Vanishing Liberal Democracy
The history of Turkey’s slide from democracy to dictatorship was explored in a previous post to Fifty Year Perspective. Turkey’s Justice and Development Party, AKP, came to power in the general elections of 2002, promising to oppose the “corrupt system,” and to restore “respect” to the “real people,” against the “despised elites.” Led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan as president, AKP engineered changes to Turkey’s constitution that expanded powers of the presidency. Erdogan then instituted limitations on civil liberties, press freedom and judicial independence and responded to civil protest movements by jailing opponents, among other authoritarian measures.
Authoritarian leaders utilize a broad assortment of measures to achieve and maintain power. Creating an alternative reality that turns a real or imagined event into a conspiracy that will harm the country, effectively rallies people to a leader’s cause. A case in point is the 2010 crash in Smolensk, Russia of a plane carrying Lech Kaczynski, Poland’s president, and over 90 politicians and military personnel. While evidence indicated the crash was an accident, the president’s twin brother, who led the ruling political party, used the tragedy to destroy public confidence in the government and media.
Hungary’s leaders have created a threat to the country in the form of an invented conspiracy accusing billionaire George Soros of bringing illegal migrants into the country. In her recent book, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, historian and The Atlantic columnist Anne Applebaum refers to Donald Trump’s entry into politics with the false premise that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Trump spread the “birther” theory to connect with disaffected voters. In office, Trump attacked the norms of democratic governance. As Daron Acemoglu wrote in Foreign Affairs, U.S. institutions were vulnerable to Trump’s attack because public trust had been quietly ebbing away from them for some time.”
The measures dictators take to attain power appear in country after country. As in Poland, presidents of Venezuela, Turkey and Egypt accused opponents of conspiracy against the government. Opponents and vulnerable minorities have been attacked and jailed in Russia, Turkey, Belarus and Egypt. Expertise has been disparaged in Brazil and Hungary. News media outlets have been taken over or shut down in Poland, Egypt, Russia and Hungary, among others. Presidents of Venezuela and Poland claim the “moral” right to lead. Xenophobia, racism and homophobia are endorsed in Hungary and elsewhere. Elections in Bolivia are manipulated and voting privileges are withheld in numerous countries. Friends of dictators are protected, given government contracts or jobs or awarded with privatized public functions.
Authoritarian measures emerge increasingly in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy, demonstrating that the appeal of authoritarianism is not limited to new democracies. Acemoglu warns, “When democratic values come under attack and the press and civil society are neutralized, the institutional safeguards lose their power. Under such conditions, the transgressions of those in power go unpunished or become normalized. The gradual erosion of checks and balances thus gives way to sudden institutional collapse.” The trend is endangering democracy in countries with long democratic traditions, as well as newly-democratized countries.