tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/democratisation-11347/articlesDemocratisation – The Conversation2017-11-28T09:18:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/876262017-11-28T09:18:40Z2017-11-28T09:18:40ZWhat drives instability in Africa and what can be done about it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196470/original/file-20171127-2077-1y8tht6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">French President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to French counter-terrorism forces in northern Mali, in May.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Christophe Petit Tesson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Africa will remain turbulent because it is poor and young, but also because it is growing and dynamic. Development is disruptive but also presents huge opportunities. The continent needs to plan accordingly.</p>
<p>Levels of armed conflict in Africa rise and fall. Data from the <a href="http://ucdp.uu.se/">Uppsala Conflict Data Program</a>, the <a href="https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/">Global Terrorism Database</a> and <a href="https://www.acleddata.com/">others</a> indicate that armed conflict peaked in 1990/91 at the end of the Cold War, declined to 2005/6, remained relative stable to 2010/11 and then increased to 2015, although it peaked at lower levels than in 1990/91 before its most recent decline.</p>
<p>Armed conflict has <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/papers/future-im-perfect-mapping-conflict-violence-and-extremism-in-africa">changed</a>. Today there are many more non-state actors involved in armed conflict in Africa – representing a greater fracturing of armed groupings. So it’s not a matter of “government vs an armed group” but a “government vs many armed groups”. Insurgents are often divided and sometimes even fighting amongst themselves. This greater fragmentation complicates peacemaking.</p>
<p>Terrorism has also <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/papers/violent-islamist-extremism-and-terror-in-africa">increased</a>, but depending on how one defines it, it has always been widely prevalent in Africa both as a tactic to secure decolonisation as well as between and among competing armed groups. The big question for 2017 is: is violent political extremism going to move from the Middle East to Africa? Put another way, is it in Africa that Al Qaeda and the Islamic State will find solid footage as they are displaced from the Middle East?</p>
<p>Anti government <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/less-armed-conflict-but-more-political-violence-in-africa">turbulence</a> has also increased in recent years. In Africa, this has led to disaffection and violence around elections that are often rigged rather than free and fair. Generally this is because governance in many African countries present <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/papers/the-future-of-democracy-in-africa">a facade of democracy</a> but don’t yet reflect substantive democracy. </p>
<p>Seven relationships lie behind patterns of violence on the continent, and provide insights into whether it can be managed better.</p>
<h2>Relationships explaining violence</h2>
<p><strong>Poverty</strong></p>
<p>Internal armed conflict is much more prevalent in poor countries than in rich ones. This is not because poor people are violent but because poor states lack the ability to ensure law and order. The impact of poverty is exacerbated by inequality, such as in <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/papers/economics-governance-and-instability-in-south-africa">South Africa</a>. </p>
<p>Updated forecasts using the <a href="http://pardee.du.edu/understand-interconnected-world">International Futures forecasting system</a> indicate that around 37% of Africans live in extreme poverty (roughly 460 million people).</p>
<p>By 2030, 32% of Africans (forecast at 548 million) are likely to live in extreme poverty. So, while the portion is coming down (around 5% less), the absolute numbers will likely increase by around 90 million. It’s therefore unlikely that Africa will meet the first of the Sustainable Development Goals on <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/papers/reasonable-goals-for-reducing-poverty-in-africa-targets-for-the-post-mdgs-and-agenda-2063">ending absolute poverty</a> on a current growth path of roughly 4% GDP growth per annum. </p>
<p><strong>Democratisation</strong> </p>
<p>Democratisation can trigger violence in the short to medium term, particularly around <a href="https://issafrica.org/pscreport/addis-insights/turbulent-elections-in-africa-in-2016-the-need-for-truth-telling-from-the-au">elections</a>. Recent events in <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/kenya-grapples-with-domestic-and-foreign-security-threats">Kenya</a> are an example. Where there is a large democratic deficit, as in North Africa before the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-vibrant-civil-society-is-central-to-democratic-consolidation-in-tunisia-55525">Arab spring</a>, tension builds up and can explode. </p>
<p>And a democratic deficit – where levels of democracy are below what can be expected when compared to other countries at similar levels of income and education – often leads to instability. </p>
<p>Instability is also fuelled by the manipulation of <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/elections-in-2017-can-the-au-up-its-game">elections</a> and constitutions by heads of state to extend their stay in power. Examples include <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/think-again-can-burundi-bury-the-ghosts-of-its-troubled-past">Burundi</a>, the <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/without-elections-the-drcs-economy-will-continue-to-slide">Democratic Republic of Congo</a> (DR Congo) and Uganda.</p>
<p><strong>Regime type</strong> </p>
<p>The nature of the <a href="http://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html">governing regime</a> is another structural factor. Most stable countries are either full democracies or full autocracies. But most African countries have mixed regimes with some elements of democracy mixed with strong autocratic features. They present a façade of democracy but lack its substantive elements. Mixed regimes are inherently more unstable and prone to disruptions than either full democracies or full autocracies.</p>
<p><strong>Population structure</strong></p>
<p>Africa’s <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2177.html">population is young</a>, with a median age of 19. By comparison, the median age is 41 in France (a relatively young country by European standards). So 22% of adult French are in the youth bulge of 15-29 years compared to 47% of Africans.</p>
<p>Young countries tend to be more turbulent because young men are largely responsible for violence and crime. If young people lack jobs and rates of urbanisation are high, social exclusion and instability follow. </p>
<p><strong>Repeat violence</strong></p>
<p>A history of violence is generally the best predictor of future violence. Countries such as <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/malis-electoral-cycle-fraught-with-obstacles-and-instability">Mali</a>, <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/challenges-ahead-for-au-in-ending-car-conflict">Central African Republic</a> and the <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/in-sadc-the-interests-of-ruling-parties-come-first">DRC</a> are trapped in cycles of violence. This is very difficult to break. It requires a huge effort and is very expensive, often requiring a large, multi-dimensional peace mission that only the UN can provide. But, scaling peacekeeping back rather than scaling it up is the order of the day at the <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/what-trumps-stance-on-africa-means-for-continental-security-efforts">UN</a>.</p>
<p><strong>A bad neighbourhood</strong> </p>
<p>Where a country is located can increase the risk of violence because borders are not controlled and rural areas not policed. Most conflict in Africa is supported from neighbouring countries. Violence spills over national borders and affects other countries while poorly trained and equipped law and order institutions generally cannot operate regionally.</p>
<p><strong>Slow growth and rising inequality</strong> </p>
<p>Africa is quite unequal, so growth does not translate into poverty reduction. In addition, the world is in a low growth environment after the 2007/8 global financial crisis, with average rates of growth significantly lower than before. Africa needs to grow at average rates of 7% or more a year if it is to reduce poverty and create jobs, yet current long term forecasts are for rates significantly below that.</p>
<h2>Opportunity amid challenges</h2>
<p>These seven related factors indicate that the notion that Africa can somehow “silence the guns by 2020”, as advocated by the African Union as part of its <a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063">Agenda 2063</a> is unrealistic. Violence will remain a characteristic of <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/monographs/assessing-long-term-state-fragility-in-africa-prospects-for-26-more-fragile-countries">a number of African countries</a> for many years to come and Africa should plan accordingly. </p>
<p>In the long term only rapid, inclusive economic growth combined with good governance can chip away at the structural drivers of violence. It is also clear that middle income countries are making progress in attracting foreign direct investment but that poor countries will remain <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/africa-in-the-world-report/fertility-growth-and-the-future-of-aid-in-sub-saharan-africa">aid dependent</a>. </p>
<p>Much more international and regional cooperation will be required as part of this process, including substantive and scaled up support for <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/turning-point-for-the-au-un-peacekeeping-partnership">peacekeeping</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87626/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jakkie Cilliers 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>Some African countries present a facade of democracy. The absence of substantive democracy is contributing to instability on the continent.Jakkie Cilliers, Chair of the Board of Trustees and Head of African Futures & Innovation at the Institute for Security Studies. Extraordinary Professor in the Centre of Human Rights, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/697142017-01-02T20:20:52Z2017-01-02T20:20:52ZCinema opens a dialogue about coming to terms with Balkans’ past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148394/original/image-20161202-25656-1wjixkl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">By engaging a broad base of people on a popular level, film has a much more immediate and visceral impact than formal lustration proceedings.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHBQ4VsQaic">Before the Rain (1994)</a></span></figcaption></figure><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.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The transition from authoritarian regimes to democracy is never easy. Countries and their people must find ways to deal with traumatic and damaging histories. One of these ways has come to be known as “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/09/what-is-lustration-and-is-it-a-good-idea-for-ukraine-to-adopt-it/?utm_term=.8d3d04f340bc">lustration</a>”.</p>
<p>In its narrowest sense, lustration aims to identify individuals responsible for human rights abuses and purge them from public office. Usually, this involves high-profile criminal trials. </p>
<p>Lustration also encompasses truth-seeking and reconciliation. These processes aim to repair the profound damage that periods of trauma and injustice do to civic traditions, social cohesion and intergenerational relationships.</p>
<p>The broader social function of lustration in “<a href="http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/cpworkshop/papers/Kunicova.pdf">coming to terms with the past</a>”, then, is to rebuild trust and bring about changes in community behaviour following times of collective trauma.</p>
<p>After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many former communist regimes had to face painful truths about their past. Twenty-seven years later, this quest continues.</p>
<p>The transition from communist authoritarianism to democracy has been framed primarily by judicial and political procedures of lustration. Unfortunately, lustration efforts have been instituted very unevenly across the former Eastern Bloc – if at all. <a href="http://www.kas.de/wf/en/33.21550/">National differences</a> in political will, objectives and legal frameworks have made it difficult for the region to find a sustainable way forward. </p>
<h2>The Balkan case and the role of film</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149756/original/image-20161213-25521-1jg3m8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A portrait of Tito watches over a Serbian restaurant along the Belgrade-Nis Motorway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">chat des Balkans/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These problems are perhaps most pronounced in the Balkan countries of the former Yugoslavia. Here, memories of the <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230227798_2">authoritarian past</a> under Josip Broz Tito endure. Yet there is also ongoing disagreement over the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/rp/1995-96/96rp14.pdf">ethno-nationalist wars</a> following the break-up of the Yugoslav state.</p>
<p>In other environments where formal lustration procedures have stalled or failed, alternative cultural forms of expression have explored aspects of witnessing and memory that could not be contained within legal frameworks.</p>
<p>In post-war Europe, for instance, literature was a powerful truth-seeking agent in breaking silences over traumatic pasts. This was especially so in Germany after the Holocaust.</p>
<p>Since the Cold War, film too has taken on this role. By engaging a broad base of people on a popular level, film has a much more immediate and visceral impact than formal lustration proceedings.</p>
<p>Many films have been made about the 1990s wars of the former Yugoslavia. Cinema itself cannot resolve issues of ethno-national conflict, nor can it tell us who was right and who was wrong: it cannot communicate a single, absolute “Truth” with a capital T. Yet films can open up dialogue on highly contentious issues. </p>
<p>Two well-known Balkan films, Milcho Manchevski’s Before the Rain (1994) and Theo Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze (1995), are perfect examples of this. Both express a contested, contradictory pre-Yugoslav Balkan history that is crucial to understanding why the ethno-national question in the region is yet to be resolved.</p>
<h2>The paradox of Balkan identity</h2>
