Democratic Democide : On Why We Should Regret the Over - Glorification of Democracy

  

            

            Despite the initial doubt and disdain by many, democracy has persisted throughout history and now known across the world as the only legitimate, even imaginable, form of political society.[1] With the recent transition to democracy, from what is known as the Third Wave[2] after extended era of dictatorship to the emerging democratization as a result of the Arab Spring, there is no doubt that democracy is currently on its world historical peak. Its universal appeal makes it glorified as the ultimate solution of many social problems like unequal distribution of wealth, violent conflicts, and even democratization is often used as the justification of military intervention to topple down evil authoritarian regimes across the globes.

            In spite of this, democracy also finds itself hampered by endless threats of declining levels of civic participation and the increase of apathetic political culture as well as the increased levels of political repression by strong-arm executives even in strong liberal democracies.[3] All of this, according to International Crisis Group analyst Alan Keenan, is clear evidence of ‘democracy’s discontent’; a term that both ‘encapsulate democrats fed up with how debased democracy has become as well as the ambit of problems that democracy faces today’.[4] According to Larry Diamond in The Democratic Rollback, this democratic disillusionment, followed by an acute sense of authoritarian nostalgia, has become a not uncommon outlook in post-democratization[5], case in point the prevalent slogan Enak Jamanku Toh which translates roughly as it was better during my terms, right?  among restless Indonesians who long for the illusion of prosperity and stability guaranteed by the dictatorship of President Soeharto.

            However, the over- glorification of democracy mentioned before makes it as if democracy is too sacred to be criticized, even when some scholars are trying to analyze some of the cases of failure in democratization and democratic disillusionment, they do it in a way that doesn’t put its scrutiny on the democracy per se but rather put the blame of failure on some externalities. The conventional position put forward by democratic advocates has been to view democratic setbacks as an anomaly; at odds with the ‘proper’ workings of democracy.[6]  This conventional position usually put the blames of democratic failure on exogenous factor such as economic instability and inequality, inappropriate or ineffective institutional frameworks or the existence of intractable ethnic divisions.[7] Once identified, the socioeconomic, institutional, and political glitches should be minimized, if not eliminated and then, democratization should once again progress without hindrance. This view however, has made us overlook some of the inherent nature of democracy that is actually the potential source of its own failure, that is to say, we have often overlooked the often anti-democratic means needed to secure these democratic ends.  The dominant narratives that see democracy as the ‘end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the final best form of human government’[8] comes with the necessity to forget that democracy is the only imperfect government that allows its citizens to acknowledge its imperfections openly an publicly.

            In this essay, contrary to the popular stance outlined above, I am going to demonstrate how as democracy’s supporters, instead of over glorifying democracy, it’s time for us to also acknowledge how democratic collapse can actually ensue from the inherent (contradictory) logic of democracy. Worshiping democracy as if it were sacred defeats the point of democracy. Only when our democratic arrangements allow us to attack it, will the idea and practice of democracy be worthy of preservation. This essay aims to strengthen the belief that democrats should be more open to the fact that democracy would not be democracy if it did not somehow sow ‘the seeds of its own failure’ or in John Keane’s words how democracy can commit its own suicide, coining the term ‘democide’.[9] Democide in this essay refers to a phenomenon of people who elect, by more or less democratic means, to murder their own democracy. It is when anti-democratic individuals or parties manage, because of their political platform, to secure majority support via legitimately democratic means, to entirely abolish or at least dismantle some democratic institutions. There are several reasons why democide can ensue from the inherent logic of democracy or as Chou[10] put it, an endogenous breakdown of democracies.

