First, Know What Democracy Means


I’ve never understood those who shout about democracy being murdered in India (Modi), US (Trump) and UK (Brexit). All of them won elections/referendums, so how exactly did democracy get murdered? And then I read this article by Shany Mor aptly titled “Nobody Understands Democracy Anymore”. Her article is a consolidated review of multiple books on the topic and thereby she stumbles on the problem:
“What the books have in common, beyond their shared subject matter, is a common confusion over what democracy actually is.”

On one of the books, she summarizes:
“His book is clearly informed by a certain nostalgia for the postwar consensus of strong but limited liberal tolerance, a welfare state undergirded by a broad social solidarity, and a deference for cultural and political elites enforced by shared media that were occasionally publicly owned and nearly always publicly minded.”
But in recent times, we have been seeing a decoupling of liberalism from democracy, termed as “illiberal democracy” (That refers to a rise in “populism, xenophobia, majoritarianism, and attacks on the press”, world-over).

Those outraged by the rise of this illiberal democracy don’t see their own actions are a subversion of the very democracy they claim to uphold!
“Certain putatively democratic forces are undermining the rule of law and at the same time certain putatively liberal forces are undermining popular sovereignty.”

All of this leads to the question: is there any connection between democracy and good government? If there seemed to be a connection in the past (as per the supporters of liberal democracy), was that just a “happy accident” or was it a “magic formula”? A question that draws attention to the elephant in the room: a “decidedly nondemocratic China” that is only getting richer.

Mor’s own take on all this? People are equating things that are not the same:
“Voting is not the same as democracy. Ruling is not the same as electing. Competence is not the same as suffrage. Governing is not the same as lawmaking. And appointing, even by election, is not the same as representing.”
And she ends with a warning to the liberals:
“Law can’t just be a nondemocratic means for imposing a liberal agenda, if only because it will eventually become a nondemocratic means for imposing an illiberal agenda.”
Actually, that very point (imposing a liberal agenda) is what has triggered this backlash we see today.

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarAugust 22, 2019 at 12:39 PM

    Yes. That's the way of political maneuvering! At all times, the basic method remains the same - projecting and marketing chosen ideologies so as to sway people. What varies is the choice of ideology that suits the time and environs. One has only to wait till "this grape is sour" and chose simply another grape variety!

    That way, politics is quite interesting.

    Communism or its later avatar "welfare state not amounting to communism" can be marketed today outside Europe where it took roots, by cleverly clothing it in a different guises. In a partly poor and partly rich countries like India, there is no way any politician can avoid "too much of socialism and over-governance". That was what was greatly disliked by the Americans in earlier times. In India there is cut throat competition for sops, it is a political compulsion!

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