<p>The tension between ethno-national difference on the one hand and a shared “Balkan” heritage on the other has shaped history in this region for centuries. The attempt to resolve this contradiction through the multi-ethnic socialist state of Yugoslavia merely exacerbated its cleavages.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1100&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1100&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149760/original/image-20161213-25510-1odbl50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1100&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 Yugoslav wars (1991-2001).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Denton, Peter Božič, Paul Katzenberger & Paalso/Wikipedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Under Tito, the “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=oCqWFQ1WKlkC&pg=PA180&dq=tito+benevolent+dictator&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eZiVT8u1Io_NswahzJyVBA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=tito%20benevolent%20dictator&f=false">benevolent dictator</a>”, ethno-national co-existence through the ideology of <a href="http://europe.unc.edu/background-titos-yugoslavia/">Brotherhood and Unity</a> was promulgated. This was an uneasy accord, premised on the notion that all subsidiary national identities would wither away, leaving Yugoslav socialism to prevail.</p>
<p>Also, Tito’s state-endorsed “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3234278.pdf">partisan myth</a>” of Yugoslav unity whitewashed the lived reality of ethno-national warfare and Nazi collaboration during the second world war. Yugoslav modernity could therefore succeed only by disallowing any real articulation of ethnic difference. </p>
<p>When the Yugoslav state collapsed, “difference”, subsequently, found expression in grotesque and perverted forms. The ethno-nationalist wars of the 1990s were marked by a particularly grisly “intimate” violence between long-time neighbours and friends.</p>
<p>That Yugoslav modernity failed to resolve the paradox of Balkan identity is implicit within Manchevski’s and Angelopoulos’ films. Both directors re-articulate the “<a href="http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/8720/">quest</a>” narrative, which has traditionally been used in cinema to combine visual explorations of travelled space with psychological processes of change, transformation and revelation.</p>
<h2>A cinematic ‘vision of survival’</h2>
<p>Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze depicts the epic journey of a successful yet existentially adrift filmmaker. “A” travels across the crumbling post-Cold War Balkan landscape in search of three lost reels of film shot by the <a href="https://monoskop.org/Yanaki_and_Milton_Manaki">Manaki brothers</a>, the filmmakers who introduced cinema into the region at the beginning of the 20th century.</p>
<p>A’s journey is traced cinematically as a historical and cyclical “odyssey”. Within a single “gaze” it takes in the entirety of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/map/yugoslavia/">20th-century Balkan history</a> up to the ongoing tragedy in Bosnia, where the <a href="https://www.srebrenica.org.uk/">Srebrenica massacre</a> occurred just weeks before the first screening of Ulysses’ Gaze in Athens, August 1995.</p>
<p>Although the lost reels are eventually found and processed in Sarajevo, they are not watched, and the war continues around A. The great irony, then, is the seeker’s belief in the possibility of finding a single solution to the present conflict in the past; it is a search for a Balkan utopia that never existed.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QB7RUwZuDZc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">From Ulysses’ Gaze, the pieces of a toppled Lenin statue are transported down the Danube.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And yet the quest for these films does offer the protagonist <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41661146?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">“a vision of survival”</a>.</p>
<p>Although A’s journey does not lead to the discovery and restitution of a particular Balkan idyll, the self-knowledge and understanding he gains about the contradictions of Balkan history suggest that these societies can only move forward by accepting their multiplicity, not by trying to resolve it.</p>
<p>A’s belief that this paradox is to be realised through film itself – that is, through the search for the lost Manaki reels – draws attention to the power of cinema in post-Yugoslav truth-seeking processes.</p>
<h2>Opening up the dialogue</h2>
<p>Manchevski’s Before the Rain corresponds to the same traditional “epic” understandings of Balkan history that are expressed in Ulysses’ Gaze. </p>
<p>When Aleks, an award-winning war photographer, returns to Macedonia after a 16-year absence, he discovers that “home” no longer exists. The bucolic village he left behind, where Orthodox Macedonians and Albanian Muslims once lived together peacefully, has descended into sectarian violence.</p>
<p>The cinematic trope of the “frontier”, so central to the Western genre and a foundational myth for the <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300078350/american-west">American nation</a>, traditionally narrates the merging of different peoples and cultures at civilisational boundaries through colonial expansion. </p>
<p>The frontiers in Before the Rain do not articulate this narrative of national realisation. Instead, these frontiers reify the impact of the Balkan region’s geographical nexus at major civilisational fault lines, and its long history of domination by successive empires.</p>
<p>The “frontiers” in this film are temporal, not geographical. They are defined violently by each individual group seeking distinction from the other, but with reference, ironically, to events within a shared history of imperial occupation.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wHBQ4VsQaic?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The repeated line “time never dies, the circle is never round” communicates director Milcho Manchevski’s message about temporal frontiers.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The paradox of frontiers in Before the Rain, therefore, is that temporal frontiers of ethno-nationality operate in a geographical space that different nations have historically shared. Manchevski plays out this irony in a final archetypal “Western” shoot-out, which results in intra-ethnic, not inter-ethnic, bloodshed.</p>
<p>The absurdity of this ending is that each side must kill one of their own to uphold the imagined frontiers of ethnically homogeneous spaces where they have historically never existed. This conveys that “difference” is an implicit and ineradicable component of Balkan identity.</p>
<p>As the history of Yugoslavia’s break-up shows, any ideological attempt to suppress this difference will merely result in perverted articulations of nationhood.</p>
<p>Yet the ending’s even-handedness, its implication that “all sides are equally guilty” of warfare, in turn raises important questions about collective guilt and responsibility that formal lustration processes cannot encompass. This suggests that film has the capacity to prepare the ground for the understanding of collective culpability that is required to “come to terms with past”.</p>
<p>Before the Rain and Ulysses’ Gaze both demonstrate that cinema does not play a substitutive role for the failures of lustration in the post-Yugoslav environment. Rather, it has a <em>pre</em>-lustrative role.</p>
<p>Cinema fulfils this role by opening up dialogues on ethno-national difference and contested understandings of nationhood. These dialogues communicate the level of self-knowledge and participation required of the broader social and national community if it wishes to atone for past wrongdoings and become more stable and democratic in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danica Jenkins 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>Cinema can be instrumental in opening up dialogue on collective culpability for the past. Manchevski’s Before the Rain and Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze are perfect examples of this.Danica Jenkins, PhD Candidate in European Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/655362016-09-26T01:31:37Z2016-09-26T01:31:37ZTrump, Clinton and the future of global democracy<p>Donald Trump’s <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-and-putins-relationship/500852/">admiration</a> for Russian President Vladamir Putin puts the U.S. perilously close to abandoning its longstanding role as democracy’s greatest proponent. In the process, Trump is challenging the already threatened notion that democracy is the only legitimate system of rule.</p>
<p>When he and Hillary Clinton take the stage, in what is expected to be the most-watched <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/296818-trump-clinton-debate-expected-to-shatter-ratings-records">presidential debate</a> in history, Americans won’t be the only ones paying attention. People living under dictatorships around the world will want to know if the next U.S. president will be on their side, or not.</p>
<p>To understand the damage Trump is doing, it’s critical to take a deeper look at what democratization really is. As I argue in my new book, <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442269347/The-Democratization-Disconnect-How-Recent-Democratic-Revolutions-Threaten-the-Future-of-Democracy">“The Democratization Disconnect,”</a> today’s global democratic revolutions are about broad ideas of human dignity with aspects of both political and, especially, economic change. </p>
<p>Often, revolutionaries promise democracy because it is the path of least resistance. The international community, through organizations such as the United Nations, bestows legitimacy only to rising democracies.</p>
<p>When the dust settles, leaders of these new democracies often revert to nondemocratic rule – either because they were never democrats in the first place, or in the name of quickly fulfilling constituents’ largely economic expectations. In the case of Georgia’s internationally celebrated <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=21784">Rose Revolution</a>, for instance, it took just months for the new president to launch a repressive but popular anti-corruption drive. </p>
<p>Georgia highlights what I call the democratization disconnect, which stems from a glaring mismatch between the rhetorical promises of democracy on the one hand, and the bleak everyday realities of transition on the other. It is this mismatch that helps explain why the world is now in the throes of a democratic recession, marked by the failure of <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/democracy-decline">one in five</a> new democracies since the turn of the millennium.</p>
<p>The growing list of failed democracies could soon undermine the idea that democracy is the only legitimate regime type. This amounts to a moral defeat for Americans, and even more importantly, threatens to make the world a more dangerous place. </p>
<h2>Democratization: A disservice to humanity?</h2>
<p>The Republican and Democratic nominees’ proposed fixes could not be more different. Trump has <a href="http://www.fpri.org/article/2016/05/presidential-candidates-democracy-promotion-middle-east/">called democratization</a> an enormous waste of money and “a tremendous disservice to humanity.” He has <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-emerging-trump-doctrine-17176?page=2">pledged to</a> “abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change.”</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton directly oversaw State Department efforts to support democratization during the Arab Spring. She <a href="http://www.fpri.org/article/2016/05/presidential-candidates-democracy-promotion-middle-east/">has argued</a> that while democratization does not always succeed, people “deserve a chance at democracy and self-government.” Just as she <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/blog/clinton-embraces-freedom-agenda">promoted democracy</a> as secretary of state, Clinton <a href="http://www.fpri.org/article/2016/05/presidential-candidates-democracy-promotion-middle-east/">has pledged</a> to keep trying as president.</p>
<p>While Clinton’s stance represents the continuation of decades of bipartisan democratization efforts, Trump’s is a total rebuke. His message to democratizing states is that if it doesn’t work, don’t fix it. Ditch it. </p>
<p>Such a policy change goes against Americans’ <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=g0IhAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=forsythe+american+support+for+human+rights+abroad&source=bl&ots=iHjekmyU16&sig=y9nfvLcDf1Zb4zYUq4efyGRuYg4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWmPjLl6TPAhVq5oMKHSElBY0Q6AEIRDAF#v=onepage&q=forsythe%20american%20support%20for%20human%20rights%20abroad&f=false">long-held belief</a> that we should promote democracy abroad. It also dismisses a significant amount of research indicating that a world of democracies would be a much <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/webad.aspx?id=10720">safer and more prosperous</a> one. </p>
<p>Many sympathetic to Trump’s stance point to the relative failure of the Arab Spring to secure democracy as evidence that democratization is a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/mission-failure-9780190469474?cc=us&lang=en&">disaster</a> we should avoid. Few, however, would likely be opposed to regime change in countries such as North Korea and Iran, which have made starkly clear both their enmity of the West and their desire for nuclear weapons.</p>
<h2>Disneyland democracy</h2>
<p>At the same time, Clinton’s record of following the standard pro-democracy formula is not without problems.</p>
<p>U.S. foreign policymakers have long been convinced that people around the world want nothing more than political freedom. Four-fifths of those asked in every single region of the globe show support for democracy, <a href="http://www.hoover.org/press-releases/spirit-democracy-struggle-build-free-societies-throughout-world-larry-diamond-charts">according to surveys</a> from 1999 to 2001. Dig a little deeper, though, and you find that people have quite different understandings of <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100787810">what democracy is</a>. Most want, above all, greater human dignity with all of the political, but especially economic, guarantees it entails.</p>
<p>Democracy’s privileged place in the world emanates from two sources. One is purely rhetorical. Since World War II, the world community through the United Nations and other institutions has deemed democracy the sole legitimate source of power. One reason is that democracy, a system based on consent and transparency, seemed the <a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-3851-democratizing-global-politics.aspx">only real way</a> to ensure cooperation from such diverse countries. Today, even the mightiest nondemocracies, such as China, walk the democratic walk insofar as their leaders feel they must and safely can. In return, they are rewarded with international memberships, trade deals, grants and loans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138876/original/image-20160922-25457-jvvilc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138876/original/image-20160922-25457-jvvilc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138876/original/image-20160922-25457-jvvilc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138876/original/image-20160922-25457-jvvilc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138876/original/image-20160922-25457-jvvilc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138876/original/image-20160922-25457-jvvilc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138876/original/image-20160922-25457-jvvilc.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 American flag flies outside the United Nations headquarters in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.unmultimedia.org/s/photo/detail/685/0685710.html">UN Photo/Loey Felipe</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Established democracies, including the United States and European Union members, also give off a Disneyland sparkle to those struggling in nondemocracies. They dominate the world’s ranking of countries with the highest life expectancy, standard of living and quality of life. With all that glare, it’s hard to see that democracies can actually face <a href="http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015">worse corruption</a>, more <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/world-politics/article/democracy-and-economic-growth-a-historical-perspective/1BD38458A835E7F34F9A25191B68ECC7">sluggish economic growth</a> and higher <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html">levels of inequality</a> than their nondemocratic counterparts. </p>
