1. The trend toward democracy worldwide evident in the 1990s is presently giving way to a more statist approach to government.
2. Many authoritarian regimes opted for a democratic façade in the 1990s and early 2000s.
3. In such regimes, elections have been tightly managed, so that the outcome is predetermined through direct interference in the electoral process and control of information which might also influence the election.
4. Elections may eventually disappear in such regimes as its utility as a tool for maintenance of power diminishes.
5. While the West believes these regimes are more approachable because they have some form of elections at present, such regimes have far more in common with the police states that do not hold elections which they are trending to more closely emulate.
Among certain states, this Zeitgeist of diminishing liberty in favor of greater statism is more pronounced, such as with traditional authoritarian regimes, which increasingly limit what few liberties are permitted to exist. China, for example, seems committed to clamping down more harshly on protests and various areas of its economy.
Liberal democracies are not without their own shortcomings, however. While extensive restrictions on basic human rights will likely not be seen as a rule in any Western country analogous to those occurring in Iran, Russia, and China in our time, encroachments on political freedoms nevertheless exist and remain by nature a threat to every other liberty. They also foster a silence by which every form of inefficiency and dysfunction of government can thrive unhindered by rational critique. However, this tendency to silence the squeaky wheel is fundamentally many times worse the more repressive a government becomes. Perhaps one of the worst consequences of even slightly diminished political liberties among the most prominent of the liberal democracies, though, is the impact of this felt in illiberal democracies and authoritarian regimes, which have in the past used occasional lapses in the recognition of the rights of certain groups in the West as an excuse to avoid reform in their own countries.
An increasingly familiar type of repressive regime today is one which uses a political system dubbed by Francis Fukuyama and others as “electoral authoritarianism”.1 Such a regime, despite its despot and other institutional factors, may have a written constitution, which it may or may not follow. It also allows prima face elections designed in part to create a sense both internally and externally of legitimacy. However, these tend to also be brutally repressive police states, at times and to varying degrees are ideological in nature, and always seek to possess a strong internal security apparatus concerned with eliminating everything that vies to diminish the power of those in authority.
Ensuring that elections exist as mere window dressing and do not actually threaten political power is achieved through a pattern of subverting specific rights, which normally work together to ensure the integrity of a given election, such as we see in Iran. Strategically restricting this narrow “eco-system” of liberties while allowing other freedoms seen as apolitical ties the hands of voters and pre-determines electoral outcomes, while allowing the government to claim that the people enjoy freedoms, including the right to vote.
In the sense that political freedoms are muted while others may be tolerated, the outcome is very similar to Communist China or North Korea, where there are no elections. In either case, the result is the same. For instance, there are harsh restrictions on the freedoms of the people to protest. Additionally, there are restrictions on the freedom to simply hold certain political – and often religious or philosophical – views, or to share them on the internet and through other means. Naturally, news media is also not permitted to be free and independent and genuine opposition candidates and parties may find it difficult or impossible to run against the current government with only those candidates who have been pre-determined by the regime being allowed to participate.
There is also voter intimidation, and, if all else fails, outright voter fraud. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was ostensibly elected by popular vote, excluding of course the pro forma electoral irregularities and that most candidates who wished to run were disqualified. However, despite the immense focus on actual election day polling mischief, a virtual monopoly on information is at least as equally determinate of a rigged election to the extent that ballot-stuffing and other acts of fraud are. This is because control of information sources ensures that those voting are ill-informed of the shortcomings of government-sanctioned candidates or unaware of competing ideas and figures worthy of their attention. The circumstances of the past three Russian elections of Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev, and those in Venezuela of Hugo Chávez are cut from the same cloth.
Holding some form of elections in order to maintain an appearance of legitimacy and freedom is clearly a priority for these regimes; although it is difficult to understand given the complete tacit approval with which the West interacts with Communist China exactly what purpose these mock elections really hold, aside perhaps from perceived internal value. It is possible that such regimes are merely transitory, but given the current global mood on human rights, this does not necessarily mean they are transitioning in the right direction.
Electoral authoritarian regimes can be somewhat appealing to the West, as despite real-world trends, they seem at least to recognize that democracy is the idea they should be aspiring to. Indeed, it is difficult for the West not to feel some sympathies for such “almost” democracies and believe that Western forms of negotiation and understanding will naturally find a resonant response from electoral authoritarian states. However, this is not necessarily the case. Rather than simply observing superficial circumstances of political arrangements within a country – that it holds elections –the degree of overall political and social liberty enjoyed by its citizens, the degree to which a healthy middle class is developing, the government’s transparency and choice of alignments with other nations, and most importantly, where, how much, and how quickly that country is trending, as well as the rhetoric if its leaders must be considered.
