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Abdicating Governance: The Failure of Institutions
Winston Churchill’s description of democracy as the worst of
all systems of government except for all the others is famous. Democracy, it
has been argued, carries within itself the seeds of its eventual destruction by
allowing within it by definition voices and factions that oppose it. In
democracy it happens that the universal right to vote is considered the
desideratum-and yes it is; but, doubtless, universal suffrage is
occasionally captured by leaders who hear voices from a dissatisfied populace within the system. Voices echoed by those who will use the liberties of the
democratic system to exploit emotions arising from heterogeneous, and
sometimes contradictory, dissatisfactions and coalesce a political movement
against the cold pragmatic reasoning offered by traditional leaders. A popular
movement with the intention of rewriting existing political and social
institutions outside the trite formulas and solutions spread by the elite and
the intelligentsia of the status quo. A movement that is usually described as
populism.
The average citizen has many things top of mind: family,
job, garden... The common citizen has many occupations and prefers to devote
more time to them than to government. The ordinary citizen wants to have the
confidence and satisfaction that his or her government is led by capable people who
protect the common interest to the best possible extent. Those are the terms of the
political contract that the citizen, the people demand from their government
and institutions. When public officials break that contract, that confidence,
dissatisfaction arises and the populist seed is sown.
- Media with credibility gaps,
- Partisan and ideological polarization driven by self-interest or perceived as such and,
- Low voter engagement with an institutional discourse seen as sterile and irrelevant.
Under these conditions a growing group of people becomes a diminishing
group of voters so, and as a result of such low participation, traditional
representatives are perceived with scant legitimacy. “Don’t blame me, I didn’t
vote for…” is the bumper sticker capturing that sense of illegitimacy.
The citizen body has many needs and demands. When political
representatives address these needs before letting them escalate into a general
grievance, democracy works. By ignoring these needs and allowing them to become
widespread anger against what is then perceived as a detached elite, fertile
ground for a populist movement is created.
It is at that moment that the disenchanted, cynical, disenfranchised,
marginalized, poor—the forgotten—are easily seduced by a snake charmer who gets
from the fervor awakened in the popular mind an adrenaline rush feeding his/her
own narcissism while inflaming the masses. The populist dynamic thus enters
into a cycle of increasingly toxic feedback between the leader and the mass—as
in any overdose of any drug.
Deceit: The Anti-democratic Nature of Populism
The populist discourse is sectarian by nature. The populist seeks to establish a simple reason why people are dissatisfied with their status and targets the blame on an easily identifiable group and the institutions, politicians and intellectuals affiliated to that group. Common base emotions exploited in sectarian speech are resentment, envy, xenophobia, racism and revenge.
For these reasons (sectarian, anti-institutional and
emotional discourse) populism is one of those bad words in politics that few
allow as a valid alternative. Recent political movements such as Podemos, in Spain or Kirchnerismo in Argentina, have sought
to redefine the term positively, repackaged as "popular democracy."
However, as with every populist, they label themselves anti-institutional or
protectors of the oppressed. That so called Popular, Participatory or Democracy for the Masses preaches a sectarian credo without respecting the rights or even
the legitimate participation of opposition minorities [i]. Also it begets
concentration of power, destroying or nullifying institutional checks and
balances and separation of powers. It is the tyranny of the majority in full-fledged
form.
Populism’s true nature, sometimes in the past and certainly nowadays,
hides within the very rules of the democratic game. But make no mistake,
populism is fundamentally undemocratic despite looking as if it seeks to
legitimize its power from the people, as the name suggests. Even when populist
leaders fail to reach power they will change the political dialogue, planting in
their followers deep skepticism about the validity of the institutions; and
when democrats use populism’s seductive tools to gain power, they equally undermine
democratic institutions by the skepticism sown (drunk uncle's "inconvenient
truths" -mercantilism, favoritism and corruption- suggested by B. Arditi, as cited by Frei and Rovira, 2008).
Democracy can only be sustained when people trust their
institutions. When trust declines a leader can take advantage of that lack of trust
by calling the institutional system incompetent, corrupt or rigged. The expectations created by
the leader’s promises feed a craving for radical change and breeds hope in the
movement’s followers. When achieving power by institutional means, i.e.
popular vote, the only way for the leader to fulfill the promised change is by eventually
destroying the institutional system that brought him or her to power; otherwise
followers in the future will seek a more radical populist. When the populist
leader achieves power through non-institutional means, ferocious purges are unleashed
against the institutional representatives of the previous system. Undoubtedly
the populist and authoritarian go hand in hand. Unbridled populism always and
eventually will become totalitarianism.
