"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.'' - Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks
In recent times there has been growing concern about the future of democracy in the Western world, not to speak of developing countries. Over the last decade, there has been a growing feeling that democracy has not only been receding but also reversing in many countries, both developed and developing. Obviously, the major casualties of receding democracy are freedom and pluralism. At its core modern democracy as reflected in multiparty electoral system has been about the contest of ideas, interests and groups along with tolerance for opponent and respect for their legitimacy. Democracy as we all imagine gives power to the majority while respecting the minority, otherwise, it degenerates into the dictatorship of the majority. All that now appears to be under serious challenge. These challenges are coming from a variety of fronts.
In western democratic societies there is a growing fear that unelected (therefore, unrepresentative) groups, such as very powerful large corporate lobbyists, including those of finance industry, exert tremendous power and have eliminated the scope and meaning of elections. Participation in the electoral process requires huge sums of money and that money mostly comes from corporate donors.
Democratic modernity as reflected in multiparty electoral democracy has, for all practical purposes, become a duopoly political system. Take for example, the United States, which considers itself (based on its own self-assessment) as the greatest democracy on earth, is but effectively limited to two choices. While one must also recognise that five officially nominated candidates contested for the Presidency in the 2016 election representing five different parties, it is only the Democrats or the Republicans that ever win elections. The way the electoral system works in the USA makes it nearly impossible for a third party to win representation. A third party also faces psychological and financial barriers and more importantly, the media hardly pays any attention to the third-party candidate except as novelties. So, for the self-proclaimed greatest democracy on earth ends up with a choice between only two parties. If one looks at other English-speaking democracies like the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and in Europe, the picture is very similar.
It is not that the advanced democracies around the world foster a two-party system, in essence there is no longer any difference between the two parties, indeed that applies to governments of the traditional right and those of the electoral left, traditionally represented by the socialists. Critics, therefore, now argue that this form of the single-party now regulates political life or more accurately, depoliticised life in these countries. The depoliticisation of political life has reached now a point where abstention in elections has reached more than 50 per cent in the most western democracies. Therefore, many now argue that the electoral democracy has lost its legitimacy. People have a vote but they do not have a voice.
In the developing world, India is considered as the shining example of democracy - indeed, touted as the largest democracy in the world. The country is plagued by immense poverty, high rates of illiteracy and possibly, the most acute social and economic inequities. The political culture is deeply corrupt and major political parties are either under dynastic control or charismatic leader's control. Again, most mainstream political parties resemble one another in their policy orientation. Personal ambition remains the principal driver of political participation of most of party workers. While corruption is a feature found in every democratic country, in India, it is a systemic problem - and not an isolated incident - and involves huge amounts of money and abuse of power. Corruption remains a serious problem for all parties in India. No wonder, politicians are so unpopular in India.
However, to understand how democracy works in India or other developing countries, we need to understand how their democratic institutions are designed and how they function. The democratic institutions and processes are distorted by the muscle of big money and those have been successfully co-opted to serve the interests of the rich and powerful. Look at Bangladesh, about 150, almost half of the members of parliament, have direct or indirect links in terms of ownership of the garments industry. Other members also have significant financial prowess without which one can not make it to the parliament regardless of the party affiliation. The consequence is Governments in developing countries seem powerless to bring in any meaningful reforms for the wider good of the society.
For a well-functioning democracy, both winners and losers have essential responsibilities. Winners do not abuse their power or exact revenge on losers or try to delegitimise them. And losers must accept the results of an election considered to be free and fair by the country's governing institutions. Such behaviour provides cohesion but that is sorely lacking in most developing countries where democracy is less well-established. This is why a democratic bargain where winners' right to rule is recognised and losers accept the result gracefully.
But winners and losers perceive electoral outcomes very differently in most developing countries. In this context losers' response is very crucial as they have the most grievances about the election. Their refusal to accept the electoral verdict in a free and fair election will result in loss of faith in democracy and can lead to resorting to civil disobedience, political violence and a crisis of political legitimacy. In the end, such a behaviour undermines democratic bargain without which democracy can not function. Having a democratic system in place but not a functioning one, limits the Government's ability to function effectively. This also signals that dominant political parties have become highly polarised and when that polarisation becomes asymmetric, particularly between the two dominant parties, makes it nearly impossible to find a common ground to work through.
In recent times there has been an increasing appetite for strong leaders who would disregard the niceties of parliament and judicial checks and just get on with business whatever that business might be. Most of these strong leaders are also demagogues who quite successfully been able to use the malleable mob to come to their aid to sustain their power and even use mob violence against their political opponents. This kind of behaviour seriously undermines the flourishing of democratic institutions and commitments to democratic values. Liberal democracy is losing its grip on public imagination and a growing appetite for illiberal democracy (code word for authoritarianism) is taking place.
Hence the emergence of strong political persons who are willing to use force and fraud to gain power and stay there, and to curtail constitutional right of political adversaries, and, in effect by doing so, to deny legitimacy of the democratic system and its outcomes. Democracies fail because people lose faith in them and people lose faith in them when they see political elites abandon the democratic norms to gain political advantage.
Muhammad Mahmood is an
independent economic
and political analyst.
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