AFTER the collapse of communism and the holding of mostly free and fair elections in nearly all the Eastern Bloc countries, US policy makers made an historic mistake. They thought events were confirming their belief that there was a natural progression in political development that led to liberal democracy as the highest and best form of government, and that once achieved there would be no going back. This was because people would see democracy’s obvious advantages.
As the communist dictators fell or were taken out and shot as in the case of Romania, US policy-makers thought that all one had to do, therefore, was to topple a dictator and/or the dictatorial regime and democracy would fill the void.
They still held this view when they invaded Iraq (with Australia’s help) and toppled Saddam Hussein. They kept it during the Arab Spring.
But since 1989 a lot of those nascent democracies in the old Eastern Bloc, especially in the old Soviet Union, have evolved into totalitarian or semi-totalitarian regimes with rigged elections and intolerance for opposition.
It also happened in nearly all the places which held mostly free and fair elections after the Arab Spring.
One mostly free and fair election does not make a liberal democracy.
Liberal democracy requires the building of institutions over time so that regular free and fair elections are backed by the rule of law and accountability of government.
Those who are elected to govern must be subject to the law and must chose those who administer the law and government on merit.
The trouble is, of course, that this flies in the face of the human genetic make up. The humans and primates before them that roamed the African savannah survived in tribes who were genetically related to each other. Their other main genetically embedded survival technique was mutual altruism – I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.
As US political scientist Francis Fukuyama has put it, tribalism and patrimonialism are natural human traits and they strongly influence human political behaviour.
Rulers seek the personal loyalty of family and friends. They do not appoint on merit. The family and friends support the ruler so the ruler is not accountable to the law or those being governed.
Patrimonialism and tribalism are never far from the surface and can easily bubble up unless the institutions upon which democracy depends are well-established.
Worse, even long-established institutions can become inflexible and unworkable in the face of changing conditions. Again, threatening democracy.
In the US, the very checks and balances upon which American democracy is based and which ensured that no-one could grab all the power, are now resulting in frequent gridlock so that little gets done.
Also, the tendency towards back-scratching patrimonialism results in interest groups getting favours in return for political support. Greater tribalism in two-tribe democracies has now resulted in a culture of no compromise.
In short, liberal democracy – rather than being the natural and inevitable endpoint of political development – is extremely fragile. And certainly not to be taken for granted.
In the US, Britain and Australia (as well as Europe) we are seeing a surge of tribalism. In the US, Republican candidate Donald Trump is appealing to white males with his Mexican wall and bans on Muslims. In Britain, we have seen Brexit. In Australia, One Nation has made a resurgence.
In the US and Australia we are seeing democratic institutions not adapting well to new circumstances.
In the US, the Republicans have abused their Senate numbers by blocking any appointment to the Supreme Court by President Obama. They routinely add favours like subsidies or laxer regulation to unrelated legislation. They frequently threaten to shut down the government by refusing supply.
The US Electoral College voting system was past its use-by date at the beginning of the 20 the century, but at the end of that century delivered a president without a majority of the popular vote who proved disastrous.
In Australia, the Coalition for the past three years has not been able to work with crossbenchers in the Senate to enact necessary Budget repair.
This week’s triumphalism by Treasurer Scott Morrison does not augur well for any progress. “When the whistle has blown, and you’re on the wrong side of the scoreboard, when you’re on the wrong side of this House, you lost the election, buddy,” he sneered to the Labor Opposition
In Europe, a resurgence of far-right nationalist parties threatens to make government more difficult.
And Turkish and Russian democracy has transmogrified into strongman rule.
Meanwhile, in the non-democracies of the Middle East, any hope of democracy breaking out any time soon seems highly remote.
And in a way that completes the destructive loop.
The naïve venture by George W. Bush to topple a tyrant in Iraq so that democracy would somehow fill the vacuum is the direct cause of the resurgent Islamic tribalism, violence and people displacement that has unleashed counter forces in the developed countries. And these counter-forces are under-mining the very liberal democracy that Bush was seeking to spread around the world.
It is going to take a lot of action, pressure and engagement by a lot of people around the world to somehow put tribalism, triumphalism and patrimonialism back in their box, so that liberal, accountable, constructive, democratic government can make a resurgence.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Fairfax media on 3 September 2016.