plotting-to-impeach-him-15237903">still battling</a> along lines more ethnically drawn <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2016/02/19/ethnicity-zanu-pfs-messy-predicament/">than ever</a>. Some of the losers in the Generation-40 group have left the party to form the <a href="https://news.pindula.co.zw/2018/07/14/mugabes-offered-24-million-12-cars-for-chamisas-campaign-in-exchange-of-82-parliamentary-seats-vice-presidents-post/">National Patriotic Front</a>. </p>
<p>Although the perpetrators have not been found, the <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/zimbabwe-blast-feared-to-herald-pre-election-violence-1.3543607">blast</a> at Zanu-PF’s Bulawayo rally in late June that killed two people and only narrowly missed a whole stage of luminaries, could suggest that the party’s wounds have yet to <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2018/06/29/bulawayo-bomb-blast-escalates-mnangagwa-chiwenga-tensions/">heal</a>. </p>
<p>And the soldiers are not of one mind. </p>
<p>If the military side of the somewhat shaky post-coup pact in Zanu-PF fears losing an election, and thus access to more of the wealth more power can bring, the free and fair dimensions of the electoral contest would be <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2018-05-23-fears-of-armys-readiness-to-influence-zimbabwes-elections/">drastically diminished</a>. Would a repeat of <a href="https://public.tableau.com/profile/acled6590#!/vizhome/Zimbabwe_1/ProportionZiminTotal">mid-2008’s post-electoral mayhem</a>, when at least 170 people were killed and nearly 800 beaten or raped, ensue?</p>
<p>To make matters more complex, there are no guarantees that <a href="https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2018/07/15/military-pay-hike-angers-teachers">hungry and angry junior army officers</a> would follow their seniors’ attempts to alter the peoples’ will.</p>
<p>Mnangagwa could be at some of the soldier’s mercy. Some suggest that Constantino Chiwenga, the <a href="https://minbane.wordpress.com/2018/04/19/https-wp-me-p1xtjg-6lv/">mercurial vice-president</a> and – unconstitutionally – defence minister <a href="https://www.newzimbabwe.com/chiwenga-exposes-mnangagwas-great-escape-yarn/">might be among them</a>. </p>
<p>Others argue that the two leaders need each other if the régime is going to deliver on promises of a clean <a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/05/zim-2018-election-trading-democracy-for-neoliberal-foreign-policy/">election</a> </p>
<p>And as George Charamba, Zimbabwe’s permanent secretary for information, put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This election is about restoring international re-engagement and legitimacy …. It must be flawless, it must be transparent, it must be free, it must be fair, it must meet international standards, it must be violence free and therefore it must be universally endorsed because it is an instrument of foreign policy … It’s about re-engagement and legitimacy; we are playing politics at a higher level.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a clarion call for a free and fair poll. If the election fails to meet these expectations and its results are tight, legitimacy could be maintained with carefully calculated deals. Perhaps the unity government widely expected during the coup could <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN1DG1RL-OZATP">reappear</a>. </p>
<h2>A rising opposition</h2>
<p>Chamisa and the MDC (the alliance is made up of seven parties, most having split from the late Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC), appear to be building on the <a href="https://www.voazimbabwe.com/a/nelson-chamisa-threatens-to-take-zec-headon-elections-zimbabwe/4486127.html">momentum</a> they seem to have gained by challenging the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s management of the contest. The alliance has challenged the commission’s neutrality and raised concerns over the accuracy of the voters’ <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2018-07-19-new-rules-and-ghost-voters-threaten-zimbabwes-vote">roll</a>.</p>
<p>Not all its allegations necessarily stand up to scrutiny. The 250,000 alleged ghosts may be a canard, but as Derek Matyszak, the Institute for Security Studies man in Harare, argues, the roll was not released in time for the primaries so none of the candidates are constitutionally valid. </p>
<p>Emboldened by the lack of police, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-politics/zimbabwe-opposition-marches-on-electoral-agency-to-demand-reforms-idUSKBN1K11FW">thousands of protesters</a> led by the MDC-Alliance marched to the commission’s headquarters on July 11, showing no fear. </p>
<p>If this impetus keeps building over the next week, a victory is conceivable. So is a presidential run-off. To be sure, the ruling party might win fairly, but the opposition will have to be convinced of that. The mode of politics for the next round should be peacemaking, not war. </p>
<h2>Low bars, high stakes</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/zimbabwes-elections-a-turning-point/">bars are low</a> – ‘the west’, led in this case by the UK, seemed to be happy with the winners of the coup, perhaps hoping for a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/zimbabwes-future-rests-on-a-free-and-fair-election-speech-by-ambassador-catriona-laing">renewed Zanu-PF</a>. <a href="https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/perfidious-albion-an-introduction-to-the-secret-history-of-the-british-empire">Perfidious Albion</a> (Treacherous England) could end its schizophrenic career in Zimbabwe with a whimper about the <a href="https://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/25597">end of a liberal democratic dream</a>. But the stakes are high for Zimbabweans: much higher than the reputation of a minor global power past its glory. </p>
<p>The people of Zimbabwe face a lot more than reputational damage: maybe the former colonial power will have a Plan B that helps more than hinders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100100/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David B. Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new survey suggests opposition Zimbabwean leader Nelson Chamisa is closing in on the ruling Zanu-PF’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa.David B. Moore, Professor of Development Studies and Visiting Researcher, Institute of Pan-African Thought and Conversation, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/947982018-05-22T10:47:10Z2018-05-22T10:47:10ZRussia, Putin lead the way in exploiting democracy’s lost promise<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219829/original/file-20180521-14953-y5iyts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a Cabinet meeting in Moscow's Kremlin.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How do you give democracy a bad name?</p>
<p>You fail to deliver on its promise.</p>
<p>People fighting for democracy want individual rights and freedoms, but they also want and expect economic prosperity. So every democratic movement that doesn’t produce both the political and economic rights people expect becomes a nail in the coffin of democracy. </p>
<p>Russia’s experiment with democracy and market reforms started in 1991 but began to collapse with Vladimir Putin’s rise to power at the end of 1999. President Putin’s March re-election is the latest sign that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/15/world/as-expected-putin-easily-wins-a-second-term-in-russia.html">the liberal experiment in Russia is over for the foreseeable future</a>. </p>
<p>It also signals a loss in the struggle for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/04/19/this-is-what-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-democracy-looks-like/?utm_term=.5a29eafb94d0">liberal democracy globally</a>. Today, a resurgent Russia is pushing for an alternate non-democratic model to rival the prevailing Western democratic one. </p>
<h2>Democracy’s bad reputation</h2>
<p>In 1945, war-torn states of the world came together to <a href="http://www.un.org/en/sections/history/history-united-nations/">create the United Nations</a>, an institution that from its start has preached democracy and human rights. The rhetoric of democracy spread throughout the world over subsequent decades, as did the apparent connection <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/new-insights-relationship-between-democracy-and-wealth">between Western democracy and wealth</a>. </p>
<p>But the enormous, largely economic, expectations people have of democracy set the stage for popular disillusionment with new democracies.</p>
<p>As I argued in my <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442269354/The-Democratization-Disconnect-How-Recent-Democratic-Revolutions-Threaten-the-Future-of-Democracy">most recent book</a>, the anti-democratic movement we see most visibly in countries such as Poland, Hungary and Turkey today is an increasingly common response to the almost inevitable disappointment of democracy.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219823/original/file-20180521-14978-fashr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219823/original/file-20180521-14978-fashr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219823/original/file-20180521-14978-fashr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219823/original/file-20180521-14978-fashr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219823/original/file-20180521-14978-fashr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1289&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219823/original/file-20180521-14978-fashr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219823/original/file-20180521-14978-fashr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1289&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Boris Yeltsin, who pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy, in 1990.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Boris Yurchenko</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Russia’s first democratic president, Boris Yeltsin, learned this the hard way. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/seven-soviet-era-tips-for-running-a-successful-police-state-55683">Soviet Russia</a>, where Yeltsin grew up, was a global power abroad and a police state with a centralized economy at home. The average Russian during this communist period lived well enough, but the system was riddled with ridiculous inefficiencies, a lack of quality consumer goods and a frustrating degree of censorship. </p>
