This is being written as the Russian invasion of Ukraine is reaching a month in duration. Much is at stake for so many peoples and so many countries, providing multiple concerns about the eventual outcome. Here the interest will be in examining the conflict as an incident in a much broader battle for supremacy: democracies versus autocracies. On one side, Ukraine and the western European and NATO countries are representative of democracies. On the other side, Russia with its Belarusian ally, and an at least nominal alliance with China, represent autocracies, where democratic means are perverted to place supreme power in persons who do not have to answer to voters for whatever actions they choose to take. Ukraine’s future depends on its own national institutions and its own citizens’ dedication to those institutions for its survival. It also depends on coherent and persistent support from its democratic allies. Autocracies can benefit from the ability to form plans and carry them out with no dissent to worry about. Democracies can be hindered by political divides, multiple conflicting interest groups, and the constant need to maintain the support of their citizenries. Democracies can have difficulty forming a plan of action; autocracies can quickly form a plan of action, even if the plan turns out to be stupid.
Since World War II, the US has been the dominant nation, the hegemon. China clearly has a long-term plan to replace the US in that role. There is a battle being waged for world dominance. This competition was discussed in The US vs. China: Future Dominance and Common Prosperity. China, coming from far behind, is approaching parity in many areas. To become the hegemon, China must become dominant as an economic and cultural force. It must demonstrate that its autocratic way of running a nation is an improvement over the democracy-based approach practiced in the US. China has a long way to go in selling its methods to the rest of the world, but, as discussed in The Decline in Support for Democratic Institutions: Use Them or Lose Them, the US seems to be facing diminishing approval for democracy-based governance. The observation that autocracy is gaining relative to democracy as the desired option is troubling.
When one claims that autocracy is gaining favor relative to democracy, the statement pertains not just to the US, but to other European countries as well. One must ask if there could be a weakness to democracy that becomes more serious as time advances. Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels provide some perspective on that question as it relates to the US in their book Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government.
The authors describe what has become a popular conception for the workings of a democracy as a “folk theory.”
“Proponents of democracy have long thought that human dignity required self-government. People should choose their leaders at the polls and hold them accountable. Voters should be represented, not just governed. Reflecting Enlightenment optimism about human nature, along with skepticism about tradition and hierarchy, the argument for democracy supposed that good citizens would engage in thoughtful monitoring of their government. The abuses of kings, aristocrats, commissars, and dictators would be eliminated. Democratic norms would be enforced by the shared values of an enlightened populace. Mistakes would occur, of course, but they would be the people’s own mistakes, and thus susceptible to quick recognition and reversal. Most of the time, democratic government would be good government indeed.”
The authors quote the results of innumerable political science and psychological studies to point out that human voters don’t measure up to that “Enlightenment optimism.” To begin with, voters, in general, are not up to the role assigned to them.
“Numerous studies have demonstrated that most residents of democratic countries have little interest in politics and do not follow news of public affairs beyond browsing the headlines. They do not know the details of even salient policy debates, they do not have a firm understanding of what the political parties stand for, and they often vote for parties whose long-standing issue positions are at odds with their own.”
A second duty of the ideal voter is to judge the performance of the politicians in office and either reward or punish them for their performance. As one might expect, bad times are much more memorable than the expected good times.
“First, they must be able to discern the specific role of the government’s diligence and competence in producing the pain or pleasure they experience. Punishing the incumbents for events beyond their control makes no more sense than kicking the dog to get back at a difficult boss at work. And second, they must be able to evaluate sensibly whether times have been good or bad under the incumbent government.”
“Hence, as we have shown, citizens routinely fail in both these respects. Our analyses…show that governments are punished willy-nilly for bad times, including bad times clearly due to events beyond the government’s control.”
The authors conclude that voting patterns are best explained by what they refer to as the “group theory” of democracy.
“This model portrays citizens first and foremost as members of social groups, with (no doubt numerous and complex) social identities and group attachments figuring crucially in their political loyalties and behaviors.”
“Partisan loyalties reflect the way people understand their own lives, jobs, religious views, ancestral identities, family traditions, and personal ties. For ordinary citizens, parties make sense—if they make sense at all—in social identity terms, not as ideological frameworks.”
But not all voters claim membership in a party. Some proclaim themselves as independents. Accepting that label seems to have more to do with personal self-image than with willingness to vote based on party differences. Numerous studies have concluded that most independents are aligned with one of the parties. The voters with no presupposed inclinations are generally those who know the least about the political issues and are the most easily swayed by their own recent observations of personal pain or gain.
If you have a situation in which the two parties have nearly equal adherents, the results of an election may have little to do with policies or the competencies of the politicians. Factors that inhibit the turnout of a particular class of voters, or excite the few true independents contribute to a degree of randomness in electoral results.
The picture the authors present of electoral performance in the US are not very encouraging. In fact, they felt a need to come to democracy’s defense at their conclusion. Perhaps the best argument for democracy is that presented by Winston Churchill.
“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Given current events, perhaps the best advantage of a functioning democracy is that when bad governance exists the voters have the power to throw the bums out. For four years both the US and Russia were run by bums. The US voters threw theirs out. Russia is stuck with its bum.
China’s biggest worry should be that it will give too
much power to the wrong person, and it will not have the ability to throw the
bum out before it is too late.
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