Ebb tide for democracy in the world?

Brian M Downing

Democracy was on the rise not long ago. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and democracies replaced politburos. Twenty years later, authoritarian regimes across North Africa and the Middle East were jarred by the Arab Spring.

While democracy has endured in many parts of Eastern Europe, it stood little chance in Russia where traditions of powerful rulers prevailed and disaffection with loss of world power status played into the hands of aspiring autocrats. In the Islamic world, armies are thwarting democracy.

Why is democracy faring so poorly? Building democracy in the modern world is a far more difficult task than it was in previous centuries. Furthermore, there are powerful international forces that wish to stifle it, and are well positioned to do just that.

Population

In many parts of the world, population pressures are enormous. Birthrates have been high over the last quarter century and access to healthcare, while not high, has nonetheless reduced child mortality and extended longevity. In most parts of the Islamic world, over 60% of the population is under the age of twenty-eight and restive.

Social problems, especially in densely-populated megacities, are numerous and daunting, placing enormous demands on the political system. Demands for social services are high and beyond the capabilities of governments. Non-democratic governments have stifled the development of political parties, trade associations, professional groups, and media outlets. These are building blocks of democracy that coalesce large populations into parts of representative government. If democracy comes, say, from regime collapse, popular pressures may overwhelm frail institutions.

Poor government, authoritarian or not, unwittingly shifts power to crime cartels, religious sects, and local powerholders, some of whom form alternate political systems. This in turn leads to fragmenting the country into separatist movements, warlordism, and lawlessness.

Accelerated history

The unfolding of democracy in the West took centuries. In the course of the 19th century, after two reform bills (1832 and 1867), the percentage of adult males with voting rights was only about 29%. Fuller enfranchisement didn’t come until the early 20th century. Germany had a weighted voting system that counted an aristocrat’s vote more than that of a shop owner or a coal miner. Full voting rights came to the US over a century and a half after the Constitution was ratified.

In western cases non-privileged classes were either deferent to elites or fearful of them, thereby limiting demand for reform from below. Deference to elites is disappearing in the post-modern world. Democratic movements call not for gradual expansion of the vote to farmers and craftsmen; they demand full voting rights for all, now. The gradualism that the West experienced is not a viable pathway anymore. Sudden democracy is often brief democracy.

Political Islam

Islamism, the belief that the principles of proper government rest in the Koran, poses a problem for democratic development, though not as formidable a one as thought. In its moderate forms, Islamism is wary of popular democracy; it can lead to secularism and decadence. The leadership of a broad-based party such as the Muslim Brotherhood is needed for proper government. In its stricter forms, Islamism insists that political power be tightly held by clerics, as in Iran today.

While neither form is conducive to representative government, neither is it an insurmountable obstacle. Some Islamic scholars point to the Koranic principle of a shura (council) as legitimizing representative government. Others, rather fancifully and without mention of ancient Greece and Rome, argue that democracy began with the Koran.

However, the removal of authoritarian rulers in Tunisia and Libya has allowed Islamist militants to operate more freely. They have grown in number, audacity, territory, and appeal.

Foreign support

Authoritarian governments, over the last quarter century, have faced increasing opposition from the world community. The US and EU have encouraged democracy and criticized authoritarian regimes, though to be sure not in all cases.

Today, authoritarian governments find greater and more systematic international support – not merely the absence of criticism and sanctions, but open support. Russia, for example, supports autocratic rulers along its southern periphery, and looks to increase ties with right-leaning governments in Eastern Europe.

Saudi Arabia and its fellow Sunni princes act concertedly to see that democracy does not establish a toehold in the Gulf. They were instrumental in the Egyptian army’s coup of 2013 which ousted the Muslim Brotherhood and reestablished oligarchic rule.

China has become the world’s dominant extractor of commodities. Governments hosting Chinese concerns will encounter no sanctions or criticisms from Beijing. Rulers of extractive economies in the developing world are predisposed to cronyism, bribery, and authoritarian rule, and they will prefer aligning, politically and economically, with China rather than with democracies.

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The rise of democracy has slowed, if not halted. Governments resort to various measures to forestall it. Saudi Arabia has been the cleverest, at least in the short term. It has convened a national assembly with little power and presented it as the seed of democracy. It has rallied popular support through displays of might against Shia foes in Yemen and Syria.

Riyadh has also increased disbursements of oil revenue to the public in order to placate calls for reform. With oil prices down 70%, and expected to remain low for years to come, this policy may bring severe fiscal problems then retraction of state largesse, leading to greater discontent. The denouement might well be jarring tumult in coming years, leading not to democratization, but to another case of disintegration in the Middle East.

Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who has written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs.