Democracy Paradox

A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.

Barrington Moore famously claimed, “No bourgeoisie. No democracy.” Many scholars before and after Moore have argued the middle class is necessary for successful democratization. But Moore had a specific image of the middle class. The bourgeoisie were not simply white-collar professionals. They were entrepreneurs who were independent of the landed aristocracy.

Bryn Rosenfeld recognizes a new source for the growth of the middle class. Many authoritarian regimes have established a state dependent middle class. A professional class who relies on the state bureaucracy for employment and think differently about their relationship to the regime than the bourgeoisie Barrington Moore portrayed.

Scholars have long recognized the heterogeneity of the middle class even while they described them as a homogenous group. The diverse interests and perspectives are part of what leads the middle class to demand democracy. But Bryn Rosenfeld finds there is also an autocratic middle class who rely on the state for their status and position. They view the process of democratization as a labyrinth of risk and uncertainty.

Bryn Rosenfeld is an assistant professor in the department of government at Cornell University. She is the author of The Autocratic Middle Class: How State Dependency Reduces the Demand for Democracy. Bryn is part of a new generation of comparative political scientists who blend field research with rigorous quantitative research designs to produce new insights into political behavior.

I have read my share of books on democracy published in 2020. Some are well-written. Others offer deep insights. So far, this is the most consequential book on democracy I have come across from last year. I do not doubt scholars will refer to its conclusions for years to come. It astonishes me this is Bryn’s first book. I expect to come across her name again in the future.

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Political theorist Takis Pappas has described the formation of liberal democracy as an elite project. Its creation was dependent on the decisions of political leaders rather than the public. But over the subsequent decades the space between politicians and their constituents has grown smaller. It is now unclear whether elected officials remain political leaders or whether they simply follow the opinions of their constituents. 

Democracy is in the process of a transformation. Politicians have abdicated responsibility for political power to the people, but the people do not share a sense of responsibility for this newfound political power. So, everyone blames each other for political conflict, but nobody accepts the responsibility to resolve it. It is not clear anyone completely understands what democracy is or what it will become. 

Robert Dahl imagined the possibility of a third transformation of democracy into something deeper, thicker, and richer. But he never explained how this new sense of democracy might manifest itself. Dahl thought more about democracy than anyone has before or since. 

So I have searched for the next incarnation of Robert Dahl but have failed to discover her or him. These conversations are my attempt to piece together the ideas from multiple perspectives about democracy to offer an updated theory of democratic governance. 

Populism, of course, is the great challenge for democracy today. Many scholars have offered institutional solutions as an antidote to populism. But the challenges democracy faces are not an American problem. They exist across the globe. They persist in Presidential and Parliamentary systems. It is a deeper challenge within the demos itself. 

I believe democracy will inevitably overcome the populist challenge. It will emerge from this crisis stronger and healthier. Fifty years from now democracy will be different than it is today. And in five hundred years, its institutions may even be unrecognizable. But I believe the answer exists.  

Zizi Papacharissi has dared to imagine what our future may hold after democracy. The research for her remarkable book, After Democracy, took her around the world where she asked one hundred everyday citizens three simple questions:

1.      What is democracy?

2.      What is citizenship?

3.      What might make democracy better?

The answers she received helped her imagine what might come after democracy. Zizi offers us a dream. She explained to me that she “wanted the book to have a dream-like feel, like a dream many people were having together or a polyphonic story they were simultaneously telling and listening to.”

Zizi Papacharissi is a professor of communication and political science at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She was among the first to study social media and has shaped the scholarship on political communication on the internet. Her name is a familiar sighting in the footnotes of many of the books and articles I read. 

Our conversation explores the ideas in her book from many different angles. We talk about the meaning of democracy and the role of citizens. We think about how democracy might be reimagined. And she invites you to dream of what might come after democracy.

Notes
Website:  www.democracyparadox.com

Music from Apes of the State

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Recent events in the United States have shown how even the most established democracies have much to learn about democracy. But my guest Winston Mano does not like to talk about democracy. He prefers to talk about democratization because the process never ends. Our conversation focuses on Africa with many topics discussed including social media, decolonization, and, of course, democracy. It concludes with a complex question, “What can America learn about democracy from Africa?”

When I ask this question, it is not intended to embarrass Americans, but to look for insights from abroad. Winston believes humility is critical in a successful democracy. Different parts of the globe have different lessons so there is always something to learn from others. 

But for those who believe democratization is a linear process, my question won’t make any sense at all. America is widely viewed as farther along this process than any African nation. But Winston points out how technologies develop out of necessity. Some cultures “leapfrog” steps to develop new technologies outside the traditional sequence. Africa has even done this before. For example, Africa never experienced a Bronze Age. It went immediately into an Iron Age. 