Turning to Russia, we see a regime that toward the end of Boris Yeltsin’s presidency began to re-centralize political power has continued with the trend of reducing liberties and popular political power during the intervening years of Vladimir Putin. Concurrently, as Russia’s economy did see improvements for time as the result of early reforms actually adopted by Yeltsin and, ironically, Yevgeny Primakov, the great reversal embodied in nationalization of a broad swath of industries, lack of transparency, and rampant corruption expanding since has discouraged outside investors and intimidated small businesses and large alike who were not in some way connected to the power base of the president. In fact, in 2006, Russia ranked among those at the bottom of the international scale in ease of doing business, transparency, and other critical areas, just ahead of Rwanda. The economic consequences of this were avoided for a time while the price of oil was inflated, but, like so many other oil-dependent autocracies, were certainly felt thereafter. Violent crime including murder, not surprisingly, is also up, according to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service.2 This, in turn, along with more longstanding issues and sparsely situated populations that continue to shrink, is slowing the development of a vibrant middle class necessary for liberal democracy to flourish.
Ironically, such a middle class could become the savior for a country whose demographic realities are appearing ever grimmer. Without a united sense of values in an increasingly ethnically diverse culture, it will require a bloody strongman to suppress the various ethnic interests under the Russian flag in an effort to prolong Russia’s demise. However, this will certainly not hold the regime together in the long term. A strong middle class, and, in turn, liberal democracy may be Russia’s only genuine path to long term survival. Russia has also chosen, as in Cold War days, to find every despot it could possibly unearth and align itself, selling arms and promoting general trade, as well as lending military support at various levels. Also worthy of examination is the rhetoric of the leader. In this case, Vladimir Putin has repeatedly expressed regret about the collapse of the Soviet Union, without explaining which aspects of that Empire are so badly missed. All of these indicators seem to suggest rather strongly that, at least under Putin, Russia is embracing a revival of its dark past and proffers perhaps a darker future.
In some sense, the rise of electoral authoritarianism among major countries may be reactionary. Even before it became a popular system for Russia and Iran, it was put in to use by countless states in South America and Africa, where poor and corrupt governments sought to put a face of democracy on their regimes so that they might qualify for conditional loans, assistance from Western countries and various NGOs, as well as trade. As powers like China take an increasing role in the world, we may see electoral authoritarianism’s decline in the developing world, as more align themselves to Beijing in a fashion similar to that seen with respect to the Soviet Union during the Cold War and more boldly begin to emulate China’s unelected authoritarian model. For the present, at least, this system still remains for many developing states as a pragmatic way of dealing with a yet-extant pro-democracy world order, by appearing to undergo hopeful transitions to curry favor. Such transitions to stable liberal democracies have very rarely been the case.
Further, this may follow a more widespread pattern, as even governments in liberal democracies react to a perception that their societies have become too democratic. For instance, we see increasing pressure for greater restrictions on political speech in the US, where campaign finance laws, irrespective of partisan rhetoric, have already restricted the ability of private citizens to make political ads during the crucial final sixty days leading up to an election. Congress is also debating reviving a law that would require that politically-oriented talk radio shows promote the political views opposite to any given with an equal amount of time. Such a requirement on media sounds noble at first, until it is realized that the other two major forms of media, print and television, are predominantly held by the opposite political view. Such laws would not be used to require print media or television to play by the same rules, which would therefore in effect create political uniformity across all broadcast and print spectrums. Also, many talk radio stations would see ratings plummet, forcing them out of business altogether. While this legislation was also under consideration in 1993 by the Democrat-led Congress, more widespread support seems to now exist, even among some Republicans.4, 5 Furthermore, members of Congress and the Federal Communications Commission are considering a similar requirement for internet weblogs, which may require both opposing views be presented and that advocacy for candidates be limited during election seasons.6 In the UK, there has also been debate about speech codes and what opinions can be lawfully expressed. In 2005 Parliament passed a law that bans protests without permits within a kilometer of the Houses of Parliament. Britain’s Home Office, in stark contrast to the era in which Salman Rushdie was granted asylum, now bans entry to foreigners not for violent, but simply select controversial views.7 In Canada, rather draconian laws have already been enacted that limit certain political or religious speech, broadcast or written, on the simple basis that it might offend, but often times is also the very speech necessary for the main opposition party to make its points and get elected.8 Similar laws now likewise exist in Australia and in parts of Western Europe.9
