Events & Issues

New Delhi, September 29, 2008

Democracy In Retreat

By Prakash Nanda

It is said that democracy is not the best form of government, yet there is no better way of governing than democracy. But, of late, in country after country, particularly those which had gained democracy after years of authoritarian or dictatorial rule, democratic movements are in retreat. And the surprising culprit in all these cases happens to be the middle class.

Let us see some of these cases.

For the last few days, mobs of middle class have been hitting the pavements in the streets of theThai capital Bangkok. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have massed in the streets, demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister, Samak Sundaravej, shutting down airports with their protests, and even laying siege to the main government building. In fact, they are now occupying the Prime Minister’s office, compelling the selection of a new Prime Minister by the ruling coalition. But the mob is unimpressed; they do not want the newly selected prime Minister, Somchai Wongsawat, either. The result is that the new prime minister has decided to work from a makeshift temporary PM office at the old airport.

The anti-government demonstrators, calling themselves the People's Alliance for Democracy, were lashing out at the former Samak Sundaravej, who they claimed was a tyrant and had violated a range of laws. In truth, however, they were not battling for democracy. They only wanted Samak, who was democratically elected, to step down. In addition, they now demand that the democratic system based on the rule of majority is not proper since by getting the votes of “illiterate and poor in the countryside”, the ruling party is hurting “the national interests”, which, in turn, are best defined and defended by the city-based middle class. The Thai protestors now want “selection” rather than “election” of the political leadership. And who are these protestors? They are Bangkok’s prosperous businessmen, academics, journalists and erstwhile “pro-democracy activists”. 

After being hailed as a democratic success story in the 1990s, Thailand has only gone backward. Rather than settling problems through compromise, Bangkok residents repeatedly take to the streets when things don't go their way. Instead of pushing for freedom, much of the Thai media and civil society has gone mute, or simply battles against elected governments. With so many crises, the Thai military now either steps in, as it did in 2006, or hovers in the wings, threatening to intervene.

But then, Thailand is not a unique case.  In 2007, the number of countries with declining freedoms exceeded those with advancing freedoms by nearly four to one, according to a recent report by Freedom House, an organization that monitors global democracy trends.

And the villains, surprisingly enough, are the same people who supposedly make democracy possible: the middle class. Traditional theories of democratization, such as those of Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, predict a story of middle class heroics: As a country develops a true middle class, these urban, educated citizens insist on more rights in order to protect their economic and social interests. Eventually, as the size of the middle class grows, those demands become so overwhelming that democracy is inevitable.

But now, it appears, the middle class in some nations has turned into an antidemocratic force. Young democracy, with weak institutions, often brings to power, at first, elected leaders who actually don't care that much about upholding democracy. As these demagogues tear down the very reforms the middle classes built, those same middle classes turn against the leaders, and then against the system itself, bringing democracy to collapse.

This is a process now being repeated in Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin America, regions that once seemed destined to become the third and fourth waves of global democratization, following the original Western democracies and the second wave in southern Europe and several other regions. The pattern has become so noticeable - repeated in Venezuela, Russia, Bangladesh, and other states - that one must even wonder about democracy's future itself.

The 1990s were a good time for the cause of democracy. In Latin nations like Chile and Argentina, the urban middle class battled decades of dictatorship, ultimately prevailing in the 1990s. In South Korea, Indonesia, and Taiwan, urban middle class students often led the protests that, ultimately, drew in broader participation and helped bring down dictatorships. Once established in power, these middle classes transformed the Asian nations, so that, in Indonesia, for example, reformers quickly insisted upon laws that increased federalism, devolving power in a society ruled for years by an opaque autocrat.

But what the middle class did not anticipate was that after acquiring power, the democratically elected rulers turned autocrats. The shining examples are Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. . The likes of Mugabe and Chavez use their electoral power to muzzle opposition and violate established norms and rules. In Rwanda, President Paul Kagame has amassed so much power that, in its most recent annual report on the country, Human Rights Watch warned of a litany of abuses, including "harsh official repression," disappearances, and unexplained political killings.

In Nigeria, supposed reformer Olusegun Obasanjo, elected after years of military coups, used his time in his office to attempt to change the constitution to give him more terms, and then to install a man in power loyal to him. So, too, in Central Asia, where even Kyrgyzstan, once the region's democratic hope, has turned increasingly authoritarian. . In Cambodia, where long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen has used elections as a winner-take-all proposition, essentially wiping out all opposition, the few powerful opponents left are now only the noisy NGOs monitoring graft and human rights.

Most dangerously, in Russia, where weak democracy in the 1990s built few checks and balances, Vladimir Putin has utilized a blend of populism and nationalism to essentially install himself as an elected dictator. And unlike many of these other nations, Russia can serve as an example; as a powerful, relatively rich authoritarian state under Putin, it has funded NGOs across Central Asia, most of which in theory are designed to promote democracy, but whose true function is to help established rulers push back against democrats in those nations.

It is against this background that the middle classes are becoming restless. With a leader in power they hate, or their confidence in democracy undermined by the graft or tyranny of some of their own elected leaders, members of the middle class sometimes turn against the very project they shed sweat and blood for. In country after country, many in the middle class have been surprised to discover that a vote could actually empower groups they do not trust. And once the elected populists start pushing the middle class around, it is natural to wonder whether maybe democracy wasn't such a great idea.

Of course, in some cases elections bring to power populists who genuinely respect democracy - or leaders who, despite their problems, don't actually spark a middle class revolt, perhaps because they are also delivering staggering economic growth, like Putin. But where these “elected autocrats” do not deliver, problems arise. That is why nearer home, we witnessed how people in Pakistan and Bangladesh welcomed the rule of Army following the disastrous performances of Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, and the two Begums of Bangladesh – Sheikh Hasina and Khalida Zia. Of course, the army rule, whether directly or indirectly, has never improved the situations in these two countries.  But that is a different story.

What, then, are the lessons for India? With corruptions rising, politicians increasingly resorting to vote-bank politics (in the name of caste and religion) and condoning terrorism and casteism, no wonder  many middle class people will not mind another “emergency” in India. That, of course, is a horrible thing to think; but then sometimes one cannot avoid such a thought.—(INFA)

(Copyright, India News and & Feature Alliance)