<p>Russians yearned for a free, well-managed state, with all the bubble gum and blue jeans that seemed to come with it. Yeltsin addressed these demands, promising <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/high-hopes-at-yeltsin-inauguration/2011/07/09/gIQAZFSG6H_story.html?utm_term=.082fde669442">a more democratic, market-based system</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, Russians watched as Yeltsin clumsily dragged the country through a decade of lawlessness, poverty and humility, all in the name of <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/harvard-boys-do-russia/">American-supported democracy</a>. The economy plummeted while a new tiny <a href="https://search.proquest.com/openview/7095f5bd053cc1bcaca61f6d44ad543e/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=28117">class of ostentatious “haves”</a> made their fortune frequently by <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2950651?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">plundering what people had built</a> during Soviet times. </p>
<p>As social norms and structures crumbled under the weight of democratic capitalism, so did the central government’s control over the vast country’s regions. The vivid pictures of Yeltsin <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-players-1993-crisis/25125000.html">shelling his own uncooperative parliament</a> and <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1995-03-19/news/mn-44681_1_russian-army">soldiers swapping weapons</a> for spirits in the streets of occupied Chechnya encapsulate the destruction early democracy meant for most Russians. </p>
<h2>Putin dismantled democracy</h2>
<p>Since taking power, Putin has cast himself as Yeltsin’s antithesis and Russia’s savior. He has consolidated power with a strategy based on hope, destruction and suspicion of perceived enemies, whether terrorists or democrats. </p>
<p>In his first two terms, from 2000 to 2008, Putin inspired hope, with the first pillar of his rule, by reversing Russia’s decade-long slide into economic turmoil. Thanks to increasing energy prices, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405473915000033">the economy grew</a> by 83 percent and the purchasing power of Russia’s citizens more than doubled to US$21,600. <a href="https://ac.els-cdn.com/S2212567115010163/1-s2.0-S2212567115010163-main.pdf?_tid=a6ccc684-6915-4464-823b-afdeeb46750c&acdnat=1522867447_5a99aa9fab808864db1892030e918f00">Rising oil and gas revenues</a> filled state coffers and allowed Putin to revive governmental spending on everything from social welfare to military modernization. </p>
<p>Putin also stuck up for the everyday Russian, chasing and even jailing the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20034135?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">so-called oligarchs</a>, or at least those who refused to stay out of politics. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43664325?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Regional fiefdoms</a> went back to bowing to Moscow. </p>
<p>To maintain this image of security and prosperity, Putin has relied on a second pillar: destruction. </p>
<p>Yeltsin’s Russia was never a <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3092134.pdf?casa_token=afE0VAPocGwAAAAA:pS04Ezb8t9lmKRgJfecI8pjX0Hbw9axX6_fQovFW7jLBznB9znSKWOWahIV5N3dSSUNPlLtXX05nvO25oECT53EizmBOXTmrMxT9G3sZv56dKQYEKDI">hallmark of democracy</a>. But over the past 18 years, Putin has worked to dismantle whatever inconvenient democratic institutions managed to take root. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/25/how-russia-independent-media-was-dismantled-piece-by-piece">Free media outlets</a> were shuttered. <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/12/vladimir-putin-loves-civil-society-as-long-as-he-controls-it/">Civil society</a> organizations were strangled. Electoral institutions were <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/russia-putin-election-disinformation-troll/555878/">carefully manipulated</a> to ensure Putin and the United Russia party backing him could not be beat. </p>
<p>According to Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that rates countries based on political rights and civil liberties, Russia now ranks among <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2018-table-country-scores">the least democratic fifth</a> of all countries in the world. </p>
<p>It’s nearly impossible to contest Putin today. <a href="https://rsf.org/en/russia">Media freedom has been severely curtailed</a> with state media coverage practically scripted by the Kremlin. Those who stand up to Putin risk <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-protests-navalny-putin-opposition-leader-video-moscow-election-arrest-latest-a8182036.html">arrest</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/26/mikhail-khodorkovsky-life-after-prison-russia-after-putin">imprisonment</a>. Many of Putin’s most vociferous foes have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/?utm_term=.c25c1d52c694">died under mysterious circumstances</a>.</p>
<p>Putin’s destruction of democratic institutions has guaranteed his time in power will exceed that of Russia’s brutal dictator, Joseph Stalin, who consolidated power in the 1920s and ruled until his death in 1953. </p>
<h2>From enemies comes cohesion</h2>
<p>It’s probably no coincidence that the last pillar of Putin’s power comes straight from Stalin’s playbook: suspicion. </p>
<p>Just as Stalin warned of “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=maEfAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT108&lpg=PT108&dq=%22as+long+as+the+capitalist+encirclement+exists%22&source=bl&ots=lhRjy2w_v3&sig=KzV_HbZ531vxlTFNlNioTFjWUak&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjal8fsq6HaAhVGn-AKHeFdBMcQ6AEIOzAC#v=onepage&q=capitalist%20encirclement&f=false">the capitalist encirclement</a>,” or Western attempts to surround and manipulate the country, Putin has created enemies to unite his population. Putin’s hasty rise came in the wake of a series of <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/blog/september-1999-russian-apartment-bombings-timeline">apartment bombings</a> that rocked the country’s capital in 1999. Then, Putin blamed Chechen terrorists and promised to find the culprits wherever they might hide. Since then, he has sold himself as the antidote to danger and <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-putin-launches-campaign-stability-crucial/28927223.html">guarantor of stability</a>. </p>
<p>After spending billions of dollars on military modernization, Putin gradually began to aggressively counter perceived enemies outside of Russia as well. His initial targets were the two countries where <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14990.html">Western-supported democratic revolutions</a> threatened to increase NATO’s presence in the region. Putin started small, <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34618.pdf">invading Georgia</a> in 2008, and then went bigger, <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2016-04-18/why-putin-took-crimea">taking Crimea from Ukraine</a> in 2014. After years of military modernization, Putin finally went global with his full-scale <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2016-04-18/why-putin-took-crimea">intervention in Syria</a> in 2015. </p>
<p>Of course, off the battlefield, Putin’s international footprint is even larger. With liberal democracy now on his list of perceived enemies, Putin has sought to portray Western states as both chaotic and menacing. And he has moved to curtail the threat. </p>
<p>Putin’s regime has been implicated in everything from <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/russia-election-hacking-france-us-606314">interfering in Western elections</a> and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3c279804-3b44-11e8-b7e0-52972418fec4">poisoning enemies</a> in exile, to supporting an anti-Western Syrian regime accused of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39500947">chemical attacks</a> on civilians. </p>
<p>With every incident, Putin and his entourage have played the bullied, not the aggressor. They mock Western conventions of due process by <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/uk-russia-nerve-agent-attack-spy-poisoning-sergei-skripal-salisbury-accusations-evidence-explanation-a8258911.html">questioning the assumption of Russia’s guilt</a> and demanding the sorts of evidence they know Western intelligence agencies cannot produce. They manipulate a rash of “fake newsites” to condemn the West for spreading “<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43619362">open lies and disinformation</a>.” They warn of the West’s next provocation in its mission to keep Russia down.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219827/original/file-20180521-14991-16najmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219827/original/file-20180521-14991-16najmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219827/original/file-20180521-14991-16najmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219827/original/file-20180521-14991-16najmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219827/original/file-20180521-14991-16najmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219827/original/file-20180521-14991-16najmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219827/original/file-20180521-14991-16najmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hungary’s President Viktor Orban, left, has been accused of using anti-democratic methods like Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Illiberalism spreads</h2>