<p>For example, if you’re out to <a href="http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015">avoid corruption</a>, you’ll have more luck in non-democratic China compared to democratic Peru, or in non-democratic United Arab Emirates compared to democratic India. <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?year_high_desc=false">Economic growth</a> is much stronger in authoritarian Uzbekistan and Ethiopia than in democratic Germany or Japan. And, the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html">inequality</a> epitomized by that “1 percent” we keep hearing about in the “land of opportunity” is worse than that in Turkmenistan, one of the most repressive states on Earth. These examples show democracy does not necessarily guarantee economic dimensions of human dignity.</p>
<p>Despite these realities, the democratic image has long proven hard to tarnish. </p>
<p>But as more and more states have begun brazenly challenging the democratic template, democracy is no longer so safe. This wouldn’t matter if we accepted that democracy is no good. But, all evidence suggests it is the best system around at providing the political side of human dignity, including rule of law and electoral accountability. These are things nearly everyone wants to the extent they can afford them. </p>
<h2>Getting democratization back on track</h2>
<p>I believe Trump’s policy recommendation to abandon democracy promotion is reckless. At the same time, Clinton’s may be shortsighted. At this pivotal period in democracy’s evolution, Western democratic leaders can’t continue to operate business as usual.</p>
<p>On its face, the U.S. demonstrates a significant commitment to bringing democracy to the global population. The Department of State and USAID plan to spend US$2.7 billion on <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/blog/questions-2017-us-budget-state-department-responds">democracy</a>, human rights and governance in 2017. Elections and civil society building account for a large chunk of this spending – $173 million and $652 million, respectively. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, my experience as a researcher and former U.S. diplomat suggests that such programs do very little with respect to real democratization. </p>
<p>Many of the overwhelmingly small, professional organizations that the U.S. aids might do a decent job monitoring human rights, observing elections and pressuring nondemocratic governments to make legal changes. But, they operate in relative obscurity, having much more contact with foreign donors and diplomats than with the populations they serve.</p>
<p>These organizations occasionally take on the role of democracy’s cheerleaders in the newest spontaneous democratic revolt. But, evidence suggests that U.S. democracy efforts are in fact failing to reach the masses. Nearly two-thirds of <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.26.2.167">Egyptian protesters</a> polled around the time of their revolution in 2011, for example, said they were motivated by low living standards and job scarcity. Less than one in five said that “lack of democracy and political reform” were their key motives. </p>
<p>One alternative to supporting elite, pro-democracy organizations is to put greater resources into organic groups such as trade unions, peasant associations and civic groups. These organizations could be better positioned to heighten popular understandings of, and commitment to, the democratic process. Part of increasing popular conceptions of democracy could involve highlighting the political rights democracy does such a good job of protecting. Another part could be preparing people for the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3078607?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">messy and complicated</a> reality that comes with democracy. </p>
<p>More realistic expectations mean more patience on the part of constituents. That means fewer incentives for state leaders to take nondemocratic shortcuts during the transition. </p>
<p>It might also be helpful for democracy promoters to adopt a quality over quantity approach, making a deeper commitment to democratization in one state rather than encouraging democratic breakthrough in multiple countries. The logic is simple: Better one case of democratic consolidation and four cases of continued authoritarianism than five cases of democratic failure. As we saw in <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/financial_assistance/phare/evaluation/2015/20150806-phare-ex-post-evaluation-final-report.pdf">post-communist Europe</a>, shoring up the economy enough to create popularly shared dividends from the transition is critical.</p>
<p>Whatever the path forward, one thing is clear: As the democratization disconnect threatens the future of democracy, our leaders need to focus on policies that strengthen democracy abroad. Not abandon it.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This piece has been corrected. The original version suggested that China was less corrupt than India and Peru. According to the Transparency International 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index, China is less corrupt than Peru, but more corrupt than India.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65536/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>Will the next U.S. president continue to champion democracy around the world? Not meeting this challenge could have dangerous consequences, says former U.S. diplomat.Brian Grodsky, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641312016-08-24T19:50:35Z2016-08-24T19:50:35ZPodcasts can drive debate and break down academia’s ivory towers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134971/original/image-20160822-18731-1202ajz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Podcasts are emerging as an arguably easy-to-access, affordable mode of creating new spaces for discussion and debate.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Not all of South Africa’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/mar/03/south-africas-student-protests-have-lessons-for-all-universities">student protests</a> in the past 18 months have happened in the streets or on campuses. </p>
<p>A generation of <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/04/business/digital-native-prensky/">“digital natives”</a> has masterfully used hashtags – <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/feesmustfall?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Ehashtag">#feesmustfall</a>; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/rhodesmustfall?lang=en">#Rhodesmustfall</a>; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/asinamali">#asinamali</a>; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/rureferencelist">#RUReferenceList</a> – tweets and <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2016/04/more-than-fees-must-fall-building-a-living-archive-of-struggle">blogs</a> alongside various forms of direct action like marches and protests. This has helped to bring important debates about universities into the public eye.</p>
<p>But what happens after the headlines fade and hashtags change? How can conversations and debates about what will happen to higher education be sustained?</p>
<p>Independent media platforms are an important component of both the media and higher education sectors. A free and diverse media sector is an <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2014/12/05/the-impact-of-the-mass-media-on-the-quality-of-democracy-within-a-state-remains-a-much-overlooked-area-of-study/">essential component</a> of any democratic society. And podcasts are emerging as an arguably easy-to-access, affordable mode of <a href="http://www.bcs.org/content/ConWebDoc/20217">creating new spaces for discussion and debate</a>.</p>
<h2>A promising new medium for debate</h2>
<p>There are <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/world-radio-day-2013/statistics-on-radio/">44,000 radio stations</a> broadcasting all around the world. The single biggest problem facing broadcasters is that the FM band, on which most broadcasts are transmitted, is overloaded. </p>
<p>It is difficult for new radio stations to be awarded a frequency and license, which are necessary steps in establishing a station. It is also expensive and requires huge infrastructural investment to start a radio station. Commercial radio stations have to rely on advertising to survive.</p>
<p>The podcast has emerged as a promising medium for facilitating ongoing, detailed discussion and debate about issues that are so important they need more time than mainstream, profit-oriented media or the changing tides of hashtags might allow.</p>
<p>Podcasting allows anyone with a microphone, an internet connection and an opinion to instantly share it with the world. A “podcast” is a digital audio file created easily on affordable software and distributed via the internet. Listeners can download podcasts, or episodes, to a computer or portable media player. Listeners can also subscribe to their favourite shows and choose whether to listen to individual episodes or entire series.</p>
<p>In this way, podcasts have decentralised information-sharing.</p>
<p>In the US, where Apple celebrated <a href="http://podcasternews.com/2015/07/18/itunes-creates-10-years-of-podcasts-essential-list/">10 years of podcasts</a> in 2015, podcasts were mostly being listened to <a href="http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-measurement/the-5-key-2016-podcast-statistics/">via computer</a> in 2014. Today, <a href="http://www.insideradio.com/free/infinite-dial-podcast-listening-up-sharply/article_c24821f2-e75d-11e5-ae8a-a311e4ade1d1.html">64% of podcasts</a> in the US are accessed via a smartphone or tablet computer. </p>
<p>In Africa, radio remains a <a href="http://africasacountry.com/2013/09/african-radios-growing-and-enduring-popularity/">hugely popular medium</a>. This suggests that the future of podcasts is promising. Podcasting in Africa has become <a href="http://www.okayafrica.com/culture-2/african-podcasts-you-should-be-listening-to/">a veritable trend</a> despite concerns about connectivity issues, costly data and access. Popular topics include technology, entrepreneurship and arts and culture. </p>
<p>Smartphones are becoming ubiquitous in <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/02/22/smartphone-ownership-and-internet-usage-continues-to-climb-in-emerging-economies/">emerging markets</a>. The increased penetration of smartphones and the internet, along with a rising middle class who have more disposable income - particularly in emerging markets like Africa and Asia - has contributed significantly to the creation of podcasts.</p>
<p>Conversations abound in these same markets about increasing investments in the science, technology, engineering and maths fields. There’s also a lot of talk about how improving access to quality higher education shapes and contributes to the growth and development of the overall economy. The more we talk and listen to one another, the more society and the economy will ultimately benefit.</p>
<h2>Podcasts and higher education</h2>
<p>A number of universities already use <a href="http://www.bcs.org/content/ConWebDoc/20217">podcasts for teaching</a>. Students can listen to pre-recorded lectures or hear their lecturers sharing hints and tips for essay-writing. Podcasts are also now <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/audio">emerging</a> as a way to talk about <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/academic/comment/podcasts">issues</a> linked to academia. </p>
<p>It’s the platform podcasts provide for engagement, talking and listening that prompted us to establish a weekly podcast called <a href="https://theacademiccitizen.org">The Academic Citizen</a>. It is funded by the <a href="https://asawu.org.za/">Academic Staff Association of Wits University</a> and is based at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand. It features a weekly in-depth conversation with a guest about topics important to higher education. This facilitates the exchange of ideas and debate far beyond brick and mortar university buildings.</p>
<p>Since its launch in April 2016, The Academic Citizen has featured nearly 20 guests being interviewed on a range of topics: protest action on campuses; whether fee-free higher education is possible and how it could be achieved; language and transformation and the importance of academic staff unions. Every episode features two or three “student voices”, which allows students to share their perspectives on each topic. </p>
<p>The Academic Citizen has tapped into social media platforms like <a href="https://www.facebook.com/academiccitizen">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/academiccitizen">Twitter</a> to share updates and news, which helps us capture more of an audience.</p>
<h2>A plurality of voices</h2>
<p>One of the podcast’s consistent goals is to present a variety of opinions about higher education in South Africa and beyond. It provides a platform for those involved in universities to confront the existing problems, listen to one another’s views and communicate about how higher education can be improved. We believe this will help drive a move towards improving the sector for the benefit of all its stakeholders.</p>
<p>Podcasting helps to promote dialogue so that more voices can “join in” conveniently with difficult conversations. After all, plurality of thought is the key to progress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mehita Iqani is an elected member of the Executive Committee for the Academic Staff Association of Wits University (ASAWU), the union for academic staff, which covers the production costs of The Academic Citizen podcast. All the work she does for the Union and podcast are voluntary and unpaid as part of her academic service to her institution. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Balungile Mbenyane is employed by the Academic Staff Association of Wits University (ASAWU). Part of her responsibility is to plan and produce The Academic Citizen podcast on a weekly basis.</span></em></p>The podcast has emerged as a promising medium for facilitating ongoing debate about issues that need more time than mainstream, profit-oriented media or the changing tides of hashtags might allow.Mehita Iqani, Associate Professor of Media Studies, University of the WitwatersrandBalungile Mbenyane, Researcher for Media Studies, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/610382016-07-06T01:20:20Z2016-07-06T01:20:20ZFacing bumps, but on the right track: Indonesia’s democratic progress<p>Members of Indonesia’s civil society organisations were euphoric when the country elected Joko Widodo, a political outsider, as president. But two years into his presidency, old-style political horse-trading has tempered the initial high expectations of a better way of doing politics in the world’s most-populous Muslim-majority nation. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, among Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia is one of the few countries that shows genuine democratic progress. The Philippines has just elected a president keen on <a href="http://theconversation.com/how-the-philippines-new-strongman-romped-into-office-despite-a-shocking-campaign-58891">using martial law if necessary</a>. The civil society movement to push electoral reform in Malaysia, known as “Bersih Malaysia” or “Clean Malaysia”, is <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/what-you-need-to-know-about-malaysias-bersih-movement">severely curbed by the regime</a>. Singapore’s democracy remains a classic case of <a href="http://theconversation.com/fear-smear-and-the-paradox-of-authoritarian-politics-in-singapore-47763">stubborn authoritarian politics</a>. </p>
