What is Democracy? (67): The Form of Government That Offers the Best Protection Against Human Rights Violations

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There is a clear correlation between the presence and quality of democratic government in a country and the level of respect for human rights in that country. That may sound obvious but it’s good to have some measured results. This paper for instance offers some clear evidence:

There is a substantial body of research devoted to understanding the relationship between democracy and government human rights performance. Most research centers on physical integrity rights but does not analyze the broader civil liberties encompassed by the category of “empowerment rights.” The dynamics of the relationship between the degree of democracy in a state and protection of empowerment rights might be different and improvements may take longer to emerge. This study examines the effects of democracy and democratic duration on empowerment rights scores, and it also uncovers time thresholds at which different scores are attained. The results show that regime type is more critical to the protection of empowerment rights than it is to physical integrity rights. Even in the earliest years of democracy there is a positive relationship between democracy and empowerment rights, but empowerment rights strengthen as countries gain democratic experience. …

Thus, countries with more institutionalized democratic regimes, as determined by the quality and longevity of democratic experience, are significantly more likely to respect both fundamental human rights and broader classes of civil liberties. … [A]lthough human rights protection is present in early years, it will usually be even greater after countries have had extended experience with democracy. (source)

Two graphs to back this up:

correlation between democracy and human rights

(source, click image to enlarge)

Here and here are other papers giving some further evidence.

The interesting thing about all this is not that there is a correlation – anyone following the news could have guessed as much. What we should care about are the reasons why there is a correlation. From the studies cited above we can see that the most important causal link is the one going from democracy to respect for human rights. In other words, there is a correlation because democracy causes respect for human rights. Vice versa may also be possible, although the argument is probably weaker. And then there may also be a hidden variable that can partially explain the correlation. For example, it may well be that prosperity and high GDP promote both democracy and human rights.

But then the next question is: how does democracy cause higher levels of respect for human rights? I guess this can happen in several ways:

• Democracies are more likely to be systems based on the rule of law and the rule of law is necessary for the protection of human rights.
• Democratic rulers know that they can’t get away with repression. They’ll be voted out if they try, or, worse, they’ll suffer the consequences of the rule of law, imposed on them by other branches of power in a system of checks and balances and separation of powers.
• Democracies have systems of judicial review which allow courts to void legislation that contradicts basic constitutional rights.
• Democracies have powerful non-violent mechanisms for dispute settlement, such as well-functioning courts. People don’t need to take the law into their own hands. Internal peace and limitations on violent behavior have beneficial effects on a number of human rights.
• Democracy is correlated with high levels of prosperity, and prosperity makes it easier to promote respect for human rights. Rights cost money.
• Democracies need human rights to function adequately (no democracy without free speech, free assembly, free association etc.), so they have an added incentive to respect them.

None of the above is meant to imply the following:

1. That we can delay the implementation of human rights norms in non-democratic states. Remember the remark at the beginning that the causal link probably goes in two opposite directions and that human rights can promote democratic government. After all, if people are allowed to express themselves, they will express themselves about the workings of their government, and that is the first step towards democracy.
2. That rights are never violated in democracies or never respected in non-democracies. It’s merely a matter of probability.
3. That there are no elements other than democracy that promote human rights. Of course there must be. I mentioned prosperity a moment ago. Democracy is not a sufficient condition, although probably a necessary one, at least in the long run, for the full set of human rights and for the equal enjoyment of all rights by all people.
4. That the beneficial effect of democracy on human rights is equal for all human rights or for all types of democracy. Well-developed and long-lasting democracies do better, as mentioned above, but perhaps also deep democracies, meaning democracies that provide a wide range of opportunities for democratic say.

More about the link between democracy and human rights here, here, here and here. More posts in this series are here.

What is Democracy? (66): A Sports-Based Selection Process For Politicians

I’ve already documented several ways in which democracy tends to malfunction. Democracy seems to be a system for

• electing the most beautiful politicians
• electing the politicians with the most agreeable voice
• electing whomever shows up first on the ballot
• signaling disapproval of the weather
• etc.

Here’s another one:

It is statistically possible that the outcome of a handful of college football games in the right battleground states could determine the race for the White House.

Economists Andrew Healy, Neil Malhotra, and Cecilia Mo make this argument in a fascinating article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. They examined whether the outcomes of college football games on the eve of elections for presidents, senators, and governors affected the choices voters made. They found that a win by the local team, in the week before an election, raises the vote going to the incumbent by around 1.5 percentage points. When it comes to the 20 highest attendance teams—big athletic programs like the University of Michigan, Oklahoma, and Southern Cal—a victory on the eve of an election pushes the vote for the incumbent up by 3 percentage points. That’s a lot of votes, certainly more than the margin of victory in a tight race. (source)

Compared to some of the previously cited distortions of the democratic process, this one is particularly disturbing. You could still argue that the way politicians look or sound has at least some relevance to the political process, even though it shouldn’t determine elections. You could also argue, even if it means stretching your neurons to breaking point, that a long spell of bad weather has an adverse effect on the economy, that politicians should take countermeasures, and that they should be punished if they don’t. If you’re feeling very generous, you could even say that the order effect is a general human bias and that we shouldn’t single out democracy for condemnation when we see this effect appearing in elections.

However, there seems to be no possible excuse for voting in favor of incumbents simply because your local football team scores a win. OK, I can understand that the exhilaration makes you feel good about everything, including perhaps the performance of the incumbents and the status quo in general, but that means we should see the same distortions when people vote after having had sex or after having eaten a chocolate bar. And those latter distortions may have an even greater impact on elections, given the fact that eating chocolate and having sex is more common than watching football. Given the large number of possible distortions like these, I simply can’t convince myself that they really do occur.

Bonus malfunction:

In the summer of 1916 … a dramatic weeklong series of shark attacks along New Jersey beaches left four people dead. Tourists fled, leaving some resorts with 75 percent vacancy rates in the midst of their high season. Letters poured into congressional offices demanding federal action; but what action would be effective in such circumstances? Voters probably didn’t know, but neither did they care. When President Woodrow Wilson—a former governor of New Jersey with strong local ties—ran for reelection a few months later, he was punished at the polls, losing as much as 10 percent of his expected vote in towns where shark attacks had occurred. (source)

More posts in this series are here.

Why Do We Need Human Rights? (36): The Economic Case Against Democracy

wealth in China

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Democracy is a human right. But how do we justify this right? One common argument is that democracies tend to be wealthier than non-democracies. However, there’s some disagreement about this argument: not about the goodness of wealth and wealth-enhancing institutions, but about whether democracies are in fact such institutions. Impressive economic growth rates in non-democratic countries such as China have planted doubts in many people’s minds.

Some time ago, I offered a rather “philosophical” argument against the view that democracies perform worse economically than some types of authoritarian government (i.e. China-style). But in fact we’re dealing with empirically verifiable hypotheses here. So I looked for some numbers and found this article by Dani Rodrik:

The relationship between a nation’s politics and its economic prospects is one of the most fundamental – and most studied – subjects in all of social science. Which is better for economic growth – a strong guiding hand that is free from the pressure of political competition, or a plurality of competing interests that fosters openness to new ideas and new political players? …

Democracies not only out-perform dictatorships when it comes to long-term economic growth, but also outdo them in several other important respects. They provide much greater economic stability, measured by the ups and downs of the business cycle. They are better at adjusting to external economic shocks (such as terms-of-trade declines or sudden stops in capital inflows). They generate more investment in human capital – health and education. And they produce more equitable societies.

Authoritarian regimes, by contrast, ultimately produce economies that are as fragile as their political systems. Their economic potency, when it exists, rests on the strength of individual leaders, or on favorable but temporary circumstances. They cannot aspire to continued economic innovation or to global economic leadership. (source)

Some data on democracy and growth are here.

The darling of the “authoritarian=efficient” crowd is, of course, China. China has indeed performed extremely well economically under a rather authoritarian government. However, that government is much less authoritarian than it was during the post-WWII decades of stagnation and extreme poverty. So maybe it’s the relative move towards greater freedom that is the true cause of China’s economic performance, rather than its authoritarian government per se.

Moreover, China has done very well in terms of growth and poverty reduction, but in terms of levels of prosperity it’s still way behind most countries that are much more free. Its astounding progress is partly due to the very low starting point that was engineered by its authoritarian rulers.

And finally, the supposed economic success of authoritarianism in China – if it exists – isn’t necessarily proof of the economic ability of authoritarianism in general (authoritarian disaster stories are unfortunately far more common than authoritarian success stories). It may not even be proof of the economic ability of authoritarianism in China, since correlation doesn’t imply causation, especially not if there are only very few observations: China’s economic success may be due to other factors – and maybe this success would have been even greater without authoritarian government.

Jesus raises the dead man Lazarus back to the living world (mosaic from Ravenna, 500′s AD)

The economic case for authoritarianism is a bit like this: usually, people don’t return from the dead. But there’s this one guy, Lazarus, who did. Some claim that there was this other fellow, Jesus, who done the deed and made Lazarus walk again. There are no other Jesuses around, and this one Jesus only did his trick once. Nobody quite knows how he did it. Some say he just happened to be around when it occurred and people put one and one together. Lazarus would have walked anyway, perhaps even sooner had this other fellow not stolen all the attention.

More here, here, here and here on the myth of successful authoritarianism.

Related Articles

• The heavy hand (economist.com)
• Where will China’s long march end? (telegraph.co.uk)
• Is Democracy Necessary for Economic Success? (curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com)
• India or China: Which Model for the Developing World? (curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com)
• Democracy or Autocracy: Which is Better for Economic Growth? Becker (becker-posner-blog.com)

What is Democracy? (65): A Political Decision Procedure Distorted by the Order Effect

ballot

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People’s choices are often sensitive to differences in the order in which the options appear. This is one among many psychological biases we all suffer from to some extent. For example,

In the Eurovision song contest, for example, the first or later performers have more chance of winning than those appearing in the middle of the show. (source)

Unsurprisingly, democracy is not immune from this bias. Here’s some evidence from the Irish democracy showing that the order of candidates on ballots affects election outcomes:

The estimated effect of being listed first on an alphabetical ballot paper in an Irish general election is approximately 544 first preference votes or 1.27 percentage points for the average candidate. (source)

In California,

being listed first benefits everyone. Major party candidates generally gain one to three percentage points, while minor party candidates may double their vote shares. (source)

And it’s not just candidates’ surnames or positions on ballots that affect democratic selection procedures. The tone of their voice, their looks and a ton of other biases also play a role. And yet I still believe in the value of democracy.

Needless to say that the order effect – or “ordering effect”, or “serial position effect” – isn’t limited to politics. Next time you walk into a shop and ask for advice, you can bet that the sales person will present you the most expensive item first, because having seen this one first, all the others will look like a bargain and will influence your decision to buy.

More on the order effect here. More posts in this series are here.

Why Do We Need Human Rights? (35): Why Do We Need Democracy?

The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755

Democracy is a human right. In the past, I’ve  listed a number of reasons why we should prefer democracy over other forms of government (here and here for example). I’ve now come across another reason, one that may not be convincing or relevant to everyone, but still it’s mildly interesting:

Lisbon, Portugal, during the great earthquake of 1 November 1755. This copper engraving, made that year, shows the city in ruins and in flames. Tsunamis rush upon the shore, destroying the wharfs. The engraving is also noteworthy in showing highly disturbed water in the harbor, which sank many ships. Passengers in the left foreground show signs of panic.

