How democracies can become tyrannical
Traits of intolerance in the democratic system. About discord and the common good, the tyranny of the majority, apathy, public choice and pathologic politicians.
The previous newsletters in this series were about how to deal with anti-democratic movements. But the majority of the people rarely knowingly elect a tyrant. I wrote that before. A much bigger problem are the coup d'état and democratic leaders gradually turning into tyrants. We’re not talking about coups here. This newsletter is about democracies that can degenerate into tyranny.
There are numerous examples. Yugoslav former President Slobodan Milošević, who allowed a genocide against his own people. The ruthless Vladimir Putin, who leaves traces of blood everywhere. The democratically elected former president Suharto of Indonesia, who wreaked havoc in East Timor. The former president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, who had hundreds of thousands of native Peruvians forcibly sterilised.
The blessings of democracy
The blessings of parliamentary democracy need not be praised at great length. We’re talking about toleration here, not about democracy. We therefore only briefly consider the advantages of democracy.
Democracy goes well with the ideals of equality and autonomy of all citizens. Democracy is good at serving the interests of substantial groups in the electorate. Democracies generally outperform other systems economically. Democracies often go hand in hand with proper protection of civil liberties, judicial protection and strong other institutions. Citizens in a democracy develop some empathy for their fellow citizens, think along about social and moral dilemmas and other complex issues and feel more responsible for society as a whole. A well-functioning democracy can be a source of national pride.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau found that political toleration has a beneficial effect on the virtue of the participants: participation gives them co-responsibility for the decisions taken, and encourages them to listen to and weigh up the arguments put forward.
Montesquieu was in a similar sense optimistic: when ideas have to compete with each other, the best ideas will generally prevail.
Despite his objections, John Stuart Mill advocated political toleration, arguing that the more people involved in the political arena, the more people's interests, rights, and opinions are weighed, leading to an optimal utilitarian outcome. Because public debate takes place in which opinions, interests and lifestyles interact with each other, the participants can come to a better informed decision. For Mill there was just one solution to the problem of conflicting ideologies: let them collide in parliament. As long as each ideology has the same level of freedom and the game is being by the book: may the best idea win, to be determined by the voter.
We also do not need to dwell extensively on the disadvantages of democracy, although they are considerable. We focus on the disadvantages that can fuel intolerance.
Characteristic of tyranny is a lack of political toleration. The ruler's will is law; dissent is not appreciated.
Democracy doesn’t necessarily imply toleration
But democracy and intolerance also go together. In the first place if the voter wants intolerance. Harsh punishment, for example. Or no sexual freedom. Or religious oppression, or harsh ethnic policies. The causes for intolerance usually lie elsewhere. Society may be burdened by persistent group conflicts, for example, or modernity has little influence on society. There is a lot to say about that, but that will come later.
But ingrained in the democratic system are also mechanisms that can actually lead to more intolerance. We'll cover three. Democracy can undermine unity. Democracy pays little attention to minorities. And democracy has a recruitment problem.
Democracy sows discord
My father was in the military his entire career. Like nearly everyone in the 1970s, he was a bit of a left-winger, much to the wonder of his colleagues. In the early 1980s I became politically aware, and I asked him what he voted for. He was in doubt, he said. If he followed his conscience, he would vote for the Social Democrats. But the socialists had little affinity with the armed forces. The left was better for the country, he thought, but voting right was more in his own interest.
For citizens, the public interest is not decisive
This dilemma was already explored in 1651 by Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan. Democracy fuels discord between citizens because no one has the common interest in mind. Citizens do not let their vote be determined by the common interests, but by their own interests. Rich people want to pay less tax; the poor want more redistribution. Pensioners want more pension, farmers want subsidies. Regardless of what’s best for the country as a whole.
What applies to voters also applies to politicians. Politicians tell their voters what they want to hear. Their re-election does not depend on how the country is doing, but on how their supporters are doing. Politicians look for large groups of voters: pensioners, blue collar workers, parents. Electorally, there is little to gain from the support of minorities. Politicians ignoring minorities is a golden formula for fueling group conflict.
Polarisation is a related problem. While most voters are naturally moderate, the tone of the political debate is set by the extremes. This is especially true in two-party systems. The rival factions are held hostage by loud, fanatical members; moderate voices lose out.
The tyranny of the majority
The second drawback of democracy was well articulated in 1859 by John Stuart Mill. He called it the tyranny of the majority.
The "people" who exercise the power are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised; and the "self-government" spoken of is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means, the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority: the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this, as against any other abuse of power.