So, can Africa leapfrog America at this crossroads of democratization? I have no idea. But the current crisis of democracy requires a transformation in how it is both imagined and approached. So, the solutions may come from unlikely sources. 

Winston Mano is a reader at the University of Westminster. He is also the principal editor of the Journal of African Media Studies. Alongside Martin Ndella, he edited the recent two volume publication Social Media and Elections in Africa.

Today’s conversation begins on the topic of social media in Africa. This is where I thought the conversation would remain. But recent events made it impossible to avoid a wider conversation on democracy.

Notes
Website:  www.democracyparadox.com

Music from Apes of the State

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The German Question haunted international relations for generations. Like China, it was a rising authoritarian power. But its successful democratization after the Second World War cast an amnesia upon the uncertainty and anxiety it had caused the international community. 

Today democracy in Germany is taken for granted. It is a force of democratic stability within Europe and in the world. Its journey from dictatorship to democracy is largely forgotten and its current challenges are often ignored. 

Some of those challenges have surfaced in recent years. Hessian politician, Walter Lübcke , was assassinated by a far right extremist on June 2nd, 2019 and in August The New York Times reported that Neo-Nazis have established a presence in the ranks of the military and police. 

Today’s guest Michael Hughes offers a helpful reminder, “Democracy may have prevailed in Germany… but conceptions remain contested… So, crucially, the story’s outcome cannot be an ending… for the process remains ongoing.” Michael is a professor of History at Wake Forest University. His research has focused on 19th and 20th Century German history. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Embracing Democracy in Modern Germany: Political Citizenship and Participation, 1871-2000. 

I liked Michael’s book because it approaches history like political science. It focuses on the development of democracy through political culture. It is a thicker conception of democracy that goes beyond constitutions and institutions to consider democratization as a process.

My plan is to touch on the different regimes throughout Modern Germany’s history, but I also keep a focus on big picture trends. Don’t worry if you are not familiar with Germany. This is a good introduction, but more importantly this is about the process of democratization. The challenges and successes that countries face. This is how I chose to begin 2021. Looking back through history before we begin to move forward.

Notes
Website:  www.democracyparadox.com
Music from Apes of the State

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Madison’s Federalist 10 makes an unusual case. He argued the size and diversity of the United States is a critical safeguard against the dominance of any single faction. Of course, it is well-known that the Founding Fathers were wary of all factions, political parties and, most of all, the tyranny of the majority. The American constitution is even described as counter majoritarian, because multiple avenues exist for entrenched minorities to prevail in the legislative process. But Madison was different. While he is credited as the father of the constitution, he was among the most majoritarian of all the founding fathers.

Still Madison was wary of strong, overwhelming majorities. He saw regional diversity as a check against majoritarianism. The size and diversity of the new nation meant any meaningful majority would be the result of significant compromise and deliberation.

Unfortunately, the two-party system, as it exists today, has undermined the Madisonian vision in Federalist 10. The two political parties fight for overwhelming majorities, but the inability of either party to prevail causes gridlock rather than compromise. Necessary reforms are stalled or delayed as they become rallying cries in a never-ending campaign cycle. This was never Madison’s intention.

Lee Drutman offers a solution to transform American democracy. His book Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America argues for proportional representation of the legislature and ranked-choice voting for the Presidency. But his intention is not about any one reform. Instead, his goal is to produce a multiparty democracy where no single party commands an absolute majority.

You may recognize Lee Drutman from articles he has written in The New York Times, Vox, and Five Thirty-Eight. He is also a Senior Fellow in the Political Reform Program at New America and a cohost of the podcast Politics in Question alongside Julia Azari and James Wallner.

The idea of multiparty democracy in the United States can seem radical, but like most reformers Drutman is a traditionalist at heart. He finds his inspiration in Madison’s vision of the American political system. Rather than designing something novel, Lee believes his reforms bring America closer to the original aims of the Founding Fathers. The United States has grown in its size and diversity. Nonetheless, the two political parties have reduced politics to a single dimension. Ultimately, Lee believes a more diverse party system is necessary to represent a diverse population. It’s a Madisonian case for the challenges of polarization and partisanship.

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The origin of the third wave of democratization is commonly dated to the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 1974. The fall of the Soviet Union accelerated this process until about 2005 when the pace began to slow and it even began to reverse. But Robert Dahl thought about waves of democratization differently. He believed a democratic wave was more like a transformation. It was an intensification rather than a proliferation of democracy.