All things — including wealth — being equal, earthquakes kill more people in dictatorships than in democracies, write NYU political scientists Alastair Smith and Alejandro Quiroz Flores. The reason that democratically elected leaders prepare their countries for disaster better is because they fear they’ll be voted out of office if their governments are caught unprepared. (Dictators obviously tend to worry less about election outcomes.) A recent World Bank study backs up this argument, with an added wrinkle: institutionalized autocracies, like China’s, tend to outperform non-institutionalized or corrupt autocracies as well as young democracies when it comes to preventing earthquake deaths. Still, another study finds that politicians in democratic elections benefit even more from doling out disaster relief after a catastrophe than they do from preparing for disasters yet to come. (source)

More on democracy and human rights here, here and here. More on earthquakes and accountability.

What is Democracy? (64): Plutocracy?

“The bosses of the Senate”

The role of money in democracy is hotly contested. It’s undeniable that democracies spend a lot of money on campaigns, advertising, lobbying etc. Some argue that wealthy individuals or corporations often use their financial means to distort the outcomes of elections or the framing of policy and legislation. There may also be a problem of vote buying: wealthy individuals or politicians paying voters or giving them some other advantages (such as jobs or cheap housing) in an effort to convince them to vote in a certain way. Worries about the effect of income inequality on democracy are partly based on this type of argument, as are efforts to regulate campaign financing.

And indeed, the huge amounts of money going around in democratic politics could potentially move us away of the democratic ideal of equal influence. So the charge of plutocracy isn’t necessarily ridiculous. However, this is essentially an empirical matter and we should therefore look at evidence from political science. Here’s a short and somewhat depressing overview:

With regard to overall spending, Jacobson (1978) was the first to show an effect on vote outcomes, but this effect was mainly present for challengers [in U.S. Congressional elections]. In subsequent years, the effect of challenger spending was confirmed, but others also found effects for incumbent spending as well (e.g. Green & Krasno 1988, Erikson & Palfrey 1995, Gerber 1998). The basic takeaway is that spending more is clearly effective for challengers, and probably also matters for incumbents too, but solving the causal direction problems involved makes it very difficult to be really certain of any of these findings.

One problem is we know that winning candidates generally have more money, but whether money helps candidates or is just a signal of unobserved candidate quality [i.e., people give more money to better candidates] is unclear. Another problem is that not only are donors attracted to high-quality candidates just as voters are, but they are also attracted to winning candidates—that is, if money is given in order to get access to elected officials, donors are more likely to give to candidates who are expected to do well, because the expected return is greater. In both cases, we could observe an empirical relationship between winning and having more money for your campaign, without the money actually “causing” the victory. (source)

So, maybe the “plutocrats” can’t just simply spend in order to have their preferred candidate elected and instead spend money on the candidate who is good and who will win anyway. However, the fact remains that their spending gives them privileged access to politicians and possibly also privileged influence on subsequent policy, and that isn’t something we want in a democracy. If “winning candidates generally have more money” – whether the money causes the win or not – one can reasonably assume that the candidates will in some way be indebted to or influenced by their donors. Also, even if there are doubts about the causal direction, it is worrying that the evidence doesn’t rule out the possibility that campaign spending – especially spending by challengers – can determine who gets elected.

Regarding deterrence – successful fundraising by incumbents deterring challengers from entering a race – the empirical evidence is weak:

there is no consensus in the literature regarding deterrence, and once again there are major questions about causal relationships (i.e., do high-raising incumbents deter, or is it just high-quality incumbents who can raise a great deal of money and simultaneously deter quality challengers for reasons having nothing to do with funding?). (source)

Whatever the evidence on deterrence, it’s clear that money determines who can run. It’s naive to think that a candidate with few means would be able to run against another having a lot of means. The former would simply be invisible, even if he or she feels undeterred.

What about campaign advertising, one of the more visible ways in which money could play a part in politics?

[A]ds appear to be somewhat effective but have wide variance in their effectiveness (that is, some ads help a lot, most help very little or not at all, and a few are counterproductive). (source)

Voter mobilization – face-to-face canvassing, mailings, phone calls – is also very expensive, hence well-funded candidates can do more of it. Whether they in fact do more of it depends on its effectiveness:

mobilization efforts appear to be effective but costly (face-to-face canvassing appears most effective by far, while phone calls & direct mail have much less effect). (source)

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The conclusion is that campaign spending is somewhat effective, and that those candidates with more money do somewhat better. This results in a financial arms race between candidates, increasing the risk of donor indebtedness and of unequal access and influence:

Candidates who raise a lot of money tend to do better, and it’s more likely than not that at least part of this relationship is due to money paying for things like ads and canvassers that help candidates win over new voters and/or turn out their bases. (source)

Vote buying is the other channel through which money could potentially influence democratic politics. Here, some of the evidence is more encouraging:

The experiment took place during the March 2011 elections in Benin and involved 150 randomly selected villages. The treatment group had town hall meetings where voters deliberated over their candidate’s electoral platforms with no cash distribution. The control group had the standard campaign, i.e. one-way communication of the candidate’s platform by himself or his local broker, followed (most of the time) by cash distribution.

We find that the treatment has a positive effect on turnout. In addition, using village level election returns, we find no significant difference in electoral support for the experimental candidate between treatment and control villages.

…the positive treatment effect is driven in large part by active information sharing by those who attended the meetings. (source)

In conclusion: democracy is not simply a market transaction, but neither is it silly to worry about the role of money in elections and legislation.

More on money in politics here. More posts in this series are here.

A Political Monty Python (18): Election Results

More political Monty Python videos.

What is Totalitarianism?

Scene from the movie 1984

It sounds like a somewhat antiquated concept and it may very well be true that it’s useless as a descriptive device for current politics. However, I believe that it remains a necessary tool for the correct understanding of 20th century history. Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Mao-era China were very different countries and very different political regimes, but it can be argued that what they had in common was more important than what separated them. And what they had in common separated them from all other authoritarian governments before and after them. (Hannah Arendt was one of the first to notice this). That is the reasoning behind the concept of totalitarian government. Those three governments – and perhaps a few others – can be described as totalitarian states and were therefore instances of a separate type of government, like oligarchy or democracy. They were not just particularly brutal forms of dictatorship. We’re not talking about a difference in degree. Of course, some of the elements of totalitarian rule which I describe below can be found in other dictatorial governments as well, but other elements can’t. (Just like some elements of democracy can be found in non-democracies). And what certainly can’t be found elsewhere is the combination of all those elements.

Photomontage of Stalin and Hitler

Totalitarian government is a post-democratic form of government. It couldn’t exist in the era before mass democracy. It’s post-democratic in the sense that it is an outgrowth of modern democratic traditions. Political parties, party ideologies, mass movements and mass mobilization, the pseudo-popular legitimacy of rigged elections and referenda, the mass idolatry, the personality cults, mass indoctrination, propaganda, Potemkin constitutions, show trials etc. all show the totalitarian debt to democracy. The same is true for the focus on re-education and rectification of thought when some parts of the popular will are considered to be deviant: this is proof of the importance of popular consent (when consent is absent, it’s fabricated).

Contrary to older forms of despotism, totalitarianism admits that the state is no longer the natural property of a ruling class, the private tool of a sovereign or a gift of God. It is the expression of the will of the people. Not, as in a democracy, of a divided people or of a people who’s identity fluctuates over time as a consequence of public debate. The will of the people under totalitarian government is permanently defined as a unified whole. The people are defined as a race or a class. The people have a homogeneous project, namely racial supremacy or the liberation of the proletariat. The will of the people, which is also the basis of democracy but which is always kept vague, heterogeneous and fluctuating in a democracy, now becomes a singular, clear and permanent will. All individuals and individual projects or interests are identified with a collective project. Everything which is in accord with this project, is part of the people; everything else is not – is foreign, alien, “entartet”, bourgeois or capitalist – and must be destroyed. If it’s the whole of the people that works towards a certain project, then those with another opinion are enemies of the people and have to be destroyed to protect the people and its project.

That is the origin of the genocidal nature of all totalitarian governments but also of their less extreme forms of exclusion of the other. Every internal division is seen as external. The other is not part of the people. Society isn’t divided but is divided from its enemies. Every sign of internal division is externalized: dissidents are foreign spies, the other is a member of the international jewish conspiracy, a tool of international capitalism, the fifth column etc. For example, long after it was clear that the attack on Hitler in 1939 was the work of a single German individual (Georg Elser) the nazis maintained that the British secret service was to blame. The other attack by von Stauffenberg in 1944 was framed as the work of aristocratic officers who were alienated from the German people. This division between internal and external is consciously cultivated because it confirms the image of the people as a unified whole. If real foreign spies or class enemies can’t be found then they are created. and duly suppressed. Hence everyone can become the enemy, even the most loyal followers.

The fixed will of the people is subsequently represented by the party and the state. The party doesn’t represent a majority, but the people. Hence, other parties have no reason to exist. All people and the whole of the people are represented by a single party. And since this party perfectly represents a perfectly clear and unified popular will, it can infiltrate all parts of society: school, church, labor union, factory, the press, the judiciary, the arts and all other social organizations cease to be independent. The party is everywhere and submits every organization to its will. It believes it can do so because its will is the will of the people. And the party uses the means of the state to be everywhere: the secret service, the department of communications, the police… As a result, the state is also everywhere. Totalitarian government simultaneously bans people to the private sphere – all free and deviant public actions and expressions are forbidden – and destroys the private sphere, to the point that people can’t even trust their friends and family. All private actions are potentially public. Wiretapping, surveillance, public confessions… Even the most private things of all, your own thoughts, are attacked by way of propaganda and indoctrination. Totalitarianism strives for total control of private and public life. All spontaneous and independent individual or social projects are doomed unless they are completely trivial. They can only survive when they are part of the common project, because they make sense only when they are part. When they are not, they are potentially in opposition to the common project.

But we should understand that the identification of the party with the state is only temporary. The state in fact is bound to disappear. That becomes clear when we consider the imperialism that is typical of totalitarianism (to a lesser degree in the case of China). By definition, the projects of totalitarian governments – racial supremacy or a classless society – go beyond the borders of a state. Aryans aren’t only meant to rule within the borders of Germany. They deserve global supremacy in part because they are the best race and in part because the Jews are a worldwide threat. And the classless society can’t exist when it is surrounded by a capitalist world; the proletariat in other countries also deserves to rule.

Totalitarianism is a form of rule that goes beyond the state. A particular state is just a convenient tool for a certain stage in the popular project. The people as well is a concept that goes beyond the group of citizens of a given state. There are also Aryans and workers in other states. In non-totalitarian dictatorships, political rule is essentially tied to the state. A normal dictator may attack other countries, but will do so while enhancing his state or expanding his country. His rule will never go beyond the rule of a state, suitably redefined if necessary. If necessary he’ll redraw the boundaries of the state, but he will never go beyond the state as such. Totalitarian rule, on the other hand, is ultimately larger than the state. It’s the rule of a race or a class, on a potentially global level.

As the people and the state are subject to the rule of the party, so the party is subject to the rule of one individual. The leader makes sure that the party remains unified, because a divided party can’t claim to represent a unified people. So there’s a series of identifications going on: the people is identified with a class or a race; this unified people is then identified with the party that represents it; the party in turn identifies itself with the state because it (temporarily) needs the tools of the state to realize its project (class rule or race rule); the state then takes over society and identifies with it; and ultimately a single leader takes over everything in order to guarantee unity.

