Not a Democracy

Full Transcript: 

Hello and welcome to the Rules of the Game podcast, where it is my job to discuss democratic institutions.

In this episode I want to take a step back and present some of my thoughts about the state of democracy around the world, share my personal opinion of what makes democratic institutions robust and democratic, but also share some of my impressions of peoples’ perceptions of democracy. So this episode provides an overview of the concerns and hopes for the coming years from my perspective.

I do not back up all these thoughts with rigorous evidence, they are indeed opinions, thus you may disagree with me and let me know why I am wrong – or agree of course.

The problem with many democracies around the world is that they are not really democratic. This is my main message here: we need to deepen democracy if we want to make democracy really be what it means: that the people are in power. Most democracies are ruled by unrepresentative elites. The people are too often powerless. There is one main reason that people have no power, they are not well represented in parliaments and governments, and they do not have veto powers. 

How can so-called democracies become more democratic? It’s rather simple: improve representation in parliaments, strengthen veto powers of the population, and improve participation at the local level. 

I am your host, Stephan Kyburz, and this is the 9th episode of my podcast The Rules of the Game, where I discuss, analyze and compare democratic institutions from around the World. 

I am a political economist with a PhD in Economics from the University of Bern in Switzerland. And I previously held positions at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Center for Global Development. You can find me on Twitter at skyburz and you can find show notes with links to all material discussed on my website: https://rulesofthegame.blog/

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Among my personal network, I hear a lot of people feeling somewhat desperate about the state of the world, but also disappointment about democracy, which doesn’t seem to deliver the prosperity, justice and equality that we expect in these times. There are huge global challenges ahead, like climate change for instance, some of which do not seem to be resolvable at a local or national level. People become impatient with democracy that often just doesn’t seem to get the job done.There is widespread disillusionment with democracy: people want more control, want more decision making power, want more local democratic participation. Political and wealthy elites capture many of the parliaments around the world, so that democracy becomes just an empty slogan, that is sold to the people. Most countries around the world are not really democratic, there is huge dissatisfaction with a system called democracy, but elites make people believe that they live in a democracy. People are losing faith in a system that nevertheless is the only system that is able to allow people to live freely, and to make joint decisions. 

While we hear a lot of alarming voices, there are also lots of positive signals emerging from around the world, as suppressed groups make their voices heard. To me it seems people are more and more aware of their limited decision making power, but willing to stand up and fight for their rights. Greater awareness of people’s limited voice, the fight against a wealthy and overrepresented elite, is constituting a broad base for social change. This change is happening every day.

One troubling pattern is that there are many countries where one or two political parties seem to control democracy and hence power. This to me is a clear sign that parliaments are not representative of the various political groups in society, especially marginalized groups, that democracy is disabled. When assessing democracies around the World, the first thing I do is look at the allocation of parliamentary seats of the main legislative chamber. When I see one party holding a majority, I am getting worried already. It is a clear reference to the concentration of political power. The allocation of seats across parties in parliaments is a clear indicator of how proportional the electoral law is and how much a country is ruled by the few, rather than the many. This view of parliaments is simplified of course. Yet, I see it often confirmed. When just one party controls the main legislative chamber, countries run the risk that political power is used for rent seeking and wealth accumulation by elites. If people sitting in parliament are a rich elite or influenced by powerful lobbies, they will primarily write legislation that favors the rich elite and the lobbies. But remember, they will also pretend to work and advocate for the less fortunate, of course. We can observe this time and again, and we should not have any illusions in that regard.

Then there is a different set of countries, where political parties are more and more balanced across the political spectrum, and parties try to hold each other accountable. We recently saw the German election and it couldn’t have been more – in some sense – boring, but in a good sense. The widely feared populist party “Alternative for Germany” AfD, lost 2.3 percentage points. The current leading governing party CDU/CSU of Angela Merkel lost 8.9 percentage points, despite a stable and rather successful governing period. The Green Party won 5.8pp more, still not as much as expected earlier in the year. And the traditional Social Democrats regained in strength to likely become the leader of a new coalition government. It’s the end of a very stable grand coalition, but it will likely be the beginning of a new stable coalition.