Dahl allows us to interpret the current rise of populism around the world not as a rejection of democracy, but as a challenge as democratic governance and ideals continue to evolve and transform. Or as Hélène Landemore puts it, “What you call the “crisis” of democracy can also be read as the growing pains of a system trying to adjust to the constraints of a globalized economy, an interconnected world, and rising democratic expectations.”

Hélène Landemore offers an alternative approach to imagine democratic governance. It is a democracy without elections or politicians. She calls it an Open Democracy. It relies on representative assemblies where members are selected through lottery kind of like a jury. Her approach encourages deliberation among ordinary citizens who better represent their communities and societies.

Many advocates have already embraced this novel approach. and it has already used in limited ways. We talk quite a bit about political theory, but also some real-world applications of these ideas. Indeed, Landemore has found inspiration in many of these examples like the constitutional assembly in Iceland or France’s citizen assembly on climate change. So these mini publics offer a novel way to consider the possibilities for democratic government without elections.

Hélène Landemore is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University. She is the author of the book Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century. Her research reconsiders the meaning of representation and legitimacy.

Robert Dahl was unclear of what the next transformation of democracy would become. I feel the same uncertainty. But I believe Hélène Landemore challenges us to consider new experiments in democracy happening right now. So perhaps a third transformation of democracy has already begun.

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This week America discovered some startling news. Russians hacked into the email systems of the Commerce and Treasury Departments. The information age has brought about a new era of intelligence and espionage. This was a blatant act of theft, but more subtle forms of espionage are available. Globalization has left many institutions vulnerable to foreign manipulation. 

I invited Glenn Tiffert from the Hoover Institution to shed light on this phenomenon through a discussion of two of his recent publications. He is the editor of Global Engagement: Rethinking Risk in the Research Enterprise. It is an examination of the ways academic collaboration with China exposes vulnerabilities in our National Defense. It features a forward from former National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, and an introduction from icon of democracy scholarship, Larry Diamond. 

The second publication is a report from the National Endowment for Democracy. It is titled, “Compromising the Knowledge Economy: Authoritarian Challenges to Independent Intellectual Inquiry.” This report explains how authoritarian regimes use sharp power to influence academic institutions. 

Universities are the heart of political discourse in free societies. E.B. White once wrote, “The reading room of a college library is the very temple of democracy.” When foreign governments manipulate Western academia, it challenges an important source of democratic legitimacy. Larry Diamond explains, “This is more than a national security threat: It is an existential challenge to the entire global liberal order.”

Globalization has not simply brought about economic interdependence. It has extended the boundaries of political influence. The United States has long had the advantage of soft power to inspire people around the world. China has now found a form of sharp power to influence the United States in turn. The global order continues to change and evolve so it is incumbent on us to strengthen liberalism and democracy to overcome these challenges. 

This conversation shares themes with recent episodes that featured John Ikenberry on liberal internationalism and Mareike Ohlberg on the Chinese Communist Party. This is a topic with multiple dimensions. It combines elements of national security with cornerstone values such as liberalism and democracy.

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There is a book that was written in 1989 called Democracy and its Critics. The renowned Robert Dahl is the author. In the book, he answers objections to critiques of democracy through a series of dialogues. One of them has stuck with me because I hear it so often: The problem with democracy is it is not democratic enough. 

Many of the scholars who are featured on the Democracy Paradox have ideas or plans to make democracy more democratic. Many books, articles, and podcasts focus on ways to reform or redesign institutions so they can become more democratic. For example, Ezra Klein has a popular podcast. Every week he advocates for the Senate to drop the filibuster. Sure. Let’s do it. But we are delusional if we believe democracy is one reform away from perfection. 

I invited Carolyn Hendriks, Selen Ercan, and John Boswell to join me because they examine democracy reform through a multidimensional lens. Rather than offering a single blueprint to redesign our institutions, they suggest we should continue to mend the damage in our existing framework. It is an achievable call to action where they raise the profile of some everyday heroes who have made positive contributions to repair the connections vital to democracy. 

Carolyn is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Governance at Australian National University, Selen is an Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Canberra, and John is an Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Southampton. They are the authors of Mending Democracy: Democratic Repair in Disconnected Times.

It’s always interesting when my guests are in Australia because it works best for me to call in the afternoon or evening so they can be reached the morning of the next day. This conversation had an extra wrinkle because John is in the UK so we coordinated this call across three time zones on three continents. 

Whenever this many people are on a podcast, it can become difficult to know who says what. For that I apologize. But it was necessary. Their work was a collaborative effort. Indeed, a work like theirs cannot be anything but collaborative. Their research is, in many ways, about collaboration. 

Our conversation will introduce some important concepts and theories about deliberative democracy. But it also offers some real-world examples. I cannot wait for you to learn about the Knitting Nanas Against Gas. They call themselves KNAG. There is so much I want to share right now. But it’s best if I relax and just let you listen.

