A version of this article was originally published in Greek newspaper Kathimerini on 27 February 2022.
According to the latest annual report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the state of democracy in the world deteriorated last year. The report assesses 167 countries based on 60 unique indicators subdivided into five broad themes: electoral process and political pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture, and civil liberties. According to the report, only 64 countries in the world today have “some form of democracy” and less than half of the world’s population (45.7%) lives in them. Of the 64 countries, only 21 are classified as “full” liberal democracies and these account for 6.4% of the world’s population. And if we isolate the top ten democracies in the world according to the report, we find that the percentage of people lucky enough to live in one of them is dishearteningly small – just 1.2% of the world’s population.
When I was still a full-time academic, I wrote an article titled “Populists in Power,” which was published in the Journal of Democracy in April 2019. At around the same time, my book entitled Populism and Liberal Democracy: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis also came out by Oxford UP. In both works, I painstakingly analyzed in comparative perspective the most important cases of populist parties/leaders that have enjoyed power in their respective countries. Those countries are, in order of chronological appearance of the populist forces, Argentina, Italy, Venezuela, Hungary, Greece, and the United States. Based on that academic analysis, and aided by a fantastic cartoonist, I decided to condense everything in a very short comic story, combining fictional and real characters. As you will notice (but also see References below), most of the dialogues are direct quotations from speeches or other public utterances by well-known populist leaders. If you enjoyed this blog, you may also want to browse through this slide show.
Many people think that, when in power, populism is a “corrective” to democracy. This view is theoretically naive at best and empirically fictitious at worst. Just look at the most important real-life cases of ruling populism and you have a most clear answer to this blog’s title question: When populists win power, liberal democracies turn into illiberal ones; some even turn into real autocracies. Here below are six cartoons depicting, in chronological and historical order, the important cases of populist rule in Argentina, Italy, Venezuela, Hungary, Greece, and the United States under Donald Trump. All six cases have been analyzed and explained in separate chapters in my book Populism and Liberal Democracy: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis (OUP, 2019). As of the cartoons below, these are part of a little comic story I wrote in collaboration with cartoonist Alecos Papadatos, which you can find—and probably enjoy—here and, as a slide show, here.
Σκίτσο από το κόμικ “I, the People” των Takis Pappas & Alecos Papadatos
Το 2022 είναι φορτωμένο με ενδιαφέρουσες εκλογικές αναμετρήσεις σε πολλές χώρες του κόσμου, ανάμεσά τους τη Γαλλία (όπου κρίνεται η δεύτερη προεδρία Μακρόν), τη Βραζιλία (είναι σχεδόν βέβαιο ότι ο Ζαΐρ Μπολσονάρο θα χάσει την εξουσία), τις Φιλιππίνες (με κύριους πρωταγωνιστές τα παιδιά δύο αυταρχικών ηγετών, το γιό του πρώην δικτάτορα Μάρκος και την κόρη του σημερινού προέδρου Ντουτέρτε), καθώς και τις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες (όπου στις λεγόμενες «ενδιάμεσες» εκλογές το Δημοκρατικό Κόμμα αναμένεται να υποστεί απώλειες). Καμία από αυτές τις εκλογικές αναμετρήσεις, ωστόσο, δεν θα είναι τόσο σημαντική όσο οι εθνικές εκλογές της Ουγγαρίας στις 3 Απριλίου. Και τούτο διότι κανένα από τα δύο πιθανά αποτελέσματα αυτών των εκλογών δεν πρόκειται να είναι θετικό, ούτε για τη δημοκρατία ούτε για την Ευρώπη.
Το 2022 είναι φορτωμένο με ενδιαφέρουσες εκλογικές αναμετρήσεις σε πολλές χώρες του κόσμου, ανάμεσά τους τη Γαλλία (όπου κρίνεται η δεύτερη προεδρία Μακρόν), τη Βραζιλία (είναι σχεδόν βέβαιο ότι ο Ζαΐρ Μπολσονάρο θα χάσει την εξουσία), τις Φιλιππίνες (με κύριους πρωταγωνιστές τα παιδιά δύο αυταρχικών ηγετών, το γιό του πρώην δικτάτορα Μάρκος και την κόρη του σημερινού προέδρου Ντουτέρτε), καθώς και τις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες (όπου στις λεγόμενες «ενδιάμεσες» εκλογές το Δημοκρατικό Κόμμα αναμένεται να υποστεί απώλειες). Καμία από αυτές τις εκλογικές αναμετρήσεις, ωστόσο, δεν θα είναι τόσο σημαντική όσο οι εθνικές εκλογές της Ουγγαρίας στις 3 Απριλίου. Και τούτο διότι κανένα από τα δύο πιθανά αποτελέσματα αυτών των εκλογών δεν πρόκειται να είναι θετικό, ούτε για τη δημοκρατία ούτε για την Ευρώπη.
Originally published as an op-ed in Greek newspaper Kathimerini, 30 January 2022.
2022 is packed with critical elections in many places around the globe, including France (to decide whether Emmanuel Macron will continue to be the resident of the Élysée), Brazil (Jair Bolsonaro is almost certain to suffer a rout), the Philippines (featuring the scions of two autocrats—the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and the daughter of current president Rodrigo Duterte—as main protagonists), and the United States (where the Democrats are expected to suffer losses in the November midterm elections). None of those contests, however, is as important as Hungary’s national elections in early April. The reason for that is that none of the possible outcomes in that contest can be good for democracy or for Europe.