<p>A survey I conducted with Norwegian political scientist Olle Törnquist shows Indonesia’s democratic progress through the eyes of civil society activists 15 years after Suharto’s dictatorship. We interviewed nearly 600 activists from across the country. </p>
<p>Indonesian activists see that opportunities for them to enter the state arena and influence policy processes are opening up with Jokowi’s presidency. Many former activists have become close associates of Jokowi. </p>
<p>We recently published our survey <a href="http://folk.uio.no/ollet/files/Reclaiming-the-State.pdf">in a book</a>.</p>
<h2>Progress in Indonesia’s democracy</h2>
<p>We conducted the survey in 2013 and 2014 just before Jokowi took office in July 2014. The results show how optimistic and hopeful Indonesian activists were about the state of Indonesia’s democracy. </p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/tIuIL/1/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Comparing this most recent survey with surveys from ten and seven years ago, Indonesia’s democratic institutions are seemingly becoming stronger.</p>
<p>A whooping 85.4% of respondents said the state respects civil liberties in Indonesia, allowing the freedom to engage in public discourse and to self-organise. This shows an improvement in Indonesian activists’ assessment of how well the government guarantees civil liberties. In 2007, only 62% felt positive about protection of these freedoms. In 2003, less than half of the survey respondents (45%) had this attitude. </p>
<p>Some 61.3% of respondents see Indonesia as having good governance, marked by transparent, impartial and accountable government. In 2007 and 2003, only 53% and 23% respectively held this attitude. </p>
<p>Some 77.2% of respondents view Indonesia as upholding values of representation, which are democratic political representation, citizen participation, institutionalised channels of representation, local democracy and democratic control over instruments of coercion. In 2003, only 37% respondents thought democratic values relating to representation were good. In 2007, the proportion was 57%. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, 71% of our respondents see citizenship, values covering equal citizenship, rule of law, equal rights to justice and universal human rights in a positive light. In 2003 and 2007, only 36% and 55% respectively held this attitude. </p>
<p>Another consistent finding is on democratic control of instruments of coercion – that is, civilian control over the military – which has high scores in the three rounds of surveys. </p>
<h2>Democracy under Jokowi’s presidency</h2>
<p>Jokowi’s win was seen as a hallmark of Indonesia’s democratic progress as he broke the mould of presidents coming from the old political guard. </p>
<p>While some posts in Jokowi’s cabinet are politically motivated appointments, at the same time activists have been invited to be part of the group of actors involved in the policy process. </p>
<p>For example, Jokowi’s chief-of-staff, Teten Masduki, is a former anti-corruption activist. A member of the president’s expert staff, Noer Fauzi Rahman, is an agrarian reformist, and State Secretary Pratikno is the former rector of Universitas Gadjah Mada, where I work.</p>
<p>This is healthy for democracy. The more diverse actors are involved in the policy process the better. It means state actors in Indonesia have become more pluralistic and less monolithic than in the past. </p>
<h2>Setbacks</h2>
<p>There are setbacks, however. The kind of popular movement that resulted in spontaneous volunteer groups banding together to support Jokowi for president has weakened. There has been dwindling interest in acting on important issues such as corruption and resolution of past human rights abuses. </p>
<p>Jokowi has also let suppression of freedom of expression and freedom to self-organise happen under his watch. In recent months, militant religious groups have attacked and harassed public gatherings in Java discussing politically sensitive issues such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-indonesian-presidents-troubling-silence-on-lgbt-persecution-56154">LGBT rights</a> or the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-should-indonesia-resolve-atrocities-of-the-1965-66-anti-communist-purge-57885">1965 tragedy</a>. These groups are backed by the police and military. This is a bad development for democratic institution.</p>
<p>However, our survey areas are broader than Java. We carried out the survey in 30 of Indonesia’s 34 provinces. Thus, generally speaking, if there is perceived weakening of civil liberties, we expect it will not be a dramatic one. </p>
<h2>Reclaiming the state</h2>
<p>In post-Suharto Indonesia, democratic institutions are still the only game in town. </p>
<p>However, Indonesia has a lot of homework to do. Democracy does not only involve the presence of democratic values in society, but requires the means to practise those values.</p>
<p>Political parties in Indonesia should be true representations of the Indonesian people. People should come together in a popular movement to hold the government accountable. </p>
<p>Lastly, civil society actors should grab the opportunity to participate in the country’s political life. To balance power among Indonesia’s oligarchy and civil society, there must be more plurality in democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61038/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amalinda Savirani receives funding from the Norwegian Embassy through Universitas Gadjah Mada to conduct the democracy baseline survey. </span></em></p>Indonesian activists see that opportunities for them to enter the state arena and influence the policy process are opening up with Joko Widodo’s presidency.Amalinda Savirani, Lecturer, Department of Politics and Government, Universitas Gadjah Mada Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/580402016-05-31T00:41:05Z2016-05-31T00:41:05ZDoes Islam have a problem with democracy? The case of the Maldives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120297/original/image-20160427-30946-17ndkcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The political crisis surrounding the 2012 ousting of Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed led to a return to authoritarian rule.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dyingregime/7003064220/">Dying Regime/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><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.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Five years on, confusion and despair have all but replaced the hope of the Arab Spring (with the possible exception of Tunisia). Many have cited the democratic failures and the rise of uglier forms of violence in these states to bolster a <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/16/robert-merry-clash-between-west-and-islam/">“clash of civilisations”</a> worldview.</p>
<p>Yet the tiny Indian Ocean Muslim nation of the Maldives suggests otherwise. Soon after its democratic transition in 2009, the “<a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/02/democracy_maldives">modest model in the Arabian Sea</a>” experienced a pattern of de-democratisation attributable to non-religious factors also evident in other Muslim majority states.</p>
<p>Islam has been the only religion in the Maldives for more than 800 years. But democracy did not fail there because it clashed with Islam (at least the Islam of most ordinary Maldivians). </p>
<p>The structural reforms attempted by the new government challenged elite power and privilege in a political culture of corruption, patronage and clientelism. The resulting anti-democratic resistance and the government’s authoritarian reactions soon put democracy in peril. </p>
<p>A new despotism is now in place in the Maldives. World powers have arguably played important roles in this deterioration.</p>
<h2>Islam and ordinary Maldivians</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124267/original/image-20160527-859-3di5l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124267/original/image-20160527-859-3di5l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124267/original/image-20160527-859-3di5l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124267/original/image-20160527-859-3di5l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124267/original/image-20160527-859-3di5l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124267/original/image-20160527-859-3di5l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124267/original/image-20160527-859-3di5l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124267/original/image-20160527-859-3di5l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Calling for Islamic sharia in the Maldives, protesters use their democratic right to rally against democracy in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dyingregime/15131729636/in/photolist-p693hN-p4953h-p65puD-p5UxAV-oNCbcs-oNAUuY-oNGRZC-oNByWj-oNEJii-p6b2sF-p653K9-p45U3y-p5Rv1v-p5WooH-oNHpJY-p45sQ9-p6cCiR-p64PXA-oNFLBc-p5UzZn-oNBDzf-p5Qoai-p5QiGR-oNzyk3-oNBx98-oNFJrS">Dying Regime/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/10/most-muslims-want-democracy-personal-freedoms-and-islam-in-political-life/">most Muslims</a> in many other Muslim majority states, Maldivians are <a href="http://transparency.mv/en/press-statement/news/transparency-maldives-2015-maldives-democracy-survey-points-to-a-troubled-future-for-democracy-in-the-maldives-9b04d152845ec0a378394003c96da594">solidly in favour</a> of democracy. </p>
<p>In a 2015 survey, 62% thought democracy was the <a href="http://transparency.mv/files/media/6dca8a9f7beda482335bb654b88020f7.pdf">best governance system</a>. 77% believed it was good for the Maldives. Crucially, most Maldivians associate democracy with rights such as freedom of speech and assembly. </p>
<p>If political Islam does have grassroots support, this has not translated into electoral votes. The main Islamist party, Adalat, has never succeeded in elections. Even so, it is in alliance with the main opposition party, the Maldivian Democratic Party, which calls for democracy.</p>
<h2>How the Maldives de-democratised</h2>
<p>Western audiences paid a lot of attention to the non-religious character of the Arab Spring protests. For many commentators, the calls for justice, liberty and democracy transcended religious affiliations. Similarly, Islam played at most a peripheral role in the Maldives’ democratisation, which predated the Arab Spring by several years.</p>
<p>Non-religious elites led the democracy movement. They called for human rights, anti-authoritarianism, multiparty democracy and good governance. In 2008, their activism, supported by transnational human rights advocacy networks, pressured the 30-year dictatorship into holding the country’s first multiparty democratic elections.</p>
<p>The elected government came to power on a platform of complete transformation to “The Other Maldives”. Instructed by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, the government launched an ambitious privatisation program, opening up a hitherto state-manipulated economy to competition. Having inherited an enormous budget deficit and external debt, the government subscribed to an IMF structural adjustment program that included austerity measures.</p>
<p>The government attempted to restructure the public sector. It slashed civil service jobs and streamlined salaries and perks. It also introduced new taxes, including a GST and a tourism tax. </p>
<p>All this took place against the backdrop of the world food price crisis of 2007-08 and global financial crisis. The government had to contend with rising inflation, depleting foreign exchange and high unemployment.</p>
<p>Crucially, the reform program challenged the distribution of power, perks, resources and wealth accumulated over three decades of authoritarianism. In an already stressful economic situation, the short-term negatives of some of the reform measures fuelled public discontent.</p>
<p>Wealthy resort owners, businesses, cadres of the former dictatorship, the judiciary, members of parliament, elements of the security services and other beneficiaries of the old regime responded with anti-government actions. MPs were bought, the judiciary failed to uphold the rule of law and the police were often implicated in crimes. This culture of corruption and opportunism further enabled elite challenges to the new government.</p>
<p>The government, in turn, failed to cultivate a politics of real dialogue, compromise and coalition-building. The resistance, along with the real or perceived fear of anti-democratic plotting, prompted the government to react in an authoritarian manner, much like in <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/social_research/summary/v079/79.2.asad.html">Morsi’s Egypt</a>. This culminated in the arbitrary detention of a criminal court judge. </p>
<p>In the ensuing political conflict, elements of the security forces in collaboration with the former dictator’s supporters deposed the president, Mohamed Nasheed, halfway through his term in February 2012. </p>
<p>While the rhetoric of protecting “Islam and Nation” by largely non-religious actors did play a legitimising role in ousting Nasheed, the elites leading the revolt did not derive power or support from the Islam of ordinary Maldivians.</p>
<h2>The role of other powers</h2>
<p>India and the US were among the first countries to help legitimise the succeeding government at its weakest. </p>
<p>India’s priority was “stability” for its investments in the Maldives. Incoming Maldivian president Mohamed Waheed (then vice-president and a Stanford University graduate) was seen as a “friend” of America. The US sought a Status of Forces Agreement to establish a military base in the Maldives, but no agreement was ever signed. </p>
<p>The Commonwealth, which is supposed to “<a href="http://thecommonwealth.org/our-work">promote democracy</a>”, helped legitimise the new government by overseeing a <a href="http://www.maldivesculture.com/pdf_files/CONI-Report-2012.pdf">Commission of National Inquiry</a> that “found” Nasheed’s own actions were to blame for his ousting. The commission argued that Nasheed lost his legitimacy when political parties that had endorsed him for the presidential elections withdrew their support. </p>
<p>However, in liberal institutional terms, the Maldives has a presidential system where people vote for individual candidates. Elections in liberal democracies also do not require a majority for democratic legitimacy.</p>
<h2>The rise of a new despotism</h2>
<p>Amid the political turmoil, Yameen Abdul Gayoom - half-brother of former dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom – came to power in 2013 following “competitive” elections. Although the Supreme Court manipulated the poll, election observers like the Commonwealth quickly stamped them genuine.</p>
