The Growing Threat of Illiberal Democracy
By William A. Galston (From the Brookings Institute, the centrist commentator on the WSJ)
As we begin 2017, the most urgent threat to liberal democracy is not autocracy; it is illiberal democracy. To see why, we must remind ourselves of some basic principles.
(snip)
The critique extends beyond institutions, to ideals. Liberalism represents a general claim that transcends national borders, canonically expressed in the postwar, anti-totalitarian Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although “liberal nationalism” is not an oxymoron, it is a problem—in part because nations resist the limitations on their sovereignty that all universal principles challenge, but also because most nations give pride of place to particular groups who share an ancestry, native tongue, religion or ethnicity. Liberalism tilts against all forms of particularism in the name of equality: Because human beings are equal, any form of ethnocentrism that denies their equality must be rejected.
The revolt against liberalism, then, rests on these three complaints: Liberal institutions undermine effective governance, while liberal principles weaken national sovereignty and force citizens to give equal status to people who are unlike them.
The demand for decisive action typically generates impatience with formalities. In a 2014 speech endorsing illiberal democracy, Hungary’s longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orban mocked Hungary’s previous liberal democratic government for its inability to promote the national interest, citing countries such as Russia, Turkey and Singapore as examples of effective governance. This, he said, is why his government was abandoning “Western European dogmas” in favor of a new form of political organization that is capable of “making us competitive in this great world-race.”
(snip)
There are signs of impatience with liberal democratic restraints even in the U.S., where constitutionalism and the rule of law are more deeply entrenched than in the newer European democracies. A June 2016 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute found 49% of voters agreed that “because things have gotten so far off track in this country, we need a leader who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right.” This figure included 57% of Republicans, 60% of white working-class voters, 72% of Trump supporters, and—tellingly—59% of those who felt that the American way of life needs protection from foreign influences.
Even more worrying than the attack on liberal democratic institutions is the relegitimation of long-suppressed antipathies to ethnic and religious minorities. Hungary’s Order of Merit, its second highest state honor, recognizes individuals who have demonstrated excellence in service to Hungary and the promotion of “universal human values.” Last August, Mr. Orban’s government gave this award to journalist Zsolt Bayer.
Here is how Mr. Bayer has promoted these values: Writing in 2008 about the “Jewish journalists of Budapest,” he said that “their very existence justifies anti-Semitism.” In February and March of 2016, he published an 18-part op-ed series on the origins of anti-Semitism in Hungary, asserting that it was a natural reaction to actions by Jews against non-Jews.
Writing in 2013 about the Roma, a disparate collection of ethnic minorities, Mr. Bayer said that “These animals shouldn’t be allowed to exist,” adding that “this needs to be solved—immediately and by any means necessary.” At a public rally in Budapest in 2015, he described the Syrian refugee crisis as a weapon guided by a hidden conspiracy against the “white race.”
Is this what illiberal democracy portends—state-endorsed hostility toward historically persecuted minorities, endorsed by the state? Are we facing a future in which national majorities may act without restraint, whatever the human costs?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-growing-threat-of-illiberal-democracy-1483488245
= new reply since forum marked as read
