How Democracies Die ---- Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

 

Harvard Professors Levitsky and Ziblatt have studied the survival as well as the demise of democracy in various countries of the Western world and arrived at a set of simple, but powerful and thought-provoking conclusions. They have examined the political history of the US in detail and compared and contrasted it with that of Fujimori’s Peru, Chavez’s Venezuela, Putin’s Russia and Erdogan’s Turkey amongst others.

The authors argue that nowadays democracies that die do so relatively slowly, and usually at the hands of elected leaders who come to power through democratic means and then proceed to subvert the very processes that brought them to power. Opportunities for the transformation of democratically elected leaders into despotic strongmen are provided by crises of one sort or another. Economic crisis leading to widespread public discontent and the failure of mainstream political parties to convincingly handle them provide such opportunities. Another set of options emerge when the crisis is one of national security. In this context, Putin used a set of supposedly ‘Chechen terrorist’ bombings in 1999 to good effect while Erdogan used supposed attacks by ISIS terrorists in 2015 to recover and reinforce his position of power. The classic example of the Reichstag fire and Hitler’s effective use thereof, and Marcos’s declaration of martial law in 1972 are illustrative examples too.

Despots who rise through democratic channels often consolidate their positions through technically ‘legal’ means. Institutions are undermined, courts ‘packed’, media, business and civil society either bought off or bullied and a ‘veneer of democracy’ maintained while ‘its substance’ is eviscerated. Gusinsky, the owner of independent TV network NTV in Putin’s Russia, was arrested for ‘financial misappropriation’ and offered a deal -- give up the network for freedom. He took the deal, sold the network to a state enterprise and fled the country. On a smaller scale, the example of Louisiana Governor Huey Long and Senator Joseph McCarthy are some illustrations from US history.

Livitsky and Ziblatt maintain that the formal checks and balances that most democracies rely on -- constitutional provisions that is hoped will guard democracy -- are often inadequate in themselves and open to different interpretations. Despots in the making can thus frequently ensure ‘technical’ legality in the process of subverting the essence of the democratic spirit.

While democratic institutions are by themselves not always adequate, democracy can survive if such institutions are buttressed by informal but widely accepted and strongly internalized, democratic norms of political behaviour. Two such critical norms, the authors argue, are mutual toleration and forbearance in the exercise of power.

Mutual toleration enables competing parties to view each other as ‘legitimate rivals’ and ‘forbearance’ ensures that ’temporary control of institutions’ is not misused to gain partisan advantage.

If politics is not viewed as war, then the opponent, who is therefore legitimate, cannot be ‘destroyed’ by any means available -- standards of political conduct have to be maintained. This ties in neatly with the norm of not misusing available power for political advantage. In essence, mutual respect and a personal commitment to self-restraint -- a political morality of sorts -- are essential for democracy to survive.

An example illustrating this reasoning is illuminating. George Washington established the norm of two terms being the limit for any US President and the norm was followed until FDR decided to violate it, presumably ‘in the interest of the Republic’. In reaction, however, the 22^nd Amendment to the US Constitution was enacted to convert the informal norm to a formal constitutional requirement.

Unfortunately, not all norms can be easily converted to formal laws/rules and so, at the end of the day, the argument remains that a democratically inclined political morality and associated norms of restrained behaviour are essential for democracy to survive.

How politicians define their Raj Dharma is, therefore, what determines the longevity of democracy in any polity. At least, so states the Political Gospel according to Livitsky and Ziblatt.

Happy reading!