Following the expansion of EU over the last seventy years, this infographic depicts the evolution, and relative decline, of Europe’s post-war liberal democratic rule. Back in the 1950s, and for three decades thereafter, all member states had solid liberal democratic governments. The Union was in fact meant to be an exclusive club of liberal democracies. But things did not turn exactly that way. Already by the 1980s, populism, an amalgam of democracy and illiberalism (hence, minimally defined as democratic illiberalism), won power in Greece and then flourished elsewhere, particularly in the southern and eastern parts of the continent. During and after the 1990s, nativist parties—those standing in opposition to migration, further European integration, and globalization—grew strong in most developed countries in western and northern Europe. Meanwhile in Eastern Europe—because of national and ethnic divisions, persisting state corruption, or both—most countries have failed to this date to produce solid and durable liberal democratic governments; instead, as shown by the four CEE countries included herein, most governments in this region stand today as exemplars of democratic illiberalism.
The questions in this interview were asked by Professor Marlene Laruelle, director of the Illiberal Studies Program, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. We talk about how to conceptualize populism in a minimal way; the differences between mine and Fareed Zakaria’s notions of “democratic illiberalism,” the distinctions among populist, nativist, and nationalist parties; the similarities between European and American populisms; charismatic leadership and Poland’s leader Jarosław Kaczyński; Greece’s politics, of course; left and right populisms, and why they tend to form alliances; and the basic building blocs of a taxonomy of political regimes worldwide. I hope you will enjoy it! For more interviews of mine on topics related to populism, you can also check here, here, and here.
In your book Populism and Liberal Democracy: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis(Oxford, 2019), you speak of democratic illiberalism, thereby reversing the terms used in Zakaria’s famous text on illiberal democracies. Can you explain to our readers how you define democratic illiberalism?
In my work, populism is conceptualized and defined minimally as “democratic illiberalism,” which points to modern political systems, political parties, or individual politicians combining adherence to electoral democracy and liberal democratic principles. I also use the term “populist democracy” with reference to political systems in which both the ruling party and major opposition forces are populist. I first used these terms in an article that compared Greece and Hungary as typical populist democracies and was published in 2013 in Government and Opposition. (Notice, by the way, that this Hungary-specific article preceded by at least a year Orbán’s now-famous 2014 speech in Transylvania, after which this term became common.) Anyway, my definition of populism recalls Fareed Zakaria’s terminology but the puzzles that motivate my research, the empirical cases I focus on, and the theoretical propositions I put forward are entirely different than his. The contrast is very interesting from a sociology-of-knowledge point of view, so let me say a bit more about it.
Two security officers walk by flags of EU nations prior to an EU summit in Brussels on Tuesday, June 28, 2016. EU heads of state and government meet Tuesday and Wednesday in Brussels for the first time since Britain voted to leave the European Union, throwing British and European politics into disarray. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
Πριν από λίγες ημέρες, στη γραφική Κοΐμπρα της Πορτογαλίας οι υπουργοί Ευρωπαϊκών Υποθέσεων της Ε.Ε. επιδόθηκαν σε ασκήσεις μελλοντολογίας. Σκοπός τους ήταν να προβλέψουν προς τα που πηγαίνουν τα πράγματα στην Ευρώπη και τον κόσμο. Όπως όμως συνηθίζεται σε τέτοιες περιπτώσεις, στο τέλος δημιούργησαν έναν ακόμη γραφειοκρατικό μηχανισμό, το Πανευρωπαϊκό Δίκτυο Προβλέψεων (EU Foresight Network). Προφανώς, η Ευρώπη αλλάζει όπως αλλάζει και ο κόσμος ολόκληρος. Μόνο που οι προβλέψεις για το μέλλον δεν είναι εύκολη υπόθεση, ιδίως για όσους αγνοούν τις δυναμικές διεργασίες που έχουν ξεκινήσει στο παρελθόν και οι οποίες πρόκειται να καθορίσουν τις μελλοντικές εξελίξεις. Να κάποιες από τις κυριότερες διεργασίες που το Δίκτυο θα έπρεπε να έχει υπόψιν.
Circa 1990, nearly all major parties in Europe belonged to the liberal type. Fast forward through the decades that followed since to our own day, and this isn’t the case any more. Liberal parties are currently in decline while other party types, such as populist and nativist parties, have emerged strong in several nations across the continent. How did that happen and what are the main consequences of such transformations? This essay and the interactive infographic that accompanies it explain.
The content of this blog has appeared in the form of policy brief published by the European Liberal Forum in May 2021.
stating THE ISSue
For a time, post-war European politics was dominated by the liberal type of party. These broadly liberal parties were who originally envisaged the idea of a united Europe and subsequently carried the torch for the advancement of open society in a progressively integrated Europe under rule of law. Over many decades, Europe’s party systems operated as liberal political cartels in which the major parties competed for power against each other, largely unchallenged by other party types. Fast forward to the present day, and the talk around town is about the decline of the formerly established liberal parties, the proliferation of new populist ones, and, ominously enough, the rise of various other so-called anti-system parties—leading to democratic backsliding and, potentially, the disintegration of the European Union. Which part of this narrative corresponds to empirical reality, and which is just hype and headlines? More to the point: What is the current picture of Europe’s party politics? And what is the outlook for the future at EU level?