<p>All of this has made Putin tremendously popular and left Russia’s few remaining democrats in the political wilderness. It has also <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-12/czechs-vote-whether-pro-russia-president-zeman-gets-second-term">emboldened others</a> to take up the fight against liberal democracy in the hope of building a successful illiberal state like Russia. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/world/europe/viktor-orban-hungary-politics.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&mtrref=www.nytimes.com">Hungary’s Viktor Orban</a>, who went from top anti-communist dissident to a cheerleader for illiberal democracy, is the most blatant example. Poland, while less enthusiastic about Putin, has followed suit, recently <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42420150">politicizing the judiciary</a> and <a href="http://time.com/5193301/poland-holocaust-law-freedom-speech-amnesty/">limiting free speech</a>. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who recently strengthened his oppressive hand through <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/turkey">constitutional changes</a>, has shown fellow NATO members that Turkey has an <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-turkey-russia-ties-20180402-story.html">alternate partner in Putin</a>. </p>
<p>Even U.S. President Donald Trump has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-brief-history-of-donald-trumps-mixed-messages-on-freedom-of-speech/2017/09/28/dd44160c-a3b6-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?utm_term=.d4ec6ba7f7fd">attacked basic democratic institutions</a> and openly <a href="http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/03/politics/trump-putin-russia-timeline/">praised Putin</a>. </p>
<p>Perhaps Putin’s greatest success is in sowing turmoil in Western democracies themselves. By attacking global democracy in its Western heart, Putin simultaneously reveals democratic deficits and weakens those who might wage a counterattack to save their long-held values.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94798/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Grodsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Vladimir Putin’s recent re-election was bad news for democracy in Russia. And it’s a major loss in the struggle for liberalism, as anti-democratic leaders are assuming power across the globe.Brian Grodsky, Professor of Political Science, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/906212018-01-29T22:54:15Z2018-01-29T22:54:15ZDemocracy, freedom and cheap stuff: Can we pay more for our coffee?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203845/original/file-20180129-89553-1nmoy3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President of Ontario Federation of Labour Chris Buckley addresses protesters outside a Tim Hortons Franchise in Toronto last week. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The paradox of ancient Greek democracy is that the freedom and rights of citizens depended on the subjugation and exploitation of others. Recent events remind us that we might not have come as far from the flawed ancient model of democracy as we would like.</p>
<p>One of the biggest Canadian news stories to start 2018 was the Ontario minimum-wage hike to $14, up drastically from $11.60. The wage is set to go up to <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/page/minimum-wage-increase">$15 beginning on Jan. 1, 2019</a>.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/12/28/14-minimum-wage-free-pharmacare-for-young-people-other-ontario-regulatory-changes-start-jan-1.html">this pay increase was trumpeted by Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals</a> as an important step toward providing all Ontario residents with a liveable wage, many businesses, most notoriously <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/01/19/tim-hortons-protests-sweep-the-nation-after-minimum-wage-hike.html">Tim Horton’s, reacted to the news</a> by threatening to cut worker benefits and hours. </p>
<p>In a column representative of the Canadian punditry’s response to public outrage at Tim Horton’s, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/minimum-wage-hike-1.4473808">Robyn Urback reminds us</a> that, “of course businesses were going to act like businesses.” As Urback argues, and as many Canadians seem to accept, this is the system we’ve got, so we’d better learn to work within it, meaning — of course businesses were going to cut hours, pull back benefits and workers would suffer.</p>
<h2>Democracy: Ancient and modern</h2>
<p>As eminent historian and political scientist <a href="http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2015/05/13/an-interview-with-josiah-ober-author-of-the-rise-and-fall-of-classical-greece/">Josiah Ober points out</a>, ancient Athenian democracy did not demonstrate the ideals of modern liberalism. Today’s liberal democracies — which enshrine certain rights such as free speech, individual autonomy and private property — are far different from the system in Athens, where <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-marriage-of-democracy-and-liberalism-is-not-inevitable">collective self-governance was the highest principle</a>. </p>
<p>The two systems, however, share one commonality that might prove instructive in our current context. </p>
<p>There was a nearly perfect inverse correlation between the degree of political freedom and equality for Athenian citizens and the rise of chattel slavery and imperial depredation. I increasingly wonder whether I could enjoy my own relatively comfortable lifestyle unless others were made to live more uncomfortably.</p>
<h2>Freedom for some, slavery for others</h2>
<p>The road to democracy in Athens began with the crisis of growing wealth disparity between rich and poor. The concentration of land, the primary source of wealth in the ancient world, in the hands of fewer and fewer meant that many Athenians had no choice but to lease and work the land of others. </p>
<p>If these poorer Athenians were unable to pay their debts, they and their family members could be taken by the rich as debt-slaves, trading their very bodies as collateral for their loans. </p>
<p>As debt-slavery spiralled out of control, it was the rich who worried that a violent uprising of the poor was inevitable. The <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/solon/">rich thus appointed a law-giver named Solon in 594 BCE to draft a constitution that would alleviate tensions</a>. </p>
<p>Solon’s most celebrated measure was the <em>seisachtheia</em>, or the “shaking off of burdens,” by which he partially redistributed land and outlawed debt-slavery. No longer could one Athenian own another. While full democracy would not develop for nearly a century, Solon’s constitution was a vital step towards equality among Athenian citizens.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203878/original/file-20180129-89577-1x2tuxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203878/original/file-20180129-89577-1x2tuxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203878/original/file-20180129-89577-1x2tuxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203878/original/file-20180129-89577-1x2tuxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203878/original/file-20180129-89577-1x2tuxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203878/original/file-20180129-89577-1x2tuxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203878/original/file-20180129-89577-1x2tuxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Solon drafted a constitution in 594 BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The seisachtheia, however, was directly to blame for turning Athens into a true slave-holding society. Now that their fellow Athenians couldn’t be so readily exploited, the rich turned elsewhere for sources of cheap labour, predominantly non-Greeks who were imported to Athens as true chattel slaves. </p>
<p>Even moderately prosperous land-owners came to own slaves, and relied on them when Athens became fully democratic in 508. After all, if the Athenian citizen was to spend a day in the city participating in the running of the state, someone had to work the land. Freedom and equality for Athenians depended on the slavery of others.</p>
<h2>A lavish democracy</h2>
<p>The Athenian democracy became even more broadly based in the middle of the 400s, when the political privileges of the wealthy were almost wholly done away with through <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/pericles/">reforms associated with Pericles and his allies</a>. </p>