The people are like a collective individual, a body with a head controlling all its coordinated movements. State terror and genocide can then be seen as the body removing sickness and parasites. The other is often explicitly identified as parasitical or infectious. Violence and oppression are medicines used to safeguard the integrity of the body of the people and their purpose. The Great Purge wasn’t called a purge by accident. The Jews weren’t depicted as pestilent rats for no reason.

The image of the body also means prophylaxis: why wait with punishment until the crime is committed? We know that certain persons are enemies of the people. Crime in the sense of opposition to the project of the people is a fatality for them, sooner or later. There may be good Jews, but we can’t take the risk that they marry an Aryan and defile the race. And some capitalists may be less harmful than others, but why wait until their presence undermines collectivization or until they betray the country and invite an invasion?

Totalitarian government isn’t like a normal lawless and arbitrary dictatorship. Of course, the laws under totalitarian government are regularly broken or changed to serve certain goals. But there are deeper laws that the totalitarian government has to protect, namely the laws of nature (in the case of Nazism, and more specifically the laws of natural selection) and the laws of history (in the case of communism, more specifically the laws that say that economic and industrial development will necessarily destroy capitalism and inaugurate communist production). Those “deeper” laws aren’t human laws; they are historical laws that drive mankind towards the realization of the project that animates totalitarianism. Totalitarian government serves to facilitate and fasten the operation of those deeper laws. Jews are exterminated because that promotes the ultimate and inevitable supremacy of Aryans. Capitalists, bourgeois, kulaks etc. are exterminated (or reeducated in order to become communists) because that promotes the ultimate and inevitable supremacy of the proletariat (the proletariat is doomed to rule given the evolution of capitalism, but its rule can be hastened).

There is no “regis voluntas suprema lex” as in previous forms of despotism. The legal lawlessness covers a deeper lawfulness. Legal laws have to be adapted to best serve the deeper laws. If terror and violence are required for the realization and hastening of the evolution postulated by the deeper laws, then the legal laws will mandate and require terror and violence. Terror and violence don’t only serve to intimidate, destroy opposition, isolate people from one another and coerce compliance. They serve the project of the people.

I think all this justifies grouping Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Mao-era China under a separate form of government. That doesn’t mean that everything about those regimes was new and typical only of totalitarian government. Obviously, genocides, terror, show trials etc. have occurred before and since. Those are not inventions of Hitler, Stalin or Mao. There are historical parallels, just as there are parallels between contemporary art and ancient art, but still we prefer to distinguish these two forms of art. We have to look beyond the phenomenology of despotic regimes throughout history, and identify the particular logic of different forms of despotism.

What Are Human Rights? (44): External Constraints on Politics, Means of Politics, or Objects of Politics?

inside/outside by Ronen Berka

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People describe and define human rights in lots of ways, but perhaps the most common definition is this: human rights are external constraints on politics. They determine the boundaries that political action – action by both authoritarian rulers and democratic majorities – should not cross. I want to use the metaphor of the ring to clarify this, because that will help us later on in this post. Political action – including legislation – is constrained by a ring of rights:

This definition – let’s call it definition 1 - places human rights squarely outside of and even prior to politics. This is why oppressive actions by authoritarian rulers who have not enacted human rights law can still be condemned by human rights talk. If rights were just a part of politics, this wouldn’t be possible because they would be on the same level as authoritarian politics and they would therefore lack constraining power. (Of course, it is a fact that human rights often fail to constrain, but I’m dealing here with the moral and not factual status of human rights).

The same logic applies to democratic governments that have enacted human rights law: their actions as well should, ideally, stay within a realm defined by a ring of rights. The difference with authoritarian governments is that democracies have more efficient extra-political means to keep their governments within the ring, at least some of the time (for example judicial review; in the case of authoritarian governments there are also means – such as foreign intervention, rebellion etc., but those are normally a lot less effective).

So that’s definition 1, and it’s good as far as it goes. The problem is that it doesn’t quite capture the essence of human rights in a democracy. Rights are not just or not merely outside of politics in a democracy – they are intrinsic to it. Democratic politics can’t function without human rights; rather than external constraints on politics, rights in a democracy are essential means of politics. They are the foundation on which democratic politics can function. That may be obvious in the case of some rights – no democratic politics without free speech, assembly or association rights and the right to vote – but it’s true for all rights (for example, I argued here that violations of the right not to be tortured can undo democracy).

So let’s call this definition 2 and represent it like this:

The ring has become the foundation. Now, it may look as if these two definitions are contradictory and incompatible: something is either an external constraint or a means, but never both. However, rights should be both: we need rights as foundations and means of democratic politics, but at the same time we want rights to be able to constrain democratic politics when necessary (for example when the majority wants to violate rights). I think we can have both.

Things get more complicated when we consider a third definition: rights as objects of politics. The two previous definitions assume that rights are uncontroversial, but that is untrue. Human rights are objects of frequent and reasonable disagreements. They are not self-evident, God-given or axiomatic. They need justifications and arguments, and different people will have different justifications and hence different definitions of rights. The only way to deal with these disagreements is through politics: discuss them in public, and let the majority vote. (E.g. should work be a right, should unemployment insurance be, should incitement be protected as free speech? etc.) As a result, the width and strength of the ring of rights changes over time:

One could argue that it’s not up to politics to decide these disagreements, and that instead a constitutional court should deal with them. However, we know from experience that this doesn’t work: politics will continue to interfere, either directly through legislation or indirectly by way of interference with the workings of the court.

And there’s an even more fundamental problem. Definition 3 looks like it’s incompatible with definitions 1 and 2. If rights are supposed to function as constraints on politics, then we shouldn’t place rights within the political process which they should constrain. When we allow rights to become objects of politics then majorities can easily destroy the  constraints that bind them. Similarly, when majorities are allowed to vote on the fundamental means of politics they may well decide to destroy those means.

The solution is not the removal of rights from politics – that’s both illusory and undesirable – but rather the creation of a distinction within politics: normal political decisions should be absolutely constrained by human rights and should respect rights as the fundamental means of politics; and then there is constitutional politics, which is a periodical – and not a day-to-day – form of politics that tackles society’s basic rules, including human rights. Normal majoritarian procedures don’t apply here. Special majorities are required as well as other safeguards against the destruction of rights.

More posts in this series are here.

The Causes of Human Rights Violations (44): Corruption

Corruption, or “the misuse of public office for private gain”, is immoral and bad in numerous ways, but it’s not a human rights violation. At least not as such. To my knowledge, human rights law doesn’t contain an explicit right not to suffer the consequences of corruption. However, it is the case that corruption causes various rights violations. For example, it can often be viewed as a form of theft and hence a violation of the right to private property. And in the case of corruption in the justice system, the right to a fair trial is violated.

Moreover, corruption has a negative impact on GDP (see here) – mainly because it’s a tax on investment – and hence also on poverty reduction (given the correlation between GDP and poverty reduction, see here, here and here). And there is a right not to suffer poverty. Corruption also has an impact on poverty on the level of individuals rather than countries. It’s obvious that individuals – especially those who are poor or near the poverty line – can make better use of the funds that they have to spend on bribes.

Furthermore, corruption eats away at the rule of law. Even in the most corrupt countries, corruption is usually illegal. If illegal activity becomes normal practice, the rule of law is obviously undermined, with possible consequences for judicial protection in general, including protection of human rights. The rule of law is also harmed directly by corruption, namely by corruption inside the judiciary and the police force, and this has an immediate impact on human rights. Even more seriously, corruption is associated with political instability since it tends to reduce citizens’ trust and faith in institutions. It can therefore destroy democracy, and democracy is both a human right and a means to protect human rights in general.

So, if we can agree that corruption is a cause of various human rights violations, then the question is: who is responsible for corruption and hence for the rights violations occurring because of it? I would say that it’s the government officials taking bribes (and possibly the banks safeguarding the proceeds) rather than the private persons or companies paying the bribes, at least in general. The latter would presumably prefer not to pay bribes and often find themselves in situations in which they have no choice.

Now, you could say that some corrupt officials, especially those at the lower levels of government, don’t have a choice either: without the proceeds of corruption they may well end up in poverty. Demanding bribes is then the alternative for a failed economy and a failed state. However, I think it’s fair to claim that they still have, in general, a wider set of options than many of those having to pay bribes. If you’re stopped by the police and they ask you for a bribe, it seems that your options are more constrained than the options of the police asking for the bribe. It seems easier for the police to find additional non-corrupt sources of income than it is for you to escape the demands of the police. Of course, this isn’t the case in all types of corruption. For example, a large multinational company may find it relatively easy to pay a bribe, and may have more options than the official who’s asking the bribe (and it may very well solicit the payment of the bribe in the first place as a way to outsmart competitor companies).

cartoon by Michael Kountouris

(source)

Next question: what to do about it? Everyone agrees that corruption is bad, and many believe that it’s bad for human rights, but almost no one seems to know how to stop it. And it is, indeed, a problem that is as old as history. One thing we could do is spell out the issue of corruption more clearly in terms of human rights. However, human rights claims by the victims of corruption are probably not very effective, since one consequence of corruption is the weakening or destruction of the judicial institutions necessary for the enforcement of human rights. In that sense, linking corruption and human rights may seem futile or at least of limited practical use.

However, human rights claims aren’t just legal claims that depend on functioning and non-corrupt institutions to be enforced. They are also moral claims and they can have some effect as such. They can be used to denounce widespread systems of corruption and thereby help to change a culture and a mentality, especially over the long run. But moral claims will not destroy endemic corruption by themselves. Countries that suffer high degrees of corruption probably need external help in institution building. Also, economic development will probably reduce corruption, given the correlation cited above between low levels of GDP and high levels of corruption. Helping countries to develop will then also help them to fight corruption.

This is an interesting talk about ways to fight corruption (the relevant part starts around the 5th minute):

More on governance and corruption. More posts in this series.

Related Articles

• Human Rights Watch: Police Corruption in Nigeria (huffingtonpost.com)
• Report: Bribes fuel corruption in Nigeria police (sfgate.com)

What is Democracy? (63): Rule of the People, and Not Just of a Part of the People

Voter turnout rates are a constant worry for proponents of democracy. Wherever voting is not compulsory – and that covers the majority of democracies – large numbers of voters choose not to exercise their right to vote, ever. (And it is a right, by the way). Even if it’s wrong to take this as a rejection of democracy – it’s quite possible for an individual to like living in a democracy and at the same time choose not to participate (he or she may count on others to make it work) - it’s not a sign of a strong and widespread endorsement either. It’s probably just indifference and lack of enthusiasm for democracy. But why should we worry about this? Why would we, ideally, want to see higher rates of participation? Is it not enough for the highly committed to vote? Can’t we leave the others alone and stop moralizing?

Many would answer those latter questions affirmatively, and say that there’s really nothing to worry about for one of these three reasons:

1. There are those who argue that “the common people” should not vote anyway because they are ignorant. So it’s good if they don’t. As a matter of fact, turnout rates should even be lower than they are today given the general lack of knowledge.
2. Others say that it’s not the people’s fault that they don’t vote; they don’t because they don’t have a choice and because they don’t have a choice they shouldn’t be pushed into voting. Politicians are all alike, at least in their actions, and no single politician accurately represents all the different opinions that single voters may hold.
3. And then there are those who claim that voting doesn’t make a difference because there are simply too many votes and a single one almost never tips the scales. Rational people, they say, have better things to do with their time and should be free not to vote.