In many European countries, the populist wave is not gaining more strengths but rather receding. Many countries went from a surge in populist movements back to more moderate choices by voters. This is a normal process in democracies. There are many forces at play, and some forces provoke more extreme choices while others make more moderate parties seem reasonable. As long as democratic rules are not fundamentally questioned and attacked, this is the democratic process. Hence in balanced democracies, we should not freak out when more extreme or marginal parties win seats in parliament, since they are an important indicator of people’s worries and discomforts. We should always take these signals and voices seriously, listen to them and not try to suppress and silence them – these populist voices on the far left and far right are our canary in the coal mine.

Importantly, some democratic institutions provide more balance and can deal with extreme swings better than others. One of the main and crucial characteristics is proportional representation that allocates seats in parliament according to a party’s  share of votes won. Systems can be more or less proportional. Majoritarian electoral systems, in contrast, are exaggerating the winning party’s support which makes the system more unstable, less balanced, less representative, and hence less fair. 

Most European countries have been politically balanced enough to withstand greater damage to democratic institutions by the populist wave of the last few years. Just last weekend, the Czech Republic elected a new parliament, when a group of opposition parties from different backgrounds banded together to likely take over power, adding 5.4pp, and winning 108 of 200 seats in the Parliament, a clear majority. The people withdrew 2.5 pp of support for billionaire and right-wing leader Andrej Babis, who is likely to lose his position as prime minister. 

Also in Hungary six opposition parties are coalescing to defeat president Orban’s Fidesz party. Yet, defeating the governing populist party will be much harder in Hungary with a more majoritarian electoral system, than in the Czech Republic with a more proportional open-list system. Despite more moderate choices by many electorates in Europe, some democratic institutions in Poland and Hungary are still under threat.

It will be interesting to follow political developments in countries with still strong populist parties in government. My prediction is that populist movements will have trouble finding long-lasting broad support. But most important is that parties that attempt a power grab to undermine democratic institutions will hardly ever win a majority in parliaments where seats are allocated more or less proportionally. Proportional representation makes a power-grabbing case much less likely, even though not impossible. 

Since proportional systems are characterised by more diverse representation, it is much harder for one party to press through with policies endangering the system as a whole, because the other parties will oppose such provisions. In majoritarian electoral systems it is easier to manipulate the rules of the electoral game if one party has a strong majority, as for instance in the US at the state level; or in the UK where the governing Conservative Party is likely to change the rules of electing mayors and police crime commissioners from the current supplementary vote system, in which the public ranks their two favourite candidates, to a more majoritarian first-past-the-post system. The crazy thing is that the Conservative party, thanks to their large majority in parliament, can pretty much single-handedly change these electoral rules, making elections less representative, and making it easier for the Conservative Party to win mayoral elections.

In my opinion, there are two political situations that should definitely be avoided. The first is a party taking over power with a minority of the votes. The second is a gridlock of two parties, that can hold onto power without being challenged on a level playing field, and that prevent political competition from being diverse and fair for all parties. Both are very common in majoritarian systems. Both situations are anti-democratic if they are a result of the electoral system.

If one party controls the entire political process, and that party is captured by interests that intend to subvert democracy, then a democracy is in real trouble. – as for example in Hungary. If only one party controls parliament, it is likely to change the democratic rules of the game, including the executive and the judicial branch of government. Furthermore, it may also use the government administration to manipulate the political process, or oppress the opposition. While this is simplified, the danger to democracy by one or even two dominant parties is significant. A gridlock between two political factions inhibits natural political competition and hampers the legislative process at the cost of society. It also leads to the executive branch to take over power, as we see in the US. 