<p>The government has rapidly turned into an example of what <a href="https://theconversation.com/columns/john-keane-267">John Keane</a> calls “<a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/resources/reports-and-publications/13902-lecture-the-new-despotisms-of-the-21st-century">new despotism</a>” in the 21st century. It employs the discourses, formal institutions and other trappings of democracy for undemocratic endeavours.</p>
<p>Yameen’s government has put three or four future presidential hopefuls behind bars. This includes a 13-year sentence for Nasheed on terrorism charges for arbitrarily detaining the judge. More recently, the vice president, Ahmed Adeeb, who purportedly conspired to assassinate the president in 2015, has been detained and impeached.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124266/original/image-20160527-900-19cqhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124266/original/image-20160527-900-19cqhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124266/original/image-20160527-900-19cqhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124266/original/image-20160527-900-19cqhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124266/original/image-20160527-900-19cqhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124266/original/image-20160527-900-19cqhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124266/original/image-20160527-900-19cqhck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124266/original/image-20160527-900-19cqhck.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The jailing of Mohamed Nasheed for 13 years did not stop public shows of support for the Maldives’ first democratically elected president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dyingregime/16567232467/in/photolist-reZp26-rgJm9m-rxmGXv-rxfAsK-qAmQKy-re2ZhH-qAn6c9-rw25XE-rxfZDL-rfN9oC-rydaxJ-rfNaKW-rfUwDM-rgRJ2g-rfMTEQ-qAyWxR-rfMmyu-qAz34F-rv4U45-qAmVQU-re3h4D-qAnfp7-rxmrWt-rfUuRt-rxfjsP-rgKj7A-rv4R73-qAn4Lo-re3j7X-rxfZSb-rfUkcD-rydd45-rfNam9-qAyXB4-rxmvLT-rfUxhv-rfNPvf-rxmoHV-qAzfGB-rfMbwf-re2XRr-rxftAD-rxfzAp-rxfYqy-rfN5xm-rfMcEC-rv4D9A-qAmSSQ-rxg2ZN-rxfB94">Dying Regime/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before imprisoning opposition leaders through an “independent” judiciary, the president used his legislative majority to remove the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Similarly, the parliament endorsed the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/04/maldives-declares-state-of-emergency">state of emergency</a> imposed (and then revoked under pressure) in November 2015.</p>
<p>To help maintain “monitory legitimacy”, the government hired consultancy firm Omnia Strategy, run by Cherie Blair, wife of the former British prime minister, and US lobbyist Podesta Group.</p>
<p>Over the past few years, China has been carving a bigger space for itself in the Maldives, where it has been financing major projects. In 2014, the Maldives <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-12-18/news/57196236_1_the-maldives-oil-exploration-indian-ocean">signed up</a> to China’s <a href="http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/building-new-silk-road/p36573">New Silk Road</a> agenda. </p>
<p>This has prompted <a href="http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/kerry-says-maldives/1821312.html">more vocal US criticisms</a> of the government, while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/pm-modi-cancels-maldives-visit-due-to-political-unrest-sources/story-uwcd3e6HKTWlYxcWCfFd2M.html">cancelled a 2015 visit</a> to the Maldives.</p>
<h2>The limitations of democracy promotion</h2>
<p>Whether or not <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt">Carl Schmitt</a> is right in arguing that ideals like human rights are a mask for powerful states to pursue their interests, the Maldivian government sees the calls in support of such ideals as hypocritical and self-serving.</p>
<p>And, with the Maldives’ increasing reliance on China and Middle Eastern states like Saudi Arabia, it is hard to see how the so-called democracies can support meaningful democratisation if they do not adopt foreign policies consistent with those principles.</p>
<p>The answer for further democratisation lies in new local movements and vocabularies bolstered by a more credible and consistent global network of actors. As the explanation for de-democratisation did not lie with Islam, neither does the fate of democratisation depend on Islam, be it reformist or any other version.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Azim Zahir 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>Democracy did not fail in the Maldives because it clashed with Islam. Instead, a privileged and powerful elite helped topple the elected government, and nations that advocate democratic ideals did little to stop them.Azim Zahir, PhD Candidate and Research Assistant, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/575572016-04-15T00:31:15Z2016-04-15T00:31:15ZCrossing the river by feeling the stones: democracy’s advance in China<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118619/original/image-20160413-22035-150t4mo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yu Keping: 'The movement towards democracy everywhere is a political trend that cannot be reversed. China is no exception.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Renowned as <a href="https://theconversation.com/party-insider-offers-rare-insight-into-what-chinas-reforms-mean-25367">one of China’s leading political thinkers</a>, Yu Keping from Peking University featured in this year’s <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/events/sdn-annual-encounter-professor-yu-keping/">Encounter</a> hosted by the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a> (SDN) at the University of Sydney on April 12. His article is a contribution to 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 SDN. The series aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
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<p>To say “democracy is a good thing” means that democracy can benefit the people. Yet if democracy is to benefit the people, a precondition is that social order must be maintained and hardship shouldn’t burden them. If democracy causes unrest, the people will lose hope, corruption will go unchecked. Under these circumstances, who would still wish for democracy?</p>
<p>Those who are against democracy often use this possibility to frighten their audience. The truth is that there is much evidence to show that the advancement of democracy will not necessarily produce disorder. Just the opposite: over the long term, it is only democracy and the rule of law that will provide for the long-lasting peaceful rule of the nation.</p>
<h2>Direction</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/president-xis-chinese-dream-means-a-more-multi-polar-world-35706">China dream</a> is about supporting the great revival of the Chinese nation. This revival includes many things, but a high level of democracy and the rule of law are an indispensable part of the vision.</p>
<p>The movement towards democracy everywhere is a political trend that cannot be reversed. China is no exception. <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Sun-Yat-sen">Sun Yat-sen</a> once said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Worldwide trends are powerful. Going with them will bring success, going against them will bring disaster.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The main global trend he referred to was nations becoming independent, countries growing wealthy and strong, and their people wanting democracy. Today, when we speak of political civilisation, we mainly refer to democracy and the rule of law. </p>
<p>Democracy is the lifeblood of our republic. The central meaning of “The People’s Republic of China” is that the people are the masters and make the key decisions. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_National_Congress_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China">16th Party Congress</a> emphasised that intra-party democracy is the lifeblood of the party; the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_National_Congress_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China">17th Party Congress</a> emphasised that the people’s democracy is the lifeblood of socialism. It is no longer a matter of whether or not one likes democracy: democracy is a trend that cannot be blocked.</p>
<p>The political development of socialism with Chinese characteristics is in fact the organic unification of three things:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the leadership of the party, the role of the people as masters and decision makers; and the ruling of the nation in accordance with the law. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The sovereign people are at the heart of these three components. The goal is to enable “the people to be the masters”. In the final analysis, the “leadership of the party” and “the rule of law” serve to ensure that the people are the masters.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18th_National_Congress_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China">18th Party Congress</a> emphasised the same point: the people must indeed remain the masters. The continual advancement of democracy and the rule of law is the historical responsibility of those in the Communist Party. This is our correct direction.</p>
<h2>Timing</h2>
<p>The delay of political democratic reforms in China will breed a host of problems. If there are no breakthroughs in the reform of key policy areas, then illegal corruption may turn into legitimised special privileges. </p>
<p>The achievement of democracy depends on real-world conditions. It needs to be linked to economic and cultural realities and the actual foundations of society. As we discovered when “running towards communism”, rushing ourselves will not work; it will bring disastrous consequences. </p>
<p>But moving too slowly in matters of democratic political reform will also not work; the problem of corruption that we hate to the bone won’t be solved. The fact that corruption, until this day, hasn’t been effectively controlled is linked directly to the slow pace of reforms, as are such dilemmas as publishing the property holdings of officials and dealing with declining public trust in government.</p>
<p>Identifying the proper timing of political reforms is the responsibility of politicians, who need to have great wisdom and be willing to take action. Of these qualities, willingness to take action and a sense of responsibility are most important.</p>
<h2>Route</h2>
<p>To deal with its problems, China, as a great power, must draw up a clear roadmap for political reforms. </p>
<p>I have always believed there are three routes from which to choose: the first is a transition from intra-party democracy to social democracy. The 16th, 17th and 18th Party Congresses have consistently emphasised this point. Democratic development needs to choose a pathway that is most efficient and exacts the lowest toll.</p>
<p>The second pathway is a transfer from grassroots democracy to upper-level democracy. Grassroots democracy is directly aimed at the common people, to bring them direct benefits. </p>
<p>In political life, the ideal situation is that the people trust all levels of government. In reality, China is the exact opposite of America: American citizens have a <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2015/11/23/1-trust-in-government-1958-2015/">very low level of trust in the federal government</a>. </p>
<p>We (in China) have high levels of trust in the central government, but our trust in base-level government tends to be lower. “If the base level is not solid, the ground will shake and the mountains will sway.” We need to pay attention to this possibility. </p>
<p>The third pathway involves a shift towards greater political competition. Democracy requires competition: without competition, how are we to elect the most outstanding individuals?</p>
<p>Our democracy will naturally be one with Chinese characteristics. But democracy cannot be separated from elections and competition. Consultative democracy is very important, but consultation should not exclude elections.</p>
<h2>Methods</h2>
<p>Democratic development in China requires achieving a balance among six policy areas:</p>
<p><strong>1</strong> We want democracy and we also want the rule of law. Democracy and the rule of law are two sides of the same coin. Any politician who speaks of democracy cannot avoid discussing the rule of law, looking to the experience of the West, or to the experience of our nation, China.</p>
<p><strong>2</strong> We want deliberation and we also want elections. Chinese democracy, to a great degree, is in fact deliberative in nature; deliberation is part of our historical traditions. Elections, on the other hand, are the product of the modern world. Democracy is naturally inseparable from elections: the two need to be combined.</p>
<p><strong>3)</strong> We want freedom and we want equality. These are basic values of democratic governance. In the past, we have over-emphasised equality. Since the reforms began, freedom has been emphasised, to the point where equality and liberty are in great tension.</p>
<p><strong>4)</strong> We want efficiency and we want justice. These are two indispensable basic values. In the early stages of the reforms, the issue of efficiency was more salient, but now the issue of justice becomes central.</p>
<p><strong>5)</strong> We want participation and we want order. Political scientist Samuel Huntington <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1997-09-01/political-order-changing-societies">once said</a> that the greatest challenge for political modernisation is to manage the relationship between public participation and political stability. As the interests of different social groups become more diverse, the desire of citizens for participation becomes more intense by the day. We need more open channels for political participation. Without legal channels, citizens will certainly resort to irregular, or even illegal channels, and social unrest will result. Democratic participation then becomes problematic.</p>
<p><strong>6)</strong> We want a balance between individual rights and public rights. Rights belong to the individual, and the legal rights of citizens are guaranteed by the constitution. But we also need public rights, because our nation and society are a community.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118662/original/image-20160414-4694-17slipn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118662/original/image-20160414-4694-17slipn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118662/original/image-20160414-4694-17slipn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118662/original/image-20160414-4694-17slipn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118662/original/image-20160414-4694-17slipn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118662/original/image-20160414-4694-17slipn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118662/original/image-20160414-4694-17slipn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118662/original/image-20160414-4694-17slipn.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The impacts of Chinese economic reform can be seen in Shenzhen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/91657289@N02/21058148275/in/photolist-yexHJv-xPYZDQ-yMMve6-xQ8Lnk-xPZPmJ-yEX2t2-yjNN3g-yj7j4K-xPYVBm-yuqAXG-xNmxfa-yuvxc6-y5QvPZ-yfmnZ7-yJHaQY-xQ8PMX-y2wMv9-yce5uE-yuq3Cy-yL3J23-yMMrta-xQ8Xqx-yuuYBX">flickr/Blake Thornberry</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Strategy</h2>