Here’s a short and hasty reply to these “stay at home” arguments, with some links to more elaborate replies:

1. Is it really so difficult to understand that ignorance – to the extent that it is common – is the result of rather than a reason for non-participation, and that participation creates knowledge?
2. Also, we could perhaps ask the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan, or the millions of US citizens without health insurance whether voting for one guy rather than the other does indeed make no difference at all. And to the extent that there is sometimes a lack of difference, we should make the case to politicians that rather than chasing the median voter they should take their roles as “authors and not actors” more seriously.
3. Finally, isn’t voting about more than bean counting? Even if your individual vote doesn’t tip the scales, can’t you have other reasons to vote? E.g. express yourself, make yourself heard, form associations, shape you identity? Etc. The “drop in the ocean” argument against voting can also be recast as an argument in favor of more power for local and small scale government: if a single vote doesn’t make a lot of difference, then instead of telling people not to vote, we can just as well change the denominator: reduce the total population that decides a certain matter by making democracy more local.

Another problem with the “stay at home” arguments: if large numbers of people don’t vote, then they will have to abide by laws that they didn’t approve, that are tailored to the interests of others and that are likely damaging to their own interests. There are two ways of replying to this:

• Either people will decide to vote if they see that their nonparticipation starts to hurt them – as long as they don’t participate they accept the consequences.
• Or some people ruling over others is something that happens all the time in a system of majority vote and that is not limited to the situation in which groups don’t vote. However, majorities and minorities are always different – depending on the issue at stake – whereas non-voters tend to be an unchanging block. The latter always bear the brunt. For example, if poor people tend not to vote, do they really have a right to complain when non-poor voters approve the dismantling of the welfare state?

Even for those who do vote, there are some risks attached to the presence of large and possibly increasing numbers of non-voters. If a lot of people decide not to vote, then why should we have to retain democracy for those who do vote? Maybe non-voters are right in their rejection of democracy and then we should get rid of it altogether. That wouldn’t necessarily be in the interest of those who vote.

Those are some of the reasons to worry about voter turnout rates. For a lighter touch, here are a few numbers about voter turnout during the last US presidential election, from Der Spiegel (remember that the German word for “citizen” is “burger”):

(source, hat tip Florian)

There’s also this:

(source)

What is Democracy? (62): Impossible?

When you start to think about it, democracy looks more and more like an impossible form of government. And this happens not only when you conceptualize it in a maximalist manner – although its impossibility obviously becomes more and more apparent with each additional requirement we impose on it. This is disconcerting for those of us who believe democracy is worth having.

Let’s begin with democracy in its most basic form: a system of government that is supposedly best equipped to help people protect their interests. In the words of John Stuart Mill:

that the rights and interests of every or any person are only secure from being disregarded when the person interested is himself able, and habitually disposed to stand up for them. (source)

Here we already run into problems. What are people’s interests and how exactly do they “stand up for them”? Take the example of alcohol: people have an interest in not suffering the bad consequences of alcohol abuse, either their own abuse or that of others. That sounds simple enough, but upon reflection it’s not so easy to define this interest correctly, let alone act efficiently on the basis of it. At some point in time, the potential or actual alcoholic may believe it is in his interest to have laws that make it impossible for him to buy alcohol. At other points in time, this may seem too harsh and he may believe that it’s better for him to try to restrain himself. After all, a real cure for (potential) alcoholism is inner conviction, not outside coercion. Coercion will simply drive the market underground. But then again, alcohol abuse destroys the inner conviction that is necessary to stop it. So, what to do? Is it in his interest to vote for prohibition and solve the problem of deficiency of conviction? Or is it in his interest to trust human agency?

Hence a first difficulty with the basic model of democracy is the determination of the interests that democracy should serve and of the policies that are best suited to protect these interests. Lot’s of possible choices, value judgments and empirical facts come into play, including facts about future consequences. Moreover, thinking about and examining the facts won’t suffice: testing, trial and error etc. are also necessary.

Hence a second problem: even if interests and the policies that best promote these interests can be clearly determined, it’s not necessarily true that the people are best placed to do this. Experts may be more likely to hit the mark. But how to select the experts? We can’t let the people select them, because if the people were able to select them then they would need to be experts themselves. We can’t just let the experts select themselves, because then everyone could claim to be an expert. Peer selection is also fraught with problems: who’s a peer? How to select the peers?

A third problem: most of us believe, correctly, that people should not simply pursue their self-interest – if that is something they are even able to do. People are expected to discover the common interest as well as those policies most likely to realize the common interest. The common interest can be defined in several ways, but in one interpretation it’s that which is best according to moral standards about justice, rights etc. We also don’t believe that this common interest and those moral standards result automatically from effective self-interested actions.

Here we have exactly the same difficulties as with self-interest: what is the common interest, and which policies serve it best? Arguably the problem here is even more difficult: one’s self-interest is probably less complex, and one is at least motivated to determine it. Obviously, this doesn’t guarantee success – as I argued above – but success in matters of morality and justice is even further away. If even the best philosophers can’t agree on these matters, how could ordinary citizens?

Fourth problem: even if all this is doable in theory, wouldn’t it require an enormous effort? Do people have the time to do all this, or would doing it require the sacrifice of other goals that may be just as important or even more important from a moral point of view? One could argue that the refusal to participate in democracy is a moral requirement given the cost and effort required by democracy. Even voting and participating in an uninformed manner seems to require too much of too many. 

Fifth problem: even if all of the problems above could somehow be overcome, there are huge practical problems involved in allowing large numbers of people to vote on issues. Hence, deliberation about interests, justice, laws and policies takes place not in preparation of a vote on the substance of the matter but in preparation of the election of politicians who in turn will vote on the substance. This results in an additional problem: once – or better if – the people have decided on matters of interest, justice, law and policy, they’ll have to select those politicians most likely to hold the same views. That, obviously, is a problem. Not only can politicians pretend to hold certain views and do something completely different once in office. It’s also unlikely that people find a politician that holds all the good views. Hence, people have to elect politicians who will, predictably, implement some wrong views. This leads to a conclusion in favor of votes on issues rather than votes on people. In other words, a conclusion in favor of direct democracy. However, this type of democracy imposes even more duties on citizens and raises a whole new set of difficulties.

(source)

So the conclusion seems to be that democracy is a poor system for generating laws and policies that effectively protect both people’s interests and the common interest. We can try to save democracy by arguing that the problems cited above aren’t caused by democracy and aren’t limited to democracy. They are what life is about: “what is my self-interest” is just another way of asking ”what do I want in life”? And people seem to have a hard time ignoring the big questions about morality and justice. The problems don’t go away when democracy goes away. If it’s clear how difficult the problems are for democracy, it’s not at all clear how they are less difficult for other forms of government.

I admit, that is a weak defense of democracy, so more needs to be said. We could, for instance, argue that problems 1 to 3 above are knowledge problems. Now, I’ve argued before that democracy has certain things going for it in that respect. The massive participation in open and free public discussion typical of a democracy makes it possible to show, examine and argue for points of view, and this in turn can lead to a filtering out of weak points of view and a selection of the better ones. In other words, democracy may be able to solve the knowledge problems that seem to render it impossible. In addition, problems 4 and 5 above also don’t look fatal to me: they are of a practical nature and can perhaps be solved by technological developments and increased productivity.

If all that’s the case, then democracy may not be as bad after all.

For My American Readers: Should You Vote Tomorrow, or Would That Be a Complete Waste of Time?

[This is an old blogpost, slightly modified and reposted on the occasion of the Presidential election in the U.S. tomorrow.]

The odds that your vote will actually affect the outcome of an election are very small. Close elections are very rare, and even rarer are those in which one vote is pivotal. So it doesn’t make a difference whether you participate or not. In light of this, it’s a small miracle that turnouts are as high as they are, and it’s ridiculous for people to lament a turnout that’s “only” 60%.

Clearly, people know that their votes don’t affect the outcome – at least most of the time – and vote for other reasons than a mere sense of responsibility. But what reasons? Signaling is certainly part of it. People vote because they are more than individuals. They identify with others, they want to belong and they want to be part of a “movement” or party that has a certain set of beliefs. Voting makes them such a part, and hence gives them an identity and a cause. Let’s not forget that an identity is highly dependent on expression and on recognition of this expression by others. Elections, even with a secret vote, are highly effective tools for the production of identity. The seemingly meaningless and futile vote of an individual becomes quite meaningful when aggregated with the votes of like-minded individuals.

It’s only when you adopt an economic and reductionist view of people, in which individuals only pursue their self-interest, that you cannot make sense of apparently silly behavior such as voting in which the costs (transport, risk, time etc.) outweigh the immediate benefits (if any).

There’s also the mysterious force of the “if-everyone-were-doing-this” rule, which we apply regularly. (It’s a variation on the Kantian categorical imperative: it is immoral to act on a maxim that we cannot imagine everyone else acting on). Throwing one piece of garbage in the park is almost absolutely harmless. Someone will clean it, and if not no one will notice. And yet most of us just don’t do it because “if everyone was doing it” – which they are not – it would be hell, and that’s how we teach our kids not to do it. And they understand. And they – or most of them – listen and don’t do it. Part of the reason why this rule works is the force of example. We don’t want to give a bad example because when people follow it, we will suffer, even though we may in the short run benefit from doing what we shouldn’t.

Similarly, when a certain number of voters believe that their vote doesn’t make much of a difference and isn’t worth the cost of participating, then they give a bad example which can be followed by large numbers of people. As a result, the usefulness of the remaining votes increases, and these votes will then determine the behavior of the rest of the population. People will be ruled by a minority with perhaps harmful views. So in order not to find themselves in this situation which is detrimental to most people, most people choose to vote.

A better way to express this idea:

The idea is not that one person’s decision to forgo voting would crash the system—how would that possibly happen?—but that it is immoral to act on a maxim that we cannot imagine everyone else acting on. So if I … will abstain from voting because the costs of voting outweigh the benefits, I will first need to see if the maxim passes a test implicit in Kant’s categorical imperative. I ought not act in accordance with the maxim if it fails the test.

So let’s see: can I universalise the non-voting maxim? Can I imagine living in a world in which every eligible voter opts for a nap or a game of Temple Run in lieu of going to the polls? No. The logic of American democracy does not support such a universalised principle. No one votes, no one is elected, a moment of constitutional failure brings an emergency convention in which unelected delegates draft a new constitution calling for an alternate system of specifying leaders that doesn’t involve the public. The franchise, and America as we know it, disappears. Since the logic of the system cannot be sustained were everyone to adopt the nap-over-voting maxim, I am morally bound not to act on it.

Now, again, the force of Kant’s argument is not empirical: you don’t need to show that a decision not to vote will actually bring a constitutional doomsday. You just need to show that if universalised it would. (source)

So, drag yourself outside tomorrow, if necessary, and do your duty, which is a duty both to your community and to yourself.

What Are Human Rights? (37): Do Human Rights Point Downwards or Upwards?

Up and down, by M.C. Escher

A common but, in my opinion, shortsighted view of human rights is the following: human rights are minimal standards. They serve to avoid the terrible rather than to achieve the best. Hence, they point downwards rather than upwards. They are the lower limits of tolerable human conduct, not high aims, ideals or utopian visions. They protect us against the worst things that can happen to us, but they don’t help us to achieve the best things that should happen to us. They limit the depths to which governments and our fellow human beings can sink, but they don’t promote the heights we can reach.

If we limit our understanding of human rights to all this, then it’s difficult to integrate the view that human rights are necessary for the search of truth, and that democracy – a human right – is a way of life. Human rights do in fact – also – point upwards. They set a lower limit of tolerable human conduct, and they also point towards higher possibilities and human perfection. This perfection, of course, they will never deliver like they never deliver full protection from horror, but they help us on the way.