<p>Some of the measures that ensured even the poorest Athenians could take part in running Athens included the payment of wages for serving on juries. The Athenians were proud of their democracy, and celebrated it in lavish style through a building program championed by Pericles that included the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Parthenon">Parthenon</a> and other spectacular structures that still sit atop the Acropolis.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203877/original/file-20180129-117708-iy4buo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203877/original/file-20180129-117708-iy4buo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203877/original/file-20180129-117708-iy4buo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203877/original/file-20180129-117708-iy4buo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203877/original/file-20180129-117708-iy4buo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203877/original/file-20180129-117708-iy4buo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/203877/original/file-20180129-117708-iy4buo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Athenians celebrated their democracy in lavish buildings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Puk Patrick/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Parthenon and the broad democracy it hailed were expensive. Athens could only pay for such extravagances because it had grown into an imperial power, ruling much of the Aegean world by means of its navy, which was itself crewed by the very citizens who benefited most from things like jury-pay. </p>
<p>Pericles benefited from the empire too, since he was able to set himself up as the champion of the people and the builder of the Parthenon because of the money that poured in from Athens’ imperial subjects — all of whom were fellow Greeks. </p>
<p>Just as Solon’s laws against debt-slavery encouraged the rise of real slavery, the Golden Age of Periclean Athens was made possible by Athens’ imperial domination of dozens of Greek states.</p>
<h2>Can we pay more for our coffee?</h2>
<p>Which brings me to the Ontario minimum wage. Are we really unwilling to pay more for our coffee as we are on our way to our well-paid and comfortable jobs (as mine certainly is) in order to ensure that workers are paid a liveable wage? </p>
<p>Can we really not summon enough social and economic imagination to think that businesses, and the real human beings that are in charge of them, can’t be at least encouraged to, well, behave a little less like businesses? I don’t know. </p>
<p>If it’s not cheap coffee, it’s cheap goods made through cheap labour in foreign countries that greases our wheels and to which we turn a blind eye. We no longer have chattel slaves or actively rule an empire (though, in practice, there are many in the world to whom these semantic distinctions make little difference). </p>
<p>But our democratic way of life, which we tend to think of as the freedom to do and live as we please and have what we want, seems awfully dependent upon others not enjoying those things. I am made hopeful, however, that many, such as Christo Aivalis, a post-doctoral fellow in history at the University of Toronto, do have some <a href="http://activehistory.ca/2018/01/tim-hortons-ontarios-minimum-wage-and-the-need-for-demand-side-economics/">suggestions</a> for addressing the inequities of our system. </p>
<p>We could start, for example, by privileging demand-side instead of supply-side economics. We could recognize that “stability for working people is essential to robust economic spending.” </p>
<p>The legacy of the Classical world isn’t all bad. Despite his faults (and he had many), we could learn a great deal from Aristotle’s ideas. These include ideas such as: The state is natural (an idea that social contract theories largely reject); we humans are at our best when we come together to ensure the flourishing, the eudaimonia, of all of society’s members. </p>
<p>I for one will be doing a great deal of thinking to figure out how I can help those who currently work minimum-wage jobs to be better off. I will start by not letting businesses — or politicians — off the hook simply for acting as we expect them to.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90621/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew A. Sears does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Do businesses have to act like businesses? Or could we pay slightly more for goods, like coffee, and recognize that stability for working people is essential to a robust economy.Matthew A. Sears, Associate Professor of Classics & Ancient History, University of New BrunswickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/871072017-11-29T09:15:28Z2017-11-29T09:15:28ZIs using the term ‘illiberal turn’ beneficial for Indonesia’s democracy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195561/original/file-20171121-18555-1jcllqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indonesianists have used "illiberal turn" to label various problems in Indonesian democracy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Analysts have referred to Indonesia’s many regressive policies and political developments as an “illiberal turn”. This label has been haphazardly applied, however, leading to a lack of specific policy remedies.</p>
<p>Some use “illiberal turn” to describe the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/indonesia/2017-05-26/indonesias-illiberal-turn">success of hard-line Islamists</a> in forcing the indictment and imprisonment of the then Jakarta governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (or “Ahok”), on a religious blasphemy charge. Others use it to capture Indonesia’s broader democratic woes such as the persistent dominance of, and competition between, <a href="http://www.newmandala.org/indonesia-illiberal/">oligarchic groups</a>. </p>
<p>Others use variations of the term such as <a href="http://www.newmandala.org/comfortable-uncomfortable-accommodations/">illiberal tendencies</a>, <a href="http://www.newmandala.org/comfortable-uncomfortable-accommodations/">illiberal-democratic class</a>, or <a href="http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2017/11/04/democracy-isnt-receding-in-southeast-asia-authoritarianism-is-enduring/">illiberal politics</a> to describe different problems in Indonesian politics. Yet, we still do not have a clear conception of what an illiberal turn is. </p>
<h2>How do we know an ‘illiberal turn’ when we see one?</h2>
<p>Presumably, the “illiberal” part stems from the concept of illiberal democracy. Scholars, however, disagree over what that is and whether it is universal. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1997-11-01/rise-illiberal-democracy">argue</a> that a democracy has two distinct parts – electoral (i.e. free and fair elections) and liberal (i.e. rule of law and the protection of basic liberties) – and it should meet both those criteria. So, an electorally democratic country with a damaged rule of law that cannot protect the equal freedom of all individuals <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13510340412331304598">is illiberal</a>. </p>
<p>Others, however, challenge the universality of such democratic liberalism, particularly in the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8305.html">East</a> and <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/la/book/9780333613993">Southeast Asian</a> context. These states have different ideas of governance and liberalism. Their governments have been expected, for example, to “intervene” in <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780333803011">controlling societal interests</a> and govern the whole society rather than protecting individual liberties. So why should the liberal–illiberal premise be appropriate to assess Indonesia?</p>
<p>Moreover, many of Indonesia’s democratic regressions, such as <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0143659042000185336?journalCode=ctwq20">money politics or New Order stalwarts re-entering the new regime</a>, started with the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5728/indonesia.96.0033?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">flawed</a> 1998 transition of the Reformasi era. Was Indonesia ever on a liberal path to begin with if its transition was flawed? </p>
<p>The use of the word “turn” is also unclear. A “turn” means democratising states, such as Indonesia, are on a liberal path but took an illiberal turn. But if we could not agree on what that liberal path looks like, how can we agree where, when and how a “turn” happens? </p>
<p>Further, if most Southeast Asian countries including Indonesia were already “illiberal democracies” to start with, then the notion of a “turn” is unwarranted. Southeast Asian states have <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09512740600875119">always prioritised</a> political stability, regime security and state sovereignty. </p>
<p>The citizens increasingly seem to vote “<a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/article/southeast-asia-voting-against-disorder">against disorder</a>” and choose candidates who promote order over law. The governments have also been more “<a href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780333803011">performance-oriented</a>” and obsessed with “effective governance” at the expense of individual liberties.</p>
<h2>Conceptual accuracy matters</h2>
<p>With such lack of clarity, we might end up with various analysts using the uniform term “illiberal” to describe different problems. It may spark endless debates over using selective evidence to back the use of the term. If we are not careful in employing the liberal-illiberal premise to portray Indonesia’s democratic trajectory, it will be harder for us to properly diagnose the problems. </p>
<p>Take the problems analysts cited above. They accurately capture, for example, the problem of ethno-religious political mobilisation in the Jakarta elections and the pervasive nexus between oligarchic and money politics. But the difficult question is: what can we do about it? </p>
<p>When these regressive behaviours are mixed together in an overarching illiberal turn, they are portrayed as long-term structural problems. Where do we start fixing structural problems? What can we do while waiting for long-term solutions like civil society empowerment?</p>
<p>Rather than confronting an umbrella of challenges like illiberal turn, perhaps we could focus more rigorously on specific problems. </p>
