Uncertainty is vital to democracies: Authoritarians want predictability, and flourish in it – The Times of India Blog

There has been an avalanche of recent books about the degrading of democracy, the whys and now-whats of this backslide. Is democracy really facing an existential crisis? What is democracy anyway, and is there any firm framework to judge its crisis that is not partisan?

Indeed, there is. Democracy Rules by political philosopher Jan-Werner Mller is a primer on the first principles of democracy. He proposes a hard border for democratic conflict it cannot compromise the equal standing of all citizens, it cant say that some people are second-class citizens or cannot participate in the national community. By this definition, democracy can accommodate all kinds of disagreement and polarisation and friction, but not the deliberate othering or disenfranchising of any group.

Unlike those who believe the sky is falling on our heads, Mller doesnt think we are on the brink of fascism while authoritarian populism in Brazil, Hungary, Poland and the US has threatened democracy, he says that the mass mobilisation and militarisation of 1930s is absent now. Indeed, all these governments invoke democracy frequently.

But its easy to spot fake democrats populist leaders who claim to speak for the real people or the silent majority, implicitly saying that those who do not support them are not real people and are beyond the pale of consideration. While all parties speak to their own supporters, a base that they forge through their rhetoric and platforms, populists seek to comprehensively cast out certain groups from membership.

There are family resemblances in their style of governance nationalism (with racist or religious or ethnic overtones), the hijacking of the state for partisan loyalists, and weaponising the economy to secure power.

With a propensity for crony capitalism, they need to keep a grip on the judiciary and political system, he writes. In Hungary, for instance, Viktor Orbn promised German automobile makers Chinese conditions with pliant unions, he changed civil service law claiming that liberal left had occupied the levers of the state and had to be purged, he moved in to control courts and media. They also often simulate sovereignty, with a studied performance of collective self-assertion.

Liberals who deplore this tend to place the blame on the masses, suggestible and swayed by demagogues. In fact, no authoritarian populist has come to power without elite collaboration, says Mller. But rather than blaming the masses as liberals tend to do or the powerful few as others tend to do, we need institutional answers.

The critical infrastructure of democracy since the 19th century, says Mller, are political parties and the media. They should not be instrumentalised by other forces, they must remain open arenas for arguments and contests. Both these intermediaries the media and political parties are now troubled, he acknowledges, and suggests ways to renew their missions.

At the core, says Mller, it is institutionalised uncertainty. An election is not the sole and final word; it reveals the balance of political forces at a given time. A democratic opposition takes on the government without delegitimising the system, the government recognises the role of the opposition, knowing that their positions can be flipped. A leader cannot use force or the tax system to destroy the opposition; election losers gracefully accept defeat, knowing that it is limited and temporary. This uncertainty is crucial, says Mller. Whatever it is, democracy can never be predictable.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Uncertainty is vital to democracies: Authoritarians want predictability, and flourish in it - The Times of India Blog