More on the dimensions of human rights is here. More on human rights and progress is here. More on utopian thought is here.

Why Do Countries Become/Remain Democracies? Or Don’t? (22): Arab Democracy, an Oxymoron? Ctd.

I already wrote about and dismissed the claim that Islam is the main reason why democracy seems to fail in Arab countries (see here). Now I’ve found a new study that seems to support my argument:

The Arab world’s so-called “democracy deficit” is not tied to the Islamic religion but rather to the Arab world’s history and the institutions introduced following conquest by Arab armies over 1000 years ago. (source)

Territories conquered by Arab armies during the Middle Ages still have weak civil societies and strong states today. Countries that are predominantly Muslim today but outside of this area of medieval conquest are not more or less democratic than the average country.

If this is true, then we can be somewhat optimistic about the possibility of real democracies emerging from the Arab Spring. If Islam were the problem, we could forget about democracy.

However, I have my doubts about the importance and validity of this explanation. It’s not the historical distance of the causal link that troubles me. You may be skeptical about the long-lasting effects of events that occurred centuries ago, but I think such effects are commonly accepted in other areas: the slave trade still causes poverty in Africa to this day, and poverty and inequality in present-day Peru for example are partly the result of the mita system of the Spanish colonizers.

What troubles me is that I can see other, more or equally important reasons for the democratic deficit in Arab countries: the resource curse, foreign intervention (motivated by the FOTA principle) and, yes, some elements of Islam (Islam’s hostility to equality, to the separation of state and church etc.). The latter point should not be understood as implying fatalism with regard to the prospect of democracy: Islam is only one causal element among many, and it’s a cause that can be eliminated. After all, Catholicism as well was once believed to be an insurmountable obstacle to democracy.

More posts in this series are here.

What is Democracy? (61): A Euphemism for the Rule of Some Over Others?

(source)

How can a system of majority rule be called the rule of the people? There are always winners and losers and the majority rules over the minority. Even democracy is therefore a system of coercion, domination and the separation between rulers and ruled. The majority coerces the minority so that it respects its decisions. The power to set rules that other people can be coerced to obey by threat of penalty is the power to control other people’s lives, and that’s morally questionable. Calling it a democracy doesn’t change the fundamental problem.

Hence, a real democracy seems to require a system of decision by unanimity. In any other system there are always people who do not decide and who do not have autonomy or freedom in the sense of control over their own lives. Is there a difference between being ruled by one person and being ruled by the majority? Not really I guess, just that in the latter case domination is harder to see.

However, unanimity is usually not feasible, and is probably undesirable as well. If anything, democracy promotes plurality. Unanimity, or better apparent and enforced unanimity, is more typical of authoritarianism and is therefore hardly a better route to freedom.

Perhaps we can solve this problem in the following way. In a democracy, there is a majority whose wishes are given priority at a certain moment, but only temporarily. And there is a minority whose wishes are temporarily rejected. The minority’s wishes can always be presented to the general public, even after a decision has been made. These wishes can be promoted and defended, and they can perhaps become a new and future will of the majority. The majority and minority are not fixed groups, and they differ over space as well as over time: for each issue or decision, the majorities and minorities are different. In a well-functioning democracy, no one is part of a permanent and crosscutting majority or minority.

These two attributes of majority rule – possibility to change the majority over time, and separate majority decisions for as many problems as possible – maximize the chances that every individual can fulfill as many of his or her desires as possible. Unanimity rule would seem to offer a 100% chance, but given that unanimity is not realistic, majority rule is the best we can get. It guarantees that as many people as possible can fulfill as many of their desires as possible, because everyone is in the majority for some decisions and even when they’re not they can become so in the future. The minority, the group of persons supposedly living under the rule of the majority, is not a homogenous or unchanging group. It always consists of other persons and this makes the yoke of the minority a bit easier to carry.

(source unknown)

However, that is only true in a well-functioning democracy. Asymmetric power relations in non-ideal democracies can increase some groups’ chances of being in the majority. If they have a lot of money or good lobbyists, they can steer decisions towards their wishes. And that can bring back the specter of the rule of men over men. Furthermore, demographics can be such that certain ethnic or linguistic minorities are permanently relegated to the political minority, for instance when the majority ethnic group consistently votes as a block and against the interests of the minority. In that case, democracy will have to provide some form of political autonomy or federal self-rule to the minority.

Another way out of the problem of majority rule is to argue that all rights, including the right of a majority to decide political matters, imply the power to control the lives of others. My right to property gives me the right to exclude others from it; my right to free speech gives me the right to stop others from violating my freedom of speech, etc.

More posts in this series are here.

What is Democracy? (60): Is Separation of Powers Compatible With All Types of Democracy?

Westminster, London

(source unknown)

OK, that question is probably way too ambitious for a blogpost. There are dozens of types of democracy, so let’s just look at two types: presidential democracy and parliamentary democracy (PrD and PaD for short in what remains). And that means not only limiting the scope of the investigation but also simplifying it: there are many different types of PrD or PaD (the Westminster model is one form of PaD, the US system is one form of PrD). But that’s what you have to do if you want to keep your blogposts relatively short and readable.

Moreover, separation of powers is an enormously complex topic as well, so again I’ll have to simplify. I’ll focus on two of the three powers that are traditionally distinguished: the executive and the legislative powers and ask how separation between these two powers is compatible with PrD and PaD.

First, why is separation between these two powers an important value? For the same reason that separation of powers in general is important: to create checks and balances and to pit different powers of the state against each other so that there is less risk of tyrannical government and collusion of different powers against the people. The executive power, which normally executes the laws voted by the legislative power, usually also has a veto power against certain acts of legislation in order to limit the risk of oppressive or unjust legislation. Sometimes, when it gets very bad, the executive can also disband the legislative power and provoke new elections. Conversely, the legislative power often has the power to demand accountability and transparency from the executive power. If the legislative believes that the executive power acts in impermissible ways it can vote laws that make those acts illegal. And so on.

What are the main differences between PrD and PaD? In a PrD – where you have of course also a parliament – the executive power is elected directly by popular vote. People elect a president and this president selects her government. The people also elect members of parliament in separate elections.

In a PaD, the executive isn’t elected directly by the people. The people elect only the members of parliament. The political party (or parties) that manage to get a majority of elected members of parliament then form a government (often after coalition negotiations between parties when there isn’t one party that has managed to acquire a majority of representatives in parliament).

A PrD seems better able to respect the separation between the executive and legislative powers. A president doesn’t sit in parliament and doesn’t rely on the approval of the legislative for her political survival and hence she is unlikely to always have the same views as the legislative majority. Checks and balances can work. She has an independent mandate from the people and she can have a view that’s different from the view of the parliamentary majority. In PaD, the executive is a product of a parliamentary majority. It’s often even composed of some members of the parliamentary majority who sit both in the government and in parliament. Therefore, it isn’t common in a PaD for the executive to counteract the legislative or vice versa. In a PaD, these two powers are more or less the same. The executive is the parliamentary majority and parliament as such is systematically in agreement with the executive. It’s only the parliamentary minority that can voice opposition. But that’s it: it has a voice but it can’t effectively block executive initiatives, since it’s merely a minority. The act of legislation often originates in the executive that in fact has the power to enact whatever legislation it wants since it automatically has the support of the parliamentary majority. Why is that the case? Members of the parliamentary majority who aren’t part of the executive are often second rate party members who are easily persuaded to approve the legislative initiatives of the executive because their political career depends on the support from the senior party members who make up the executive. For the same reasons, the accountability and transparency requirements are often sidestepped because the parliamentary majority doesn’t want to embarrass the executive.

So, PaD abandons part of the separation of powers in order to gain efficiency. Parliamentary systems, compared to presidential systems, can act in a more decisive and a quicker manner (in theory at least). In a PrD, the president can block legislation coming from parliament or can have her legislative proposals voted down by a parliamentary majority.

However, this efficiency advantage of PaD compared to PrD is often lost when coalitions are necessary. This is why some parliamentary systems avoid proportional representation – which tends to produce more than two political parties with representatives in parliament – and use some kind of district system combined with first-past-the-post elections – which tends to lead to two party systems and hence avoids the need for coalitions.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that PaD doesn’t have any separation of powers at all. It usually has an independent judiciary that can act as a counterweight and that can use for example judicial review to invalidate laws that are incompatible with the constitution. So it really isn’t easy to say which system is preferable. Efficiency is perhaps just as important as separation. Yet the direct election of the executive, which is typical of PrD and also the basis of many of the advantages of PrD compared to PaD, generates more popular control and hence more democracy, and that is important as well. And finally. PrDs are more stable. So on balance I think I prefer PrD.

What is Democracy? (59): A Money Hole

At least in the US, it seems:

election costs include all major candidates' spending and cost of primaries, when known; they do not include outside spending

(source)

Barack Obama felt that he had to spent $730 million to win the 2008 election. That’s roughly the GDP of Timor-Leste.

The so-called killer argument of those in favor of unlimited election spending is that the cost of a ticket to the White House hasn’t kept up with US GDP, as if it should keep up with US GDP:

(source)

I see absolutely no reason why a slower growth of campaign spending compared to the growth of GDP should automatically deflate our worries about campaign spending. After all, it’s not as if a country needs to spend more on elections as it becomes richer. On the contrary. If campaign spending is defended as a means to inform the public, then one could counter with the fact that people in wealthy countries tend to be better educated and to have good access to modern information sources. Hence, they don’t need to be “informed” by political parties or candidates, especially not if this “information” takes the form of a deluge of hatefilled ads and lying propaganda. The absolute level of campaign spending should remain a worry, wether or not it’s higher or lower than GDP or any other unrelated indicator.

And before you ask: yes, money in politics is a problem, and more money means more problems. If you’re not convinced try some older posts here, here, here, here and here.

Also, it goes without saying but I say it anyway: money is an issue in all types of elections, not only presidential ones. A record $6 billion will be spent on the 2012 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Adjusted for inflation, that’s 60% more than the 2000 elections (source).

More posts in this series are here.

Limiting Free Speech (48): Equal Influence, Money in Politics, and “Citizens United”

Citizens United cartoon by RJ Matson

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The US Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United correctly emphasized the importance of free speech in a democracy. (There’s a thorough discussion of this point here). Free speech serves to expose government corruption and is the means to hold governments accountable to the people. The people also need free speech to deliberate on possible policies and on the respective merits of political parties, candidates and incumbents. The latter in turn need free speech to make their point and attract support and members. And, finally, political assembly, protest and organization require speech.

So it’s fair to say that no democracy can function without free speech. It’s also important, as noted by the Court, that this speech right should not be limited to individuals. Organizations, such as corporations, labor unions, pressure groups etc. should also enjoy this right. They are, after, all, collections of individuals who may want to exercise their free speech rights in common.

However, this is precisely the main problem in the Court’s decision: politics is already heavily dependent on corporate funding. Giving corporations an unlimited right to marshal their substantive resources for corporate political speech would only increase the influence of money on politics. Enormous amounts of money are already necessary in order to win elections in our present-day democracies, especially in the U.S. Candidates have no choice but to accept contributions from those members of society who have the money, and those are generally private corporations. There’s a persistent feeling that candidates can be “bought” and that, as a result of contributions, the interests of large donors receive disproportionate government attention. This may or may not be corruption, but it flies in the face of democratic ideals that tell us that it’s the people who rule, not large donors.

