How Democracies Die

 "This is how we tend to think of democracies dying: at the hands of men with guns. During the Cold War, coups d’état accounted for nearly three out of every four democratic breakdowns. Democracies in Argentina, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand, Turkey, and Uruguay all died this way. More recently, military coups toppled Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014. In all these cases, democracy dissolved in spectacular fashion, through military power and coercion. 

Review by Nandakishore Sir:

How Democracies Die

by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

This is not a book about how democracies, in general, die - this is a book about how the US system of democracy can die in the near future, if the current trend goes on. (It was written in the first year of the first Trump presidency, so the authors are cautiously optimistic. I am sure they have revised their opinions by now.) The point they want to highlight is that the death can happen due to internal rot, very slowly, like a cancer... and the populace will come to know of it only once it has vanished. It's the " Boiling Frog Syndrome".

    //This is how we tend to think of democracies dying: at the hands of men with guns. During the Cold War, coups d’état accounted for nearly three out of every four democratic breakdowns. Democracies in Argentina, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand, Turkey, and Uruguay all died this way. More recently, military coups toppled Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014. In all these cases, democracy dissolved in spectacular fashion, through military power and coercion. But there is another way to break a democracy. It is less dramatic but equally destructive. Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders—presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. More often, though, democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps.//

Populist leaders can exploit the disenchantment of the electorate and come to power, promising to set everything right. Typically, they disdain the traditional systems of democracy and portray themselves as outsiders, and promise to bulldoze the country to prosperity.

    //Populists are antiestablishment politicians—figures who, claiming to represent the voice of “the people,” wage war on what they depict as a corrupt and conspiratorial elite. Populists tend to deny the legitimacy of established parties, attacking them as undemocratic and even unpatriotic. They tell voters that the existing system is not really a democracy but instead has been hijacked, corrupted, or rigged by the elite. And they promise to bury that elite and return power to “the people.”//

Over the last decade, we have seen many in the world, haven't we? Trump in the USA, Modi in India, Erdogan in Turkiye, Putin in Russia... the list goes on and on. All these leaders have come to power through free and fair elections. However, once ensconced on the "throne", they begin to act like the despots they are.

How can we spot them?

    //We should worry when a politician 1) rejects, in words or action, the democratic rules of the game, 2) denies the legitimacy of opponents, 3) tolerates or encourages violence, or 4) indicates a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media.//

These leaders typically have scarce respect for the democratic process as followed in the country (they will pay lip service to democracy, of course). They will demonise their opponents, cast them as outsiders and interlopers, and suggest to remove them from the scene. They will get non-state actors faithful to them to indulge in violence, silently encouraging them. And finally, they will curtain civil liberties one by one through the introduction of draconian laws, which will be enforced through their lapdog law enforcement agencies and tame judiciary. The press will be muzzled through either bribes or threats.

(In my personal opinion, demonisation of a minority and converting them into the hated "other" is also part of the playbook - whether they be Jews in Hitler's Germany, Kurds in modern-day Turkiye and Muslims in India.)

    //How do elected authoritarians shatter the democratic institutions that are supposed to constrain them? Some do it in one fell swoop. But more often the assault on democracy begins slowly. For many citizens, it may, at first, be imperceptible. After all, elections continue to be held. Opposition politicians still sit in congress. Independent newspapers still circulate. The erosion of democracy takes place piecemeal, often in baby steps. Each individual step seems minor—none appears to truly threaten democracy. Indeed, government moves to subvert democracy frequently enjoy a veneer of legality: They are approved by parliament or ruled constitutional by the supreme court. Many of them are adopted under the guise of pursuing some legitimate—even laudable—public objective, such as combating corruption, “cleaning up” elections, improving the quality of democracy, or enhancing national security.// 

How does a nation combat this?

The authors say that all democracies rely on certain unwritten rules, which they call the "guardrails of democracy" - "mutual toleration and institutional forbearance".

What do these terms mean?

    //Mutual toleration refers to the idea that as long as our rivals play by constitutional rules, we accept that they have an equal right to exist, compete for power, and govern.

    ***

    [Institutional] Forbearance means “patient self-control; restraint and tolerance,” or “the action of restraining from exercising a legal right.” For our purposes, institutional forbearance can be thought of as avoiding actions that, while respecting the letter of the law, obviously violate its spirit. Where norms of forbearance are strong, politicians do not use their institutional prerogatives to the hilt, even if it is technically legal to do so, for such action could imperil the existing system.//

The authors give plenty of examples from the political history of the USA about how politicians belonging to both the major parties have played by these rules: and also how of late, the Republicans have increasingly refused to do so, forcing the Democrats also into the same behaviour pattern. The country has become extremely polarised on party lines.

    //In other words, the two parties are now divided over race and religion—two deeply polarizing issues that tend to generate greater intolerance and hostility than traditional policy issues such as taxes and government spending.

    ***

    Polarization can destroy democratic norms. When socioeconomic, racial, or religious differences give rise to extreme partisanship, in which societies sort themselves into political camps whose worldviews are not just different but mutually exclusive, toleration becomes harder to sustain.//

How can a country overcome this situation?

    //Political leaders have two options in the face of extreme polarization. First, they can take society’s divisions as a given but try to counteract them through elite-level cooperation and compromise.

    ***

    The alternative to learning to cooperate despite underlying polarization is to overcome that polarization.

    ***

    One way of tackling our deepening partisan divide, then, would be to genuinely address the bread-and-butter concerns of long-neglected segments of the population—no matter their ethnicity.// 

All of us good people know this, don't we? That what really matters is not race or religion, but food, clothing and shelter - "roti, kapda our makaan" as they say in Hindi. But look at the world today. Is humanity aware of this fact? If it were so, the world wouldn't be as it is today, would it? With half of humanity at the other half's throat? Jew against Muslim, Hindu against Muslim, Muslim against infidel, white against black...

Sadly, democracy as we know it today is tuned to capitalism, fondly dubbed the "free market". In the name of individual freedom, a handful of people have been allowed to grow richer and richer, mining the misery of the vast majority. The fruits of democracy that the lucky few enjoy are at the cost of the unlucky many. The current world system thrives on the exploitation of nature and people.

This has given rise to anger on a large scale. People are looking for enemies to vent it against, and for messiahs to lead them. This anger is being exploited by these despots. Hitler did it in the 1930's: the Hitler-clones of today are doing it all over the world.

We can't see the problem in isolation. The USA, to sustain its business interests, was active in destroying elected democracies all over the world and putting tinpot dictators in power. It actively encouraged (still encourages) war so that the armament manufacturing companies can make a profit. All of the "liberal" democracies - and "communist" China - is complicit in looting Africa.

Let's face it, folks - democracy, as we know it, is dead. The world is moving towards more wars, authoritarianism, and chaos. And in the meantime, we are busy destroying the environment through pollution and over-exploitation. Humanity is on a roller-coaster ride to perdition.

The authors have diagnosed the disease that ails democracy perfectly. But the time for treatment is over. The patient is already on the deathbed.

Let's all say a prayer!

Read 'To Kill a Democracy' by John Keane.

But there is another way to break a democracy. It is less dramatic but equally destructive. Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders—presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. More often, though, democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps."