Why is Liberal Democracy in Crisis?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

In his book The People v Democracy: Why Our Freedom is in Danger and How to Save It, Yascha Mounk of Harvard University stresses that liberalism and democracy are separable.

Voters often want things that are democratic but not liberal, in the most basic sense, which has nothing to do with left- or right-wing policies. For example, they may elect a government that promises to censor speech they dislike, or back a referendum that would curtail the rights of an unpopular minority.

At the same time, plenty of liberal institutions are undemocratic. Unelected judges can often overrule elected politicians, for example. Liberals see this as an essential constraint on the government’s power.

Even the people’s chosen representatives must be subject to the law. In a liberal democracy, power is dispersed. Politicians are not only accountable to voters but also kept in line by  courts, journalists and pressure groups.

A loyal opposition recognises the government as legitimate but decries many of its actions and seeks to replace it at the next election. A clear boundary exists between the ruling party and the state.

This system is now under siege. In many countries, voters are picking leaders who do not respect it, and gradually undermine it.

After decades of steady expansion of rights and liberties, the pro-democracy watchdog Freedom House has recorded sharp reversals, with the share of nations dubbed “free” declining since 2007.

Countries in every region of the world have suffered setbacks, in areas such as free and fair elections, the independence of the press, the rights of minorities and the rule of law.

Although the liberal democracies in the west are fairly rich and peaceful, many of their citizens are disgruntled. Globalisation and technology have made them fear for their jobs.

In the United States, voters who in a previous generation would have identified with their factory, or union or working-class community now find their factory jobs gone, their unions withered, their neighborhoods emptied. Many voted for Donald Trump.

The 2016 vote for Brexit echoed a similar set of grievances and suspicions among Britons, including the resentment of the distant elites in the European Union, as well as in the British government, holding sway over their lives. 

It didn’t help that the European Union’s highest court, the European Court of Justice, ruled that Britain could unilaterally reverse its decision to split from the 28-nation political bloc, in a ruling that gave a boost to anti-Brexit campaigners.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron, who came to power as an outsider bent on shaking up France’s political establishment, is now viewed by his critics as an aloof, technocratic would-be monarch. 

His efforts toward reform have fanned the flames of public discontent and the result was massive anti-government protests and violence in the heart of Paris. Thousands were arrested.

Anti-government protests occurred in other European countries in 2018. Belgium, for instance, faced political upheaval caused by its adoption of the United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.

The issue has become politically poisonous in the era of President Trump and rising far-right leaders in Europe in the aftermath of the 2015 migration crisis.

Along with the United States, the governments of Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Poland, Slovakia and Switzerland have announced that they will not sign the proposed pact or that they will delay a decision.  It has also become controversial in Germany, Italy, Latvia and the Netherlands. 

It is not just bigotry. “Uncontrolled immigration, along with economic globalization, are the major factors behind the growing distrust plaguing liberal democracies,” contends political scientist Mark Lilla of Columbia University in New York, a self-described liberal.

After all, as Peter Ludlo, at the Center for Logic and Epistemology of the University of Campinas in Brazil, notes, “ignoring economic inequity, corporate imperialism, and widespread institutional corruption” causes extreme distress in society.

The appeal of despotism arises “when people come to realize that traditional institutions have failed them. People become desperate, and they seek answers outside of democratic institutions.”

The political earthquakes now convulsing many liberal democracies represent a rejection of the established political order and dissatisfaction with the status quo. Will things get even worse?

Political Polarization is a Growing Problem Across the World

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
 
In Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and many other countries, including the United States, a growing percentage of people find it incredible that others vote for the party or president --frequently a relative newcomer to the political system -- that they themselves find unacceptable.

Often, they attribute these political choices to apathy, ignorance, benighted self-interest, or, worse, treason. Meanwhile, the supporters of the actors in question feel upset, labeling their critics as arrogant, self-righteous, corrupt, and pro-status-quo.

Polarization grows when people begin to fear being excluded from social and political power. They feel the pressure to conform with one bloc or the other as their political preferences increasingly shape their social relations.

At that point, the normal differences in a society become pernicious, and people increasingly perceive and describe politics and society in terms of “us” versus “them.”

As the middle and neutral ground collapses in a context of partisan polarization, it becomes increasingly difficult to confront one’s own group interests without being labelled a “traitor” or “sell-out,” which may result in social and political isolation.