The Citizens United decision seems to make this situation worse by stating that corporations have an unlimited right to engage in political speech and that they can, for example, fund political commercials endorsing or attacking a candidate. As such, this right should not be controversial since it’s part of the right to free speech. However, many people fear, rightly in my opinion, that corporate speech, because it can use disproportionate financial resources, will drown out the voices of everyday citizens and give corporations a role that’s even more important than the one they have already managed to secure for themselves through campaign contributions. Hence some form of limit on corporate spending should be possible. And this applies to both campaign contributions and corporate political advocacy in favor or against certain candidates. Corporations would keep their speech rights, of course, but we would simply limit the amounts of money they could spend on their political speech. In fact, rather than a limitation of speech as such, this is merely a limitation of the amplification of speech.

corporate interests cartoon by Clay Bennett

(source)

Now, it’s in the nature of speech in general that some voices drown out others. Some people have more interesting things to say, some are not interested in saying anything, some are better at speaking or are better educated, and some have more resources or time to speak. However, we do generally try to equalize speech in some way, even in ordinary life. We have rules on etiquette and politeness. We think it’s better if people speak in turns, for instance. We don’t allow the best speakers to monopolize everyday discourse. Also, we subsidize education, and one of the reasons why we do that is to give people the ability to speak their minds.

We usually try to do something similar in politics. Democracy is the ideal of the rule of the people. That means that everyone’s influence on politics should be more or less equal. It’s useless to adopt a principle like “one man one vote” if afterwards we allow asymmetrical speech power to dramatically increase the political weight of one vote over another. We know that this ideal of equal influence is impossible to attain, and yet we try to make influence as equal as we can. Limits on campaign spending and financing are part of that effort: a candidate should not be allowed to dramatically outspend other candidates because that would give him or her a disproportionate influence over the voting public. For the same reason, donors should not be allowed to contribute excessive amounts to a single candidate, because then that candidate would be able to outspend other candidates. Now, why not limit corporate advocacy spending as well?

politics and corporate spending cartoon by Mike Luckovich

(source)

Of course, campaign contributions to candidates as well as spending on advocacy in favor of candidates are clearly acts of political speech, and therefore protected by default. By donating to a candidate or a party, or by funding or producing political advocacy, you state your political preferences. And the fact that this “you” is not, in our case, a private person but a corporation shouldn’t change anything. A corporation is a collection of private persons (owners, directors or shareholders) and they have a right to voice their opinions collectively, using their collective resources, just like other collectives.

However, all this doesn’t mean that we’re talking necessarily about an unlimited right. If corporations or other entities with a lot of resources (wealthy individuals, labor unions etc.) are allowed to donate without limits or to engage in unlimited advocacy, it’s likely that they thereby “buy” a disproportionate share of influence. And this, ultimately and after a certain threshold is passed, destroys democracy. The beneficiaries of their donations or advocacy will receive more attention during the election campaigns, and will in turn give more attention to the interests of their backers once they are elected. During the campaign, it will seem like the beneficiaries of excessive contribution or advocacy have the better arguments because those arguments receive more attention. Simply the fact that a story is “out there” and is repeated a sufficient number of times gives it some plausibility and popularity. There would be no commercial publicity or advertising if this weren’t true. Flooding the airwaves works for elections as well as sales.

However, are we not infantilizing the public with this kind of argument? Is a voter no more than an empty vessels waiting to be filled by those political messages that are best able to reach him? Or can they see through it all and make up their own minds irrespective of what they hear and see? If they see that a candidate receives large amounts of money from a particular company, isn’t that reason enough to vote for the other candidate? The truth is likely to be somewhere in between. People are neither empty vessels for donors, nor objective arbitrators of political truth. And the fact that they can be partly influenced should be reason enough to restrict the political speech rights of those with large resources – or better their right to amplify their political speech. It’s not as if they can’t make their point. It’s just that they shouldn’t be allowed to push their point. Just like we don’t allow a heckler to silence others, or a bully to just keep on talking because he never learned the rules of politeness.

Here are some data on rules applying to the financing of elections in a selection of countries:

(source, personally I think the inclusion of the CPI here is arbitrary and meaningless)

More on the Citizens United decision; more on campaign finance and free speech; more posts in this series.

Related Articles

• Radhika Balakrishnan: Corporate Control of Our Democracy: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (huffingtonpost.com)
• Citizens United – that dreaded Supreme Court case – empowered unions to “flush $10 million of their members’ money down the toiled on a pointless exercise.” (althouse.blogspot.com)

Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (113): Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia

by Princess Hijab

(source)

From The Onion:

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA—In the wake of the watershed decision granting them the right to vote in the 2015 elections, Saudi women have received their husbands’ explicit consent to rejoice, sources reported Wednesday. “It is with great pride that women all across Saudi Arabia have been allowed to leave their homes under the guardianship of a male relative and celebrate this cultural landmark,” father of four Khalid al-Kazaz told reporters. “It brings us great pleasure to permit them a few moments in which to smile beneath their hijabs before returning to their daily duties.” Saudi officials followed the announcement with another historic decree that lowered from 10 to 7 the number of lashes that will be administered to women who drive themselves to the voting booth.

More on Saudi Arabia, women’s rights and the veil. More Princess Hijab. More jokes.

What is Democracy? (58): A Voice Based Selection Process for Politicians

Barry White for President

It’s both a damning verdict on democracy and a charming play on words: voters apparently use their vote to choose politicians with a certain type of voice (the word “vote” being related to “voice”). More precisely, voters prefer politicians with lower-pitched voices:

Participants in the study, published in the journal of Evolution and Human Behavior, were asked to listen to archival voice recordings of nine U.S. presidents. The researchers, from Canada’s McMaster University, created higher- and lower-pitched versions of each voice. Listeners were then asked to assess the attractiveness, honesty, leadership potential and intelligence — among other qualities — of the speakers.

For nearly every attribute they were asked to rate, participants were significantly more likely to prefer the deeper voice. The only category in which higher voices won? Most Likely to Be Involved in a Government Scandal. …

Previous studies have found that both men and women find men with deeper voices more attractive and more dominant. And in eight U.S. presidential elections between 1960 and 2000, the candidate with the deeper voice has won the popular vote. (source)

Politicians’ looks create a similar distortion of proper democratic processes. Hence I guess the answer to the questions I asked here and here should be “yes” after all.

More posts in this series are here.

Terrorism and Human Rights (39): Targeted Killing and Democratic Peace

Democratic peace theory states that democracies are less likely to engage in war with each other, for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is the fact that in a democracy, the people vote, and the people are also those who shoulder the cost of war. In a regime in which the people can influence the decision to go to war, such a decision will only be taken very reluctantly. Conversely, a regime that doesn’t need to listen to its people can easily impose the cost of war. (More here, here and here).

What’s the link with targeted killings of terrorists? Let’s limit the discussion to drone attacks in the context of a war. Killing terrorists in any other context amounts to extrajudicial execution, since those terrorists are criminals rather than combatants and therefore have a right to a trial (unless killing them is the only way to stop an imminent attack). In the context of a war, targeted killings carried out by unmanned drone aircraft are supposed to have certain advantages compared to “normal” military engagement with the enemy. Two of those advantages are that

• drone attacks are said to be more precise and hence less likely to result in civilian casualties, and that
• you can avoid putting your own soldiers in harms way.

The supposed precision of drone attacks is contested, since it’s often difficult to judge from thousands of miles away whether the target is real, whether the informants on the ground are reliable and whether there’s no risk to innocent bystanders. There have been reports of civilian casualties resulting from drone attacks, although the true extent of this problem is difficult to measure since there’s no public information on those attacks.

Officers control and watch images taken by Unmanned aerial vehicles (drones)

In some cases, troops on the ground may be better able to judge these things. It’s also not commonly accepted that it’s ethical to focus on troop safety over and above the risk of civilian casualties. This focus is, of course, understandable in the case of a democracy engaging in a war. Public opinion is powerful in a democracy and doesn’t like it when troops are put in harms way – that’s one of the origins of the democratic peace theory. (It’s sometimes called the body bag syndrome). Hence, a democracy may be particularly tempted to use drone attacks and targeted killings, since a more traditional war is difficult to sell to a powerful public opinion.

If indeed a democracy is tempted to use targeted killings, then the price to pay may be the loss of democratic peace. Targeted killings remove one of the most powerful causes of democratic peace: the high cost of war. By making war less costly on the party initiating the war, targeted killings make war more likely.

[T]o me the reason to prefer human to robotic war is a cold and brutal one: because it brings war home to the citizenry in the form of the dead and wounded, and the citizenry may then be less likely to support future wars except out of clear necessity. (source)

More on targeted killings here.

Related Articles

• Drone attack in Pakistan kills at least 12 (guardian.co.uk)
• Gabriella Blum and Philip Heymann on Targeted Killing (volokh.com)
• Drone attacks to continue, says US official (teabreak.pk)

Measuring Democracy (8): A Multidimensional Measurement

scene outside a UK polling station

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Any attempt to measure the degree of democracy in a country should take into account the fact that democracy is something multidimensional. It won’t suffice to measure elections, not even the different aspects of elections such as frequency, participation, fairness, transparency etc. It takes more than fair and inclusive elections to have a democracy. Of course, the theoretical ideal of democracy is a controversial notion, so we won’t be able to agree on all the necessary dimensions or elements of a true democracy. Still, you can’t escape this problem if you want to build a measurement system: measuring something means deciding which parts of it are worth measuring.

You would also do best to take a maximalist approach: leaving out too many characteristics would allow many or even all countries to qualify as fully democratic and would make it impossible to differentiate between the different levels or the different quality of democracy across countries. A measurement system is useful precisely because it offers distinctions and detailed rankings and because it makes it possible to determine the distance to an ideal, whatever the nature of the ideal. Obviously, a maximalist approach is by definition more controversial than a minimal one. Everyone agrees that you can’t have a democracy without elections (or, better, without voting more generally). Whether strong free speech rights and an independent judiciary are necessary is less clear. And the same is true for other potential attributes of democracy.

Once you’ve determined what you believe are necessary attributes you can start to measure the extent at which they are present in different countries. Hence, your measurement will look like a set of sliding scales:

With all the markers on the right side in the case of a non-existing ideal democracy, and all the markers on the left side in the unfortunately very real case of total absence of democracy.

(The aggregation of these scales into a total country score is another matter that I’ve discussed elsewhere).

Some candidates of attributes are:

• Does a country include more or less people in the right to have a democratic say? How high is the voting age? Are criminals excluded from the vote, even after they have served their sentence? Are immigrants without citizenship excluded? Are there conditions attached to the right to vote (such as property, education, gender etc.)?
• Does a country include more or less topics in the right to a democratic say? Are voters not allowed to have a say about the affairs of the military, or about policies that have an impact on the rights of minorities? Does the judiciary have a right to judicial review of democratically approved laws?
• Does a country include more or less positions in the right to a democratic say? Can voters elect the president, judges, prosecutors, mayors, etc., or only parliamentarians? Can they elect local office holders? Does a country have a federalist structure with important powers at the local or state level?
• Does a country impose qualified majorities for certain topics or positions? Do voters have to approve certain measures with a two-thirds supermajority?
• Does a country provide more or less ways to express a democratic say? Can voters only elect officials or can they also vote on issues in referenda?
• Does a country impose more or less restrictions on the formation of a democratic say? Are free speech rights and assembly and association rights respected?
• Does a country accept more or less imbalances of power in the formation of a democratic say? Are there campaign financing rules?
• Does a country show more or less respect for the expression of a democratic say? How much corruption is there? Is the judiciary independent?