<p>For instance, we might be better off systematically analysing why ethno-religious political mobilisation in the Jakarta election was effective. As it stands, we have contending <a href="http://www.newmandala.org/economic-injustice-identity-politics-indonesia/">explanations</a> for this. We need better, systematic data to evaluate them, rather than an underdeveloped concept like illiberal turn. </p>
<p>To take another example, consider how some believe that senior military generals’ growing role in political affairs <a href="http://www.atimes.com/article/military-ambitions-shake-indonesias-politics/">lately</a> is another sign of democratic regression. If portrayed as another illiberal turn, we end up with another round of “glass half-full half-empty” debate over Indonesia’s civil-military relations and political reforms. But with a specific diagnosis, we can examine how their behaviours might be driven by organisational challenges like <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/unpacking-indonesias-civil-military-relations-under-jokowi/">promotional logjams</a> within the military.</p>
<p>In short, we should avoid underdeveloped labels or concepts that are overarching and focus instead on specific policy problems in depth. Moving forward, we should isolate the problems rigorously and systematically, otherwise we would not be able to understand how one problem might affect the other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evan A. Laksmana tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>Haphazardly using unspecified terms like “illiberal turn” does little to help us properly diagnose Indonesia’s democratic challenges.Evan A. Laksmana, Senior researcher, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, IndonesiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/685192016-11-09T12:21:52Z2016-11-09T12:21:52ZRussia’s revenge: why Trump triumph is a big win for Vladimir Putin<p>Where much of the world has received news of <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-that-explain-donald-trumps-stunning-presidential-election-victory-66891">Donald Trump’s election victory</a> with shock, Russia has been quick to congratulate the president-elect. Moscow’s motives for doing so predate the tycoon’s decision to enter politics – perhaps by as much as two decades. </p>
<p>Their roots lie in the question: who won the Cold War? After the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, there were two main views. One, the more conciliatory, held that everybody had. The nuclear stand-off was over – so the world was a better place for all. </p>
<p>The second, more confrontational, insisted that the West had won. The West’s superior resources – so this narrative ran – were a function of its superior system: liberal capitalist democracy. A system so far superior that the flagging planned Soviet economy and its military-industrial complex simply ran out of stream trying to keep up. It was a victory of ideas as well as wealth. </p>
<p>It was at this time that <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/at-the-end-of-history-still-stands-democracy-1402080661">Francis Fukuyama wrote</a> of “the end of history” – the idea that political and economic liberalism had triumphed. But what has followed has been anything but. </p>
<p>As a young TV news producer, I covered the end of the Soviet Union. In the years that came after, Western goods crossed into Russia in unprecedented quantities, while Western ideas were planted into politics and economics. As we now know, the latter only briefly took root before withering. </p>
<p>This was not always well understood in the West. My fellow foreign correspondents and I, living in Moscow in the 1990s – Russia’s era of chaos and post-superpower humiliation – used to try to imagine the kind of politician who could re-energise Russia. At the end of the decade, we got our answer. Where other former Communist countries welcomed the leadership of former dissidents such as Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic and Lech Walesa in Poland, Russia chose a former KGB officer, Vladimir Putin. </p>
<h2>Putin rising</h2>
<p>As his time at the top of Russian politics has gone on, Putin has largely removed the last dry stalks of the liberal ideas which had been sown in the 1990s. He has enjoyed a great deal of popular support as he has done so. The counsel of former Cold War foes was not always well received – especially when it was seen as being to blame for the poverty which dominated that time. </p>
<p>Even a former British ambassador to Moscow, Sir Anthony Brenton, <a href="http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/5410/full">subsequently wrote of it as</a> “inadequate financial support and insanely neo-liberal economic advice which produced economic chaos and collapse”.</p>
<p>The successful Russian politician we Western journalists dreamt up as an answer to Russia’s woes even had an imaginary slogan: “Order and sausage” – signifying the importance of a strong state and affordable, plentiful, food. Western liberalism didn’t figure. </p>
<p>And so it has come to pass. Putin’s genius as a politician has been to understand his electorate, and to give it – or more importantly to tell it – what it wanted. To Russia’s men, he has been a tough guy, able to chat with workers and soldiers in their own language. To women, he has seemed organised and sober in a country plagued by alcoholism. Internationally, he has been taken seriously, even if not universally admired.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"796128528140005376"}"></div></p>
<p>Now, a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War, not only are Western ideas of liberal democracy gone from Russia, they are under unprecedented pressure in the West. Russia knows it. In the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of state broadcaster RT (the success of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-russia-today-lost-a-bank-account-but-won-a-battle-in-the-war-of-words-68106">which I wrote about recently</a>), tweeted that “<a href="https://twitter.com/M_Simonyan/status/796234496911798272">people were fed up with aggressive liberalism. People were fed up with immigrants</a>”.</p>
<h2>West in decline?</h2>
<p>Having witnessed the failure of Western liberalism in Russia, I would now argue that Russia’s political tactics are flowing westwards. Trump’s victory, Brexit, the rise of nationalist parties across the West – all of these are hammer blows to the edifice of liberal values. They are sinister echoes from those that pounded away at the Berlin Wall <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/places/berlin_wall">27 years ago this week</a>. </p>
<p>Having reported on several elections in Russia, the 2002 French election (when Jean-Marie Le Pen sensationally made it to the final round) and having written more recently about the possible consequences of Brexit, I would identify a common thread. Illiberal politicians have become highly skilled at articulating their electorates’ fears in language they recognise. At this, liberals have failed. Their critics decry them as an out-of-touch elite. </p>
<p>So as we consider the implications of Donald Trump’s victory, let us also consider this: we may not have witnessed the end of history, but we may have witnessed the high point of liberal democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68519/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Rodgers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While the rest of the world reeled in shock, the Russian leader was very quick to congratulate the new president-elect.James Rodgers, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/611482016-08-12T01:52:46Z2016-08-12T01:52:46ZWestern democracy needs humility to step beyond its own shadow<p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> with the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century. This is part two of an essay on humility’s value for democracy in dark times. Read part one <a href="https://theconversation.com/humilitys-value-for-democracy-in-dark-times-58500">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Joshua Kurlantzick’s provocative book <a href="http://www.cfr.org/democratization/democracy-retreat/p29458">Democracy in Retreat</a> paints a pessimistic picture of the prospects for democracy in much of the world. Echoing <a href="http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/article/end-transition-paradigm">Thomas Carothers’ influential observations</a>, Kurlantzick strongly suggests political transitions can no longer be expected to lead to liberal democracy.</p>
<p>Reflecting on how democracy promoters should adjust to this changing environment, he concludes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even while reviving aggressive advocacy for democracy and human rights, established democracies also need to become more humble. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This seems like an intuitively reasonable suggestion. But what might it actually mean?</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/humilitys-value-for-democracy-in-dark-times-58500">Humility is a valuable trait</a> to possess when viewing attempts at democratisation, which is inevitably a difficult and fraught process. The frustration and impatience with the uneven and incomplete nature of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Wave_Democracy">third wave</a> of democratisation, as well as the disappointment with the inconclusive direction of the Arab Spring, is based on a superficial reading of how democracy successfully developed elsewhere.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127690/original/image-20160622-19773-1ngh5zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127690/original/image-20160622-19773-1ngh5zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127690/original/image-20160622-19773-1ngh5zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127690/original/image-20160622-19773-1ngh5zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127690/original/image-20160622-19773-1ngh5zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127690/original/image-20160622-19773-1ngh5zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127690/original/image-20160622-19773-1ngh5zc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What should we make of the short-lived optimism of the Arab Spring?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kurbey Urner/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Samuel Huntington <a href="http://www.ou.edu/uschina/gries/articles/IntPol/Huntington.91.Demo.3rd.pdf">observed</a>, each wave of democratisation has been followed by a reverse wave in which some countries revert to non-democratic rule. Failed attempts at democratisation and the return of authoritarian regimes are hardly new phenomena, and they certainly should <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-islam-have-a-problem-with-democracy-the-case-of-the-maldives-58040">not be unexpected</a>.</p>
