Rethinking Liber­alism: Global­i­sation and Democ­ratic Regression

Has global­i­sation led to the triumph of democracy? Only temporarily, says Michael Zürn, Director at the Berlin Social Science Center. It has also brought forth new opponents of liberal democracy, both at home and through author­i­tarian powers. [1]

Global­i­sation has led to the temporary triumph of democracy. It foiled the socialist world’s strategy of isolation from the dynamics of capitalist and democ­ratic societies. It increased the pressure for renewal in these societies and ultimately brought them crashing. Without global­i­sation there would have been no 1989.

At the same time, global­i­sation has brought forth and strengthened the new opponents of liberal democracy. On the one hand, through the export of capital and knowledge, it has intro­duced economic dynamism to regions that for a long time failed in the face of the challenges of catch-up devel­opment. East Asia in particular has benefited from global­i­sation and found its own path to prosperous modernity. Initially, this process could be observed in societies that also democ­ra­tised in the course of their economic dynamism. After 1989, on the other hand, China in particular proved that there need not be a close connection between successful capitalist devel­opment and democracy. Global­i­sation thus also enabled the success story of an autocratic political system like China. Since the financial crisis at the latest, liberal democracy of Western prove­nance has been facing regulatory compe­tition that, in contrast to real existing socialism, is both different and successful.

Global­i­sation has also brought forth the new opponents of liberal democracy

It is different because it explicitly does not link the flour­ishing of economic market dynamics to the insti­tu­tions of liberal democracy and thus questions the seemingly insep­a­rable connection between market and democracy. It is successful because the author­i­tarian ruling elites in countries like China and Singapore cannot be easily dismissed as selfish despots. Their policies have a recog­nisable common good component and can point to a track record of consid­erable progress, especially in the fight against poverty. They have also proven to be more successful in fighting the pandemic than Western European and North American countries. These states show that social progress is possible ─ and this without the democ­ratic control of those in power and the guarantee of individual rights, combined with far-reaching surveil­lance and reward systems. This under­mines the notion advocated, especially after 1989, that liberal democracy has no alter­na­tives. If China is seen as a regulatory alter­native in parts of the Global South today, then the question of the right political order is back on the global agenda.

Rapid change has strengthened the opponents of liberal democracy

Global­i­sation has also strengthened the internal enemies of liberal democracy. Within the Western world, it has led to a dramatic increase in cultural diversity, to growing economic inequality and to the alien­ation of parts of the population from a political class perceived as aloof. These are the devel­op­ments that have made the rise of populists possible. This refers to the parties and political movements that claim to give the ordinary people a voice again in the name of democracy, but at the same time represent a funda­mental danger to liberal democracy. Indeed, contem­porary populism is primarily an author­i­tarian populism. It is a political ideology that builds on a de-proce­du­ralised form of majority repre­sen­tation and turns nation­al­is­ti­cally against “liberal cosmopolitan elites”. The topos our nation first expresses the nation­alism. De-proce­du­ral­i­sation refers to the rejection of democ­ratic argument about what is right. There is no need to negotiate what is right. It is set. “He knows what we want” was to be found on an election poster of the Austrian Freedom Party referring to H.C. Strache.

Author­i­tarian populist parties have a potential of about 20 percent of the vote in almost all liberal democ­racies in Western Europe. More impor­tantly, a signif­icant proportion of the world’s population is governed by author­i­tarian populists. The best-known names are: Jair Bolsonaro, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Lech Kaczyński, Nicolás Maduro, Narendra Modi, Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin and, until recently most notably, Donald J. Trump. These are almost all large countries, which is what makes author­i­tarian populism so powerful for the inter­na­tional order. Author­i­tarian populism has spread globally in a relatively short period of time.

Author­i­tarian populism is widespread globally

Wherever author­i­tarian populists have come to power, we are experi­encing a democ­ratic backsliding. In all eight countries mentioned (Brazil, Turkey, Poland, Venezuela, India, Hungary, Russia and the USA), the Gothenburg Democracy Barometer V‑Dem shows a clear deteri­o­ration in the quality of democracy. At the same time, the quality of democ­ratic gover­nance has worsened even in supposedly consol­i­dated democ­racies. If the decline of democracy was for a long time regarded as something that only took place in distant countries, from the perspective of Western Europeans, the strikes are now coming closer. Not only in Venezuela or Brazil, but also in the USA and Poland, democracy has deteri­o­rated signif­i­cantly over the past decade. In some of these countries, there is hope that a change of government will reverse the trend; but where liberal democracy has already been replaced by an electoral autocracy, voting out the government is also becoming increas­ingly less likely.