Notes
Website:  www.democracyparadox.com
Music from Apes of the State

Relevant Past Episodes
John Gastil and Katherine Knobloch on Citizen Initiative Review
Jill Long Thompson on Character in a Democracy

Relevant Articles on Democracy Paradox
Thoughts on Adam Przeworski's Crises of Democracy
Thoughts on E.B. White's On Democracy
Thoughts on Florence Brisset-Foucault's Talkative Polity

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Last October Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey shook the sports world with a tweet. It said, “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.” Pretty simple. Not controversial…. at least, not controversial in the United States. But China was offended. They cut off all economic ties with the Rockets and demanded an apology from the National Basketball Association. And they got one. 

China uses its economic clout to shape the public discourse in business, academia, politics, and even sports. Its authoritarian impulse has no boundaries. Even citizens of liberal democracies are subject to its influence. 

This is the third part of “Liberalism, Capitalism, Communism” about the global ascendance of China. My conversation with Mareike Ohlberg, a Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, explores how the Communist Party of China extends its influence beyond its borders. She recently authored the book Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World with Clive Hamilton. They write in the opening lines of the first chapter, “The Chinese Communist Party is determined to transform the international order, to shape the world in its own image, without a shot being fired.”

China is imagined as a powerful, authoritarian state. Francis Fukuyama has described it as a strong state with weak rule of law. I disagree. China is a weak state with a strong party. Xi Jinping is described as the President of China, but his real power comes from his role as the Chairman of the Communist Party. The power of the CCP is neither subtle nor indirect. For example, the military is not a part of the government. It is a branch of the CCP. 

China’s global ascendance is the ascendance of China’s Communist Party. It does not matter whether the CCP is committed to Marxism or Communism. The reality is it has always been authoritarian. It has never been supportive of liberalism nor democracy. 

Recently, The Economist observed, “The achievement of the Trump administration was to recognize the authoritarian threat from China. The task of the Biden administration will be to work out what to do about it.” There is a bipartisan consensus in the US that China represents a threat to America. Something must be done. We just need to figure out what that “something” is.

Thanks to Apes of the State for permission to use their tracks "The Internet Song" and "Bill Collector's Theme Song." You can find their music on Spotify or their Bandcamp.

Please visit my blog at www.democracyparadox.com. I have written 80 reviews of both classic and contemporary works of political science with an emphasis on democracy. This week I reviewed Michel de Certeau's classic  The Practice of Everyday Life. Please visit the website and read my book reviews. And don't forget to subscribe to keep up with future episodes.

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China is a nation of contradictions. It is a developing economy that is an economic powerhouse. It is a rising power that is already a great power. It is a communist state that has embraced capitalism. The dualism of yin and yang is not simply an element of Chinese philosophy. It is a source of modern Chinese identity. 

This is part two of “Liberalism, Capitalism, Communism” about the global ascendance of China. Last week was about liberal internationalism. Next week will focus on the global influence of the Chinese Communist Party. Part 1 was about liberalism. Part 3 is about communism. This is Part 2 but it is not about capitalism. 

This week will explore how China’s different sources of identity shape its foreign policy. It is about how an illiberal state adapts to a liberal world order. I want to convey the nuance and complexity of modern China as it exists today. So this week is not about capitalism but the juxtaposition of capitalism and communism. It is about the reconciliation of its many contradictions. And it is about the challenges for China to continue to evolve and transform.

The contradictions and complexities intrinsic to Chinese identity are present in its foreign policy. Xiaoyu Pu writes, “China’s grand strategy has no coherent blueprint, and there are competing visions for its emerging roles on the world stage. This is not to argue that Beijing has no grand strategy but rather that Beijing’s grand strategy includes contradictory elements.”

Xiaoyu is an Associate Professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno and the author of Rebranding China: Contested Status Signaling in the Changing Global Order. There is a lot to worry about China’s global ascendance. But Xiaoyu believes much of the alarm is overblown. Let me restate that he does not believe there is no cause for concern, but he does offer an alternative perspective. 

Our conversation explores topics as diverse as the domestic politics in China to an analysis of its use of sharp power. We discuss not just China’s prospects for democratization, but whether China must democratize to become a dominant hegemonic power.

Thanks to Apes of the State for permission to use their tracks "The Internet Song" and "Bill Collector's Theme Song." You can find their music on Spotify or their Bandcamp.

Please visit my blog at www.democracyparadox.com. I have written 80 reviews of both classic and contemporary works of political science with an emphasis on democracy. This week I reviewed John Dewey's classic Democracy and Education. Please visit the website and read my book reviews. And don't forget to subscribe to keep up with future episodes.

Support the show