<p>China is facing many reform challenges, and we need to get a firm grip on the most important of them. We must discover those breakthrough reform points that enable us to “move the entire body by pulling one strand of hair”. The restraint of power through intra-party democracy is among these most important breakthrough points. </p>
<p>There needs to be better overall planning; put in terms of mainstream political thinking, “scientific development” is needed. This means that economic development needs to be combined with political development, social development and cultural development. There need to be upper-level designs and reasonable plans based on facts. </p>
<p>What is also needed is an institution responsible for co-ordinating different interests, especially at the level of the central government. Governmental reform should be matched with Party reform.</p>
<p>There also needs to be continuous testing and expansion of reforms, so that we “cross the river by feeling the stones”. Many reforms that have been effective have suffered from discontinuity. The problem is that when politicians leave office their policies often lapse, or are not institutionalised. </p>
<p>To overcome this weakness, efforts need to be made to achieve advances in areas of greater strategic importance. We speak much about supervision, but too little about restraints. We speak even less of restraints on leaders at all levels of the Party.</p>
<p>Everyone fears that advancing democracy will cause a loss of order and will bring social unrest. Everyone meanwhile hopes that by strengthening democracy we can maintain social stability. </p>
<p>However, as I see it, it is only through the deepening of reforms of our political system, and through the genuine advancement of democracy and the rule of law, that we will be able to provide for the long-lasting peaceful rule of our nation, enabling democracy to benefit the people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57557/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yu Keping 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>Opponents of democracy often raise the spectre of social disorder. Over the long term, it is only democracy and the rule of law that will provide for the long-lasting peaceful rule of the nation.Yu Keping, Chair of Politics, Professor and Dean at the School of Government, Peking UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/530682016-01-22T04:05:10Z2016-01-22T04:05:10ZVoices of the poor are missing from South Africa’s media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108847/original/image-20160121-9728-1cu3rz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A typical community protest over the delivery of basic services in South Africa. A study shows protesters often resort to violence to attract attention. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Hutchings</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Poor communities in South Africa feel that their voices are not heard and their issues not taken seriously by the media.</p>
<p>This is clear in the findings of an international <a href="http://www.mecodem.eu/">research project</a> on the role of media in conflicts arising from transitions from authoritarian rule to democratic government. It focused on four countries – South Africa, Egypt, Kenya and Serbia. </p>
<p>The study shows that in all four countries, citizenship conflicts are frequently reduced to judicial factors. The media’s approach to conflicts is to look at them from the perspective of rights rather than cultural factors. </p>
<p>In South Africa, rather than wilful distortion or neglect on the part of journalists, the findings expose systemic problems underpinning news agendas and coverage.</p>
<p>The project, now in its second year, has drawn on content analysis of print media and interviews with journalists and activists. </p>
<h2>Understanding conflict in South Africa</h2>
<p>South Africa’s formal transition from apartheid to democracy <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-general-elections-1994">in 1994</a> is often heralded as peaceful and smooth when viewed in institutional and procedural terms.</p>
<p>But there are lingering problems. Dissent over the unrealised dividends of democracy for the poor and widespread perceptions of government as corrupt have resulted in <a href="https://theconversation.com/protests-soar-amid-unmet-expectations-in-south-africa-42013">ongoing protests</a>. </p>
<p>Anger over <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate">unemployment</a>, <a href="https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-the-housing-situation-in-south-africa/">housing</a>, <a href="http://www.plaas.org.za/blog/social-protests-and-water-service-delivery-south-africa">water and sanitation</a>, <a href="http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/publication/electricity-crisis-soweto">electricity</a>, <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/protesters-tighten-grip-on-power-1.1499907">corruption in municipalities</a>, and health and crime have all been listed as reasons for the rising number of protests which started in the <a href="http://wiser.wits.ac.za/event/public-positions-crisis-democratic-representation-local-government">early 2000s</a>. </p>
<p>The protests are not only aimed at getting basic public services such as water, sanitation and electricity. They are also part of <a href="http://democracyinafrica.org/youth-political-protest-south-africa/">wider disillusionment</a> at the failure of democracy to meet basic needs as well as an attempt by the poor to be heard and included in democratic discourse and policy-making.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/protests-signal-rebellion-poor">“rebellion of the poor”</a> can thus be considered “democratisation conflicts”. They are similar to those in other transitional democracies where the struggle for equality and human rights did not end with the advent of formal democracy. </p>
<p>While it is widely acknowledged that violent protests are becoming more prevalent in South Africa, the role that the media plays in the cycle of protest and violence is not widely understood. </p>
<p>Our <a href="http://www.mecodem.eu/countries/south-africa/">ongoing study</a> indicates that South African community protests receive unfavourable coverage. The reporting also routinely fails to provide depth and context to explain the underlying issues that lead to the protests.</p>
<p>Frequently protests are reported only inasmuch as they inconvenience a middle-class audience, for instance to inform them where traffic may be disrupted. </p>
<p>While journalists are often sympathetic to protesters, they strive for “objective” coverage so as not to come across as supporting a particular side. The result is superficial and limited reporting. Underlying structural issues are not unpacked.</p>
<p>Journalists list time pressures and juniorisation of the newsrooms as some of the reasons for limited in-depth coverage. </p>
<p>And commercial pressures also result in media focusing on protests as drama in an attempt to attract the interest of middle-class audiences. </p>
<h2>Fighting to be heard</h2>
<p>Very few media articles about protests include interviews with protesters. It seems that protesters’ voices remain unheard, even as their actions are reported. Communities report that photographers are often sent to take photographs without being accompanied by reporters to interview them. </p>
<p>Activists from poor communities report that they only get media attention when they go to extremes, such as causing damage. Protesters told researchers that when they called the media to cover their issues, they were asked if “anything is burning”. If nothing is burning, journalists don’t come and don’t report.</p>
<p>Activists report that with the failure of government channels of communication, and poor media coverage of their plight, the only way to be seen is to create a violent spectacle. </p>
<p>They say that participating in government-created spaces for engagement, such as ward councils and municipal integrated development plans, does not lead to satisfactory responses. </p>
<p>This suggests that protest actions follow a calculated logic, despite activists’ impressions that they are often depicted in the media as being out of control.</p>
<p>While there is some coverage in the media that protests are related to structural economic circumstances, they do not reflect the frustrations experienced by communities over government’s empty promises. </p>
<p>Also, scant regard is given to the failure of participatory processes to address grievances. No attention is paid to the failures of capitalism to address inequality. The heavy-handed response from government to silence protest is also underplayed. </p>
<p>Media coverage differs noticeably depending on the respective outlets. In print, the <a href="http://www.dailysun.co.za/">Daily Sun</a> provides the most coverage of protests. This bears out the tabloid’s claims to provide news from the perspective of the poor and the working class. </p>
<p>Compared to their upmarket print media counterparts like the <a href="http://mg.co.za/">Mail & Guardian</a> and <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/">Business Day</a>, the Daily Sun is also the most critical of most aspects of democracy. It is often the only newspaper where sources are ordinary citizens. For media serving the middle class, sources are mostly drawn from officials or the elite.</p>
<h2>Improving reporting of community protests</h2>
<p>The activists we interviewed believe that media could play a big role in boosting democracy in the country by highlighting the issues poor communities face before they spill over into violent conflicts.</p>
<p>A focus on community politics could shine a spotlight on the most marginalised and vulnerable citizens, and in turn could help focus government attention where it is most needed. Media coverage – favourable or unfavourable – added pressure on government to quickly resolve issues.</p>
<p>Activists felt that they would prefer not to have to go to extremes to get media attention. But they also recognised that their protests kept community issues on the agenda.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was co-authored with Rebecca Pointer, research assistant at the Centre for Film and Media Studies, UCT.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53068/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Herman Wasserman leads a team of researchers that receives funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 613370. Project Term: 1.2.2014 – 31.1.2017.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanja Bosch is part of a team of researchers that receives funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 613370. Project Term: 1.2.2014 – 31.1.2017.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wallace Chuma 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 advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994 is often hailed as peaceful and smooth. But, there are lingering problems. Dissent over unmet expectations has resulted in an increase in protests.Herman Wasserman, Professor of Media Studies and Director of the Centre for Film and Media Studies, University of Cape TownTanja Bosch, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Cape TownWallace Chuma, Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/482212015-12-09T23:41:51Z2015-12-09T23:41:51ZFrom Africa to America, manipulation and money make elections less than truly democratic<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.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>2016 is almost upon us and with it the global media event that is the US presidential election. In November, Americans will vote for their next national leader – a practice more than 90% of countries share.</p>
<p>In West Africa, the people of Burkina Faso voted last month in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/world/africa/burkina-faso-elections.html?_r=0">national elections</a>. The vote followed a popular uprising last year that ousted the president of 27 years, Blaise Compaoré, after he tried to extend his rule.</p>
<p>An election date of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/29/central-african-republic-announces-fresh-elections">December 13</a> has been set in the Central African Republic. The vote was postponed in October due to violence.</p>
<p>The spread of elections after the Cold War led to a burst of optimistic scholarship about the prospects for democracy around the world. Citizens have never been more empowered; they get to choose their leaders (in theory, at least).</p>
<p>But optimism, especially in political matters, never lasts long. By the turn of the millennium, more and more regimes appeared to have made only cosmetic shifts (adopting democracy’s formal institutions but not its substance). Concerns about democratic backsliding and reversal grew.</p>
<p>New democracies in particular were criticised for holding elections despite lacking many civil liberties and even the basic rule of law. Elections could be rigged, manipulated and <a href="http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.060106.095434">subverted to sustain authoritarianism</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103504/original/image-20151128-11618-1bnrq9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103504/original/image-20151128-11618-1bnrq9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103504/original/image-20151128-11618-1bnrq9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103504/original/image-20151128-11618-1bnrq9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103504/original/image-20151128-11618-1bnrq9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103504/original/image-20151128-11618-1bnrq9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103504/original/image-20151128-11618-1bnrq9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A park in Nairobi became home to military barracks to stop protests after Kenya’s 2007 presidential election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/44222307@N00/2203789368">DEMOSH/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The latter has been particularly true in Africa. A number of countries held multi-party elections at the time of decolonisation. By the late 1980s, however, 42 out of 47 regimes in Africa were closed autocracies or socialist regimes holding non-competitive, single-party elections.</p>
<p>At the end of the Cold War, a <a href="https://v-dem.net/media/filer_public/43/dd/43ddad26-aae0-48fb-895a-5609fd96e981/v-dem_working_paper_2015_3.pdf">rapid transition</a> took place. The proportion of countries in Africa holding multi-party elections jumped from 25% in 1988 to 84% in 1994. Today, 94% hold multi-party <a href="http://africanelections.tripod.com/index.html">elections for national office</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103987/original/image-20151202-14429-glwlbz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103987/original/image-20151202-14429-glwlbz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103987/original/image-20151202-14429-glwlbz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103987/original/image-20151202-14429-glwlbz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103987/original/image-20151202-14429-glwlbz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103987/original/image-20151202-14429-glwlbz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103987/original/image-20151202-14429-glwlbz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103987/original/image-20151202-14429-glwlbz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A long menu of manipulation</h2>
