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In the West, it is difficult to escape the pessimism that pervades current discussions of global affairs. From Russias invasion of Crimea and the never-ending crises of the European Union, to the Syrian catastrophe and the rise of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), the world appears to be tearing at the seams. Meanwhile, democracy itself appears to be unravelinghelped along by resurgent authoritarianism, weakened liberal democratic values, rising populism, and contagious illiberalism.

Democracy has unquestionably lost its global momentum. According to Freedom House, there are only a handful more electoral democracies in the world today than there were at the start of this century. Dozens of newer democracies in the developing world are struggling to put down roots, and many older democraciesincluding, of course, the United Statesare troubled. The theory that democratic transitions naturally move in a positive direction and that established democracies dont tumble backward no longer holds water.

The gloom has become so thick, however, that it obscures reality. A number of politicians, journalists, and analysts are overstating or oversimplifying negative trends and overlooking positive developments. They too easily cast U.S. President Donald Trumps rise, the Brexit vote, and the mainstreaming of populism in many parts of Europe as part of an all-embracing, global counterrevolution against liberal norms. Although the state of democracy around the world is indeed very troubled, it is not uniformly dire, especially outside the West.

IDEALIZING THE PAST AND FOCUSING ON THE NEGATIVE

Todays intensifying apprehension is infused with nostalgia for the 1990s and early 2000s as a period of strong global commitment to liberal norms. Yet even then, illiberal forces were asserting themselves. In 1997, for example, the political commentator Fareed Zakaria famously warned in Foreign Affairs of the rise of illiberal democracy, arguing that half of the democratizing countries in the world today are illiberal democracies. Earlier that year, also in Foreign Affairs, one of the authors of this article (Thomas Carothers) gave a

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Democracy Is Not Dying - Foreign Affairs (subscription)

By Isaac Stone Fish By Isaac Stone Fish April 11 at 3:42 PM

Isaac Stone Fish is a journalist and senior fellow at the Asia Societys Center on U.S.-China Relations, on sabbatical from Foreign Policy Magazine.

A few hours after the recent U.S. airstrikes on Syria, Chinas foreign ministry press spokeswomananswered a question about whether Beijing still considered the beleaguered regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad the sole legitimate government in Syria. We believe that the future of Syria should be left in the hands of the Syrian people themselves, the spokeswoman unironically replied. We respect the Syrian peoples choice of their own leaders and development path.

The irony, of course, is that neither the Syrians nor the Chinese choose their own leaders, or their development path. (Syrian state media still claims Syria is a democratic state.) Both are authoritarian governments one failed, one flourishing masquerading as democracies.

China is now the worlds second-largest economy, and its rulers run it with an authoritarian ruthlessness that is envied by many politicians around the world. And yet Beijing goes on insisting despite its lack of free and fair elections, uncensored media, or an independent judiciary that its a democracy.

One recent article published by Chinas state news agency Xinhua declared that in China, democracy means the people are the masters of the country. On a trip to Beijing in October, I saw several posters featuring an old man urging Chinese to cherish the power of democracy, and cast their sacred and solemn vote. One of Chinas Communist Party Secretary Xi Jinpings favorite slogans refers to the 12 core socialist values of which democracy is second only to national prosperity. At a conference I attended last year, several Chinese Communist Party officials were quick to stress that, like the United States, China can accurately and credibly be called a democracy.

During his presidential campaign Trump talked tough on China, accusing them of undervaluing the yuan. The International Monetary Fund has said that Chinese currency is "no longer undervalued". Does China still deserve to be called a "currency manipulator"? (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)

Considering where Beijing is now politically, its an astonishingly obtuse claim. In reality the Chinese political system, which ensures obedience to the government at the expense of personal freedom, could only be described as authoritarian. Its true that Xi is not a dictator like Mao Zedong, who wielded virtually absolute power. Moreover, Xi rose to the top of the Communist Party through a process of selection. But Xis electorate isnt the people at large. It consists of a much smaller group of the top elite: the hundreds of active and retired members of the Politburo (the top political body), the provincial party secretaries, generals, senior aides and advisers, and the CEOs of major state-owned and private corporations.

So why does China still call itself a democracy? Making this claim allows Beijing to legitimize its own actions and, in the case of its views on the U.S. missile attacks, the Syrian governments as representing the will of the people. This hoodwinking and hypocrisy has served Beijing well. Imagine calling yourself the Peoples Autocracy of China, or the Glorious Autocracy of China, said Perry Link, a professor at the University of California at Riverside who has studied Chinas human rights issues for decades. Alternatively, he said, the Peoples Republic of China, or, for example, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea the official name of North Korea shifts the burden of proof to the other side to show that the country is not, in fact, democratic.