It is important to understand that populism, or Trumpism in the US, is also an answer to a system that is not working well for parts of the population!! Often people who flock to populists feel that they are losing out, that the elite is enriching themselves with the help of government regulation – typical rent seeking, that is very, very common around the world.

The slogan “Drain the Swamp”, popularized again by Trump, has been used by politicians on the right and left, going back to the 19th century, to accuse the political elites of corruption, to denounce special interests from influencing legislators, and to point out companies gaining huge government contracts through personal relationships. Obviously, politicians are themselves part of the Swamp and it’s really ironic that they are using the slogan to gain support based on the anger felt in people about a political system that favors elite political interests. It’s in many cases a system where the elite writes the rules of the game – it’s not democracy. Let me know if you disagree!

In their book “How democracies die”, that has been carried around and read by President Biden, the authors Levitksy and Ziblatt don’t put much emphasis on what may cause this great dissatisfaction with the American – let’s call it – political system. I truly believe that the US is not a democracy, because people are not validly represented in Congress. How can a system be called a democracy if a large part of the people is not represented in parliament. More than half of Congress members are millionaires, and most are probably not far below that threshold – while the median income of all Americans is 61’000 dollars. Hence the median income in Congress is more than 16 times that of the American people. So what legislation do you expect from such a Congress

America’s declining trust in Congress, and especially young people losing faith in democracy (https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2015/12/18/9360663/is-democracy-in-trouble and https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/confidence-democracy-lowest-point-record/605686/ ) is a consequence of the poor performance of the political system for many Americans. Huge crises like the Great recession, the Opioid crisis, and declining life expectancy, climate crisis are likely to be factors that affect many American’s lives. People have to choose between two options that both do not seem to be satisfying choices: Democrats or Republicans. Trump used that anger and frustration – like all the populists –  to find support by many. And political pundits were wondering really why they would support Trump at all. He portrayed himself as an outsider, as fighting the corrupt, the krooked system. And he did succeed with that. The non-democratic American system is the problem. So why do people not support it anymore?  

Besides many other causes, Trumpism is also an answer to the non-functioning of the US democracy, an answer to the elitist circus in Washington; an answer to the US plutocracy, a system controlled by great wealth. All this failure of that system has been very intelligently used by Trump and the Republican party, to make people believe that less democracy is better for them. That political system has pushed many voices to the margins of the political landscape for a long time. People are fed up with Washington. Many people do not feel heard, even when they are of more privileged background than others. In an apparent zero-sum world, you are scared of the other side winning. A bi-polar world is doomed. A society that is not able to improve living conditions for many at the bottom and favors excess at the top, may be attributable to a democratic system that does not work properly. This leads to extreme positions on both margins of the political spectrum. The sad thing is that Trump uses that critique of the system to make it even less democratic. That’s really the great danger.

The problem is that Americans would be way better off with a more representative and hence more democratic system. Democracy is not working for many Americans, because it is not democratic. 

Again referring to the book “How democracies die”, however, the populist wave is rather seen as an exogenous shock that just happens in many so-called democracies. They write on page 20: 

“Although mass responses to extremist appeals matter, what matters more is whether political elites, and especially parties, serve as filters. Put simply, political parties are democracies’ gatekeepers.”

To me this seems like a very undemocratic, and repressive thing you could say: “political elites serve as filters”. Who should be the filter? The millionaires? That statement seems really hard to swallow if you are left behind and just struggling all your life.

While obviously I agree that authoritarian forces should never gain power, because it is a great danger to democracy. I completely disagree with the way we prevent authoritarian politicians from taking power, the notion that political elites should and can serve as gatekeepers. To me, that seems like a very, very weak solution. How can a party stop a demagogue, when popular support for that person is just growing? If people are dissatisfied with the political elite, then they will flock to populists that propose more extreme views, either on the left or the right. 