How does this happen? When politicians try to capitalize on the already-existing rifts in their societies by deepening these fractures, in order to make them the basis of a successful political mobilization.

Severe forms of polarization may undermine free and fair elections, a reasonably independent judiciary, and some forms of checks and balances in government. They also entail a loss of informal norms that sustain democracies, such as mutual tolerance.

Polarization can produce different outcomes in a democracy: in Bangladesh, Greece and the United States at present, it has resulted in gridlock, with an eventual outcome that remains unclear. In Hungary, Poland and Turkey, on the other hand, it has had the effect of bringing to power new dominant groups.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey, Viktor Orban and the Hungarian Civic Alliance ( Fidesz) in Hungary, and the Kaczyński brothers and the Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland have achieved power by uniting and mobilizing the disenchanted segments of society.

Turkey since 2002 has become one of the most polarized countries in the world and has undergone a significant democratic breakdown. What began as a potentially reformist politics of transformative polarization morphed into an autocratic one.

In Hungary, the left and right blocs oppose each other in a struggle where the loser is completely denied any influence on policymaking. The two blocs have opposing views on socio-cultural policies.

The lack of strong underlying cleavages in Poland, a very homogenous nation with strong economic growth since 1989, moderate inequality, and rising wages, indicates that polarization was not bottom up but was driven from the top down.

A segment of the political class used the rhetoric of populist anti-establishmentarianism to gain popular support.

As for the U.S., Republicans and Democrats are now divided along ideological lines, and partisan antipathy is deep and extensive.

In each party, the share with a highly negative view of the opposing party has more than doubled since 1994, according to a study conducted by the Pew Research Centre.

The U.S. electorate, commentator Andrew Sullivan observed in the Sept. 28, 2017 issue of New York Magazine, has devolved into “two tribes whose mutual incomprehension and loathing can drown out their love of country.”

In the Oct. 12, 2018 New Yorker, George Packer argued that politics today “requires a word as primal as ‘tribe’ to get at the blind allegiances and huge passions of partisan affiliation.”

The dynamics of polarization varies in each country and its emergence is not caused by any specific underlying social or political cleavage nor any particular institutional make-up.

Why this is happening in so many otherwise dissimilar countries is an issue that those who study politics are grappling with.

Barcelona is a Left-wing Bastion

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

 

Nations and nationalism provide individuals with a sense of who they are and where they belong. While nations are not the only form of community to serve people in this manner, they remain privileged due to their relationship with the nation-state, the dominant form of political organization.

The Spanish nation, almost since its earliest existence has been involved in perpetual conflicts between various nationalisms, both between different ideological versions of Spanish nationalism and between Spanish majority nationalism and various minority nationalisms.

At different times in history, conflicts have occurred, as communities in contention have provided Spaniards with different senses of belonging.

Both use emotions and feelings to secure support and assert or claim sovereignty for the political community in question. This is particularly the case with the radical forms of nationalism of the Basques and Catalans.

I will be visiting Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, in May. A city noted for its left-wing politics, its insurgent mood is rooted in a centuries-long history.

In the nineteenth century, it saw the rise of strong socialist and anarchist movements. Barcelona has deep-seated republican values and was a bastion of resistance to Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939.

As war broke out, Barcelona became a centre of opposition to fascism. The various trade unions and political parties organized militias, built on democratic organizing principles, electing officers from their ranks who held no special privileges nor received higher pay.

In keeping with this tradition, Barcelona today is the heart of a new global political phenomenon known as municipalism.

Municipalist programs tend to be focused on the specific needs of a city’s residents and specific programs that address them. In Barcelona, much of the program is focused on regulating tourist industries in order to improve the lot of local residents, but also to restore some of the city’s particular character that has attracted tourism in the first place.

Launched in June 2014, Barcelona en Comu, the “platform,” as its participants call it, entered into discussions with local political parties to explore the possibility of creating a joint electoral list at the 2015 Barcelona elections. This proved a success, and it won the municipal election a year later.

Ada Colau, who became the city’s mayor, was one of the founding members of the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages in 2009 and acted as the organization’s spokesperson until 2014.

