>“With many democratic institutions under threat across the globe — often by leaders with authoritarian or populist tendencies — we need to do more to strengthen checks and balances and protect citizens’ rights,” said Patricia Moreira, managing director of Transparency International in a press statement.
So a politician responding to what the "populace" (i.e. the demos) wants ("populism") is a threat to democracy. Hmm.
What if it's two sheep and a wolf voting on what's for dinner? Does it then suddenly become Democracy? How do you distinguish wolf from sheep in the real world where everyone's actually a human?
No, it becomes democracy when the sheep and wolves agree on a framework that is designed a priori to protect the interests of all animals. Here's an example:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The idea is that all citizens enjoy a level of equality in the democratic process, and so there are no wolves because everyone should be able to work together.
Cynics argue, but the idea of democracy is that those who appear most capable get put in charge. If you strip the most competent people of their ability and incentive to take control the system for productive use then the results are likely to be bad for everyone.
So, suppose a party were to announce that their goal is to install a dictator for life. What would you consider more democratic, a government that shuts down that party (limiting the choice in elections) or a government that hands power over to them after an election (thus putting an end to elections altogether)?
Surely the best measure of whether a politician speaks for the people is whether he or she is elected. In which case assuming the politician attempts to follow through on his or her campaign promises, that politician would not be a populist. (Of course, this assumes that there is such a thing as "the people".)
> Surely the best measure of whether a politician speaks for the people is whether he or she is elected
If you have a free and fair ballot, whether they get a majority, a plurality, or just a not-first-place minority of the ballots cast does tell something about the degree of popular support, by definition.
Not all balloting is free and fair, and not all electoral systems choose a winner the candidate with the most support as measured at the polls, such as systems that incorporate anti-democratic features designed to give certain voters more power per voter than others, like the US electoral college.
Surely the best measure of whether a politician speaks for the people is whether he or she is elected.
I disagree.
With electoral systems in which a candidate can win with ten percent of the vote (because nobody else scored more than ten percent), or where a party can win 12% of the vote and end up with 0.15% of the seats (as a specific example from recent western history), a politician being elected is simply not a measure of speaking for the people.
> Surely the best measure of whether a politician speaks for the people is whether he or she is elected.
There’s more to it than that. For example someone could be elected though not desired by the majority (as has happened in US presidential elections a few times, and also happens in various places where more than two candidates vie for a seat).
Also there Re situations where the majority will egregiously violates the rights of minorities.
Or when there is a muddy signal, where Brexit is a good example: some people wanted any possible Brexit, others wanted it assuming certain conditions that are now clearly not going to happen; what is the popular will in this case?
I’m not saying that being elected isn’t the most important element, but it’s not only not sufficient, but it can actually be wrong.
It is a strange axiom but I have yet to see it otherwise: when the will of the people is Leftward, it is Democracy; when the will of the people is Rightward, it is Populism.
The person that responded to you employed a classic "anti-rightward" trope equating populism to vicarious elite control. I fail to see the difference between Populism and Democracy on the "people" side of the equation, rather the difference is in which elites are pulling the strings.
By that definition, isn't that basically 90% of everything?
And no doubt it applies to leftists, absolutely. That's the basis of a lot of right wing views: that the left is simply being populist and doesn't give a shit about actually improving life, but instead staying in power.
Of course, that's about the left's view of the right as well. Hmmmm.
Sanders and Trump were both (accurately, too) described as populist, Clinton and Bush both not.
If one had to align them left to right, they would look like:
Sanders -> Clinton -> Bush -> Trump .
> I fail to see the difference between Populism and Democracy on the "people" side of the equation
Democracy is a system of government, Populism is a manner in which a hopeful leader (often a candidate for leadership position in a democracy) attempts to appeal to the public. They aren't even in the same domain.
In your view, is there a difference between democracy and mob rule?
What most of us want when we say we want to live in a democracy is not a true (absolute) democracy, but a limited democracy. We want a democracy within limits. In particular, we don't want 51% to be able to vote to take away the rights (or the lives) of the 49%. In an absolute democracy, they could; in a limited one they cannot.
Populism is, essentially, turning the democracy into mob rule. If you don't have limits, then the mob rules. If you do have limits, populism tries to erode them so that the people can do what they want.
Note also how populism is often associated with authoritarianism. Someone who wants to be the authoritarian persuades the people that he will get them what they want/need, if they just remove those pesky limits to his power. He encourages them to tear down the limits to government power in the name of the people getting what they want - that is, in the name of democracy. But when the people want to reign in the authoritarian's power, they find it's not so easy, because they gave the new power to the authoritarian...