Hence, eliminating these populist leaders may even have the opposite effect, that these leaders use that idea of exclusion to further their power and appeal to the masses – as Trump did and is still doing very successfully. His message is exactly that: he is the savior of the masses and the political elite wants to keep him out of power with any means available. And people believe him, because they are so dissatisfied with the political elite in Washington – the Swamp. Hence the main problem lies within the political system, not within the population. 

Now how can we prevent demagogues with authoritarian ideals from taking power? How can we build democratic institutions that are truly democratic, that even allow populists to play their part in democracy, while preventing the capture of the state by authoritarians and the political elite? 

Obviously there is never a full guarantee that institutions will prevent authoritarian strongman from gaining power. Even in a highly proportional political system, if an actual majority of people would want an authoritarian system, there is little that institutions can do. The important point is that it is much, much harder for an authoritarian party to win more than 50% of votes in a highly proportional political system with many political parties. It is not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely. Highly proportional systems usually lead sooner or later to multi-party systems. In multi-party systems, it is unlikely that one party takes over power single-handedly. In disproportional, majoritarian systems, it is much more likely, because a minority of votes can lead to a solid majority in parliament. For example, Fidesz in Hungary wins 91 of the 106 seats based on FPTP in single seat-districts, that is 86% of seats based on less than 50% of votes. Hence it wins already almost half of seats in parliament through this system. The other seats are based on a proportional representation. 

The authors of “How democracies die” do not speak much at all about these disproportional systems like Hungary, the UK or the US, or also Venezuela that all use single-seat electoral districts, for all or a majority of seats in parliament. My main claim here is that the more proportional an electoral system, the less likely it is for a single party to grab power, because a multitude of parties have to agree to the rules of the game. One-party or two-party systems are much more likely to slide into authoritarianism. One-party systems are almost authoritarian by definition. Two-party systems prevent fair political competition and conserve power in the hands of the existing parties and political elites, like in the US. Furthermore, because two-party systems emphasize the zero-sum winner-take-all politics, it is attractive for one party to grab power and trying to conserve it by changing the rules of the game.

In the US, dissatisfaction with two-party politics is at an all time high according to a Gallup poll (link), with an overwhelming 62 percent of Americans saying Democrats and Republicans are doing such a poor job of representing their constituents that a third party is needed (see article). American democracy is at a real risk and in a constitutional crisis (see article), impressively explained in the article: “Our constitutional crisis is already here”, by Robert Kagan of the non-partisan Brennan Center. It is likely that many voters will be disenfranchised in the coming elections as many states are making electoral laws more strict. A new wave of gerrymandering, the unfair manipulation of electoral district boundaries, is in the process of making elections pretty much pre-decided and hence meaningless. It’s the most obvious form of rigging an election by the party in power.

Recently Ezra Klein reported on the long-term electoral predictions by David Shor, estimating the likelihood that the Republicans will gain back majorities in both houses, and keep it for many years (see article). These kinds of predictions are frightening, since it means that political competition is pretty much eliminated due to partisan bias for many years to come, and hence elections cease to be fair. 

And a further comment and correction by the Washington Post “3 stats showing how much the deck is stacked against Democrats” (see article), pretty much confirms the picture. 

Essentially the Republican party that is funded by tremendous wealth, has realized that they can likely regain and then retain power by simply changing the rules of the game, the rules of the electoral game, implementing an incredible partisan bias and winning majorities with minorities of the votes. This means a huge disproportionality in electoral outcomes. 

American political elites control Congress – and nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. I think it’s important to understand that reality. That’s why I call the US a plutocracy, a society ruled and controlled by people of great wealth. 

That reality of a political elite controlling politics and whole countries is true not only in the US but in most democracies, often based on unfair representation. 

Many countries seem to need another democratic revolution, for the people to finally get fair representation, and for political competition to allow for easy accession of new parties to gain political power.

I call this episode “Not a democracy” because many countries that we call democracies are not at all democratic: first, because people are not represented in parliament, second, because money and wealth can buy representation and influence, and third, because the people have no veto power.

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