Daly, Tom Gerald

English

<intR>²Dok

DEM-DEC Research Update Editorial:Global Democracy and the FierceUrgency of 2020Tom Gerald Daly 2020-02-18T08:50:41Latest Global Research Update Just IssuedThe first Global Research Update on the global platform Democratic Decay &Renewal (DEM-DEC) for 2020 is now available here, covering late December 2019to early February 2020.  In each Update I write an editorial on key themes to helpusers to navigate the Update, and to provide some limited commentary, especiallyon very recent research. 1    The Fierce Urgency of 2020In January 2017, in my inaugural column for the ICONnect Blog, I urged an endto the complacency bedeviling any real effort to address threats to democracyworldwide. Borrowing a phrase from Martin Luther King, I spoke of “the fierceurgency of now”, insisting that “failing to act and adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude isto court disaster.” Three years later, I – and many colleagues worldwide – feel thaturgency with even greater intensity and frustration. Global reports continue to warnof the ongoing global democratic crisis – in January alone the Economist IntelligenceUnit’s Democracy Index for 2019, a report from the newly-launched CambridgeCentre on the Future of Democracy, and the Human Rights Watch’s World Report2020 warn of everything from plummeting public satisfaction with democracy to the“existential threat” posed by the Chinese government to human rights frameworksworldwide. Articles for the Journal of Democracy’s thirtieth anniversary edition, byheavy-hitters such as Francis Fukuyama and Yascha Mounk, address the multiplethreats facing liberal democracy and whether it can rebuild itself. Technology loomslarge in our fears, with talk of its use as a tool of ‘sharp power’ by authoritariangovernments, and, elsewhere, the impending threat of ‘deep fakes’   threatening anexponential acceleration of truth decay and distortion of democratic discourse.Political developments so far in 2020 have fed the sense of ever-higher stakes inthe global democratic crisis. President Trump’s impeachment trial featured starklyundemocratic argument (albeit later narrowed somewhat) that anything the Presidentdoes to further his reelection in the public interest cannot be an impeachable offence– a timely article by Andrew Pardue is a useful analysis here. Across the Atlantic,the Polish government’s assault on judicial independence has induced constitutionalchaos, with battle lines drawn between captured and independent courts on thelegality of so-called reforms (read more here). From Malta’s downgrade in the EIUIndex to a “flawed democracy”, to the breaking of political taboos in Germany withthe attempt to install a new Thuringian premier with the aid of far-right AfD votes,there is a sense of intensifying threat. Sumit Ganguly in the Journal of Democracy- 1 -argues that India’s claim to be a liberal democracy is “increasingly dubious”. InAustralia, John Keane offers that the “grand political lesson” from the devastation ofthe recent bushfires is that the current democratic model has failed and we need anew, ecologically viable, model.Yet, complacency still abounds. Alongside ongoing inaction by national andinternational political actors, the leading US philosopher Martha Nussbaum recentlyoffered that talk of democratic crisis is little more than “an academic fad”. This isan all-too-common refrain, one I have heard for years. “But!”, the critic will say:democracy has always been contested; all democracies suffer some level ofdysfunction; liberals are obsessed with procedure and civility, and fail to understandthe injustice of the status quo ante. There is of course some truth in this: there isno real ‘golden age’ of ideal democracy; the trend of decay is not entirely universal(e.g. some countries’ scores actually improved in the EIU Index); today’s challengesare deeply rooted; and we inevitably see analysts ‘bandwagon jumping’ on thecurrent hot topic. Yet, to dismiss the mounting evidence of serious threats to liberaldemocracy in states worldwide – not least that collated since mid-2018 by DEM-DEC – as a form of ‘moral panic’ or collective delusion is truly dangerous. Even ifwell-intentioned, it becomes a form of continual gaslighting that feeds complacencyand saps resolve, and lends succour to those who really wish to end accountablegovernment and pull power away from the people they are meant to serve. In theimpeachment trial, Senator Adam Schiff decried the “normalization of lawlessness”,and this is precisely what is at play: as Robert Sata and Ireneusz Pawel Karolewskiobserve in the case of Hungary and Poland, a central ploy of wannabe authoritariansis to frame  radical changes as “politics as usual”, when in fact they challenge thevery essence of liberal democracy. If we cannot assess – based on significantevidence and an appreciation of degree – certain measures as ‘abnormal’, we arelost. 2    Civil Society Pushback Clicks into High GearWhereas governments and international organisations seem to remain somewhatunequal to the task of pushing back against the myriad threats to democracyworldwide, civil society worldwide appears to be stepping up the pushback for 2020.The billionaire philanthropist George Soros – much reviled by authoritarian leadersworldwide – has pledged $1 billion to fund a new Open Society University Network(OSUN) to combat the “twin challenges” of authoritarian governments and climatechange. Two new centres have been launched: as well as Cambridge University’snew Centre for the Future of Democracy, mentioned above, a new Chicago Centeron Democracy at the University of Chicago aims to provides a space for bothresearchers to further their work on democracy, and to host Bright Line Watch,an initiative to monitor democratic practices, their resilience, and potential threats.In Asia, the Asia Democracy Network (ADN) just announced its #2020PushbackCampaign “calling all democracy advocates to unite and begin fighting back againstthreats and attacks to democracy.” 