Yes, Beijing means something different with the word democracy than Americans do and this has a lot to do with the Chinese Communist Partys ideological origin story. Vladimir Lenin preached democratic centralism, a system where supposedly democratically elected officials dictated policy. Similarly, Mao called for the peoples democratic dictatorship a dictatorship by the people, for the people, allegedly far superior to the bankrupt system of Western bourgeois democracy, where elites plundered the working class. In her 2015 essay The Populist Dream of Chinese Democracy, the Harvard University political scientist Elizabeth J. Perry contextualizes Chinese democracy as more akin to populism. She quotes Xi Zhongxun, the former propaganda chief (and the late father of Chinas current leader), who once exhorted fellow party members to put your asses on the side of the masses.

In November 2014, when a Trump presidency was still unimaginable, Chinas longtime ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai compared Americas political system with Chinas. In the United States, you could have somebody just a few years ago totally unknown to others, and all of a sudden he or she could run for very high office because you could use all kinds of media, Cui told me in an interview. You look at the Chinese leaders, they spend long years in the grassroots. Indeed, Xi, and most of the rest of Chinas top elite, are lifelong politicians. Throughout his nearly four decades in politics, Xi served as a delegate to Chinas national Congress, a political commissioner in the military, the executive vice mayor of a second-tier city, the party secretary of a province and so on.

But as Syrians have learned over their decades of authoritarian rule, and as Americans are learning from a president with only a casual relationship to facts, lying to the people does not the sound foundation of good governance make. In the seven years I lived in China, no Chinese person who was not a Communist Party hack could tell me with a straight face they were living in a democracy. In justifying Chinas autocracy, Cui told me that to govern such a big country, you need the experience of serving for decades around the nation. Debatable. But a much truer statement than pretending China is a democracy.

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Why does China pretend to be a democracy? - Washington Post

White House senior advisor Kellyanne Conway took part in a media forum on Wednesday morning, where she defended Donald Trump while shrugging off the notion that she contributed to the negative relationship between the president and the press.

Conway spoke with Michael Wolff at the Newseums President and the Press event, where they brought up The Washington Posts tagline Democracy Dies in Darkness. The paper adopted the slogan approximately one month after Trump was sworn into office, and Wolff told Conway that when they say democracy dies in darkness, youre the darkness.

Didnt you see the skit Walking on Sunshine, Conway said, shaking her head. Just because somebody says something doesnt make it true.

Conway seemed to be referring to a Saturday Night Live skit from last year, where Kate McKinnon depicted her as she tried (and failed) to have a joyful day off from politics to the tune of Katrina and the Waves Walking on Sunshine.

Conway seemed to get pushback from the audience at certain points, particularly as she spoke about the media and falsehoods. At one point, there was laughter from the attendees when Conway said You can turn on the TVand people literally say things that just arent true.

Watch above, via ABC.

[H/T Evan McMurry]

[image via screengrab]

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'Walking on Sunshine': Kellyanne Conway Mocks WaPo's 'Democracy Dies in Darkness' Slogan - Mediaite

By Erik Jones and Matthias Matthijs By Erik Jones and Matthias Matthijs April 11

How safe is liberal democracy? The elections and popular referendums of the past year, especially in the West, raise many questions but much of the discussion has focused on the popular appeal of democracy.

Political scientists Yascha Mounk and Roberto Foa made a big splash when they argued that younger generations are falling out of love with democratic institutions. Erik Voeten, a professor at Georgetown University, quickly responded that no, public opinion polling data actually shows little evidence that attitudes have changed.

[No, people arent really turning away from democracy]

Millennials and other generations may have different views on democracy, but these differences tended to be modest and largely confined to the United States. Voeten conceded, however,that there were plenty of other things to worry about.

Whos really undermining democracy?

In our recent study of dysfunctional democracy for the journalGovernment & Opposition, we focus on the role of politicians and democratic institutions. It turns out that there are many ways in which the day-to-day practices of relatively anonymous politicians can cripple the functioning of liberal democracy, no matter how many institutional safeguards are in place.

[Hungarys government wants to shut down its most prominent university. That may be backfiring.]

This is, of course, hardly a new insight. Jean-Jacques Rousseau made much the same observation more than 200 years ago in his pamphlet Considerations on the Government of Poland. A century later, Woodrow Wilson used a similar argument to frame his study of American politics and critique of the federal system, Congressional Government.

Lessons learned sometimes require repetition to stick, however. We think this is one of those moments where the insights of the past can actually make a big difference for our understanding of democracy in the present.

