Much ado about democracy
David Runciman, the author of How Democracy Ends, and a professor of politics at Cambridge University, starts his book by recounting the inauguration of Donald Trump’s presidency. “To borrow a phrase from philosophy, it looked like the reductio ad absurdum of democratic politics: any process that produces such a ridiculous conclusion must have gone seriously wrong somewhere along the way,” he states. In other words, he says, “If Trump is the answer, we are no longer asking the right question.”
Without a doubt, the rise of Mr Trump to the status of the so-called leader of the free world has left many completely disillusioned from democratic politics. Several academics and philosophers have tried to make sense of this development. Some such as Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (both professors of government in Harvard University), in their arguably better-titled book How Democracies Die, have looked back at history to understand what the future holds for the United States. One of their central conclusions was that “the weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme polarization… and if one thing is clear from studying breakdowns throughout history, it’s that extreme polarization can kill democracies.”
On the other hand, Yascha Mounk, who also teaches at Harvard, in his book titled The People vs Democracy has presented a searing analysis of what seems to be going wrong in the present day and age and how democracies are undergoing change. He argues, quite convincingly too, that the so-called liberal democracies of the world are “decomposing” into either “illiberal democracies” — that is, countries where populist leaders violate liberal principles but seem to enjoy popular support via democratic means — or nations afflicted by “undemocratic liberalism” — that is, countries where popular will is subordinate to well-laid out liberal principles.
Clearly, Mr Runciman is late to join the conversation. His book, too, takes readers on a roller-coaster ride about the past episodes of democratic failures interspersed with a whole variety of philosophical arguments, both for and against democracy as the ideal system of governance. But, it remains a valid question: What is the new thing that Mr Runciman provides?
To be sure, the author starts by saying that looking at the past may not help matters. Why? Because, he argues, “our political imaginations are stuck with outdated images of what democratic failure looks like… But what about the other danger: that while we are looking out for the familiar signs of failure, our democracies are going wrong in ways with which we are unfamiliar?” That is the greater threat, according to the author. As such, he has tried to figure out what political failure would look like in societies where the democracies have an unshakeable hold, where people are far too affluent and far too networked than any time in history. In other words, he contends that “democracy could fail while remaining intact.”
In essence, then, it is not just about a Donald Trump per se. So how does democracy die while staying alive? That’s where the charm of the book lies — in trying to unravel and understand this counter-intuitive notion. The author looks at three broad themes of how this change may happen. First, he analyses violent coups, which is the traditional manner in which a democracy was upstaged. But political violence, especially in the western world where democracies have matured, has gone down. Still, in his view, far from having disappeared, such violence has become “the ghost in this story” — that is, it shows up in conspiracy theories of how democracies are being brought to their knees. The surrender of democratic Greece, much against the popular opinion, in 2015 to the demands of its creditors including the International Monetary Fund and member states of the European Union is a case in point. The second theme is the risk of catastrophe. Again, unlike in the past, when such a threat, say, a nuclear war, used to enthuse democracies to take action, today, similar threats such as climate change may leave such democracies frozen with inaction. What good is such a system? The third theme is the potential takeover by technology. For instance, Mark Zuckerberg may not be able to tell the US President what to do, nor can Facebook users outvote the US electorate, but can Facebook be used to undermine the functioning of the US democracy? Absolutely.
Interestingly, the author also takes a stab at the possible systems that could replace democracy. For instance, British philosopher Nick Land believes that democratic states will soon turn into vast corporations called GovCorp, run by their own unelected chief executive officers. Others like computer scientist Curtis Yarvin (alias Mencius Moldbug) would like to return to absolute monarchy, on the grounds that “modern politics took a wrong turn after 1688.” Not all alternatives are driven by ideology; some are mere populist distortions of democracy. For instance, the so-called pragmatic authoritarianism, of which China is a shining example, wherein “collective dignity becomes a form of national selfassertion: make China great again!”
Mr Runciman book might be a latecomer but it still contributes to the debate albeit more in the form of a long and winding university lecture. Some readers will surely enjoy the tease.