Friday 31 August 2012

The Third Wave Rolled Back ?

In 1991 Samuel Huntington published The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, a book meant to analyze the third wave of democratization that swept across the world in the last decades of the 20th century. The fall of communism, the implosion of the USSR, the rise of the EU and the democratic advances of Latin America and Asia, all seemed to point to an expansion of the democratic world with liberal democracy being adopted by most countries around the world. Huntington points out in his thesis that during this period the number of democracies around the world has more than doubled and that, for the first time in history, most states were democracies and the majority of people lived under a democratic regime. Although he acknowledges that there is a possibility for the democratic progress of some of these countries to be reversed (which, indeed,  had already happen by 1990 in Sudan and Nigeria), he argues that  the general progress towards democracy is irreversible. Fast forward to 2012 and Huntington's belief in the irreversibility of the democratic change is strongly challenged by events around the world. 

One of the most striking example is Russia. Since Putin's return, Russia has given up any claim of being a democracy and has increased the crackdown on any voices challenging the regime. Russia is now a classic authoritarian state and none of the democratic principles are respected in the country. The same is true for most of the other former-USSR states with the exception of the Baltic countries and (arguably) Moldova. In fact, the 2011 Democracy Index shows that all the former USSR members, with the exception of the countries already mentioned, are under mild to severe authoritarian regimes.

The Balkans are also suffering a regression of their democratic statute. Hungary and Romania have already clashed with the EU on their actions to curb the power of democratic institutions and the Bulgarian Prime Minister is starting to impose his own control over remaining free media outlets in the country, following the precedent of Hungary. Serbia is returning to its nationalistic discourse, ignoring (at best) the right of minorities and reigniting its special relationship with Russia. Furthermore, the Economist Intelligence Unit reckons that 12 countries across the Balkans and the Eastern European region have suffered a decline in the quality of democracy.

Latin America has slipped into a leftist danger zone with Chavez-like leaders taking over the continent. Their actions have not been as directly against democratic principles as in Russia but many of the liberal values have been trashed in the search of a more egalitarian model. And this might be just the tip of the iceberg as many institutions have been proven to lie about the pressure they are under from governmental forces (the economic indices faked by Argentina's Christina Fernandez are just one of the examples that have surfaced). Moreover, rampant corruption and violence have prevented democratic institutions in Latin America from working how they are supposed to.

Across the Middle-East, the hope that the Arab Spring would bring an end to the authoritarian regimes has proven to be illusory (Tunisia might turn out to be an exception) with little change being observed in the quality of democracy. If anything, democracy has seen a regression across the Arab world, even in Turkey, usually paraded as an example of liberal democracy in the region. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's grab on the political life of the country is proving to be counter-productive. Although he is supported by a majority of the population, he is constantly strengthening his hold on Turkey's institutions. Turkey currently jails 80 journalists and 2824 students (!!!).

A regress of democracy is all but understandable in the situation of a prolonged economic crisis but it is alarming if you consider that it is infecting even the countries that were seen as the main promoters of democratic principles. What better example to illustrate this than Italy? Governed by an unelected Prime Minister imposed by Germany, Italy has taken many radical reforms without asking its population about their opinion. The same is true for most EU governments, which have pushed for greater integration regardless of the democratic opinions of their people. I am a staunch pro-European, I dream of a European superstate but I want it to be achieved in a correct way. It would not have been hard for EU governments to convince their people of the need for a more united Europe, the EU should have presented itself as a solution to the crisis (a full propaganda campaign- Ellul style- would have been the perfect instrument to achieve this). Instead, governments have mismanaged the opportunity to where the EU is now at risk of breaking up.  

The current decline in democracy should send alarm bells ringing all over the world. With no end in sight for the economic crisis, the situation is bound to get worse. The most obvious changes are seen in the countries of the third wave of democratization but other countries are also suffering. Will history prove Huntington wrong? I guess it is up to us to answer this question.