It was set up in Barcelona in 2009 in response to the rise in evictions caused by unpaid mortgage loans and the collapse of the Spanish property market in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

She rose to national prominence after calling a representative of the Spanish Banking Association a “criminal” while representing the PAH at a parliamentary hearing on the housing crisis in February 2013.

Another prominent voice in Barcelona en Comu, Marta Cruells, a feminist political scientist, was a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona before she went to work at City Hall.

The municipal elections of 2015 were without a doubt the most important local contest since the first municipal elections following the restoration of democracy after the death of Franco.

Many citizens perceived Barcelona as having been adrift, and for them a brand-new team might not have experience but it would at least not be linked to the traditional elite.

With its slogan “It’s time to win back Barcelona,” Barcelona en Comu actively involved thousands of residents. Large meetings in different neighbourhoods helped it produce a remarkably detailed electoral programme, drawing on the normally ignored knowledge and technical expertise of “ordinary people.”

The mayor Colau even took to the airways challenging the national government “not to look the other way -- to be tough on the powerful.”

All but one of the councillors who formed the first government of Barcelona en Comu were social activists in one field or another, such as housing, who generated expectations of change.

Colau’s administration has pushed experiments in community management of space and resources, such as handing over public buildings to local communities.

The city’s next municipal contest is scheduled for May 26. All 41 seats in the City Council will be up for election. Mayor Colau will soon find out whether Barcelona en Comu will be rewarded for its policies.

Asymmetrical Federalism in the Russian Federation

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

 

After the December 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, formerly just the largest of the USSR’s 15 union republics, became its successor state.

Today’s Russia has 85 sub-divisions, all known as “subjects of the Federation.” They are grouped into 46 oblasts (provinces), 22 republics, nine krais (territories), four autonomous okrugs (districts), three cities of “federal importance,” and one autonomous oblast.

All are equal in federal matters but enjoy different levels of autonomy. The Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, represents all 85 component entries, with two representatives per unit.

The Russian Federation includes more than 100 ethnic groups and ethnic Russians make up just 81 per cent of the total population, so the 22 republics are designated as specific territories allocated to the various non-Russian ethnic peoples in the country. 

Each has its own constitution and legislature, official language, and is represented by the federal government in international affairs, but otherwise has a great deal of internal autonomy.

The indigenous ethnic group of a republic that gives it its name is referred to as the “titular nationality.”

An autonomous okrug also has a substantial ethnic minority but is not allowed to have its own constitution and official language.

There are secessionist movements in most republics, but these are generally not very strong. However, there was considerable support for secession among Bashkirs, Chechens, Tatars, and Yakuts after the breakup of the Soviet Union, including two savage wars in the case of Chechnya.

The leaders of many republics used to have the title of president, however in 2010 an amendment to the federal law was adopted that reserves such title exclusively for the head of the Russian state. 

But relations between the government of Tatarstan and the Russian federal government were more complex and carefully defined in the constitution of the republic. Its chief executive continues to be called a president.

The ethnic republics can be found anywhere in the country, mainly in areas like the northern Caucasus, with its many small ethnic and religious groups. One of them, the Republic of Adygea, is even an enclave, within Krasnodar Krai.

Does this “ethno-federalism,” a carryover from the old Soviet Union, sound somewhat esoteric? It shouldn’t, because we in Canada, apart from the provinces and territories, also have its equivalent.

We call them First Nations reserves, and there are more than 3,100 of them, inhabited by members of the more than 600 indigenous groups in the country. Established by treaties and laws, residence is governed by band councils as well as the federal government. Many wish to attain greater sovereign control over their affairs and enlargement of traditional territories through land claims.

Indeed, is not Nunavut also, for that matter, the Inuit equivalent of an “ethnic” polity? Indeed, this might even be said of francophone Quebec, the “homeland” of most of Canada’s French-Canadian population.

We should remember that under the ill-fated 1992 Charlottetown Accord, an aboriginal right to self-government would have been enshrined in the Canadian Constitution. Moreover, it would have recognized aboriginal governments as a third order of government, analogous to the federal government and the provinces.

In ethnically divided societies, devolving power to subnational units as is done in ethno-federal systems is a common strategy for conflict prevention and resolution. 

At the same time, in ethno-federal states the risk for separatism might be relatively higher since ethnic groups have their own latent state, which arguably gives them reason and opportunity to eventually fight for secession.