Institutionalists left behind by the wave leading the
populists to power in the best of cases retire, and in the worst end up in
exile, prison or executed. Survivors write and ponder from their political
paleolithic cave, sometimes not even realizing how they failed the constituents
and institutions or media they led.
Thomas Jefferson argued that institutions should be renewed radically
every so often—periodic elections originate from that reasoning. Institutional
stagnation undoubtedly can decelerate, prevent or reverse the political,
and therefore economic, development of nations. For industrial cycles in business theory
Schumpeter referred to a similar concept calling it Creative Destruction, caused
by technological development and its consequent effect on both production and
distribution systems as well as lifestyle preferences. Populism is inserted
into the political world as an alarm, like the canary in the mine, indicating
the need for a fresh renewal in a nation’s institutions as social needs evolve—or
else be forced to face a destructive transformation.
Populism has its role in democracy, that of the canary. It is attractive and sings a song, but is toxic and dangerous, as botox can be. The utopian idealism
offered by populism is seductive when it groups heterogeneous complaints under the large cover of general dissatisfaction and promises to satisfy these
complaints with simple symbols and slogans instead of specific and complex
proposals. Liberal Democracy is in danger under those conditions but must hold
its political ground to balance the attacks of populists with the need for social redress.
The fundamental
promises of Liberal Democracy are: defending the dignity of the individual,
equal protection under the law, ensuring equal opportunity, and protecting private
property. Those also are seductive promises. Those are the conditions under
which individuals can take charge of their life freely in their pursuit of happiness
and thrive, a pursuit that brings benefits to the collective of society—as
postulated by Adam Smith almost 250 years ago and proven in practice.
It is only under a system of Liberal Democracy that nations
have been able to improve the economic and social condition of their population.
There are flaws of course but, we must reiterate, it is only in an alternating democratic
system committed to solving these flaws that they can be rectified, as history
has demonstrated. Human, civil and social rights have flourished and developed
under democratic governments with constructive dialogue. Herein lies the largest
and most damaging failure of populism: its purposeful ignorance of history. And
that ignorance has led prosperous societies to the abyss of economic suffering,
social disintegration and destruction of civic values under regimes using the
state’s monopoly of legal (and para-legal) violence to remain in power.
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NOTES
[i] Qualifying democracy with adjectives is an unfortunate necessity to distinguish ideological systems. Just as "populism" often has implicit negative connotations in its terminology, "democracy" is considered a positive descriptor for any system of government, as was the case for the German Democratic Republic (DDR – East Germany, a fiercely totalitarian regime) or is that of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). Because the usage of the word democracy has been distorted so much it needs the qualifying adjective “liberal” to describe a government system based on free periodic elections, rule of law, and free market principles.
[i] Qualifying democracy with adjectives is an unfortunate necessity to distinguish ideological systems. Just as "populism" often has implicit negative connotations in its terminology, "democracy" is considered a positive descriptor for any system of government, as was the case for the German Democratic Republic (DDR – East Germany, a fiercely totalitarian regime) or is that of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). Because the usage of the word democracy has been distorted so much it needs the qualifying adjective “liberal” to describe a government system based on free periodic elections, rule of law, and free market principles.
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[ii] Regarding the link emotion / reason Frey and Rovira
(2008) make this interesting observation: "The fact that the establishment
of populism is based more on passion than reason points out one of its greatest
political weaknesses: the problem of duration. Rational criteria are much
easier to stabilize than emotional factors. Thus, the permanence of a populist
movement depends on its continued ability to activate and sustain collective
passion. To do this it exploits emotional attention niches, such as speech and
images arousing emotions like anger, fear and hatred that keep alive the
distinction between friend and foe in society. "
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REFERENCES
Whatdo we mean when we speak of Populism?; Ezequiel Adamovsky. AMPHIBIOUS,
National University of San Martin, Buenos Aires Argentina - Accessed August 11,
2016
Populismas Political Experiment: History and Political Theory of Ambivalence; Frei,
Raymundo and Rovira Kaltwasser, Cristóbal. Journal of Sociology 22, 2008;
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Chile - Accessed August 11, 2016
Populismwith a Brain; Lynn, Barry C. and Longman, Phillip. Washington Monthly, June
/ July / August 2016 - Accessed August 11, 2016
It'snot just Trump. Authoritarian populism is rising across the West. Here's why;
Norris, Pippa. The Washington Post, March November 2016 - Accessed August 14,
2015
Sorry,Obama: Donald Trump Is a Populist, and You're Not; Chait, Jonathan. New
York Magazine June 30, 2016 - Accessed August 14, 2016All images copyright of their respective owners.