The limitation, therefore, of the power of government over individuals, loses none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable to the community, that is, to the strongest party therein. (...) in political speculations "the tyranny of the majority" is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.
— John Stuart Mill, On liberty (1859)
The game theorist William Riker showed that rational politicians strive for the smallest possible coalitions. The smaller the coalition, the fewer concessions they have to make, and the fewer favours they have to promise. This phenomenon increases the likelihood of Mill's tyranny of the majority.
Democracy therefore not only fuels discord: it also has little regard for minorities. Democracy can thus potentially fuel the emergence of persistent group conflicts: minorities who feel deprived or misunderstood will become rebellious. In Sri Lanka, for example, a persistent uprising of the Hindu Tamils arose on an island dominated by Buddhist Sinhalese. Building a sanitary cordon around a political movement can potentially have the same effect.
Apathy, perceptions and instincts
Public choice theory builds on these arguments. Public discourse and public decision-making are dominated by partial interests that — often aided by financial influence or an extensive (elitist) network — easily find their way to publicity and decision-making circuits. But citizens are poorly informed and often make judgments based on apathy, perceptions and instincts.
The Dutch comedian Wim Kan (1911-1983) was the son of a politician and was best known for his politically inspired conferences. But surprisingly, he never voted. (I'm telling the anecdote from memory, risking some inaccuracy.) A reporter asked him the obvious question. What if everyone thought like Kan, and no one voted anymore? In that case, Kan replied, he would immediately call his wife. Come on, Corry, let's go to the polling station, we're finally in charge.
According to public choice theorists such as Anthony Downs and Mancur Olson, Kan had a point: a rational citizen is hardly informed about political issues, and leaves political action to others. The energy required to change things exceeds the chance of actual influence. For the average citizen, apathetic disinterest is the most rational choice.
It is likely that rational, apathetic citizens are mostly moderate. Activist citizens are more fanatical: they want to change something, and they are committed to that. This effect can cause politicians to adopt more radical positions than what citizens actually want. In theory, this can lead to more intolerance: the reasonable, rational, more tolerant citizens keep aloof.
The underrepresentation of moderates and minorities
The apathy cuts even deeper because large groups generally have a disproportionate influence. Market leaders and world powers have more to gain from collective decisions, and so do dominant ethnic groups. So they spend more energy on group decisions. For small countries, members of small parties and small minorities, apathy is the most rational strategy. Even if their supporters try as hard as the supporters of major parties, they still have little to gain: numerically they lose out anyway.
I once worked for a trade association. The largest member, a multinational with a market share of 40 percent, was the most active member. We lobbied on behalf of the entire industry. The market leader spared no expense to support us in this. The other members floated along a bit. But the smallest members felt ignored and sidelined, and decided to separate from the association. It quickly became a ballroom blitz; after their split, the association of small companies started to act like a bull in the china shop.
This phenomenon is frequently seen in small minorities: their members will float along until the mainstream pushes the limit. Once they feel left out too frequently, the small minorities will radicalise: that is their only way to be heard, to mobilise their own supporters and to compensate for their small size.
But that's not all.
Democracy attracts the wrong leaders
The third drawback of democracy has already been noted by Plato: democracy attracts the wrong kind of people. Evildoers like Charles Taylor of Liberia and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe were democratically elected heads of state before they committed their crimes, let’s not forget that.
Most voters are ill-informed about policy issues. They lack the knowledge or they don't care. Good politics is boring; no one reads policy documents for fun, but policy is complex and for good decisions you really have to go in depth.
So what does a smart politician who wants to be elected do? He doesn't start on difficult subjects, but he simplifies. He wants to appear an expert, but does not have to be one. Instead, he shifts the focus to subjects that do get voters moving. Slandering the opponent, for example, or denouncing groups that do not belong to his followers. Or he will promise things that he cannot deliver. Or he becomes a media personality associated with populist soundbites trying to win over the public. In this way he leads his electorate into a dream world.
But eventually the electorate wakes up and realises it voted for a charlatan.
Confidence in politics is then declining, which attracts another kind of politician: the anti-politician. The outsider, or the strong man, who wants his audience to believe that he tells it like it is, and who will put things right. That either ends in a fiasco, or he actually seizes power, and then the chips are really down. Instead of a democracy, the people end up with tyranny.
Sounds familiar? Then remember that old Plato predicted this 2400 years ago.