Changes in the functioning of democracy are crucial for the widespread alien­ation from democracy. The discussion so far has focused strongly on the economic and cultural causes of author­i­tarian populism. While growing inequality in rich countries certainly plays a role and a cultural backlash may be observed to some extent, the political question is the actual key. Economic and also cultural expla­na­tions assume that people are dissat­isfied with specific policies and therefore turn to author­i­tarian populist parties. Surveys show, however, that the dissat­is­faction is mostly based on a systemic criticism of the political class and the estab­lished mainstream parties. Economic satis­faction, on the other hand, is relatively high and gender equality policies enjoy broad support.

People no longer feel noticed in a democracy

The political expla­nation says that it is dissat­is­faction with the political system that is instru­men­talised by the author­i­tarian populists for their purposes. On the one hand, many people do not feel adequately repre­sented by their parlia­ments. MPs are perceived as a profes­sion­alised political class that operates in a bubble, detached from the interests of voters. On the other hand, over the past three decades, decision-making powers have been shifted to a consid­erable extent from majority insti­tu­tions (MIs), such as parties and parlia­ments, to non-majority insti­tu­tions (NMIs), such as central banks, consti­tu­tional courts and inter­na­tional insti­tu­tions. Decisions are made increas­ingly by insti­tu­tions that are not subject to the majority principle, nor to the account­ability oblig­a­tions of repre­sen­tative bodies. The purpose of many NMIs is to enforce the triple liber­alism of individual rights, inter­na­tional rules and open markets.

Against the backdrop of these two mecha­nisms, many people obviously have the impression that they have been left out of politics – and this perception has a real basis. Not all groups have the same chance of having their concerns heard and imple­mented polit­i­cally. This has allowed the idea to spread that there is a homoge­neous political class that does its thing aloof from the population, serving the interests of a pampered and poten­tially corrupt cosmopolitan class. Accord­ingly, most author­i­tarian-populist campaigns do not seem to criticise concrete economic or cultural policies, but the system that produces them, i.e. the “parties of the system”, the “left-red-green infested system” and the entire political class, and above all, the declared enemy, Angela Merkel.

The current retreat of democracy seems to be more than a passing phenomenon. The optimistic narrative according to which democracy spreads in waves with only short periods of partial regression between them hardly coincides with the actual devel­opment. Rather, in retro­spect, the period from 1945 to the end of the 20^th century in particular proved to be a phase of worldwide democ­ra­ti­sation. However, that half century was charac­terised by positive framework condi­tions that do not exist in the same manner today. The democ­ratic progression was not so much the result of an inevitable logic of progress, but rather owed to a specific historical constel­lation. The change in these specific circum­stances now makes democ­ratic regression possible. Societies do not slide towards liberal democracy on a prede­fined trajectory, but rather evolve through political conflicts and struggles for the expansion of social and democ­ratic rights – and these conflicts can not only slow down the journey, but also lead to a change in the station of destination.

A new brand of liber­alism must first and foremost reconcile

A new brand of liber­alism must reconcile cosmopoli­tanism and democracy insti­tu­tionally in order to get back on the right track. Real changes in our democracy are required to counter the success of the author­i­tarian populists. Looking exclu­sively at the charac­ter­istics and strategies of the opponents only leads to the repro­duction of friend-foe thinking. It deprives us of the insight into the central questions we have to ask ourselves in order to deprive author­i­tarian populism of its basis: How can we solve the problem of repre­sen­tation? How can we reform non-majori­tarian insti­tu­tions so that they become more responsive and continue to deliver good outcomes in a complex, globalised and pluralised world? Simplistic solutions that aim to re-nation­alise and homogenise the insti­tu­tional founda­tions of democracy, as demanded by author­i­tarian populists, fall short in a globalised world. So, what to do? The answer of a new brand of liber­alism must be: Venture more democracy and promote tolerance of complexity in our society.

[1] This short essay is based on a wide-ranging study published under the title “Die demokratische Regression. Die politischen Ursachen des autoritären Populismus” (The Democ­ratic Regression. The Political Causes of Author­i­tarian Populism”, Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2021).