Democracy is in decline – or so a growing consensus suggests. Paul Schuler sets out the evidence for claims that people are turning to autocratic alternatives, and asks whether they necessarily show a loss of faith in democracy. He proposes some alternative measures that could establish whether people are genuinely willing to trade freedom for a ‘solution’ to anxieties about immigration, inequality and globalisation.
Is global democracy in decline? The amount of scholarly firepower trained on this question suggests it is. The Social Science Research Council, for instance, recently commissioned a series of essays on the “Anxieties of Democracy.” In the last two years the Journal of Democracy has also published a series of articles on this very subject, with most agreeing that the threat is real.
Unfortunately, despite evidence from specific elections that seems to justify the concern, current research designs and survey indicators do not seem able to describe or predict the outcomes generating it. What is the evidence for a democratic decline and its drawbacks? And are there alternative measurement strategies?
Evidence for a global decline in democracy comes in three variants. The first form of evidence comes from cross-national indicators (typically Freedom House), showing that the number of free countries is either not growing or declining. The second type comes from election outcomes indicating an increase in support for leaders that appear less committed to democratic norms. The third type focuses on individual level survey data, typically from the World Values Survey. Of these three forms of evidence, changes in the cross-national indices seem the weakest. Although there has been some levelling off of Freedom House Scores, the decline does not yet constitute a “reverse wave.” Furthermore, what decline there is may have more to do with overestimating the true levels of democracy in the 1990s than any actual reduction in democracy.
The more compelling evidence for democratic decline comes from global election returns and survey data. This evidence implies that while a democratic deficit may not yet be reflected in democracy indicators, the storm clouds are gathering. In terms of electoral returns, the success of parties and leaders advocating nationalist sentiments (some of whom have won) in Europe and the US has raised concerns that these appeals could be used to trample on liberal freedoms, particularly for minorities. The problem extends to Asia, where Prabowo Subianto, a former military official under deposed autocrat Suharto, came close to winning the Indonesian presidency despite (or because of) his appeals to roll back liberal democracy. In the Philippines, popular president Rodrigo Duterte has advocated vigilante justice, particularly against drug dealers and drug users.
Despite these concerning cases, we still lack the theory or evidence to link these disparate events. What makes these leaders or parties anti-democratic? Is it their willingness to trample on the civil liberties of minorities? Is it their willingness to undermine democratic institutions? The former is a threat to liberal values, while the second is a greater threat to procedural democracy. In Europe (and in the US), the greater concern seems to be related to anti-immigration, anti-globalisation, and nationalist movements. It is less clear that this translates outside of Europe to the Philippines, Indonesia, and Latin America, where the concerns centre on centralising power in the executive and dispensing with the rule of law. Both trends are obviously concerning, but the root causes and solutions are likely to be different.
The importance of diagnosing the nature of these anti-democratic appeals becomes important when we consider evidence for democratic decline emerging from survey responses in the World Values Survey (WVS). Previous studies have argued that democracy is under threat based on WVS data showing an increase in dissatisfaction with democracy and support for autocratic alternatives. Although the number of respondents supporting autocratic alternatives remains a minority overall, this number is increasing – particularly among younger respondents in the US and, to a lesser extent, Europe. This seems to suggest a growing rejection of democratic norms and support for autocratic alternatives, which should implicate both liberal norms and democratic institutions.
On the face of it, this evidence seems compelling. However, an easy interpretation is complicated when we consider that groups expressing dissatisfaction with democracy in the WVS data differ from those voting for the supposedly autocratic candidates. While younger voters tend to exhibit less support for democracy, it is middle-aged and older voters that are more likely to support right wing candidates.
There are a number of reasons why this linkage might not be so straightforward. First, based on the “critical citizens” framework, it could be that dissatisfaction with democracy does not necessarily mean less support for democracy. Second, it could be that questions using the “d” word may not accurately measure support for the democratic values scholars have in mind when they construct questionnaires. In particular, confirmation bias or different conceptualisations of the term complicate interpretation of answers to these questions.
As a partial solution, some surveys have attempted to ask whether the respondent supports displacing parliament for a ‘strongman’, or allowing the military to rule. However, it is not clear whether or not these questions in isolation can capture support for autocracy or opposition to democracy. Indeed, in an abstract sense, most citizens would prefer not to have the military rule. However, this is not necessarily what we care about. The question is whether people are more willing to trade off democratic norms in the pursuit of certain goals.
Better ways of measuring people’s commitment to democracy
To get a better grasp on the nature of the problem, I have a few suggestions. First, in addressing the potential linkages between different campaigns, it would be useful to conduct text analysis of campaign speeches across countries and across time to assess whether or not there are similarities between anti-democratic candidates and parties across different countries. The key focus here is whether the messages are the same and whether we would see a qualitative and quantitative shift from past threats to democracy.
Second, more work should be done to link the questions asked in surveys like the WVS survey directly to voting behaviour. Where we can identify candidates that appeal to anti-democratic tendencies, do we see voters expressing less confidence in democratic institutions when voting for such candidates?
Third, we must devise measures that better assess how citizens trade off support for democratic norms against their other substantive objectives. One potential avenue could be a greater use of contingent evaluation questions, which are most commonly used in market research. The most basic example is a question which asks how much consumers would be willing to pay for increases in quality. As simply asking whether consumers want high quality goods (“Yes!”) or lower prices (“Of course”) is unlikely to be interesting, these questions force respondents to identify the price they would pay for increases in quality.
In terms of support for democracy, one could ask respondents the degree to which they would trade support for democratic norms for specific substantive goals. Put another way, how much are respondents willing to “pay” in democracy for a “win” on a range of issues (immigration, globalisation, inequality, environment)? Would citizens support the suspension of that country’s institutions to have a leader unilaterally impose a solution to one of these issues? All of these remain open questions as we seek to conceptualise the potential threat to democracy that may exist across the world.