<p>The quality of elections in Africa still varies widely. They range from elections plagued by violence and fraud (like those in <a href="http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/crises/crisis-in-kenya">Kenya in 2007</a> or the Democratic Republic of Congo <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/10/congo-election-result-violent-protests">in 2011</a>) to the relatively free and fair elections in (Ghana <a href="http://www.nai.uu.se/news/articles/ghanaian_elections_narrow/">in 2008</a> and Cape Verde <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2012/cape-verde">in 2011</a>).</p>
<p>The variety of methods that can be used to manipulate and undermine an election’s integrity is dazzling. The list includes manipulation of electoral legislation and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/01/this-is-the-best-explanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see/">gerrymandering</a>, opposition and voter intimidation, flawed voter registries, biased media and campaigning, ballot box rigging and vote count manipulation. The possibilities come down to context, which includes a country’s level of democratisation.</p>
<p>Electoral manipulation can be classified into three categories: coercion, co-optation and institutional manipulation. These strategies are distributed along a continuum from more coercive to more co-optive.</p>
<p>One way to determine election outcomes is to intimidate voters and opposition candidates to reduce competition sufficiently for the incumbent to stay in power. Another way is vote buying to “persuade” voters with gifts and financial rewards. A third strategy is to manipulate institutions – that is, the legal framework and administration of elections.</p>
<p>All these practices require organisational and financial resources. However, some are more costly than others.</p>
<p>For example, manipulating electoral institutions may be relatively easy for incumbent political actors. Vote buying often requires more extensive financial resources and organisational networks. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103506/original/image-20151128-11628-29uvx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103506/original/image-20151128-11628-29uvx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103506/original/image-20151128-11628-29uvx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103506/original/image-20151128-11628-29uvx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=680&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103506/original/image-20151128-11628-29uvx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103506/original/image-20151128-11628-29uvx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103506/original/image-20151128-11628-29uvx5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Manipulation of results often occurs without voters’ knowledge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Truthout.org/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It makes sense that political actors choose the cheapest, least visible and most effective forms of manipulation. The aim is to avoid attracting formal and informal sanctions, in the form of legal prosecution or depleting resources, and losing legitimacy among citizens.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9680150&fileId=S0017257X15000068">study</a> of electoral manipulation in Africa between 1986 and 2012 found institutional manipulation of electoral management and administration, along with the tabulation of results, likely to be most effective. Electoral institutions are highly accessible to incumbents. Most of their work is “behind the scenes”, so in many cases institutional rigging is the least costly and least visible option. </p>
<p>The next most favoured tactic is coercion. Though intimidation is more visible, it involves relatively little cost and is quite effective. Vote buying is the most costly and least effective type of manipulation.</p>
<p>It makes sense, then, to expect political actors to prefer institutional manipulation and coercion to vote buying. However, the options available to them – the “menu of manipulation” – depend on the political and economic context of each election.</p>
<p>Political actors will not be able to get away with manipulating electoral institutions or intimidation in more developed democracies. In such countries, independent media and judiciaries will denounce (and prosecute) such behaviour. The manipulation of institutions only really succeeds in authoritarian regimes where the rule of law is weak and the bureaucracy vulnerable to partisan capture.</p>
<h2>Not all good things go together</h2>
<p>This means that, paradoxically, as countries move towards democracy, they experience an initial increase in vote buying. </p>
<p>The new <a href="https://v-dem.net/media/filer_public/40/1f/401f4c6b-f336-44f1-88ed-5ce0a02f0061/v-dem_codebook_v3.pdf">Varieties of Democracy database</a> includes almost 400 fine-grained indicators of democracy in 173 countries from 1900 until 2012. These reveal a trade-off between different types of electoral manipulation. When institutional manipulation and coercion is higher, vote buying is lower; as democratisation progresses, there is a shift in the opposite direction.</p>
<p>It seems democracy in Africa promises better administered but not necessarily fairer elections. Not all good things go together. The move towards democratisation will mean more money in politics, more patronage and more clientelistic offers thrown around, at least in the short to medium term.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105157/original/image-20151209-15564-1hnrx2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105157/original/image-20151209-15564-1hnrx2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105157/original/image-20151209-15564-1hnrx2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105157/original/image-20151209-15564-1hnrx2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105157/original/image-20151209-15564-1hnrx2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105157/original/image-20151209-15564-1hnrx2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105157/original/image-20151209-15564-1hnrx2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105157/original/image-20151209-15564-1hnrx2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests gave voice to concerns about the Koch brothers and money politics in the US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/shankbone/6183371761/in/photolist-aqpoZX-aCmcQq-aw2pqK-ariLUk-aCiJ6k-aCmnwE-aCmQMw-aCiwFF-c8C9jy-c593zC-bUCWJz-ayVh4W-bfTsKg-auE2du-bfTMo2-aukZrC-bfUnH8-bfUvyn-bfUx6i-bfUqdt-bfUkBH-bfTyyt-bfUdTT-bfTwE8-bfUu6M-bfUmBp-bfTWPD-bfUipz-bfTuuM-bfTEK6-bfTxzv-bfTtyX-bfUcFH-bfTJY6-bfTUb6-kEFdvM-vBGJzR-zeYMLp-zkVuAX-roeHTP-q5ncQX-bfTHVg-bfTAJp-bfU2un-bfUhn4-bfTLdc-bfTBNe-bfTXPT-bfTVk8-bfUjwk">flickr/David Shankbone</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Whether money politics will eventually decline as democratisation progresses remains to be seen. This trade-off poses questions about the quality of democracy not only in Africa but in established democracies like the US. Multibillionaires Charles and David Koch are projected to spend <a href="http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2015/nov/06/bernie-s/sanders-says-koch-brothers-are-outspending-either-/">US$900 million</a> backing Republican candidates in the 2016 presidential campaign.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/02/us/politics/money-in-politics-poll.html?_r=0">CBS newspoll</a> this year, Americans, regardless of political affiliation, agreed that wealth has too much influence on elections. They also agreed that candidates who win office promote policies that help their donors.</p>
<p>In Africa or America, money politics is a continuing concern – underscoring that high-quality democracy depends on more than just elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48221/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolien van Ham receives funding from the Australian Research Council's DECRA funding scheme (project number RG142911, project name DE150101692). The views expressed in this article are the views of the author, based on the author's research, and in no way represent the views of the ARC. </span></em></p>Voting for national leaders has become the global norm in a remarkably short time – in Africa in 1988, only 25% of countries had multiparty elections, but 94% do today. Yet all is not well.Carolien van Ham, Lecturer in Comparative Politics, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/489722015-10-14T23:54:50Z2015-10-14T23:54:50ZWhy democracy is the unspoken issue in America’s TPP agenda<p>The so-far-secret text of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-trans-pacific-partnership-48653">Trans-Pacific Partnership</a> (TPP) will likely not contain the word “democracy”. Why has the United States, the great engine of democratisation, advanced a pact that is silent on a defining theme of its foreign policy? There are at least three answers.</p>
<p>One answer is narrowly instrumental. For a trade pact with 12 members of variable political character to cohere, its clauses need to be neutral and non-judgemental. If the ultimate ambition is to have China join and play by its rules, the TPP needed to be silent on the democracy that so irks the Chinese Communist Party. </p>
<p>The resort to highly technical economic language poses no threat to democrat or autocrat. Every leader can plausibly posture that it will make the nation’s people more prosperous rather than more free.</p>
<p>The second answer requires us to understand the TPP as the latest in a long line of US-led economic agreements that have sought to advance democracy if not by stealth then by a belief in its universality. An operating assumption of US foreign policy is the connection between free trade and freedom. The TPP intends to advance democracy not as a demand but as an inevitable outcome.</p>
<p>America enjoyed considerable success from democratisation by military occupation. Germany and Japan are the most impressive examples. US troops remain in Italy and South Korea. </p>
<p>But most efforts to entrench democracy elsewhere were non-military in nature.</p>
<p>Like the TPP, the <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/06/economist-explains-20">Bretton Woods agreement</a> of 1944 did not make democracy a condition of participation. “The economic not political health of every country is a proper matter of concern to all its neighbours,” <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7725157.stm">said</a> Franklin Roosevelt. </p>
<p>The International Monetary Fund, created in Bretton Woods, lends money to any regime, liberal or otherwise. But possibly no trade pact has had a more decisive and lasting impact on the spread of democracy.</p>
<p>The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the <a href="https://law.duke.edu/lib/researchguides/gatt/">GATT</a>, which grew from Bretton Woods in 1947) was silent on democracy. The World Trade Organisation (the WTO – the GATT given institutional form in 1995) similarly avoids direct reference to democracy. China felt sufficiently comfortable to <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21541408">join the WTO</a> in 2001.</p>
<p>The European Union, which began as a narrowly economic free trade area, does make democracy a <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/policy/conditions-membership/index_en.htm">condition of membership</a>, but is more flexible when it comes to the democracy of the union itself. By design, the project means to temper democratic sentiment and blunt populism by technocratic bureaucracy.</p>
<p>In a global order given shape by such agreements and institutions democracy has flourished. There were 20 democracies in 1945. Fifty years later there were <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2015#.VhsLprSqpBe">more than 90</a>.</p>
<p>The character of the US has, as the champion of this economic architecture, had an important impact on altering the political complexion of members within it. It is no accident that the flourishing of democracy has occurred when the most powerful state in the system has been a democracy.</p>
<h2>Losing confidence in democracy advocacy</h2>
<p>A third reason the TPP omits “democracy” is because the US has lost faith in its capacity to spread it. For President Barack Obama a central problem of US foreign policy has been military over-extension. </p>
<p>As president he ended the <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99591469">“dumb war”</a> in Iraq, left Libya as quickly as he entered, has so far avoided too much fighting in Syria and has telegraphed the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan through 2016. He has prioritised domestic spending over defence.</p>
<p>Obama’s two immediate predecessors – neither of whom had to save the US from as severe a recession as that handed to Obama – were much more comfortable connecting military power to the spread of democracy. </p>
<p>Bill Clinton was decisive in the creation of a quasi-Muslim democracy in Kosovo in 1999 – having saved Bosnia-Herzegovina, another democracy, from Serbian destruction in 1995. Clinton certainly thought trade pacts good for US prosperity and freedom, as his championing of the WTO and the North American Free Trade Agreement (<a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Bill_Clinton_Free_Trade.htm">NAFTA</a>) shows. But he was also prepared to make war, in the former Yugoslavia, and to extend military alliances, like NATO, in the cause of the freedom and security of foreigners.</p>
<p>George W. Bush continued this theme, overthrowing two regimes, in Afghanistan and Iraq, that had terrible records of maltreating their Muslim populations. The US attempted to create representative governments in their place.</p>
<p>Obama has limited the levers of democratisation to trade pacts and to the TPP in particular. Faced with the opportunity to agitate for democracy in Iran in 2009 when mass <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/world/middleeast/14iran.html?_r=0">street protests</a> erupted, Obama instead pursued a nuclear deal with the regime that crushed them.</p>
<h2>US switches to soft power</h2>
<p>The argument here is not that Obama is weak. Rather, because the post-9/11 wars weakened his nation, he has had to find alternatives. </p>
<p>Obama has advanced an analysis of geopolitics that prizes the utility of engagement and formal agreement over that of hard power. Shaping behaviour via international regimes – like the TPP, the Iranian nuclear deal and ultimately, he anticipates, a binding climate treaty – works better than military interventionism. <a href="http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2014/03/19/russia-crimea-putin-revanchism.aspx">Russia’s revanchism</a>, Obama argues, are better countered by economic isolation instead of military containment.</p>
<p>This form of soft-power internationalism must of necessity downplay political values like democracy, as much as military campaigns must elevate them. Complex trade treaties are necessarily cosmopolitan; wars require crude binaries (good vs evil, right vs wrong). In Obama’s analysis, a reliance on this kind of rhetoric in the statecraft of his immediate predecessors has necessitated an American retrenchment.</p>
