By Henry Srebrnik, [Sydney, N.S.] Cape Breton Post
In his 2022 book The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure, Johns Hopkins University political scientist Yascha Mounk examines the relationship between democracy, liberalism and ethnic diversity. It is an informative text, aimed at a non-specialist readership, and one I assigned in a comparative politics course this year.
“The history of diverse societies is grim,” he warns in the opening pages of the book. “We all know the reasons. Ethnic hatreds come easy. When scapegoating demagogues stoke them during hard times, they make the classic promise: Break the democracy pact, and people like you can be great again.”
Mounk is aware that it’s always been easier for countries to rule themselves collectively when their citizenry feel that they have a lot in common. In the history of democracies, most of them have been built in countries that are reasonably homogeneous.
As countries have become more heterogeneous, there are, he observes, a lot of people who resent that, and say, “Why should I let these other people who are from a different ethnic group, who come from a different part of the world, who might have different religious ideas — why should I let them participate in the collective we?”
And this attitude has become more pronounced due to changing economic circumstances. After growing rapidly in the post-war era, the living standards of ordinary people have been stagnating for decades. This growing frustration about a lack of material progress has, in turn, helped to fuel a cultural backlash against the ideals of an equal, multi-ethnic society.
Political systems
Mounk also points to another possible explanation for why many young people have grown disenchanted with democracy — they have little conception of what it would mean to live in a different political system.
People born in the 1930s and 1940s experienced the threat of fascism as children or were raised by people who actively fought it, he reminds us. They spent their formative years during the Cold War, when fears of Soviet expansionism drove the reality of communism home to them in a very real way. This is less the case for their grandkids today.
After growing rapidly in the post-war era, the living standards of ordinary people have been stagnating for decades. This growing frustration about a lack of material progress has, in turn, helped to fuel a cultural backlash against the ideals of an equal, multi-ethnic society.
Mounk also makes it clear that democracy and liberalism, while often viewed as synonymous, are distinct and separate concepts. Democracy refers to the system of government where power rests with the people, while liberalism is the set of values and institutions that protect individual rights and freedoms. He asserts that democracy without liberalism can lead to the tyranny of the majority, where the majority imposes its will on the minority without any regard for individual rights.
Today, two core components of liberal democracy — individual rights and the popular will — are increasingly at war with each other, he contends. As the role of money in politics soared and important issues were taken out of public contestation, a system of “rights without democracy” took hold. Populists who rail against this say they want to return power to “the people.” But in practice, Mounk asserts, they create something just as bad: a system of “democracy without rights.”
Public park
As for the place of diversity in a liberal democracy, he argues for an inclusive “cultural patriotism” that embraces a mixing of national peculiarities that cuts across racial categories and melds into a unifying culture. It creates an identity that can take citizenry beyond their cultural and ethnic groups.
He eschews terms like melting pot or mosaic. Instead, he uses a “public park” metaphor: “A public park is open to everyone.” “A public park gives its visitors options.” “A public park creates a vibrant space for encounter.”
“In a public park, we can hang out and say, ‘We just want to chat amongst ourselves; we’re not going to talk to anyone else,’ but we might also come into contact with other people and make new friendships,” he writes. “Nobody forces you to enter those kinds of contexts but, as a result of interactions, some commonality develops. That should be the aspiration of our society.”
Mounk maintains that for this type of democratic space to be successful, there must be a set of ground rules that are clearly enforced. These rules would serve as checks on those who believe the “park” should cease to exist.
Mounk also makes it clear that democracy and liberalism, while often viewed as synonymous, are distinct and separate concepts.
In the end, remarks Mounk, no clever institutional set-up can stop people from impinging on individual freedoms, or handing power to an authoritarian ruler, when they are deeply dissatisfied with the status quo. Since citizens in many democratic countries have grown particularly dissatisfied with the performance of their governments over the past decades, this tendency is especially pronounced at the moment.
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