3    The International Face of Pushback- 2 -It is striking, too, how much action and thought regarding democratic defenceis taking place at the international level. Indeed, the Council of Europe has justintroduced a new sanctioning mechanism for “the most serious” violations of theCouncil’s Statute (which includes democracy and the rule of law), separate to itsexisting review mechanisms under the European Court of Human Rights and otherbodies. In this Update, Tom Carothers in the Journal of Democracy discusses theneed to rejuvenate democracy promotion, by tackling both new and establisheddemocracies; strengthening the economic dimension; and bringing technologicalissues centre-stage. Pacifique Manirakiza, writing in a special collection to mark the10th anniversary of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance,argues for the existence of a subsidiary right to resist “gross undemocratic practices”by governments who deny meaningful political participation. For a comparativeperspective, a scholar to watch is Cassandra Emmons, who has just completed aPhD at Princeton on ‘Regional Organizations as Democracy Defenders: DesigningEffective Toolkits’. Elsewhere, Anna Meyerrose in Comparative Political Studies(January 2020) contends that membership of democracy-promoting internationalorganisations can be detrimental to democracy – a stance which will prompt muchdiscussion.4    Democratic Innovation Goes Mainstream While pushback is crucial, it alone is not enough: for many analysts, if we are toprotect democracy we must re-make democracy. Last Friday I was among 20experts invited to attend a special roundtable as part of the Australian Senate’sinquiry into nationhood, national identity and democracy, and it was striking howmany experts around the table were in favour of experimenting with deliberativemechanisms, such as a citizens’ assembly or even a Citizens’ Senate. 2020 seemspoised to be the year when such experimentation goes fully mainstream worldwide,with bodies proliferating – and academic and policy attention increasing. Key itemsin this Update include: the landmark Handbook of Democratic Innovation editedby Stephen Elstub and Oliver Escobar; Cristina Lafont’s monograph DemocracyWithout Shortcuts arguing that we can only achieve better outcomes through thelong road of deliberation and “changing hearts and minds”; and articles in PolicySciences on experts and evidence in mini-publics, as well as how politicians andothers view the place of such bodies in decision-making. The first weeks of 2020have already seen a range of events on democratic innovation (including a majorconference in Manchester), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operationand Development (OECD) has just launched Participo, a digest on their work oninnovative Citizen Participation. Details of future events for 2020 can be found in theDEM-DEC Events Database. 5     Democracy 2020: Announcing a Stock-Taking RoundtableCurrent crises have diverted much intellectual energy toward potential solutions.Beyond deliberative innovations, we see for instance a new collection in the DrakeLaw Review contemplating radical ways of amending and fine-tuning the USConstitution. As a way of bringing together the discourses on democratic decayand democratic renewal in a meaningful way, DEM-DEC has teamed up with the- 3 -International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL) to organize a 2-day roundtableon 10-11 December, on the theme ‘Assessing Constitutional Decay, Breakdown and Renewal Worldwide’. Co-organised by myself and Prof. Wojciech Sadurski, theroundtable aims to convene a group of leading and emerging scholars to engagein a global ‘stock-taking’ exercise, aiming to map the health and trajectory of keydemocracies worldwide, pin-point gaps in analysis, and push the research agendaforward. You can find the Call for Papers here (deadline: 1 May 2020). 6     Taking the Long ViewWhile today’s democracy defenders and innovators feel the fierce urgency of thepresent moment, we also risk being swamped by the sheer speed of the newscycle, especially in our hyper-connected global ‘firehose’ information economy thatcan leave little mental space for reflection. Many items in this Update help to puttoday’s trends in a broader context. A new book from our DEM-DEC partner V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy), Measuring Two Centuries of Political Change, offersa user’s guide to their vast data collection project. Also looking backwards, seeSusan and Hennessy and Benjamin Wittes’ new book placing the US presidency inhistorical context; and an excellent piece by Jill Lepore in the New Yorker on ‘TheLast Time Liberal Democracy Almost Died’. Looking forward, the Centre for theFuture of Democracy’s research mission aims to explore three areas: ‘Democracyand Climate Change’; ‘The Generational Divide’; and ‘Technology and Democracy’.Also on climate change (and issues such as biodiversity), John Dryzek and JonathanPickering’s 2018 book Politics of the Anthropocene (suggested for addition by aDEM-DEC user) dovetails with John Keane’s analysis, arguing that our Holocene-erademocratic political structures need adaptation to a new reality. Get InvolvedYou can help us grow the Research Database, and showcase your own research, onDEM-DEC by:• Suggesting additions to the next Update: use this form or e-maildemocraticdecay@gmail.com. • Volunteering to join our expanding team of Research Editors: use this form or e-mail us. • Sharing DEM-DEC in your network – including our research updates, launchpodcast, and campaigns- 4 -

DEM-DEC Research Update Editorial: Global Democracy and the Fierce Urgency of 2020

https://intr2dok.vifa-recht.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/mir_derivate_00007921/DEMDEC_Research_Update_Editorial_Global_Democracy_and_the_Fierce_Urgency_of_2020.pdf

DEM-DEC Research Update Editorial: Global Democracy and the Fierce Urgency of 2020

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

<intR>²Dok