Monday 6 August 2012

Bad things come in threes

Misfortune never comes alone. And that is especially true for Europe. With all eyes on the economic problems of the South, other diseases are festering on the continent, infecting the very founding principles that have made Europe prosperous. The EU institutions are overwhelmed with managing the economic crisis, they cannot cope with other issues. Considering the energy that is being consumed to keep the economic union from falling apart, you would assume that an even greater threat to the stability of the region would be forcefully dealt with. But that is not the case. In fact, the EU is treating the democratic crisis of Hungary, Romania and Serbia with very little interest. The authoritarian  trend that has started in Hungary has now spread to three countries in the region, three countries that have very complicated ties and a complex history that needs to be managed in a pro-European mindset in order to avoid conflict, the very reason the EU was founded in the first place.

After a few steps back from the Orban government, Hungary has managed to get away with some very important legislative changes that violate democratic principles and install a Putin-like style of politics. Viktor Orban's recent declarations that he hopes the government would not need to change the political system of the country from democracy to 'something else' have been largely ignored by the media and, as far as I could find, have provoked no official reaction from any of the EU officials. Furthermore, he has started a media campaign to portray himself as the defender of Hungarian interests against the greed of foreign lenders as he prepares to enter though negotiations with the IMF. Helped by the system that he has already put in place, he is very effective at creating a Soviet-style leader image  for himself. His measures go far beyond those proposed by populist forces in Western Europe, firmly directing the country to the far-right. And this is just the beginning. As the radical nationalistic party, Jobbik (whose neo-fascist paramilitary group has only recently been outlawed), seems to be falling apart, the danger that factions would form an even more radical movement is rapidly increasing. 

As Viktor Orban tightened his grips on Hungarian governance, another Victor came to power in Romania. Victor Ponta, the leader of the leftist PSD, became the Prime Minister of Romania in May and shortly after that he proceeded to dismantle many of the checks and balances of the public institutions and to tighten control over them.  In a one week blitzkrieg operation, he changed the heads of both houses of Parliament (through illegal procedures), he replaced the ombudsman with one of his party members and he took away the Constitutional Court's power to judge on Parliamentary decisions. He then impeached the President and replaced him, on an interim basis (for how long exactly it is now unclear), with his political ally, the leader of the centrist PNL. The rapid pace of the moves (which one respected Romanian journalists described as a 'brutal group rape of democracy') has attracted dire warnings from the EU and the US. Although the PM has tried to convince his EU and US partners that he will repair any steps that have broken democratic principles, he has backed his words with little action. Furthermore, the interim President, Crin Antonescu, has used some very strong language to condemn any interference from the outside, calling into doubt the US's and EU's power and declaring the sovereignty of Romania against foreign 'ex-powers'. Some important steps from Romania in August and September will show exactly to what extent are Mr. Ponta and Mr. Antonescu prepared to breach the democratic principles that they swore to protect.

(Permit me a personal opinion on the Romanian situation: the country is run by muppets, amateur politicians who do not understand the weight of their words and think that doing politics is nothing more than a small scale power game that they can play for fun. They simply do not understand the consequences of their actions or of their words, or the impact that they have on society, managing to create a very dangerous rift based on political affiliation.)

And then there is Serbia. A non-EU country but an EU candidate, Serbia has recently elected a nationalistic president that denies that the Srebenica massacre. He appointed Ivica Dacic as Prime Minister, the former spokesman of Slobodan Milosevic. It is in Serbia, ironically, where the weakness of the EU is most obvious. The EU used to have the most influence in candidate countries, steering them towards reform and state-building, working with them to chain nationalism and promote freedom. It now looks weak and strange, giving lessons to Serbia on issues that itself badly mismanaged. It is to no surprise then than Serbia chose to ignore the EU's recommendations on banking reform and went on to put the National Bank under the control of the Parliament, move that mirrors Hungary's recent actions.

The political discourse of the three countries is now dominated by populism and nationalism. The media fuels a state of panic continuously revealing imaginary threats, from outside and from within, to create an almost Dali-like view of society. Threats towards ethnical minorities and even towards each other  (see the referendum spat between Romania and Hungary) point to an escalating crisis that the EU chooses to ignore. Badly affected by the economic crisis, the people of Hungary, Romania and Serbia are looking to fresh policies to help them out of poverty. With a second wave of the crisis soon to hit the region, things can spiral out of control very fast. The EU's biggest threat might not be the economic bankruptcy of a southern state, but the democratic failure of an eastern one.