Democracies are fragile. As soon as their fundamental principles are attacked, they die. Their vitality depends on the political parties that keep them alive. But if the latter abdicate their role in the face of populists, they then become their gravediggers.
Both professors of political science at Harvard, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt draw on their respective regional expertise – one is a specialist in Latin America, the other in Europe – to assess the vulnerability of US democracy to the sirens of populism, heightened polarization and authoritarian temptation. In short, their ambition is to measure, in the light of the institutional crises that have struck certain pluralist regimes in the past – such as the Weimar Republic or Allende’s Chile – as well as the processes of democratic involution at work in several countries around the world (from Hungary to Venezuela), the risks of similar erosion weighing on the contemporary North American political system.
The central thesis they defend is the following: neither a long historical tradition, nor a robust constitutional framework, nor an active partisan life, are sufficient to protect our democratic regimes against an authoritarian drift, if the implicit norms. According to the authors, two of them are fundamental: “mutual tolerance” (mutual tolerance) and “institutional restraint” (forbearance), to which we will return. Moreover, their main argument is that traditional political parties must play their role of “containment” or “safeguard”. It is therefore their responsibility to never half-open their electoral platforms to demagogues, at the risk that they will break down the doors and raid the undecided, the frustrated and the most disillusioned.
Convinced sympathizers of the Democratic Party, the authors target the leaders of the Republican Party, denounce their renunciation of the basic principles of political moderation, and vilify this last position as a “great abdication”. For them, Donald Trump’s victory marks the culmination of a deleterious collective strategy. This does not mean, however, that they exonerate the current tenant of the White House. Quite the contrary, this investigation published just one year after the inauguration of the American billionaire also develops a very critical analysis of his first year in office.
As you will have understood, more than a scientific work on comparative politics, this book is first and foremost a solidly argued essay. Within the reach of a non-specialist audience, this work translated into French is intended to be in fine a citizen book. In their last part, the two academics assume a prospective exercise in the sense that they question what will happen after the Trumpian mandate and even claim a normative statement, since they suggest solutions to “save democracy” (American).
Safeguarding the implicit norms of democracy
“Mutual tolerance” involves repressing, in a way, what constitutes the essence of politics according to the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt – the distinction between friend and enemy – in order to always consider one’s political adversaries as legitimate rivals. As an illustration, and to borrow this time from Clausewitz’s famous formula, there is a risk of collateral damage to the entire democratic system when politics takes on the appearance of a “war waged by other means”. That is to say, when partisan positions become ideological entrenchment lines, political critics become personal attacks, the media become scapegoats accused by some of disinformation (intox, fake news) and by others of manipulation (state lies), or that campaign meetings serve to fanaticize the crowds rather than seeking to convince them; in short, when the polarization is such that it ruins any possibility of consensus.
The second standard, “institutional restraint”, involves not perverting the political game by abusive use of prerogatives diverted from their functions. For example, the right to speak in the hemicycle contravenes the democratic spirit if it is used for systematic parliamentary obstruction (filibustering). In the same vein, the power of decree must not be exercised as a para-legislative weapon, otherwise the democratic debate is compromised as much as the separation of powers. This necessary moderation condemns even more pernicious practices, such as taking advantage of a legislative majority to redraw an electoral map to one’s advantage (gerrymandering), or worse, to change electoral laws to introduce obstacles to popular participation (minorities, young people, new residents, etc.).
For the authors, even more than respecting the letter of the Constitution, it is necessary to focus on defending its spirit. That is to say, never losing sight of the fundamental democratic ideals that are at the basis of the constitutional architecture of the United States (We the People) as in France (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789). Certainly, if this original spirit necessarily evolves with the practice of institutions, these must not corrupt their principles, and on the contrary, strive to revive them. However, in the case of the United States, the irony of History is that the relatively consensual bipartisan functioning that became commonplace in the aftermath of the Civil War was, in reality, at the cost of the infamous Compromise of 1877 which laid the foundations of a discriminatory, violently unequal and profoundly anti-democratic system.