A “more” score on any of these attributes will push up the total “democracy score” for a country. At least it seems so, if not for the conclusion that all these complications in the measurement system are still not enough. We need to go further and add additional dimensions. For example, one can argue that we shouldn’t define democracy solely on the basis of the right to a democratic say, not even if we render this right as complex as we did above. A democracy should, ideally, also be a stable form of government, and allowing people to decide about the fundamental rights of minorities is an expression of the right to a democratic say but it is not in the long term interest of democracy. Those minorities will ultimately rebel against this tyranny of the majority and cause havoc for everyone.

More posts in this series are here.

Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (109): Lying Politicians

(source)

More on truth in politics here, here and here. More on the stupidity of voters here. More jokes here.

Measuring Democracy (7): Some Technical Difficulties

Suppose you want to construct a democracy index measuring the level or lack of democracy in different countries in the world. The normal thing to do is to select some supposedly essential characteristics or attributes of democracy and try to measure the level or presence of those. So, for example, you may select free speech, elections, judicial independence and a number of other characteristics. Some of those are perhaps already measured and you can simply take those measurements. For others, you may have to set up your own measurement (e.g. a survey, analysis of newspapers or official documents etc.), or use a proxy.

In any case, you’ll end up with different datasets on different attributes of democracy, and you’ll have to bring those datasets together somehow in order to make your overall index, you single country-level democracy score. The problem is that the datasets contain different kinds of scales which cannot as such be aggregated into a global index. The scales and the values in the scales have to be normalized, i.e. translated into a common metric.

normalized value = raw value/maximum raw value

First, however, you have to rescale some existing scales so that they start at 0 – in other words, so that the lowest score is 0 (instead of starting at 1 for example, or at -10 such as the Polity IV scale). This way, all scales will have a normalized range from 0 to 1; 0 being the negation or total absence of the attribute; 1 being the complete and perfect protection or presence of the attribute.

What about weighting the different attributes? Some may be more important for a democracy than others. However, introducing weights in this way inevitably means introducing value judgments. While value judgments can’t be avoided (they’ll pop up at the moment of the selection of the attributes as well, for example), they can be minimized. If you choose not to use weighting, you consider all attributes to be equally important, which is a view that can be defended given the often interdependent nature of the attributes of democracy (an independent judiciary for example will likely not survive without a free press).

Once the different data sources are translated into normalized scales and, if necessary, weighted appropriately, they have to be aggregated in order to calculate the global index of quality of democracy. One possible aggregation rule would be this:

global index = source 1 * source 2 * ... * source n.

So a simple multiplication. But that would mean that a value of 0 for one attribute results in labeling the country as a whole as having 0 democratic quality. This is counter-intuitive, even with the assumption of equal importance of all attributes. Hence, a better aggregation rule is the geometric or arithmetic mean (or perhaps the median).

However, there’s also a problem with averages: low scores on one attribute can be compensated by high scores on another. So very different democracies can have the same score. Also, within one country, a high score on suffrage rights but 0 on actual participation would give a medium democracy score, whereas in reality we wouldn’t want to call this country democratic at all (the score should be 0 or close to 0). Perhaps we can’t avoid weights after all.

More posts in this series are here.

(image source)

Self-Defeating Human Rights Policies (7): Qaddafi and the ICC

capture of Gaddafi, video still

Another example of good intentions going wrong:

One of the many puzzles surrounding Muammar Qaddafi was his refusal to go into exile. Once NATO intervened on behalf of the rebels and Tripoli fell, Qaddafi must have known that he would eventually lose the war and that this would mean death. Instead of leaving the country, he decided to stay.

Why? One surprising answer has to do with the International Criminal Court. It used to be that exile was an attractive long-term option for dictators to take. Rather than stay and fight, they could live their lives in wealth and comfort in beautiful and stable places such as Paris or the Bahamas.

This changed as more and more countries ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC. Now seeking asylum is no longer easy or particularly attractive. Dictators can try to convince countries such as France, Britain, Venezuela, Mexico or Spain to let them settle in their capital cities or along their coastlines. But since all have ratified Rome, moving there is tantamount to turning oneself in to be prosecuted for war crimes. Qaddafi could seek refuge in countries that have not yet ratified Rome, such as the United States or Cuba or Zimbabwe or Sudan or Saudi Arabia. But those countries are either unwilling to accept him (the U.S. and Saudi Arabia) or unable to credibly commit to protecting him over time (Cuba, Zimbabwe, Sudan). How long could Qaddafi trust that the current regime in Cuba or Zimbabwe will remain in power to protect him? …

What Qaddafi’s behavior reveals is a potentially unexpected and unfortunate side-effect of an increasingly successful ICC. By limiting the options nasty dictators have to seek exile, it is increasingly forcing them to stay. And by forcing them to stay, it could, inadvertently, be encouraging war. (source)

More on the ICC here. More self-defeating human rights policies here.

What is Democracy? (57): A System For Signaling Disapproval of the Weather

I already mentioned the fact that a country’s economic performance determines to a large extent the outcome of democratic elections, irrespective of the causal link between this performance and the policies or behavior of elected officials. I also stated my disappointment: ideally, democracy is more than a system for signaling disapproval of the economy; it should be a process of judging the desirability and effectiveness of the policies (and proposed policies) of politicians (and candidates). This process is meant to improve the quality of policies (through trial and error) and to guarantee that policies correspond to the wishes of the people (wishes which have themselves been improved through deliberation). Just voting out the “damned bastards” because the economy is tanking, even if those “bastards” prevented worse, is not an approximation of the ideal.

However, things seem to be even worse than this. Although economic performance should not be the main criteria for judging politicians – the economy is determined by many different things, and policies only play a limited role – it does make sense to make it part of the evaluation: in some cases, there’s no doubt that politicians can harm or benefit the economy, and all politicians have some influence on it. The same isn’t true for the weather, and yet there’s evidence that voters use elections to signal disapproval of that as well:

We find that voters regularly punish governments for acts of God, including droughts, floods, and shark attacks. As long as responsibility for the event itself (or more commonly, for its amelioration) can somehow be attributed to the government in a story persuasive within the folk culture, the electorate will take out its frustrations on the incumbents and vote for out-parties. Thus, voters in pain are not necessarily irrational, but they are ignorant about both science and politics, and that makes them gullible when ambitious demagogues seek to profit from their misery. (source, source, source)

Obviously, politicians shouldn’t be punished for natural events, but they should for mishandling the aftermath (rescue, rebuilding, future prevention etc.). The latter should be part of democracy as a decent ideal. Politicians should be judged on the way they handle the aftermath of weather events, especially given the fact that some such events become a disaster only because of the political or governmental reaction to it (or absence of a reaction).

However, many natural disasters that used to be considered purely natural events are now believed to be at least partially man-made (for example, global warming may provoke hurricanes). Hence it’s not always irrational to blame politicians for the weather itself, rather than for their handling of the aftermath of weather events. What is irrational is the attempt, contrary to the scientific facts about natural and political causation, to blame politicians for natural events or their aftermaths when those events or aftermaths are not clearly manmade.

More posts in this series are here.

Why Do Countries Become/Remain Democracies? Or Don’t? (21): Education Again

anti-semitic Nazi education illustration, saying: "The Jewish nose is bent at its tip. It looks like a six"

(source)

The claim that education leads to democracy has a lot of intuitive appeal. Educated people are probably more inclined to demand political participation, and those in power who hesitate about granting democratic rights will be less hesitant when they have to grant these rights to educated people. The claim is also supported by the fact that democracy requires some level of education in order to function adequately.

And there is indeed a correlation between levels of democracy and levels of education:

(source)

Furthermore, it seems that the causation goes mainly from education to democracy. Some evidence for this is here and here – although it’s also true that democracies are better educators. There’s also evidence here that it’s mainly primary education levels that drive democracy. The effect of primary education even outstrips the effect of GDP on democracy.

And there’s even more, albeit quasi-anecdotal evidence for this claim. Let’s have a look at the Arab Spring. Although one can’t possible argue that democracy is now the common form of government in the Middle East, a first step towards democratization has been taken, and it’s likely that the push came from the fact that education levels in those Arab countries that have witnessed recent uprisings have risen sharply in recent decades.

[T]he Arab Spring was partly predictable, as Middle Eastern countries displayed levels of democracy that were lower than those predicted by their level of education and income. … [The f]igure [below] focuses on these countries in particular, showing that their levels of democracy as predicted by our empirical model [based on education levels] lie above their pre-2011 actual levels. In other words, the Arab Spring could be expected based on a dynamic statistical model of the factors that drive democracy (interestingly, the same observation holds for Iraq and Cuba). (source)

democracy and expected democracy based on education levels

(source)

More posts in this series are here.

Political Jokes & Funny Quotes (106): The Rise of Dictators

(source)

More here on the reasons why countries are dictatorships rather than democracies, or vice versa. More on the Gini coefficient and on the link between GDP and democracy.

What is Democracy? (56): The Effect of Unconscious Priming?

looking at the American flag, by Pam Glew

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People in advertising have long known that exposure to certain images – perhaps even subliminally – can change behavior. The same seems to be true in democratic politics. Studies have shown that American voters exposed to the American flag are increasingly supportive of the Republican Party, even if they identify as Democrats, and even if the exposure is fleeting. This effect can last up to 8 months. Exposure to the Confederate activates negativity toward Blacks and results in lowered willingness to vote for Obama. In 2007, Israeli researchers showed that even subliminal exposure to a national flag influences voters (in their study, it encourages voters to support politically moderate views).

This is proof of a lack of voter rationality and of the limited effect or even the futility of deliberation. It’s all very depressing and, when taken together with some other disturbing facts about democracy, it makes you reconsider the supposedly good reasons for promoting democratic governance. Let’s hope nobody in the Middle East is listening.

More posts in this series are here.

Why Do Countries Become/Remain Democracies? Or Don’t? (20): Education Again

It’s a common assumption that democracy is driven by levels of education:

• Less educated people are – supposedly – easier to oppress and more willing to accept extreme and simplistic ideologies that authoritarian rulers can exploit. They are also said to be less tolerant, and therefore less willing to accept freedoms and rights that protect outgroups.
• Once people become more educated, they start earning more. And because they earn more, they have more leisure time. And because they have more leisure time, they have more opportunities to engage in various activities. And because they have these opportunities, they start to demand the freedoms they need to take up these opportunities. Better education itself, irrespective of the higher earning potential that goes with it, opens up opportunities to do things, and hence drives the demand for the freedom necessary to do things.
• More educated people are also more aware of the ways in which their governments oppress them and of the liberties enjoyed in other countries, and they are better able to organize and mobilize against their governments.
• Maslow’s theory about the hierarchy of needs also plays a part: when lower needs – such as food, clothing and shelter – are met, then the preconditions are fulfilled for the appearance of higher needs. Higher education levels, because they help to fulfill lower needs, assist the appearance of needs such as self-actualization, self-esteem and belonging, needs that require freedom for their realization.
• Democracy requires a certain level of education among citizens in order to function properly. Of course, it’s not because B requires A that A results in B; claiming that education results in democracy because democracy needs education would mean committing a logical error. However, the fact that democracy needs education does probably increase the likelihood that democracy will follow from more education. At least the absence of some level of education will diminish the chances of democracy.
• And, finally, more education improves the capacity to make rational choices, and democracy is essentially a system of choice. Democracy will therefore intrinsically appeal to the higher educated.