<p>It is remarkable how quickly optimism about the Arab Spring gave way to disappointment. The situation may not look positive right now, but the story is far from finished.</p>
<h2>An uneven and ongoing process</h2>
<p>Despite the allusion to Europe’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848">“springtime of the peoples”</a>, many seem to forget that the immediate consequences of the 1848 revolutions were thoroughly disappointing from the perspective of democracy. It took many of these countries another century of considerable bloodshed and instability to usher in stable democratic rule.</p>
<p>Democratisation is an uneven and ongoing process, one that can provide hope but no guarantees. Not until the 1960s did all citizens in the US receive full and equal rights, and problems still remain, notably in attempts to disenfranchise people through <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/01/voter-id-laws">aggressive forms of voter identification</a>. </p>
<p>It is vital to appreciate the difficult, uneven nature of democratisation and the considerable challenges of maintaining democracy. This was observed by Václav Havel, who <a href="http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9503/articles/havel.html">reflected</a> on “the limited ability of today’s democratic world to step beyond its own shadow”.</p>
<p>Too often, democracy is understood solely in reference to the Western experience with it. One recent example of this is the <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/16/the-u-s-must-put-democracy-at-the-center-of-its-foreign-policy/">open letter</a> calling on US presidential candidates to prioritise democracy promotion. It states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is no cookie-cutter approach to supporting democracy and human rights, but there are fundamental, universal features we should emphasise: representative institutions, rule of law, accountability, free elections, anti-corruption, free media (including the internet), vibrant civil society, independent trade unions, property rights, open markets, women’s and minority rights, and freedoms of expression, assembly, association and religion.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is presented here as “universal” is actually a prescription of democracy that accords closely with the American experience. Many of these features are highly valuable and worthwhile, but this is an argument that should be made, rather than simply appealing to universalism, which many are rightly sceptical of.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130665/original/image-20160715-2150-ewonpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130665/original/image-20160715-2150-ewonpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130665/original/image-20160715-2150-ewonpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130665/original/image-20160715-2150-ewonpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130665/original/image-20160715-2150-ewonpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130665/original/image-20160715-2150-ewonpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130665/original/image-20160715-2150-ewonpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130665/original/image-20160715-2150-ewonpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Gast’s 1872 painting American Progress shows Columbia, a personification of the US, leading civilisation and democracy westward.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A more humble approach</h2>
<p>A more humble approach would start from the assumption that political change does not necessarily mean democratisation, but, when it does occur, a desire for democracy does not automatically mean a preference for the specific liberal democratic model found in the West. </p>
<p>On this point, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Larbi_Sadiki">Larbi Sadiki</a> has argued that Western preconceptions limit our ability to understand what democratisation and democracy may look like in the Arab Middle East.</p>
<p>In particular, there is a strong need to be more attuned to the way the political and economic spheres relate in the democracy. In the dominant model of liberal democracy – one that matches the above description – the economic sphere is normally removed from democratic control. </p>
<p>In fact, it often works to constrain democratic possibilities. The strong pressure for economic liberalisation and structural reforms has had very mixed results. And where it has caused considerable hardship for people, it has tarnished democracy’s name.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/06/18/a-users-guide-to-democratic-transitions/">Coleman and Lawson-Remer observed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The success of emerging democracies depends fundamentally on whether democratisation can also materially improve people’s lives.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With growing socioeconomic problems in many transitional countries and consolidated democracies, the promise of democracy looks increasingly hollow or false. Democracy is meant to be about freedom and equality, but more people now wonder if it can deliver either.</p>
<p>Economics is also relevant for considering the changing ideational climate surrounding democracy. Perceptions that China has been performing strongly, combined with the economic troubles of developed democracies since the 2008 financial crisis, means there is not the same degree of confidence in democratisation being the best course for political transitions.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130670/original/image-20160715-2120-z6efqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130670/original/image-20160715-2120-z6efqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130670/original/image-20160715-2120-z6efqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130670/original/image-20160715-2120-z6efqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130670/original/image-20160715-2120-z6efqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130670/original/image-20160715-2120-z6efqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130670/original/image-20160715-2120-z6efqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130670/original/image-20160715-2120-z6efqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not a universally loved brand: this mural on the wall of Tehran’s former US embassy declares: ‘We stomp on America’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/adavey/4771974342">A. Davey/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Growing doubts have been reinforced by the many problems and challenges Western democracies are facing. Brexit did little to recommend the virtues of democracy to the rest of the world. If anything, it revived classical fears that putting power in the hands of the people is a recipe for bad decisions. </p>
<p>The unravelling of America’s political system is especially <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/25/why-is-america-so-bad-at-promoting-democracy-in-other-countries/">damaging for the brand of democracy</a>. Others are more likely to emulate America’s democratic ideals if it is widely regarded as a just, prosperous, vibrant and tolerant society. </p>
<p>Instead, it is one where inequality is rampant, gun violence is depressingly common, leading politicians are loudmouthed xenophobes, the prison population is the world’s largest, and airports and other public infrastructure are visibly decaying. This is hardly a great advertisement for democracy.</p>
<h2>A two-way approach to supporting democracy</h2>
<p>Simply put, democracy’s brand is not as attractive as it once was. In turn, this suggests supporters of democracy would benefit from turning inward and considering the limitations of their own regimes. </p>
<p>Adopting a more humble approach suggests a more open, two-way approach to supporting democracy, in which both sides learn from each other. Given that established democracies face serious problems with de-democratisation and the undermining of democratic institutions and practices, there is value in seeing what lessons or experiences they can potentially draw upon.</p>
<p>One danger of adopting a more humble approach is that it can justify or encourage inaction. This has been an accusation repeatedly levelled at US President Barack Obama for his responses to political turmoil in the Ukraine and the Middle East. </p>
<p>There are legitimate grounds for concern here. Certainly, passivity does not cohere well with a democratic ethos. But, if instead one understands humility in terms of an awareness of one’s limits and an acknowledgement of what has yet to be achieved, it has the potential to support democratic government. </p>