Heres an illustration. Foa and Mounk explain how the assault on democratic norms in Hungary and Poland help make their case for the loss of faith in democracy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, for instance, quickly managed to consolidate his power in 2010 by replacing the constitution. Since then, there has been a steady illiberal slide in the country while Orban is showing increasingly autocratic instincts.

After eliminating various constitutional checks and balances, Orbans government has gradually ground down the independence of the judiciary and worked to silence the press, mainly through self-censorship. Most recently, his government has passed legislation that threatens to shut down the Central European University in Budapest, in a further effort to stifle academic freedom.

[Why is Hungary trying to close George Soross prestigious university?]

In Poland, the nationalist-populist Law and Justice party (PiS) of former prime minister Jarosaw Kaczynski took office in the autumn of 2015 and attacked the independence of its high court and the public media, almost following the same script that Orbans Fidesz party deployed in Hungary. The PiS governments assault on Polands democratic institutions has provoked an ongoing constitutional crisis in the country.

Yes, democratic norms are under pressure in both countries. But two things are worth noting: 1) this is not the first time that either leader has come to power; and 2) both countries are embedded in a wider web of European Union institutions, having been full E.U. members since 2004, as well as Western norms, having been NATO members since the mid-1990s.

Politicians undermine democracy

These two factors help us paint a rather different picture and a more troubling one. As R. Daniel Kelemen argues, a frequent cause of democratic backsliding is the complacency of national politicians who need to build support from the ground up but arent too picky about how that is accomplished. A classic U.S. example would be the way Democrats at the national level ignored and even insulated Huey Long while he was governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 (even if much of that insulation disappeared once Long left Louisiana for the Senate).

This phenomenon unfolds at the multinational level as well. So its not that European institutions lack mechanisms to reinforce democracy in Hungary and Poland the problem is that European politicians would rather get Hungarian and Polish support for other projects. At a minimum, they seek to avoid facing Hungarian and Polish opposition. As long as the assault on democratic norms is not too dramatic, it is easy to avoid an overt conflict.

Kelemens argument helps explain the differences between whats happening in Hungary and Poland. Orbans Fidesz in Hungary is part of the mainstream center-right European Peoples Party, which dominates in the European Parliament. Orbans government has also moved slowly and systematically, pushing right up against the soft boundaries of democratic norms in its reform of key institutions.

[This is what the gradual erosion of rule of law looks like in Poland]

This means European criticism of Hungary has been relatively muted. By contrast, Kaczynskis PiS party in Poland has moved brusquely to challenge state institutions. For example, while Orban was able to entrench his partys hold on power through legal constitutional amendments, PiS is blatantly violating the Polish constitution and crushing the high court, which is in charge of defending it. Given that PiS does not belong to an important European political group, European criticism of Poland has been much more confrontational and persistent.

There are parallels in the United States, too

Kelemens argument helps connect what is happening in Europe to whats happening elsewhere in the world. Political elites can do the right thing from a democratic perspective or they can stand back and watch as democratic norms suffer from negligence. This is as true in the United States as it is in Europe.

Consider the protection of civil liberties. Desmond King shows how the success and failure of the U.S. civil rights movement correlates directly with the intensity and consistency of U.S. federal intervention. When U.S. federal courts and the executive branch actively apply civil rights laws, minorities have benefited from strengthened protections. But where federal action has been withheld, those protections have rolled back as a consequence. This sounds obvious and nothing magical but this doesnt make the consequences of the rollback any less tragic.

Our overall findings suggest that, if liberal democracy is indeed failing at the moment, we need to look at the combination of political inertia and institutional constraints. To understand the phenomenon, we should, therefore, focus less on public opinion and more on elite behavior.

This means we should ask which politicians are complicit in undermining democratic norms and what their interests are in doing so. We should inquire whether a countrys government is protecting the underprivileged and, if not, who really stands to benefit.

But we should also examine whether all citizens are brought equally into the system. The question is not just whether democracy is for everyone or only for the powerful, it is whether our political elites are using democracy in an inclusive manner or whether politicians are trying to exclude voices they think are inappropriate or inconvenient.

Most importantly, democracy is not just about popular attitudes or controversial leaders. Instead, it is about everyone who has the opportunity and the incentive to influence democratic performance.

This concept of democratic dysfunction is more about governing elites and their use or abuse of existing institutions than it is about great leaders or apathetic masses. The great beauty of democracy is that everyone and anyone can aspire to this elite status.

But heres the flip side of this argument: If democracy is what we make of it, we are the only ones to blame if we make a mess of it.

Erik Jones is professor of European studies and international political economy at Johns Hopkins Universitys School of Advanced International Studies.