Keep in mind that power is not solely limited to the government. My employer has power over me. My utilities have power over me. My landlord has power over me. My bank has power over me.
They all, to various degrees, are also interested in tearing down the limits to their power over me.
Where do the limits that are supposed to govern the behavior of a democratically elected politician come from? I will tell you. They must either come from law, or from ethical philosophy that has been reified, for lack of a better word, by the state into law. For this to be so, one of two things must have happened. Either the state imposed these restrictions with disregard to the will of people, or they were imposed in accordance with the will of the people. If the former, they are illegitimate. If the latter, they are arbitrary (the product of a particular people at a particular time) and therefore subject to change.
There is a lot of gray area between the extremes here. What has worked, historically, is a system where ultimately all power derives from the people, but the process is designed to be somewhat slow, to moderate strong emotions, and to add subject matter expertise to the process.
The two most obvious features here are elections (not referenda), and the judicial system. The latter adds an element of “village elders”, while the former makes decision-makers confront hard choices and their consequences.
That’s why direct democracy is considered rather harmful: just look at the clusterfuck that is Brexit for an idea of what happens when people are allowed to make fantasy decisions while disregarding their actual implementation.
As an analogy, consider trial-by-jury (managed by a competent judge) with having all of the locals decide all criminal cases once a month based on what they read in the (disappearing) local paper and on nextdoor. Who would you want to decide the punishment when the neighbor boy accuses you of touching him in funny places?
> That’s why direct democracy is considered rather harmful: just look at the clusterfuck that is Brexit for an idea of what happens when people are allowed to make fantasy decisions while disregarding their actual implementation
Brexit wasn't direct democracy; the public vote was a non-binding referendum submitted as an electoral strategum by the elected government, which then quit in favor of a new government of the same psrty, which decided—though in no way legally compelled to—to treat the vote as if it were a binding order in order to pass responsibility off onto someone other than itself.
In an actual direct democracy, the people would vote on the actual policy details, not vague generalizations only if and when it seemed likely to serve the political strategy of the ruling officials.
In a direct democracy it can't be vague generalizations that the actual rulers, who are distinct from the electorate, get to choose whether and how to apply and whether or not the electorate can reconsider it, because if there are actual rulers distinct from the electorate it's not a direct democracy.
There is no pure direct democracy at scale. You're still going to delegate authority to people doing things, and rely on their expert opinions when it comes to what to vote on.
But in any case, in a direct democracy, if enough people want to vote on something, they can, regardless of how stupid it is. That would include Brexit etc.
If that split is over something with no middle ground, that every person considers more important than everything else put together (including survival of the democracy), then it quite simply doesn't.
Otherwise, if it's to survive, it does so by compromise, tradeoffs, bargaining, and leaving many people at least a little unhappy but not enough people unhappy enough to dismantle the system.
> What most of us want when we say we want to live in a democracy is not a true (absolute) democracy, but a limited democracy. We want a democracy within limits.
I've noticed people tend to draw the line at "too much democracy" when it starts doing what they don't want it to, and they draw the line of "not enough democracy" when it doesn't do what they want it to do.
What if the 99% want to take away the right of the 1% to own over a certain amount of wealth?
That seems like an even mobbier mob than a 51%. At some point, though, you'd figure the numbers alone grant the political fiat to turn the "mob" into the "people". Otherwise, that's one quite "limited" democracy. But, if so, I wonder what the magical ratio is.
That's mostly a theoretical concern. The 1% tends to play off half of the proles against the other half.
Alternatively, they introduce an involatile shared fiction into the public conscious, that justifies their position - such as the divine right of kings, or the sanctity of the feudal contract.
from google define:
"a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups."
There's difference between appeals to certain groups vs. what is in the best interests of certain groups. No doubt Patricia is saying that those with populist tendencies also have a tendency to weakening democratic institutions.
Yes it is a threat. Consider Hitler - democratically elected and serving the wants of the majority. Subsequently he dismantled the democratic institutions and sent millions to their deaths.
Democracy, in the modern sense of the word, isn't the unrestrained rule of the mob, it's a system of checks and balances that represent interests of various groups of people in order to make a more perfect union.
> When the subject matter involves autocrats and populism godwinson's rule applies a bit less
No, it’s just less surprising of a finding in that case. Remember Godwin's Law is: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1”.
So a politician responding to what the "populace" (i.e. the demos) wants ("populism") is a threat to democracy. Hmm.