_____
Note: This article originally appeared at our sister site, Democratic Audit.
Paul Schuler is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona School of Government and Public Policy. His research centres on authoritarian politics and democratic transitions. His regional focus is on Southeast Asia, with a particular specialisation on Vietnam. Previous work by Dr Schuler has appeared in the American Political Science Review, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and the Journal of East Asian Studies.
We do not have democracy we have dictatorship of bourgeoisie which theorises abolition of welfare as reform, decreasing of wages and benefits as reform and being “competitive”in the market. the definition of economic crises is defined as only when there is even a slight decrease in profit margin of the capitalists.
What we have here in the UK is a weak facade of democracy.
Where else would a minority government fail to win majority and then bribe itself back into power using the public’s own money?
The conflictual relationship of trade off between freedom and security correlated to conflict of interests zero sum end game in times of disturbing economic growth and decline is well established in history.
Recent times in 18th to 20th century political centralisation trading of democratic norms in Europe,Asia,North American cuntries is a proof of it.
Take England where economic growth with industrial revolution sweeping the national economy the institutions of freedom flowered.and other parts of Europe traded freedom to dictatorships in different forms rose till new era of equalisation of opportunities spread to Europe in colonising the other parts of world.
When Europe flowered,rest of the world in different colonial governments suffered slavery trading of freedom in a Zero sum game.
When colonial expansion has no further scope,inter rivelry grown to blocks or spheres of influence among major colonial powers took shape to military conflicts ultimately to world war1 fought. Some gained and others lost . Victorious powers enjoyed global freedom to act and contract while other countries bartered their freedom to security.
In zero sum game in global plane among nations is gain to one is loss to other party/nation.
The same principle operated in second world war among nations and some gained others lost.
Time for operating the same principle for next round game?
Who is trading off their freedom to security in the form political non democratic dictatial forms and who is trading security to freedoms?
Your analysis of trends of voters reaction in elections in US, Europe and other parts supports above proposition.
What to do to prevent recurrence of past trends from history among the nations in their struggle for maximisation of one’s interests and survival in the zero sum game?
Eliminate the zero sum gamistic political and economic institutions by modifying their structures in some substitute manner. Take away/barter/trade off some freedoms from the sovereign nation states for their security and vest them in global federal sovereign and enhance the overall global freedoms and security which will substitute zero sum game to win win game.
Is the alternative a feasible proposition?
We have non sovereign UN as an existing Global institution with 193 sovereign nation states from all six continents as its members with non democratic Security council with five parmanent member veto powers.
Security council members are also general assembly members.so security council members as responsible nation states accepting democratic norms in international relations relinquish their existing self appointed previleges for global peace,governance and democracy for converting national citizenship to global citizenship for certain purposes the least.
The new global executive in place of security council to be direcly elected heads of six continents and one elected to rotating chair or some such mode.
UN charter to blossom to protect global rights of citizens from national restrictions or encroachments through ICJ.
If we do not transform the UN instituon from non democratic,non sovereign form to federal democratic sovereign institution, with no better alternative for election, the voters will be forced to go for non democratic forms to save themselves from impending despair resulting from zero sum political and economic games.
This is a very interesting development , where we start to analyse data from the web and media to determine how we arrived at where we are today , by the use of algorithms and analysis theory. I do hope the ifo will be universally published for critical appraisal and analysis
Is democracy in decline? Well depends how do you see democracy. If you see it as a dogmatic set of values and a one-size-fix-all Western procedural type democracy of post World War II, then yes, it is in decay and not only in emerging but also in well established, liberal democratic states. The problem with ‘decline’ is that the proponents of this outcry compare today’s perceptions of citizens and performance of governments across the globe with those of the post Cold War 1990s. Back then, on the wave of overoptimistic expectation, we have invented notions such as ‘nations in transition’ simplistically assuming that each and every country will eagerly and straightforwardly ‘transition’ from authoritarian rule to Western model of democracy, without taking into consideration local institutions, political traditions, and specific circumstances of the day in each of those countries.
Democracy, we claimed, is the name of the journey not of its final destination. Correct. Then why we are surprised that this journey takes various forms, devices, itineraries, and does not move ahead like on a highway? My take is that democracy is evolving—both as the value system and as the governance type. On the one hand, we as humanity face new, unprecedented challenges, and they change our perceptions, aspirations, and demands from the governing system. On the other hand, the governance is changing in response to those challenges and our demands as constituency. And these changes occur in broad variety of ways and paces, depending on the contextual settings of any given country. In this process, we all already started moving away from the democracy of the past century toward more localised and flexible (or resilient) form of it, which is more suitable for the fast changing world of 21st century. And this process embraces not only national but also global governance.
This is not a democracy from the textbook, but it is the real-life democracy in its evolution. Change is never an easy process, and there are many pitfalls along the way. In the case of democracy it concerns both citizens and communities (as the demand side) and political institutions (politicians and governments of the supply side)—going through the change hand-in-hand, as partners. Those who believe in its underlying values will have to make those contingency trade-offs at every juncture, continuously—how much are we ready to change ourselves for the democracy adjust and be capable of meeting our needs better?
The UK recently showed that the majority are not anti democratic by voting to leave the democratically deficient eu, despite this major victory for democracy those who supported the losing anti democratic minority remain cause want to abandon democracy entirely so that they can have the outcome they so dearly craved. This is not so odd when you understand that the project fear campaign of remain convinced the easily lead or those with delusions of grandeur to vote for their own democratic demise.