            Firstly, democide could happen endogenously due to the fact that democracy is instituted and sustained by what Claude Lefort called as ‘the dissolution of the markers of certainty’.[11] This means that (a) power can be said to be democratic only when it is owned by no one; (b)  that democracy has at certain times been so inclusive as to create a space for just about anything, even its antithesis in totalitarian politics.[12] This is in line with what Cornelius Castoriadis had said that ‘democracy implies that all citizens have the possibility of attaining the right doxa (opinion) and that nobody possesses épisteme (certain knowledge) of things political.’[13] This means no knowledge is certain since democracy should be made up only of competing opinions that are open to debate and refutation in the free market of ideas. In this society where right or wrong is never certain, conflict can make certain individuals insecure. Where the markers of certainty are dissolved, it is hence quiet likely that democracy can open its door to a whole range of undesirable forces especially those that try to fix the perceived problems through the abolition of the existing democratic system. It is a paradox of democracy where democratic rejection of democracy would still be considered democratic. Totalitarianism then remains inherent in the logic of democracy and sometimes becomes the natural consequences to the difficulties and freedoms imposed by democracy on itself.

            There are two types of democide then that can emerge from that. First is what happens when there is ‘too much democracy’ and what happens when there is ‘too little democracy’ as observed by Samuel Issacharoff. In the condition where there is too much democracy, it becomes possible for those who despise democracy to exploit the openness of democracy and to use democracy’s procedural inclusivity against itself by using democratic avenues to slowly work their way into the corridors of power, all the while intending to undercut and eventually abolish the democratic principles and processes which initially empowered them.[14] Too much democracy is used to describe those situations in which a democracy endangers its own health by either refusing or failing to impose limits on the inclusion and representation of ideas and perspectives, including those hostile to democracy itself.[15]

            On the other hand, ‘too little democracy’ describes attempts to correct the previous tendency by restricting, often through the paradoxical use of anti-democratic measures, what can be said and done in a democracy.[16] Some of the examples are those falls under the domain of political repression or the deliberate use of power with the aim of limiting or eliminating the capacity of specified actors to act effectively in politics.[17] Case in point is the ban of Hizbut Tahrir in Indonesia by President Joko Widodo. Too much and too little democracies are dialectical in nature which means, for democracy and democide, when the impulse towards plurality and disorder reaches its apex, it will naturally become the catalyst for the rise of unity and sameness.[18]

            For instance is the case of Weimar Republic. Before elected, Nazi was able to mobilize popular support, without needing to breach the Republic’s constitution; working largely within the confines made available to them through Weimar’s democratic system. Democratic institutions was soon abolished by Nazi who was democratically elected by dissolving parliament and passing what is called as Enabling Act. This Act basically authorized Hitler to issue laws without reference to the president or regard to the constitution.’[19] Furthermore, under Hitler’s instruction, special courts were established whose sole purpose was to prosecute so-called political enemies. Another more contemporary example that shows how popular support enables regress of democracy could be seen in the case of Erdogan’s 2017 constitutional referendum in Turkey where proposed amendment was able to abolish existing parliamentary system in exchange for a presidential system consequently giving more power to Reccep Erdogan. Not to the mention the popular support of imprisonment without due process and the general purge by government against members of Hizmet organization who were allegedly plotting the attempted coup in 2016.

            Although some sees that as a tragedy, this ‘radical openness’ of democracy even to its antithesis is actually the beauty of democracy. When a democracy is tough enough to permit its own abolition is where its values have been carried out to its maximum. Though regime of democracy may have been lethally injured in the process, its culture will continue to get on. It was seen on how large-scale pro-democracy protest erupted following the result of referendum in order to protest Erdogan’s government.[20]. After all, even those anti-democratic proposals which question whether democracy is worth saving will nourish the democratic values that do not set the limit of ‘tolerance and freedom of thought at the boundaries of democracy’.[21]

            Therefore, democide can be seen as what is produced when a democracy gives to its citizens and their elected leaders the choice to do as they will. It is the recognition, as Gregory Fox and Georg Nolte put it, that ‘the citizens of each state should be the ones to decide whether they live in a “suicide pact” democracy, in which the peril of collapse is seen as a necessary price of liberty, or under a system that sets the limit of permissible political discourse at advocating destruction of the system itself.’[22] The realization that democracy provides no guarantee against failure is important to ensure both citizens and the elected leaders are able to draw the equilibrium to navigate their way through too much and too little democracy. Since no government is perfect, democracy is no exception. To acknowledge that democracy isn’t perfect is important to really cement the idea that democracy truly is the only worthy game in town; precisely because it is the only imperfect government that allows its citizens to acknowledge its imperfections publicly and that no law of democracy should overshadow the one which maintains that democracy must have its imperfections openly.