<p>Because America’s policy approach is more narrowly economic than before, Obama is placing a number of foreign policy eggs in the TPP basket. It must give lasting form to his <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/world/asia/trans-pacific-partnership-china-australia.html">“pivot to Asia”</a>, nudge Chinese economic nationalism in a benign direction, cool Russian neoimperialism and be so successful that the Libyan and Syrian catastrophes are forgotten. How a partnership between 12 mostly already wealthy democracies can achieve such objectives remains an open question.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was co-published with <a href="http://democracyrenewal.edu.au/">DemocracyRenewal.edu.au</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48972/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy J. Lynch 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>Why has the United States, the great engine of democratisation, advanced a pact that is silent on a defining theme of its foreign policy?Timothy J. Lynch, Associate Professor in Political Science, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/288252014-07-06T21:13:59Z2014-07-06T21:13:59ZStreet protests highlight special status Hong Kong has – and how it should use it<p>Thousands of Hong Kong residents <a href="http://hkupop.hku.hk/chinese/features/july1/headcount/2014/index.html">have taken to the streets</a> to call for democracy and greater autonomy from mainland China. A 170,000-strong rally on July 1 followed hot on the heels of an informal referendum on electoral reform that took place from June 20-29. Hong Kong’s frustration with the mainland is clear, but it is better off treading the path of transition than revolution. </p>
<p>Since control of Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997, the region’s chief executive has been elected by a committee that comprises 400 members in 1997 and 1,200 in 2010 – a far cry from democracy. Under pressure to make good on the promise of “Hong Kong governed by Hong Kong people”, Beijing has pledged universal suffrage by 2017 (the next election year), but with the added condition that all candidates are approved beforehand. </p>
<p>Although people in Hong Kong have an increasing role in choosing their leader compared to colonial times (when the governor was appointed by the British), intellectuals and pro-democratic groups feel that what Beijing has practised is at best a lukewarm democracy, the undercurrent of which is the encroaching control over local media and politics by Beijing. </p>
<p>Hong Kong’s simmering discontent was pushed to boiling point when Beijing recently <a href="http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201406/10/P201406100829.htm">published a white paper</a>, reiterating the “One Country Two Systems” policy. It was confirmation that Hong Kong’s autonomy is only what Beijing is willing to give. Since 1991, Beijing has issued 87 white papers regarding human rights and foreign policy, but this is the first one to address Hong Kong. It was interesting timing, considering the initial referendum discussions took place in June, a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/jun/04/hong-kong-commemorates-tiananmen-square-anniversary-in-pictures">100,000 strong crowd</a> gathered in Hong Kong on June 4 to commemorate the Tiananmen Square crackdown and the recent disputes in the <a href="http://www.ntu.ac.uk/apps/news/158582-15/expert_opinion_-_china_and_vietnam;_over_troubled_waters.aspx">South China Sea</a>. </p>
<p>Hong Kong’s economic stability since its takeover may have been the vital factor that has given Beijing the confidence to act so bullishly. Hong Kong’s GDP growth was <a href="http://www.hkeconomy.gov.hk/en/forecasts/">predicted to be 3-4% in 2014</a>, with an unemployment rate of <a href="http://www.hkeconomy.gov.hk/en/pdf/14q1_pr.pdf">all time low at 3.1%</a>. In comparison, America had a GDP growth of 1% in the first quarter of 2014, and an unemployment rate of 6.3%. In addition, the <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/factbook-2013-en/03/02/01/index.html?itemId=/content/chapter/factbook-2013-25-en">Gini coefficient</a>, a commonly used indicator of inequality shows little change in Hong Kong since the handover. But, Beijing must tread carefully, as economic and political stability often go hand in hand.</p>
<p>Although the June referendum was dismissed by Beijing as unofficial, illegal and invalid. Yet it received 792,808 votes, 42% of whom supported a public vote with open nomination of candidates. That is hard to ignore. In a democratic world, elections and polls are deemed the most important indexes for gauging public opinion. The number represents <a href="http://www.voterregistration.gov.hk/eng/statistic20141.html#1">22.6% of Hong Kong’s registered electors</a>, with 9.5% supporting the open nomination. </p>
<p>These numbers shouldn’t be taken as a given, however. Out of the 792,808 votes, more than 720,000 were received online or mobile and <a href="http://hkupop.hku.hk/chinese/release/release1164.html">70,000 in poll stations</a>. How vigorously observed were the <a href="http://hkupop.hku.hk/chinese/release/release1147.html">voting criteria</a> ? Could people use pseudonyms? If so, it is possible there was plural voting. Plus, how many station voters may have already voted online and was there an age limit for voters? Statistics are unavailable.</p>
<p>The majority of those demonstrating on July 1 were young people, who took to the streets chanting: “This Hong Kong is not the Hong Kong we know of, this Hong Kong is not the Hong Kong we are proud of.” Some marchers were as young as 17 and not even born when the handover took place. Nevertheless, the youth of Hong Kong seem to have a revolutionary fervour for full democracy, against Beijing’s authoritarian policy. </p>
<p>In the midst of this mounting tension, <a href="https://moodle.swarthmore.edu/pluginfile.php/100501/mod_resource/content/0/Democracy/Rustow_Transitions_Toward_Dynamic_Model.pdf">Dankwart Rustow’s transition model</a> could perhaps provide reference for a way forward for Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. He broadly defines transition as “the interval between one political regime and another”. He emphasises one particular path for transition that is neither violent nor revolutionary but proceeds through negotiations between the outgoing authoritarian regime and its democratic opposition. The process often relies upon formal or informal pacts or agreements that provide security guarantees to both sides. Hong Kong’s desire to rinse clean all authoritarian attachments is unrealistic, as it would be too wide a river for Beijing to cross. </p>
<p>But, it’s worth remembering that the peaceful rally on July 1 is something that would never have been allowed to happen on the mainland. This illuminates Hong Kong’s special status within the PRC and that it is a place where China’s capability to allow alternatives can be showcased. Therefore, Hong Kong should take full advantage of its unique position, use the referendum for leverage and negotiate with Beijing for transition, rather than a revolution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28825/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lingling Mao 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>Thousands of Hong Kong residents have taken to the streets to call for democracy and greater autonomy from mainland China. A 170,000-strong rally on July 1 followed hot on the heels of an informal referendum…Lingling Mao, Senior Lecturer in China Studies, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/281612014-07-04T04:54:36Z2014-07-04T04:54:36ZThe colourful reality of Brazilian society – it’s more than football and samba<p>In the run up to the World Cup, the scene depicted in Brazil by the international press was split between two simple narratives. On one hand: disaster, with protests against the tournament gaining <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-27599430">much publicity</a>. On <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jefffick/2014/06/19/soccer-fans-turn-brazil-world-cup-into-giant-beach-party/">the other</a>: football lovers, semi-naked women on beaches and corrupt millionaire elites versus shanty town dwellers. This is despite Brazil’s three decades of a gradual democratisation and rise to the position of the world’s seventh wealthiest economy. Suffice to say, this has contributed to a more complex situation.</p>
<p>The Brazilian press also provided their share of “colonial” images of European foreigners dazzled by a tropical country and a friendly people: the German footballer Miroslav Klose for instance appeared <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/news/police-arrows-indians-dance-klose-200524329--sow.html">dancing alongside 20 members of the indigenous tribe Pataxo de Coroa Vermelha</a>, in the southern state of Bahia. Meanwhile, there was also an obsession with providing images of buses on fire and angry poor people screaming in foreign press.</p>
<p>The negative coverage reflected to some extent the mood of disillusionment and anger of Brazilians at excessive government spending. The tournament <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/05/uk-brazil-worldcup-infrastructure-idUKKBN0EG24F20140605">cost US$11.3 billion</a> to stage, dwarfing the amount invested in public transport, hospitals and schools in a country where citizens pay high taxes and money is badly spent by the state. But the black and white narratives are slowly making room for more sophisticated analyses of Brazilian society. </p>
<h2>Democratisation and media expansion</h2>
<p>Many Brazilians are trying to break free from both oppressive global structures (for example FIFA who are estimated to to make a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fifa-profit-world-cup-2014-6">profit of US$2.6 billion</a> from the tournament) and local powers, among others the state police authorities who crack down on protesters. The growth of the internet as a political blogosphere and social media has facilitated their protests and a wider understanding of the roots of Brazil’s structural inequalities.</p>
<p>This started before the notorious <a href="https://theconversation.com/theyve-won-the-battle-of-the-buses-but-the-struggle-for-brazils-future-goes-on-15390">June 2013 demonstrations</a> and has very much been a consequence of both political democratisation and an ongoing diversification of the media since the 1990s. This has included online media, with sites from different under-represented groups, many of whom are slowly gaining a voice and debating various issues in the blogosphere, from balance in journalism, to public services and political reform of the party system. </p>
<p>Many citizens have taken advantage of the world stage to express anxiety for a better future with a “FIFA standard” of public services. This includes not just more political participation, but also demands for a more democratic and better quality media. Thus the world has seen the tube strikers in Sao Paulo and various other smaller but not less significant protests. </p>
<p>In the run up to the presidential elections in October 2014, where the re-election of Dilma Rousseff is cast in a shadow of doubt, the question that seems to be on everybody’s lips is less who will win the World Cup, but rather where will we go from here?</p>
<h2>More nuanced views</h2>
<p>In the last year, Brazil’s media coverage has shifted from condemning demonstrators on the basis of a law and order framework, to providing more balanced coverage that underlines the legitimacy of their demands. In doing so, the media is better serving its citizens. The success of online citizen journalism coverage and alternative media outlets such as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/29/brazil-ninja-reporters-stories-streets">Midia Ninja</a> has played a large role in pressuring the mainstream to take this more balanced view.</p>
<p>Abroad, too, newspapers have correctly explored some of the roots of all the anxiety. Even tabloids like the <a href="http://www.dailystar.co.uk/world-cup-2014/379115/World-Cup-Riots-Brazil-in-chaos-as-protestors-cripple-city-just-27-days-before-kick-off">Daily Star</a> have pointed out the mix of security measures (57,000 military personnel were deployed), FIFA corruption and the lack of enthusiasm of many Brazilians, including the displacement of 200,000 from their homes due to construction work. Another highlight from The Guardian was the story on the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/10/world-cup-protesters-fifa-demand-reform">reasons to root for the protesters</a>. Thus a key legacy of the protests seems to have been their capacity to contribute to changes in perception, and a more (positive) sympathetic understanding of a whole people. </p>
<p>In spite of the progress it has made, the mainstream Brazilian media remains highly politicised and concentrated. It is represented by organisations such as Globo and Folha de Sao Paulo, which have shown some signs of improvement in terms of professionalism in the last decades. </p>
<p>Critics argue that they have been using the protests and the World Cup for political gain, being quick to point out the delays in airports and stadiums whilst ignoring FIFA’s impositions as well as their own profit with the event. Globo TV for instance has a monopoly over the transmission of events and it was at the centre of the July 2013 protests, which among others also saw protesters demand media democratisation alongside quality public services. They have also accused other media of trying to undermine President Rousseff’s government, and gain support for the opposition in the coming October elections.</p>
<h2>Mixed blessings</h2>
<p>The World Cup in all of this is proving to be a mixed blessing. On the one hand it has exposed the fragility of Brazil’s democracy, its levels of corruption and the lack of preparation before the World Cup, affecting its image and claims to “superpower” status. On a more positive note, it is contributing to changing perceptions, underlining the growing political and social consciousness of its people. After all, this is a country that has seen rapid advancements in recent years: a middle class now composed of 108 million people, with extreme levels of poverty falling down to 6% of the population. </p>
<p>Other changes include the approval of the <a href="http://www.insideprivacy.com/international/brazil-enacts-marco-civil-internet-civil-rights-bill/">internet draft bill</a>, which safeguards net neutrality and freedom of expression – and which is being seen as a model for other countries. There have also been further discussions on media reform, anticipated to occur in the coming year. </p>
<p>Changes have been slow, making it evident that it is more deep-rooted problems that are a cause for concern. These include political corruption, police repression, concentrated mainstream media and a lack of a serious commitment to quality public services like education and healthcare, not to mention a better debate in the public sphere on these crucial needs. </p>
<p>These are the real tools for long-term development, and not just the minerals and other products that are currently being devoured by China. Only time will tell what the legacy of the World Cup will be. But what is emerging is a new Brazil, a more complex and fascinating one that is not passive and is pushing forward for more change and equality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28161/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolina Matos 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>In the run up to the World Cup, the scene depicted in Brazil by the international press was split between two simple narratives. On one hand: disaster, with protests against the tournament gaining much…Carolina Matos, Lecturer in Sociology, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.