[FRIAM] Democracy in Name Only: endemic regime instability

[Jochen Fromm]

Nice references! I believe people basically prefer democracies if they have a choice, and democracies will remain alive as long as the majority of the people (including judges, politicians, policemen, soldiers and journalists) support it and play by the democratic rules of the game. If the majority begins to play by a different set of rules - for example "do not criticize the supreme leader and his regime, because he knows best" - then the system slides back into more primitive forms.https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/democracy-could-die-2024/619390/In an autocracy there might be a shallow veneer of democracy but no substance behind it. Authoritarian systems have often fake elections: elections in name only where the winner is already known before. If we define a president as the elected head of a republic, then authoritarian systems have presidents in name only. They also have courts in name only where criminals - esp. if they belong to the ruling regime - remain free while their investigators are imprisoned. Ginsburg and Moustafa have written about the politics of courts in authoritarian regimes.https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Rule-by-law-%3A-the-politics-of-courts-in-regimes-Ginsburg-Moustafa/59fcbc0522a1112aeca0b2cf5246c28c0b4f9feeOne thing I find puzzling is that we know as an empirical fact that democracies do not wage wars against each other. Why do authoritarian or totalitarian systems tend to start wars and invade other countries? Is it because they have a more primitive form and do not fit in, like a T-Rex in San Diego? Or do they feel threatened? Anne Applebaum had a good article recently why Russia might want to invade Ukrainehttps://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/putin-ukraine-democracy/621465/-J.
-------- Original message --------From: Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> Date: 2/4/22  17:31  (GMT+01:00) To: friam at redfish.com Subject: [FRIAM] Democracy in Name Only: endemic regime instability 
    Someone here is more likely than I to have
          actually read Ziblatt and Levitsky's  How
            Democracies Die 
        
    A recent article (behind a subscribe-wall)
          included the following quote:
    
      
    https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2022-01-20/americas-coming-age-instability
    
      
          
      America may no longer be safe for
            democracy, but it remains inhospitable to autocracy.
      Rather than autocracy, the United
            States appears headed toward endemic regime instability. 
          
      
          
      Such a scenario would be marked by
            frequent constitutional crises, including contested or
            stolen elections and severe conflict between presidents and
            Congress (such as impeachments and executive efforts to
            bypass Congress), the judiciary (such as efforts to purge or
            pack the courts), and state governments (such as intense
            battles over voting rights and the administration of
            elections). The United States would likely shift back and
            forth between periods of dysfunctional democracy and periods
            of competitive authoritarian rule during which incumbents
            abuse state power, tolerate or encourage violent extremism,
            and tilt the electoral playing field against their rivals.
      
          
    
    I found this characterization of our plight very
        compelling, if also very disturbing.
    
      
    It seems as if we have "tumbled our gyros" but in a
        different mode than the rhetoric about "Civil War" and "Descent
        into Autocracy" seem to suggest.   It also characterizes a lot
        of the aspiring/limping democracies we know of in the world
        today up to and including extreme examples such as Russia which
        fits the DINO (democracy in name only) label pretty well.
    
      
    This conception of the problem lead me to a very well
        written HS student-essay by the same title: democracy-in-name-only.
    
      
    Within this essay was a poignant quote:
    
      
        In the
            words of Alexis de Tocqueville,
        “A new science of politics is needed for a new
          world. This, however, is what we think of least; launched in
          the middle of a rapid stream, we obstinately fix our eyes on
          the ruins which may still be descried upon the shore we have
          left, while the current sweeps us along, and drives us
          backward toward the gulf.”
      
    
    
      
    
    
  

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