           

            WORKS CITED

BOOKS

Castoriadis, Cornelius. The Greek  Polis and the Creation of Democracy in Cornelius Castoriadis (trans. and ed. David Ames Curtis), The Castoriadis Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.

Chou, Mark. Theorising Democide: Why and How Democracies Fail. Basingstoke: Palgrave Pivot, 2013.

 Crouch, Colin. Post- Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004.

Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992.

Keane, John. The Life and Death of Democracy. London: Pocket Books, 2010.

Keenan, Alan. Democracy in Question: Democratic Openness in a Time of Political Closure. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.

Lefort, Claude. Democracy and Political Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988.

O’Kane, Rosemary H.T.   Paths to Democracy: Revolution and Totalitarianism. London and New York: Routledge, 2004.

Stepan, Alfred. Introduction: Undertheorized Political Problems in the Founding Democratization Literature, in Alfred Stepan (ed.), Democracies in Danger. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

JOURNALS AND OTHERS

Diamond, Larry. "The Democratic Rollback." Foreign Affairs 87, no. 2 (2008): 36-48.

Fox, Gregory H and Georg Nolte. “Intolerant Democracies.” Harvard International Law Journal 36, No.1 (1995): 1–70.

Issacharoff, Samuel. “Fragile Democracies.” Harvard Law Review 120, no.6 ( 2007): 1405–1467.

Karagiannis, Nathalie. “Democracy as a Tragic Regime: Democracy and its Cancellation.” Critical Horizons 11, no.1 (2010): 35–49.

Plotke, David. “Democratic Polities and Anti-democratic Politics”  Theoria 111 ( 2006): 6–44.

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[1] Alan Keenan, Democracy in Question: Democratic Openness in a Time of Political Closure (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003).

[2] Colin Crouch,  Post-Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), p.1.

[3] i.e. Patriot Act that curtails civil liberties in United States

[4] Keenan,  Democracy in Question, p.146

[5] Larry Diamond, "The Democratic Rollback," Foreign Affairs 87, no. 2 (2008): 36 - 48

[6]  Alfred Stepan, Introduction: Undertheorized Political Problems in the Founding Democratization Literature, in Alfred Stepan (ed.), Democracies in Danger (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), p.1.

[7] Mark Chou, Theorising Democide: Why and How Democracies Fail (Basingstoke: Palgrave Pivot, 2013)

[8] Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992).

[9] John Keane, The Life and Death of Democracy (London: Pocket Books, 2010).

[10] Chou, Theorising Democide: Why and How Democracies Fail  , p.53

[11] Claude Lefort (trans. David Macey), Democracy and Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), p.19.

[12] Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory, p.19

[13] Cornelius Castoriadis, The Greek 4 Polis and the Creation of Democracy, in Cornelius Castoriadis (trans. and ed. David Ames Curtis), The Castoriadis Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p.274.

[14] Samuel Issacharoff, Fragile Democracies, Harvard Law Review 120, no.6 ( 2007): 1405–1467, pp.1451–1452.

[15] Issacharoff, Fragile Democracies, p. 1451

[16] David Plotke, ‘Democratic Polities and Anti-democratic Politics,’  Theoria 111 ( 2006): 6–44, p.16.

[17] Plotke, Democratic Polities and Anti-democratic Politics, p. 21.

[18] Chou, Theorising Democide: Why and How Democracies Fail  , p.66

[19] Rosemary H.T. O’Kane,  Paths to Democracy: Revolution and Totalitarianism (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), p.132.

[20] "Birçok Ilde Referandum Ve YSK Protestosu," Gazete Duvar, April 18, 2017,  accessed June 03, 2018, https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/gundem/2017/04/18/bircok-ilde-referandum-protestolari/.

[21] Nathalie Karagiannis, Democracy as a Tragic Regime: Democracy and its Cancellation, Critical Horizons  11, No.1 (2010): 35–49, pp.43–45.

[22] Gregory H. Fox and Georg Nolte, Intolerant Democracies, Harvard International Law Journal 36, No.1 ( 1995): 1–70, pp.60.