Democracy for losers

Democracy is under threat everywhere. Growing numbers of citizens prefer authoritarian ideas, and politicians nurturing those wishes are on the rise in Hungary, Poland, France, Turkey, Germany, and the United States—to mention only the most salient examples. By now pundits everywhere have expressed concern about “populism” and the cementation of “illiberal” or “defected” democracies. Populist politicians all stress that they speak for the “people” and articulate demands that are “suppressed” by a dominating elite—that is, by a minority. Whereas Viktor Orbán and Recep Erdoğan mobilize large majorities, this is certainly not true for Marine Le Pen or Donald Trump. While these distinctions are important, they do not affect the main point at issue.

What makes the discussions complicated is the fact that democracy is threatened by democratic means: When citizens prefer authoritarian ideas, shouldn’t democracy meet these demands?

Equating democracy and majority rule is unproblematic only in societies without permanent social conflicts and rifts. If the chances of belonging to a majority are more or less evenly distributed across the population, supporting majority decisions makes sense because, in the long run, we will all belong to majorities more often than we will find ourselves among minorities. But in reality, these chances are not evenly distributed. Seven decades of empirical research on political involvement show that participation is always biased against the less privileged.

Each major expansion of the ways citizens try to influence politics—protests in the 1970s, social movements in the 1980s, voluntarism in the 1990s, political consumerism and new social media in the 2000s—has been accompanied by the claim of improving equality. None of these movements have accomplished this. Political activism remains relatively low among lower socio-economic groups. Men are still politically more engaged than women (with the dubious exception of political consumerism). Young people, especially, avoid institutionalized modes of participation. Not even the spread of social media has changed these continuous distortions of democracy’s ideal of equal voices. Those who could gain the most from political participation are the least active—permanent losers don’t like democracy.

To be frank, the empirical record of participation research is depressing. Hardly any program, project, or policy has been able to mobilize less politically active populations effectively.

More than twenty years ago, Sidney Verba and his colleagues succinctly enumerated the main reasons why people do not participate politically: “because they can’t, because they don’t want to; or because nobody asked.”

Much has changed since, but not the relevance of these three causes. Only recently did the first signs of what might be a changing political climate become visible: growing dissatisfaction with the causes and consequences of socio-economic hardship (financial crises, austerity politics, globalization, migration) seems to counteract Verba’s second reason. The rise of populist politicians and parties effectively takes care of the third. Theoretically, grievance theories gain renewed relevance mainly through their explanation of protest against austerity politics. For the first time since democracy started to encourage mass-participation, voices of the ‘losers’ can be heard more clearly. Not all these voices support liberal democracy unconditionally. This can only be a surprise for people who are content with the extended participation of privileged groups in existing democracies.

If the weather vanes of political change are read correctly, we are approaching the end of a long period of biased participation. But neither the vanes nor their popular readings seem to be unproblematic. First, a “crisis” of democracy requires more than the election of some populist politician or the surprising outcome of a referendum. What seems to be refuted is the optimistic but rather naïve idea that all political development is a long march towards democracy.

The second issue is that even in established democracies, parts of the population have always supported authoritarian ideas. Empirical political science scrutinized this phenomenon as early as the 1950s. Recent populism largely overlaps with this old-fashioned authoritarianism.

Third, democratic participation is not disappearing but remains increasingly popular, especially among “critical citizens.” By now, the repertoire of participation is virtually infinite and includes actions ranging from voting, to posting blogs, and buying fair-trade products.

So might we conclude, there is nothing new under the sun and defenders of democracy can sleep well tonight? Curing the most serious failure of liberal democracy—its enduring inability to involve permanent losers—is a reason for contentment. Yet the often xenophobic, intolerant, and ignorant nature of the present remedies can’t be neglected.

This brings us back to the equation of democracy and majority rule as the cardinal sin. Under majority rule, it is stupid for permanent losers to plea for democracy. But it is perhaps even more stupid for defenders of democracy to advocate their case when dealing with people who want to change the rules of the game only because they are long-time, politically absent losers. Democracy—understood as a value in and for itself—is open for both winners and losers, and not for picky authoritarians who want majority rule only.

Featured image credit: Meeting 1er mai 2012 Front National by Blandine Le Cain. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.