The case of Iran appears to be slightly different, however. It appears the choice to create an electoral authoritarian style government in Iran was primarily in order to appease its people by offering a government that would seem more liberal at its creation than that of the Shah it replaced. In Russia, it seems reflect a mixture of both internal and external realities. During the 1990s, the primary internal influences included a strong popular movement in Russia and all of Eastern Europe for personal, political, and economic liberalization and democracy. As Romania’s Nicolae Ceauşescu soon came to realize, those who did not bend with the wind were quickly broken by it. The pressure for democratic reform also came from outside, mainly from the West, which sought to encourage former Soviet states to implement democratic reforms and increase transparency, by offering the carrot of a host of economic incentives to these governments, including trade, investment, loans, and other assistance in exchange for bringing these changes about. Unlike Iran, which has remained fairly unchanged since its 1979 revolution, however, Russia appears to have been undergoing a steady transformation away from liberal democracy ever since. So in that regard, Russia’s electoral authoritarian status appears transitional. Venezuela also is much like Russia in this sense, even if its transformation seems to be taking place much more rapidly. There now exists a strong possibility that President Chávez will be coronated “president for life”, with the very veneer of democracy left behind. Perhaps, this is one factor which has made Iran appear somewhat attractive to democracy advocates, because despite where it severely lacks, it seems more static over the thirty-plus years its government has existed. In that sense, it has seemed unusually stable. On the other hand, the regime may see recent democracy protests as a sign it should begin that downward spiral in order to preserve itself. Any conflicts it may find itself in may also have this effect and it certainly will receive plenty of support from Russia and China in doing so, as has already been the case.
As has been pointed out in the past by Fareed Zakaria, democracies can be quite diverse; even liberal democracies.3 However, the fact that it may go through the motion of holding elections of some kind does not make that regime democratic in the least. Stuffing ballot boxes, intimidating voters, and rigging the election process directly turns a democracy with elections into a stage play. So also does the equally destructive government control and suppression of information which may be used politically by opponents. Because of this, electoral authoritarian governments share more in common with outright tyrannical regimes than with any free and open society, which we generally associate with the term “democracy”.
Some electoral authoritarian states may well continue to embrace a strange hybrid of democracy and statism created as a legacy of an era in which international democracy was on the rise and further refined in the intervening years as international democracy began to wane, or its stage of evolving government has reflected the practice of states that never intended to become liberal democracies but tolerated certain democratic characteristics while it proved useful for them. The present climate of increasing state power and diminishing popular power means that at the moment, international trends are working in their favor. As such, a continued rise in authoritarian regimes of various stripes may likely be seen, which of course will write a sad and tragic story for countless millions of people on this planet.
Martin Kite-Powell is a Research Assistant with the Henry Jackson Society
2. Stoner-Weiss, K., McFaul, M. (Jan/Feb 2008). The Myth of the Authoritarian Model. Foreign Affairs , S. 68-84.
3. Harvard International Review (Summer 2002). Interview with Fareed Zakaria: Illiberal Democracy Five Years Later. Von FareedZakaria.com: http://www.fareedzakaria.com/interviews/hir.html abgerufen
4. Thierer, A. (29. October 1993). Why the Fairness Doctrine is Anything But Fair. Von The Heritage Foundation: http://www.heritage.org/research/regulation/em368.cfm abgerufen
5. Gizzi, J. (25. June 2008 ). Pelosi Supports 'Fairness Doctrine'. Von Human Events: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27185 abgerufen
6. Shea, D. (13. August 2008). Fairness Doctrine Could Apply To The Web, FCC Commissioner Warns. Von Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/13/fairness-doctrine-could-a_n_118632.html abgerufen
7. Johnston, P. (12. February 2009). Whatever happened to free speech? Von The Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/philipjohnston/4604985/Whatever-happened-to-free-speech.html abgerufen
8. Manning, L. (23. April 2008). Free speech in Canada. Von The American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/04/free_speech_in_canada.html abgerufen
9. Robinson, B. (24. August 2006). Australia: Limitations on hate speech based on religion & race. Von Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance: http://www.religioustolerance.org/auspeech.htm abgerufen