In the first chapter of the reading, ‘How Democracies Die’ by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, the authors analyse how the uprising of the most powerful authoritative leaders of the 20th century was largely due to the incumbent party,“willingly handing over the keys of power to an autocrat-in-the-making.” (pg 17) The reading refers to these “Autocrat-in-the-making” - at large - as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hugo Chavez. This is a unique interpretation, putting many political revolutions we know in a different light. The factors leading to political revolutions are multifaceted, however, mainstream history tends to focus on social aspects of the newly risen power (i.e. ideology) excluding political affairs which occur between what the authors call “insiders” and “outsiders” of the immediate political circle. By distinguishing insider-outsider political relationships and affairs, the author is able to identify characteristics of an “autocrat-in-the-making”, thus enabling to make predictions on the current political sphere.
While we hear or assume of most ‘autocrats-in-the-making’ advancing power on their own, this is rather uncommon or near impossible without the aid of the government. The author analysed the patterns between successful historical authoritative leaders and accumulated the common factors, described as a mistake conducted by the insiders:
Firstly, an event of a crisis such as one that is economic or political, puts politicians under pressure to find urgent measures to stabilise the population. In a reaction to this, insiders may be more willing to welcome outsiders as an attempt to find any solution. Secondly the rising popularity of outsiders who challenge the ideologies of the incumbent government. The insiders are then tempted to use them or gain them over to harness their support. Third is misjudgement of control. Insiders believe they can control the outsiders once they are let inside, however, they fail to realise that once they are in, they are exposed to the same power. Leading to the last point. There is the assumption of a mutual benefit being born where the insiders have temporary support and stability and the outsiders have gained a pedestal for their party. However, this is backfired when the outsiders become too powerful.
In the case of Hitler, his process leading up to his reign shared much alignment with the factors shared above. As the Great Depression unstabilised the country, the elected government collapsed in 1930, culminating in a crisis for the German nation. During the time of low employment rates and poverty expanding, the Nazi party was a symbol of hope for the German people and quickly gained popularity. Seeing this outsider gain much attraction, the insiders believed he was the key figure to rebuild the government. Reluctantly Hitler was made chancellor, bringing him into the inner circle. Von Papen who was the chief architect of the idea was so sure Hitler would be under their control saying, “We’ve engaged him for ourselves ... .Within two months, we will have pushed [him] so far into a corner that he’ll squeal.” (pg 19,20)
Through the study of past authoritarian leader’s common characteristics and events leading up to their rise, the authors were able to construct the table below, showing indicators of authoritative behavior.
Do we see authoritative behavior in the current political sphere?
During the postwar period in the 20th century, many international crises imposed the decline of democracy and led to the birth of many famous authoritarians. While in the current state of global politics, democracy is celebrated and upheld widely, there are “growing signs of a democratic distemper or recession spreading to the core of the world’s liberal democracies…” (Diamond. L. 2017) The 2016 Austrian Presidential Election is a recent event provided by the authors in which an authoritarian movement was narrowly avoided. This election saw the closest results with just a 0.5% difference between the elected president Alexander Van Der Bellen and the second candidate, Norbert Hofer (Gavenda. M; Umit. R. 2016). The former candidate was an independent candidate however was supported by the liberal Green Party and the latter belonging to the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPO). The FPO was formed in 1956, with ideas of pan-Germanism and anti-Semitism, influenced by the Nazi regime. This has stirred controversy leading to sanctions imposed on the Austrian government by leaders of the European Union.
The FPO arguably can be described to be populist. This can be due to their strong ‘us v them’ agenda, particularly surrounding their pan-Germanic ideology which places Germans and/or German culture at the forefront. While the official language of Austria is German, Hungarian, Czech, Polish and more are recognised too. This particularly has underlying Nazism when the historical background of the Nazi occupation of Austria is considered. In addition, party leader Hofer has publicly supported violence against immigrants. While there is no good or bad populism, Larry Diamond, a scholar of democracy studies finds that as soon as a state becomes culturally exclusionary, including racist, “populism becomes a threat to liberal democracy” (Diamond. L. 2017). However, on the other hand, FPO publicly supports democracy with their website stating, “we are committed to building a direct democracy…” (FPO) Furthermore, they were not opposed to joining coalition governments. Due to this mixture of different characteristics, it is difficult to definitively label FPO as authoritarian. This much more commonly observed in the current field of politics as we find that many parties or governments are on a spectrum to yield to a broader audience.
Similarly, historically, the US has shown characteristics of an illiberal democracy through the method of the gate-keeping system. While this in practice may have been the method to successfully avoiding autocracy, it was arguably also undemocratic.
The gatekeeping method was the act conducted by a small group of powerbrokers who chose the presidential candidates. This eventually stopped in the early 1800s during the rise of political parties. Although this is nondemocratic, there can be a dilemma identified as the authors referred to gatekeeping to be an effective system to filter out authoritarianism. The authors explain, “Successful gatekeeping requires that mainstream parties isolate and defeat extremist forces, a behavior political scientist Nancy Bermeo calls “distancing.”” (pg 26) This raises the question: is it possible to avoid authoritarianism even if it means sacrificing democracy? To what extent will this be classified as illiberal democracy?
Conclusion
The reading, “How Democracies Die” provides us with an insight on the political processes of a successful authoritarian. Through this collective material facts, the author is able to assemble possible characteristics of an authoritarian party. In addition, with the examples of Austria and the US, it is clear that authoritarianism has become much more spectral compared to the authoritarian movements of the 20th century. A question has also been raised of whether a state's action to avoid authoritarian is an act of democracy even if it is undemocratic in practice. Is it possible to be both democratic while attempting to deter the efforts of authoritarianism? This dilemma can be the cause of the spectral nature of authoritarianism we see today.
https://diamond-democracy.stanford.edu/speaking/speeches/when-does-populism-become-threat-democracy
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13597566.2016.1206528
https://www.fpoe.at/parteiprogramm/parteiprogramm-englisch/
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