Moscow has in recent years begun to tighten its control over the ethnic republics. 

In response, last year native culture activists from nearly all the ethnic republics gathered in Moscow and agreed to form the Democratic Congress of Peoples of the Russian Federation, in order to resist “projects to alter the administrative structure of Russia.”

Humanistic Judaism’s Quest to Retain Jewish Culture

By Henry Srebrnik, [Calgary] Jewish Free Press

 

Humanistic Judaism was founded in 1963 by Rabbi Sherwin Wine. As a rabbi trained in Reform Judaism with a small secular, non-theistic congregation in Michigan, Wine developed a Jewish liturgy that reflected his and his congregation’s philosophical viewpoint by emphasizing Jewish culture, history, and identity along with humanistic ethics, while excluding all references to God. 

This congregation developed into the Birmingham Temple in suburban Detroit. It was soon joined by a previously Reform congregation in Illinois, as well as a group in Westport, Connecticut. 

Wine set up the Society for Humanistic Judaism in 1969 and an International Institute for Secular Judaism in 1985.

The movement, which began with a congregation of eight families is now a presence in forty communities across the United States, claiming forty thousand members, and is also found in Canada, Israel, and other countries.

The first Canadian affiliate was the Oraynu Congregation in Toronto, founded in 1969. Eva Goldfinger, its spiritual leader, told the Canadian Jewish News in 2001 that the secular emphasis on personal responsibility can lead to a stronger, more committed Judaism.

The Calgary Community for Humanistic Judaism meets in the city’s southwest.

In an interview with Toronto writer Bill Gladstone in the Globe and Mail in 1999, Rabbi Wine stated that “The Judaism of the ancient world is not the Judaism of the modern world. Judaism adapts itself to new environments. It’s more accurate to view Judaism as a culture, because a culture can accommodate a wide variety of belief systems.”

Humanistic Judaism offers cultural and secular Jews a nontheistic alternative in contemporary Jewish life. It defines Judaism as the cultural and historical experience of the Jewish people yet retains the structure of theistic religions. 

Humanist Jews define Judaism and Jewishness as a matter of cultural identification and not a matter of birth or conversion. They do not believe in the divine, therefore they do not believe in divine providence or sanction. They assert that men and women are responsible for their own destiny. 

The belief in eternal life is the product of wishful thinking and scientists have found no evidence of life after death. Humanistic Jews find religious beliefs that promise a deliverance from death an insult to human reason.

Humanistic Jews do not see Jews as different or better than other peoples or the nation of Israel as a favourite nation in the eyes of God. Neither do they accept the idea that He performed many miracles in order to preserve and promote the good of the Jewish nation.

Nevertheless, they do encourage a positive response towards Israel and its right to survive.

The philosophy of Humanistic Judaism is inclusive and celebrates love wherever it is found. On the basis of this principle their rabbis accept and officiate at ceremonies confirming same-sex commitment. 

Humanistic Jews also see traditional Judaism as an enemy of feminism and abortion as a right that belongs to the woman.

Humanistic Jewish weddings are non-theistic, emphasising the relationship between wife and husband rather than the relationship between a couple and God.

Over the years, Wine created an alternative English and Hebrew liturgy, stripped of references to God. He retained most of the traditional holidays and life cycle as part of their Jewish culture, since they provide a link with Jewish history and a bond with other Jews, but recast them in humanist guise. 

Rosh Hashana affirmed spiritual and natural renewal; Yom Kippur encouraged introspection and self-forgiveness; Pesach celebrated freedom and the political genius of Moses.

Some of the people who influenced Wine’s thinking include Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of the Reconstructionist Jewish movement, who, in describing Judaism as a civilisation, viewed it not only as a form of religion but also as a great source of culture. 

Rabbi Wine, who died in 2007, tried his best not to leave his followers lost in a void. In his 1996 book Judaism Beyond God: A Radical New Way to Be Jewish, he argued that the legitimacy and identity of the Jewish people are not tied to the existence of God.

His earlier book Celebration: A Ceremonial and Philosophic Guide to Humanists and Humanistic Jews, published in 1988, was written to supply a demand within the movement for those who value their Jewish identity but do not want to be linked with conventional religion.

The movement’s challenge remains to engage the many Jews who share its worldview but do not yet recognize the benefit of affiliating with a Jewish community.