<p>Retreat from the world is not a viable option, but one must come to terms with the constraints on action that do limit what possible futures are open. Arthur Schlesinger junior conveyed this idea well when <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/22/opinion/reinhold-niebuhr-s-long-shadow.html">describing the worldview</a> of one of America’s most important thinkers on humility, Reinhold Niebuhr:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Humility, he believed, must temper, not sever, the nerve of action.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130669/original/image-20160715-2110-1ns7vyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130669/original/image-20160715-2110-1ns7vyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130669/original/image-20160715-2110-1ns7vyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130669/original/image-20160715-2110-1ns7vyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130669/original/image-20160715-2110-1ns7vyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130669/original/image-20160715-2110-1ns7vyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130669/original/image-20160715-2110-1ns7vyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130669/original/image-20160715-2110-1ns7vyv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Western democracy is no longer the only game in town: China’s Wang Qishan accepts an autographed basketball from Barack Obama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wang_Qishan_,Obama_Basketball_S%26ED.jpg">Pete Souza/White House</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much as Francis Fukuyama’s claims that we had reached “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/21/bring-back-ideology-fukuyama-end-history-25-years-on">the end of history</a>” were overblown a quarter of a century ago, Roger Cohen’s recent lament about the “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/opinion/the-death-of-liberalism.html">death of liberalism</a>” is equally misplaced. Excessive pessimism is <a href="https://theconversation.com/pessimism-is-rife-optimism-naive-activism-is-the-best-tool-for-now-63458">replacing excessive optimism</a>, but both offer an equally distorted perspective on democracy’s place in the world. </p>
<p>Here there is value in taking a longer view. Doing so, it soon becomes clear that the immediate post-Cold-War era was an unusual time when liberal democracy was the only game in town.</p>
<p>Part of what may now be occurring is simply a realignment; a shift back to the kind of situation that has long prevailed – a world made up of a diverse range of governments, one of which is democracy. </p>
<p>In such a context, the value of democracy needs to be restated and defended, rather than presumed. And, in doing so, there is value in adopting a more tempered stance, one that appreciates the limitations and flaws of democracy and our attempts at supporting it, while retaining a quiet confidence in the reasons we continue to value this form of rule.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61148/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Hobson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The value of democracy needs to be restated and defended, rather than presumed. In doing so, there is value in adopting a more tempered stance, one that understands its worth but also its flaws.Christopher Hobson, Associate Professor, School of Political Science and Economics, Waseda UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/583292016-05-13T10:23:46Z2016-05-13T10:23:46ZEastern Europe is shunning liberal democracy – but it’ll come back in the end<p>What’s happening to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe? A new authoritarianism, what one leader has called “<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-28/orban-says-he-seeks-to-end-liberal-democracy-in-hungary">illiberal democracy</a>”, has taken over in Hungary and Poland. Propelled in part by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/paris-terror-attacks-france-now-faces-fight-against-fear-and-exclusion-50703">Paris</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/brussels-terror-attacks-a-continent-wide-crisis-that-threatens-core-european-ideals-56723">Brussels</a> attacks and the fear of terrorism, parts of Europe are drifting away from democratic pluralism.</p>
<p>There’s a growing sense that the world is spinning out of control, and that liberal democracy is only making matters worse.</p>
<p>This turn to the illiberal has been coming for a long time. After 1989, the people of Central and Eastern Europe hoped that democracy would bring immediate economic benefits. These hopes went largely unfulfilled. Standards of living failed to keep pace with popular expectations, especially after the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. In this grim climate, Eastern Europeans were attracted to political leaders who claimed they could defend them against outsiders – including the foreign banks who called in their mortgages when the financial markets collapsed.</p>
<p>These festering resentments were the building blocks of a new nationalism, one founded on both the politics of national identity and the politics of fear. </p>
<p>In Hungary, the nationalist narrative based on partial truths depicted Hungarians as victims, stripped of two thirds of their lands after World War I, then occupied by Nazi Germany towards the end of World War II, and after the war by the Soviets. Stoking fear, the governing parties in Hungary, Slovakia and Poland have called Muslim refugees “a threat to Christian civilisation”. The Hungarian government has warned that all the terrorists in Europe are refugees, and it is now preparing to enact an anti-terror law to give the government emergency powers to declare “a state of terror threat” and suspend the constitution.</p>
<p>In July 2014, Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared that the Hungarian government is an illiberal democracy. He asserted that Hungary and its neighbours were rejecting the liberal values of individual rights, and declared that “the Hungarian nation is not a pile of individuals” like people in the West.</p>
<h2>Surviving illiberal nationalism</h2>
<p>On the face of it, the risk these regimes pose to Europe seems dire. On one hand, the EU is vulnerable. Without major structural reforms, its institutions make easy targets for nationalist movements, and so far, other states’ leaders have shown little inclination to discipline member states who defy EU rules and principles – probably because they want to reserve the right to do so themselves.</p>
<p>But Eastern Europe’s illiberal governments may not be as big a threat to the EU as they now appear.</p>
<p>The benefits these countries receive far outweigh the costs of staying in. The money is plentiful, and flows freely in the form of structural funds with few strings attached. Hungary is currently guaranteed to receive <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/opinion/hungarys-crackdown-on-the-press.html">€22 billion in economic assistance</a> from the EU. Many of the country’s major capital projects, public investment opportunities and employment strategies depend on this beneficent and benign funding.</p>
<p>The EU is also a useful political target for Eastern European nationalists, who need it as a bogeyman. They gain popularity precisely by biting the hand that feeds them, with the rallying cry that “Brussels is the new Moscow”. Leaving it, or diminishing its influence, would rob them of their main political platform. </p>
<p>And despite their assault on the EU’s liberal values, Eastern European governments benefit substantially from the EU’s guarantee of employment mobility for their citizens.</p>
<p>Without the EU, Hungary and its neighbours would be cast adrift in a chaotic world. They have few to no natural resources to speak of, and would likely become economic vassals of the two big illiberal states to the east, Russia and Turkey, whose economic and security situation is far more uncertain than the EU’s. This is why Hungary’s prime minister is trying to stop the EU from detaching Eastern Europe from the Schengen zone, and also why he is seeking to maintain social benefits for Hungarian workers in the UK. </p>
<p>These may be losing battles, especially if Hungary continues to resist the EU quota rules on accepting refugees, but they show how much Orban and his neighbors need the EU.</p>
<h2>Doomed to fail?</h2>
<p>And so the EU looks likely to survive the challenge from the East. But we should not underestimate the forces that have been unleashed by this lurch towards illiberalism – or how unstable these countries may yet become.</p>
<p>If an illiberal government can be changed by democratic means, then the system may be sustainable. But if power becomes so centralised that the government can fend off any democratic challenge, the system may become unsustainable in the long run.</p>
<p>It can be very difficult for centralised illiberal regimes to deliver economic benefits to their citizens without liberalising their political institutions. <a href="https://theconversation.com/forget-putins-global-posturing-russias-biggest-challenges-for-2016-are-domestic-52340">Russia</a> and <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/china-gap-between-m2-and-credit-asian-financial-crisis-2016-5?r=US&IR=T">China</a>, the two main countries cited by Viktor Orban as models of illiberal governance, are both facing economic challenges traceable to the way they are governed.</p>
<p>Illiberal governance also tends to incubate corruption, which is a drag on economic growth and a source of instability, as the <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/939659ae-b67d-11e3-b230-00144feabdc0.html">situation in Russia</a> demonstrates. Eastern European countries have <a href="http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015/">unfavourable ratings</a> compared to other EU member states on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.</p>