Matthias Matthijs is assistant professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins Universitys School of Advanced International Studies.

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Worried about the decline in democracy? Worry about the politicians ... - Washington Post

By launching a distinct e-governance initiative centred on online polls and powerful analytics, India can shine a light

It is common knowledge that there are two types of democracy: direct and indirect. A direct democracy does not award full governance powers to the government. Instead, using the mechanisms of referendum, recall, initiative and plebiscite, direct democracy allows the participation of every enfranchised citizen in approving many major governmental decisions.

An indirect democracy, on the other hand, vests elected representatives, who run the government under a leader, with vast powers to take decisions on behalf of its people. Only in the rarest of instances does an indirect democracy resort to a direct democracy mechanism like referendum to take a decision. Britains decision to exit the European Union was one such instance.

Anachronisms, adjustments

The historical justification for an indirect democracy is twofold. One, leadership is not the forte of everybody. Taking sound political decisions requires the collaboration of many kinds of deep expertise in subjects as varied as economics, finance and psychology, overseen by the definition-eluding leadership.

Two, it is unwieldy and cumbersome, if not impossible, to secure the vote of millions of people on every significant decision. While the first justification for an indirect democracy is still valid, the second is not.

Thanks to the power of the internet and associated information technologies (IT), the extant indirect democracy, specifically in populous countries like India, is now reduced to a quaint anachronism that has outlived its time. It needs to be seriously re-engineered to embrace select virtues of a direct democracy.

At the core

The core purpose of a democracy is to execute the will of its people. The internet and IT provide sophisticated tools to enable the core purpose. Central to the re-engineering of the current democracy would be the online poll.

Online polls may be used to collect authentic data from millions of people within a short time with barely any cost to the citizen and only an incremental increase in the IT budgets of the government. Such polls would help overcome the great limitation of the indirect democracy model in collecting reliable poll results in a short period of time from hundreds of millions of people. The polls could be conducted with security being provided for by a citizen id (the voter id or Aadhaar in India, the social security number in the US, for example).

Through four kinds of online polls, the direct democracy mechanisms of referendum, recall, plebiscite and initiative may be implemented:

Decision polls, which determine by majority vote whether or not a proposal should be implemented

Opinion polls, which provide opinion on specific matters (say, a proposed amendment to a law or the budgetary allocation for greening initiatives)

Sentiment polls, which gauge what the mood of the people is on the state of affairs

Election polls, which help elect the representatives of the people who would form the government

Sophisticated analytics (including predictive analytics and sentiment analysis) may then be used to engage in prospective governance (with a distinct and informed view of the future) rather than retrospective governance (based on an analysis of the past). Analytics facilitate the deployment of dashboards reflecting public opinion which in turn would lead to unprecedented transparency in governance.

Towards authenticity

The new democracy would enable greater inclusion, decision-making based on verified data rather than educated guesses or arcane statistical methods, and defeating mala fide intentions. Voter turnout is likely to be higher since the process of voting would not be as burdensome as going to a booth, and identity theft would be markedly lower than with voting booths. With no significant bureaucracy or onerous processes required to organise the polls, the cost of running a well-informed and participative government would be only marginally higher to begin with. The overall costs of governance over the medium and long term would drop dramatically owing to the far higher quality of decisions.

Online polls would also act as conduits to channel movements mobilised by the general public and driven by the social media. In the future, such movements are likely to increase in number and intensity. In a direct democracy, this sort of a movement would have conformed to the original definition of initiative. The re-engineered model of democracy provides a formalism for the orderly incorporation of such movements. In addition, the new model would provide institutional processes for unambiguously implementing the peoples will in situations such as what prevailed in Tamil Nadu.

Answering sceptics

Sceptics of the proposed reforms to the indirect democracy model need only turn to online banking and e-commerce. Very high volume transactions with uncompromised integrity of identity and accounting are being performed on a daily basis. The error and breach rates are far lower than that of the traditional world of elections.

A report by Nasscom and Akamai Technologies released around August 2016 predicts India would have 730 million internet users by 2020. Current smartphone shipments in India are at an annualised rate of 140 million units. This vision of a re-engineered democracy would take a few years to realise and requires the creation of an Amazon or Netflix type technology architecture. By the time the architecture is ready, the voting Indian population should have access to the internet through smartphones or otherwise.

Given its prowess in IT, India can lead the way by launching a distinct e-governance initiative centred on online polls and powerful analytics. The re-engineered democracy is a revolution which is overdue.

The writer is the founder of Anantara Solutions

(This article was published on April 12, 2017)

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Re-engineering democracy for today - Hindu Business Line