Adam Przeworski
Crises of Democracy
Chapter 10: Subversion by stealth
Is democracy in crisis?
Adam Przeworski seems to think so.
Starting with a provocative claim that all politicians are budding megalomaniacs — “The dream of all politicians is to remain forever in office and to use their tenure to do whatever they want” — Przeworski goes on to offer some thought-provoking and credible observations about the gradual erosion of democracy, using some real-life examples and some scarily plausible hypothetical examples.
The chapter title “Subversion by Stealth” says it all. The cunning path to absolute power involves weakening institutions, such as the legislature and judiciary, and incapacitating the opposition.
Sometimes, I like to cut wafer-thin slivers from a block of cheese, because it feels as though I’m hardly having any. The block of cheese is only fractionally smaller each time, and the difference would be imperceptible to the other fridge users. Somehow, mysteriously, the cheese disappears completely, even though I hardly ate any at all. Przeworski’s explanation of the terms “backsliding” and “authoritarian retrogression” reminded me of cheese. The fundamental building blocks of democracy — competitive elections, liberal rights to speech and association and the rule of law — are shaved away, wafer-thin slice by wafer-thin slice, until there is nothing left. It happens slowly, incrementally, and in such a way that each step is unlikely to raise alarm bells when viewed in isolation. In fact, these steps can often seem perfectly reasonable at the time.
In the mid-1990s, a man called Joseph Overton developed a theory that came to be known as the Overton Window. It describes the centre ground in politics and society in general, in other words, it’s a way of understanding public opinion and the political climate. When we talk about the Overton Window shifting, what we mean is that things that would once have been politically or socially unthinkable have become mainstream. We have gradually acclimatised to ideas that we would have previously rejected. The Overton Window shifted when women were given the vote, when slavery was abolished, and when same-sex marriage became socially acceptable and was subsequently legalised. Przeworski uses the frog in the pot metaphor to illustrate the gradual erosion of the democratic process but he also points out that experiments have shown that the frog will jump out of the water when it becomes uncomfortably hot. Maybe the Overton Window is a better way to think about the way in which gradual backsliding can destroy democracy. This video gives a quick description of the Overton Window.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMU0w4MP8Dc
In recent times, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, we heard conspiracy theorists denouncing the corrupt mainstream media and warning darkly of a plot by the powers that be to rob us of our freedom. These theories gained traction because they exploited genuine concerns and real problems — but took it way too far. As Przeworski points out, public media can indeed be controlled by partisan regulatory bodies and private media can, perfectly legally, be subject to intimidation or financial abuse. Constitutional obstacles can be overcome by means of referendums or amending laws. Courts can be manipulated, perhaps by appointing partisan judges — Roe v Wade was not overturned by accident and the executive immunity ruling by the Supreme Court, from which Donald Trump is currently benefiting, was made by justices appointed by the man himself. Joe Biden is not the only person calling this a “dangerous precedent” in making the president above the law.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51yx1n15y4o
Landau (2013: 192–3) refers to constitutional rules as “a mere parchment barrier against authoritarian and quasi-authoritarian regimes.” The recent Supreme Court ruling was not sufficiently alarming to trigger a massive public backlash, echoing the thoughts of the US constitutional lawyer cited by Przeworski: “there will have been no single, cataclysmic point at which democratic institutions were demolished . . . the steps toward authoritarianism will not always, or even usually, be obviously illegal . . . In fact, each step might conform to the letter of the law. But each step, legal in itself, might undermine liberal democracy a little bit more.” It is the very definition of stealth.
Constitutions are subject to interpretation and amendment. If the courts who are doing the interpreting have been populated with partisan supporters, it is highly likely that decisions will favour the government. Przerworski gives the example of Venezuela, a country where the head of security, María Corina Machado, has recently been arrested during the run-up to the presidential election, stating on X that: “Maduro [current president] has made violence and repression his campaign.”
Ironically, Maduro’s actions may not necessarily qualify as undemocratic. Committing fraud and/or not having elections would, in most countries, be considered undemocratic but making it difficult for people to vote, perhaps by requiring extra documentation, or allowing or disallowing overseas citizens to vote, can skew results but is not always considered undemocratic and is usually perfectly legal. Imprisoning the head of security, although highly dubious, is probably not undemocratic either.
The way to prevent backsliding is for people who are concerned about democracy to consider the downstream implications of every step taken by the government and for the opposition to act promptly, loudly, and effectively. Przerworski implies that the amount of rational thinking and foresight required for this would be beyond the scope of most people and he finishes by cautioning against “the optimism that citizens would effectively threaten governments that commit transgressions against democracy and thus prevent them from taking this path.”
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