<p>Another problem for these regimes is that while the traditional media may have fallen under the control of illiberal governments, online media generally have not. Countries that rein in freedoms are vulnerable to the digital revolution, which both promotes increased peer-to-peer flows of information and creates horizontal pressures for change. In Hungary, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in 2014 when the government <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29846285">threatened to tax the use of the internet</a>, and the government had to back down.</p>
<p>Most unsustainably of all, illiberal regimes offer few safety valves for citizen discontent. When popular pressures build, they must either back down or resort to coercion. The Euromaidan protests in Ukraine showed that physical coercion can lead to greater popular discontent and pressure for more radical change, and can even spill over into serious conflict.</p>
<p>If it continues down this road, Eastern Europe’s turn to illiberal democracy is a serious challenge to the European order, and it carries serious risks – both for Europe at large and for the people living under the governments concerned.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Shattuck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Economic slowdown and a refugee influx have rattled Europe deeply, and some countries seem to have had enough.John Shattuck, President and Rector, Central European UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/398512015-04-22T05:05:56Z2015-04-22T05:05:56ZHidden crisis of liberal democracy creates climate change paralysis<p>A “burning platform” with big, tangible impacts on our everyday lives is often the tipping point for concerted action. We call these crises. </p>
<p>Think of the G20’s actions in the wake of the global financial crisis or the global response to 9/11. Both events left governments and decision-makers with no choice but to act. </p>
<p>Then there are the hidden crises. These are usually not a single, explosive event, rather a pattern of events whose impacts are difficult to connect.</p>
<p>As such it takes time to bring to the surface the underlying cause and have it widely recognised as a crisis. It takes even more time to convince decision-makers to act. </p>
<p>Climate change is an obvious example of this <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/19/australia-worst-carbon-emitter-per-capita-among-major-western-nations">knowledge-action gap</a>.</p>
<p>For most of its “life” as a policy issue, climate change was perceived as an intangible – hard to define, connect and quantify. It was even harder to convince the public and policy-makers to respond.</p>
<p>Seminal developments over the past decade have changed all that. Scientific consensus, volatile weather patterns leading to observable security, economic and environmental impacts, as well as global awareness campaigns, have persuaded new stakeholders, including the <a href="http://www.defense.gov/Releases/Release.aspx?ReleaseID=16976">US military</a> and <a href="http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/pra/Pages/supervision/activities/climatechange.aspx">Bank of England</a>, to move into the action camp.</p>
<p>Yet the evolution of climate change as an issue has exposed the least obvious crisis of the 21st century: our system of democratic governance.</p>
<p>It is on the tip of our tongue every time we speak of the difficulties in resolving climate change - our frustration with the lack of future-focused, coherent action. But we rarely articulate it. </p>
<p>So it remains largely hidden – and therefore largely off the agenda for action and change.</p>
<h2>In what ways is liberal democracy failing?</h2>
<p>Specifically, the failure to tackle climate change speaks to an overall failure of our liberal democratic system to:</p>
<p>• deliver competent, future-focused policy that can guide and give context to the pressing need for action on core challenges</p>
<p>• reconcile expert knowledge and community opinion to deal with the big issues of our age </p>
<p>• gain and sustain long-term consensus on what is often complex policy action to deal with these issues</p>
<p>• achieve effective action by devolving power to local communities or projecting solutions across borders through transnational collaboration.</p>
<p>Climate change is the sharpest manifestation of an entirely new order of policy challenges that confront and confound democracies around the world.</p>
<p>These include cybersecurity, corporate profit-shifting, deepening inequality, porous borders and the movements of people and money that spill through them. </p>
<p>Yet the crisis of liberal democracy remains intangible. This is because we prefer to blame the idiosyncrasies of leaders and bad leadership, rather than the system itself and its growing pattern of policy gridlock and dysfunction.</p>
<p>In the process, we overlook the fact that our delivery mechanism of democracy – liberal democracy – evolved out of a pre-21st century world. It was a world where the speed, scale and complexity of policy were of a dramatically lower order.</p>
<p>So in a globalised, digitally saturated world no longer bound by speed limits, our hands are tied by political and policy machinery, like parliaments, designed to synchronise with the 20th century’s comparatively languid rhythms of decision-making.</p>
<p>In a world of hyper-diversity, this “machine” is engineered to churn out responses to complex challenges within one-size-fits-all templates and packaged slogans.</p>
<p>Moreover, it is largely monopolised by political parties and career politicians. They seek to choreograph the 21st-century policy world with an unimaginative two-step of 20th-century ideologies and allegiances. </p>
<p>Creative coalitions and values that reflect today’s world are, as a result, largely absent. </p>
<p>All this should tell us why the consensus-creating and policy-making institutions liberal democracy relies upon for action and legitimacy risk becoming a case study of failure.</p>
<p>It is also why those who inhabit what is, in effect, an old-fashioned democracy “factory” retreat into the adversarial, the short-term and the sloganistic. These are the blinkers that allow them to shut their eyes to disruption and insist there is no underlying crisis.</p>
<h2>What can be done to overcome this crisis?</h2>
<p>Successfully tackling climate change and other big policy challenges depends on making tangible the intangible crisis of liberal democracy. </p>
<p>It means understanding that liberal democracy’s governance machinery – and the static, siloed policy responses generated by such democracies – is no longer fit for purpose.</p>
<p>It means coming up with disruptive solutions - like <a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/news/201407_Climate_meeting">coalitions</a> of countries, cities and companies to tackle climate change - that re-align this machinery with the new order of scale, complexity and speed that defines our 21st-century world.</p>
<p>Long-term solutions to fix the crisis in democratic governance in Australia might include:</p>
<p>• More deliberative systems that directly engage citizens and deepen debate. Such systems would work to capture and grow long-term vision, values and objectives – rather than static perceptions of incremental policy decisions made for tactical reasons. </p>
<p>• Expert and citizen panels that are genuinely intergenerational and cross-sectoral. Their composition should favour younger generations and ensure the baby boomer generation cedes some control over what it leaves to the next. </p>
<p>• Granting more decision-making power to institutions independent of the government of the day, but still accountable to parliaments (such as the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Budget_Office">Parliamentary Budget Office</a> or <a href="http://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/">Infrastructure Australia</a>). This would increase the capacity of policy planning and decision processes to have staying power beyond individual political cycles.</p>
<p>• Enabling the appointment of some ministers from outside the parliament. This would allow experienced hands – experts at the top of their game – to lead a portfolio while remaining accountable to the parliament. </p>
<p>• Synchronising state and federal electoral terms (to be a minimum of four years), with state and federal elections to take place at two-year intervals. This would allow the meshing of short, medium and long-term planning, complete with clear milestones.</p>
<p>Some of these ideas might work. Some might not. But persisting with a system that seems increasingly incapable of managing the most pressing issues of our age is not an option.</p>
<p>Climate change is symptomatic of, and accelerates, the crisis across our liberal democratic systems. We cannot fix one problem without resolving the other. </p>
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<p><em>Mark and Travers will be on hand for an author Q&A between 12:30 and 1:30pm AEST on Thursday April 23. Post your questions in the comments section below.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Travers McLeod is CEO of the Centre for Policy Development, an independent, non-profit and non-partisan policy institute.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Triffitt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Even as the challenges of climate change grow ever more obvious, what remains largely unacknowledged is the crisis in liberal democratic politics that is preventing an effective response.Mark Triffitt, Lecturer, Public Policy, The University of MelbourneTravers McLeod, Honorary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.