In the list of least trusted professions politicians dangle at the bottom, below car salesmen. That is largely unjustified. In a series on group conflicts, there will be another newsletter, especially devoted to the role of politicians in group conflicts. I'll summarise it here.
Decent politicians, corrupting politics
Politicians are generally decent, committed people, more extravert than average and more than averagely motivated by power. But that hunger for power harbours a risk.
Leaders with an above-average need for power are generally more effective leaders, research has shown. People with a great need for power gain power faster and they are better able than others to make their organisation more powerful.
Politicians most motivated by power quickly emerge as a result; colleagues who are less interested in power remain in the background. There are plenty of them in politics, but you won't find them on the front benches.
Power-hungry people are generally effective leaders, but they are also more manipulative and unscrupulous. With too much power they won't get any contradiction anymore. But they do need that contradiction. For example, in order to take into account angles that they had not seen themselves, to better assess risks and to monitor moral boundaries.
Usually it stays here. If you think of well-known political leaders, you may recognise the image. But it can also get further out of hand.
For political leaders with a lot of power, there is a temptation to use their power for even more power, but also for avidity and even sadism. Fostering negative feelings towards an enemy or outgroup is a tried and tested strategy of power seekers.
People who stay power for an extended period also often develop unhealthy hubris syndrome: they no longer accept to be contradicted, they start overestimating themselves and they become reckless.
I call this the world's deadliest occupational disease; not because the leaders themselves die, but because these kinds of leaders can consciously or unconsciously cause large-scale conflicts and even wars.
Hubristic leaders are also more than average affected by one or more disorders in the spectrum of the dark three (narcissism, machiavellianism or psychopathy) or with a bipolar disorder. Many notorious tyrants of recent history are often attributable to disorders in this category.
The good do not want to rule for the sake of money or honour. They don't seek payment for their services as rulers; they don't want to be thought of as hirelings, nor to take it by stealth from their office and be called thieves. Nor do they do it for the sake of honour, for they are not covetous of honour.
So one has to pressure them to hold office. Perhaps that is why it is considered disgraceful to seek office oneself and not await compulsion. The good ruler sees it as the worst punishment to be ruled by someone worse than himself. I think it's out of fear of this that one sometimes finds a good ruler; they do this not for pleasure or as a good, but as a necessary evil, because they cannot find better men than themselves.
— Sokrates, quoted in Plato, Politeia (ca. 375 BCE)
Lastly
So even the least intolerant form of government, democracy, has characteristics that can fuel intolerance instead of combating it. I hope you haven't turned into an anti-democrat now; that would be an overreaction. But it's good not to deny the problem. Our system of democracy can be improved. The parliamentary system took its present form in the Enlightenment and has hardly been reconsidered since then. While improvements are quite conceivable.
In the next (and final) newsletter on political toleration, we'll look at ideas for effectively intertwining tolerance with voter primacy and community interest.
Further reading
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du contrat social ou principes du droit politique (1762)
John Stuart Mill, On liberty (1859)
Charles K. Rowley, Friedrich Schneider, Readings in public choice and constitutional political economy (2008)
This is the seventh episode in a series about political toleration. Here’s an overview of the articles in this series:
How Mussolini had a leader of the opposition assassinated
The assassination of the socialist politician Matteotti in 1924. The Italian elections of 1924 gave a majority to a dictatorship. In hindsight, should Mussolini's party have been banned?
What if the voter is fed up with democracy?
Is there a real danger that voters will want to abolish democracy? Or is it mainly a theoretical problem? The history of democracies that gave themselves up.
Should there be political toleration for intolerance?
Dead philosophers pondering the paradox of toleration. Is there room for anti-democrats in a democracy?
For these reasons, banning anti-democratic parties is a bad idea
In a democracy, the majority decides. If the majority wants someone else to decide from now on, so no longer the majority, then that is a great pity, but so be it.
These are good arguments for banning a political party
Non-violent parties should be banned that demand more room for themselves than for others, or who want to get rid of the system of overlapping consensus.
When should a political party get banned?
Let the voter decide. Except when free and fair periodic elections or unlimited opportunities for public discussion and unlimited provision of information are under threat.
How democracies can become tyrannical
Traits of intolerance in the democratic system. About discord and the common good, the tyranny of the majority, apathy, public choice and pathologic politicians.
Better alternatives for parliamentary democracy
Parliamentary democracy as the least intolerant system. Looking for a system with more legitimacy. About systemic criticism, Habermas' deliberative democracy, digital democracy, and sortition.
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