In short, a democracy is only alive to the extent that it guarantees the fundamental rights and freedoms of all on the one hand, and that it is based on political and institutional practices which enshrine his principles on the other hand. From the moment a regime adopts extremist conceptions that make political competition a Darwinian struggle for the survival of some (maintenance in power) and the annihilation of others (opposition = enemy), democracy dies. Those primarily responsible for its debasement are often the demagogues, to whom nothing must be yielded.
Don’t give in to populists
In opening their second chapter, the political scientists refer to the work of Philip Roth, The Plot Against America (2004). This is an uchronic story that imagines what would have happened if the pioneer of transatlantic aviation, Charles Lindbergh, an admirer of Nazism, had not only been a candidate but elected President of the United States in 1941. According to them, this counterfactual eventuality was slim, due to the discretionary logic of candidate selection for the presidential election that prevailed at the time. For a large part of the XXe century, the leaders of the two North American political parties effectively filtered popular but potentially divisive candidates and excluded them from the nomination race. While recognizing the ethical dilemmas posed by this type of arbitrary and undemocratic operation, the authors nonetheless assume Tocquevillian overtones, in which the fear of a dictatorship of the majority shines through. Also, and without stating it in these terms, they convey a relatively elitist or, more precisely, intellectual vision of democracy: although they never write that it should only be reserved for enlightened citizens, their remarks raise the main aporia of our contemporary democratic theories. Clearly, the question posed by this work is the following: is it preferable to democratically elect a political actor likely to undermine democracy or to arbitrarily short-circuit his candidacy in order to protect the democratic system? The authors tend more towards the second option.
This prevention would be all the more important in their eyes as they point out that authoritarian shifts are often pernicious. On the basis of fallacious pretexts or in the wake of a crisis, a leader driven by autocratic inclinations is likely to introduce subterfuges – such as restrictive measures on public freedoms – which weaken democracy, while claiming to consolidate it. Recently, the strengthening of the already exorbitant prerogatives of the Hungarian Prime Minister in the case of the fight against Covid-19 constitutes a significant illustration of these authoritarian drifts.
Aware that the prior screening of demagogic candidacies is no longer possible today at a time of the explosion of partisan spending and the development of alternative media, the authors nevertheless call upon the responsibility of institutionalized political parties. It is thus their duty to maintain the outsiders emerging at one or the other end of the partisan spectrum (and in particular those of the radical right) on the margins of the political game and, if necessary, to ally themselves in the mode of a convergence of the centers to block their possible electoral rise. The worst error consists in hardening their own discourses, practices and programs, with the danger of normalizing their conceptions and of displacing, in finethe political center of gravity towards the extremes. The criticism targets the Republican Party, which since the 1980s has become increasingly conservative and even reactionary in its positions (on climate, the economy, health, religion, or even civil and social rights). In doing so, they have in a way released populist passions and paved the way to the White House for a more uninhibited lunatic than they are.
Down with the “norm breaker”
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt do not spare the current American president. Based on the work of the famous political scientist Juan Linz, they establish four indicators that allow us to target authoritarian political behavior. These are 1) the reluctance to accept the rules of the democratic game, 2) the propensity to delegitimize political opponents, 3) the use of violence or, at least, its acceptance, and finally 4) the predisposition to restrict civil and political liberties and in particular to muzzle the press. According to them, Trump meets all the criteria. Among other things, he has dared to question the credibility of the electoral system – by insinuating that it was biased –, has tried to undermine the independence of the judiciary (notably in the context of the investigation into alleged Russian interference), has legitimized questionable practices of the police – for example when he ordered the police to take no precautions during arrests, and has constantly cast aspersions on opposition media. In addition, he has turned brazen lying into an act of communication, has broken the barriers regarding conflicts of interest and continues to use intimidation as political (and diplomatic) leverage. In short, in just one year in office, he already appears to researchers as a “serial norm-breaker” (a serial norm breakerp. 195).
Their conclusion is clear. (American) democracy is in danger. It is up to citizens more than ever to remain vigilant and to play, in the sense that Pierre Rosanvallon understands it, their “counter-democratic” role. Finally, denouncing the harmful effects of neoliberalism in terms of social integration and therefore political cohesion, the two academics campaign for a change in the economic paradigm and speak out, very concretely, in favor of the Scandinavian social-democratic model.