And indeed, there is a correlation – albeit not a very strong one – between levels of education and degrees of democracy:

education and democracy correlation

(source)

The correlation may be due to the fact that democracies are better educators, but there are some reasons to believe that part of the causation at least goes the other way. Anecdotal evidence is provided by the recent Arab Spring: education levels in Arab countries have risen sharply in recent decades.

More posts in this series are here.

(image source)

What is Democracy? (55): A System For Signaling Disapproval of the Economy

statistics cartoon by R. Crumb

(source)

“It’s the economy, stupid“. The famous phrase suggests that economic basics rather than social or cultural issues, politicians’ personal merit, foreign policy successes etc. determine democratic outcomes. People vote against incumbents when unemployment is high and GDP growth low, whatever the causes of the economic downturn. One can accuse George H.W. Bush of many things but he wasn’t by far the sole or main cause of the recession that propelled Clinton to power.

It seems that people use democratic elections – especially high profile one such as presidential elections – to signal disapproval of the economy, whatever the real responsibility of individual politicians for the state of the economy (it’s silly to assume that individual politicians, even American presidents, have the power to dramatically change the unemployment rate, for better or worse).

This graph shows a clear correlation between incumbent margins of victory in US presidential elections and changes in the unemployment rate:

incumbent margin of victory vs change in unemployment rate

(source, incumbents running for a second full term won when the unemployment rate was falling and they lost when it was going up)

The unemployment rate in 1980 was 7.2%, up considerably from the year before; Jimmy Carter duly lost his bid for reelection. In 1984, the unemployment rate was actually higher at 7.5%, but was on its way down from the previous year; Ronald Reagan was reelected in a landslide. (source)

Granted, the number of observations is low, too low to be certain about the correlation (and others have expressed doubts about the data).

Some more certainty is given by the fact that it’s not just unemployment but also income that is correlated with election results:

(source)

If we assume that the economy does indeed determine democratic outcomes in this way, then we face a problem because some of the traditional justifications of democracy become unavailable. Democracy is supposed to improve the quality of politicians: when a politician has to face popular judgment and has to pass the test of accountability, she will try harder to respect the will of the people, to avoid engaging in corruption and to generally do a good job, because doing so will convince the people that she deserves reelection. Also the freedom of the press is in part justified on this basis. A free press is able to give people the information about politicians necessary to make an informed judgment at the next election. Government transparency combined with accountability as a prerequisite for reelection provides politicians with the necessary incentives to do a good job, or at least a job that is considered good by an informed majority of public opinion.

If, however, democratic election results are determined less by the actual way in which politicians do their job than by the economic basics, then we lose this justification. If a politician won’t be reelected during an economic downturn, even if she does all that’s humanly possible to avoid it or lessen its impact, she has one less reason to do her best. She may still do her best out of a sense of responsibility or public service and remain unconcerned by electoral prospects, but we should not underestimate the motivation provided by the mere fact of having and retaining a position of power.

More posts in this series are here. More on signaling here, and on accountability here.

Why Do Countries Become/Remain Democracies? Or Don’t? (19): Psychological Reactions to the Threat of Disease

microscope

(source)

There sure are many reasons why countries become or fail to become democracies. In this blog series I’ve mentioned climate, geography, inequality, external triggers, prosperity, religion, resources, education etc. An original approach to this question looks at psychological reactions to the threat of disease:

Conventional explanations for a country’s political system would draw on its history, economy and culture. Randy Thornhill from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, however, thinks it might be determined by the threat of disease in a region. This triggers psychological biases, which originally evolved to prevent illness spreading, that also hinder the emergence of democratic ideals. (source)

The logic is that people develop psychological reactions – call them biases – which they need to protect themselves against infectious diseases, and these reactions in turn make it difficult to adopt democracy, individualism and an attitude of criticism of authority.

The starting point for Thornhill and Fincher’s thinking is a basic human survival instinct: the desire to avoid illness. In a region where disease is rife, they argue, fear of contagion may cause people to avoid outsiders, who may be carrying a strain of infection to which they have no immunity. Such a mindset would tend to make a community as a whole xenophobic, and might also discourage interaction between the various groups within a society – the social classes, for instance – to prevent unnecessary contact that might spread disease.

What is more, Thornhill and Fincher argue, it could encourage people to conform to social norms and to respect authority, since adventurous behaviour may flout rules of conduct set in place to prevent contamination. Taken together, these attitudes would discourage the rich and influential from sharing their wealth and power with those around them, and inhibit the rest of the population from going against the status quo and questioning the authority of those above them. This is clearly not a situation conducive to democracy. (source, source)

What is, initially useful for public health, becomes detrimental for self-government:

[S]pecific behavioural manifestations of collectivism (e.g. ethnocentrism, conformity) can inhibit the transmission of pathogens; and so we hypothesize that collectivism (compared with individualism) will more often characterize cultures in regions that have historically had higher prevalence of pathogens. Drawing on epidemiological data and the findings of worldwide cross-national surveys of individualism/collectivism, our results support this hypothesis: the regional prevalence of pathogens has a strong positive correlation with cultural indicators of collectivism and a strong negative correlation with individualism. (source)

(source, dots represent countries)

What is Democracy? (54): Kallocracy?

Ronald Reagan looking handsome

Beautiful people have a number of advantages in social life. They earn more, even in occupations where appearance does not seem relevant to job performance. And, somewhat surprisingly, the beauty premium – and the corresponding ugliness penalty – are higher for men than for women. (I say surprisingly because we usually think that women are more often judged on the basis of their looks). A related effect is heightism: tall people, who are often considered to be more beautiful, also earn more.

And it’s not just in salaries that beauty makes a difference. Beautiful people are also more successful in democratic politics. They are more likely to be elected and, again, the marginal effect of beauty is larger for male candidates than for female candidates. So democracy is in fact kallocracy, rule of the beautiful (from the Greek “kallos“).

But why is there a political benefit of good looks? Probably because there’s a general benefit of being beautiful and because people generally – and hence also in politics – value good looking people more than the rest of us. Psychological experiments have shown that a snap judgment of whether we like someone’s face determines what we believe about that person’s character. And character is important in politics. There’s also the fact that the visual media give more attention to beautiful politicians, something which probably translates into a higher voter share.

Makes you doubt the value of democracy, doesn’t it? And makes you wonder whether we wouldn’t be better off handing over politics to some kind of elite. More positively, perhaps we should start seriously considering a type of democracy that isn’t focused on the selection of candidates through the means of a media circus.

More posts in this series are here.

What is Equality? (2): Or, Equality of What?

As I mentioned before, when people talk about equality they mean equality of something very specific. The problem is, they hardly ever agree on the specifics. So it’s not uncommon to see two people talking about equality and actually talking about something completely different. And even when they’re talking about the same specific type of equality, they often disagree about its importance, its definition and its (lack of) merits.

Here’s a list of some of the types of equality that are frequently discussed:

1. equality of respect and/or dignity
2. equality of income or wealth (sometimes equality of consumption)
3. equality of a bundle of basic resources needed for a minimally decent human life
4. equality of capabilities
5. equality of power (political and other power)
6. equality of rights
7. equality of luck or opportunity, i.e. equality of natural and social endowments.

I’ll skip the first one for now (I may come back to it in a later post) because it’s vague in its policy implications, and it’s those implications I want to focus on here. In fact, what do we want to do when we say that we want to promote one of the remaining 6 types of equality? And what are the likely problems we’ll face? Let’s go over them one by one.

2. Equality of income or wealth (sometimes equality of consumption)

Few people actually want to strive towards complete equality of income, wealth or consumption, for several good reasons.

• First, people have different consumption needs and hence different income or wealth requirements. And I’m talking about needs, not preferences. People who prefer expensive stuff will have a hard time justifying the inequality of income or wealth that they require to satisfy their tastes. On the other hand, a blind person will have no difficulties making the case for a higher income. Preferences may also be problematic when they aim too low rather than too high. People who are born into deprivation and only see deprivation around them may adjust their preferences and expectations so that they are satisfied with their lives. However, it would be wrong to follow their preferences rather than their real needs.
• And secondly, equality of income or wealth creates an incentive problem. See here. If people are not rewarded for their efforts, they may decide that their efforts aren’t worth their while, and society as a whole may be worse off as a result.

Image by incendiarymind via Flickr

So equality of income is in fact shorthand for reduced income inequality. As we don’t want this type of equality to collapse into the next one (see number 3 below), let’s assume that we’re not talking about a society in which income inequality means that the people at the wrong side of the inequality are poor – poor in the sense that they lack the basic resources needed for a minimally decent human life. So, instead picture a society in which all prosper but some prosper a lot more than others.

Is that kind of inequality a problem? Many say it isn’t. Why should a university professor care about how much a business tycoon earns? However, income inequality in this sense can be problematic. It can, for instance, shock people’s notions of fairness and justice. If the professor successfully teaches her students about morality, and the business tycoon earnes his wealth by polluting the earth, it may seem unjust that the professor should be rewarded less. Merit and desert are powerful ideals, and a society that systematically violates these ideals through its system of rewards may not be the ideal place to live.

Even if the tycoon earns his wealth by way of morally sound activities, there can be a problem of justice: perhaps he started life in an advantaged position compared to the professor, and therefore doesn’t (entirely) earn his rewards. Maybe the professor also wanted to become a tycoon, but her blindness forced her into a different career. (See point 7 below). And even if the starting positions are equal, the result of the tycoon’s wealth may be that he, compared to the professor, has a larger influence on democratic politics. (See point 5 below). This may destroy democracy, or at least result in a highly fragmented and therefore also unstable society.

So we have some good reasons to do something about this type of inequality. However, when we try to reduce – not eliminate – income inequality, we’ll probably reach a point at which redistribution starts to discourage people from being productive (the incentive problem mentioned above). Or not. Perhaps the loss of income they suffer because of redistribution makes them want to be more productive. Higher productivity can be the means to compensate for the loss of income. It’s not clear how strong these two possible effects are.

In any case, many of the problems caused by income inequality don’t need to be solved by way of reductions in income inequality. Unequal political influence generated by unequal wealth can be solved by limiting the influence of wealth on politics, rather than by limiting wealth.

More on income inequality here.

3. Equality of a bundle of basic resources needed for a minimally decent human life

Let’s now drop the assumption that we’re talking about a society in which all prosper, albeit unequally. That’s unrealistic anyway. Even in the richest countries on earth, there are many people who are unable to secure the bundle of basic resources necessary for a decent human life. There’s a theory called sufficientarianism that wants to focus, not on income inequality or relative poverty, but on absolute destitution. It claims, correctly I think, that all have a right to an equal bundle of basic resources and that this is what equality means.

The easiest way to make sure that people possess these basic resources is to give them enough money to buy them. For example, there’s a political movement advocating a guaranteed basic income (an income people receive whether they work or not; Philippe van Parijs is a notable supporter of this policy). But also employment benefits, healthcare benefits etc. aim to provide people with access to the basic resources necessary for a decent life.

The advantage of giving people money is of course that money is fungible: people can use it the way they want. That means it takes into account the fact that different people need different and different amounts of basic goods (take again the case of a blind person). If you give people basic goods directly, rather than the money necessary to buy them, then it becomes difficult to tailor the given goods to the specific and variable needs of individuals. An all-purpose means such as money is clearly better.

However, you’ll still have the problem that some people may need more money than others because they have basic needs that are more expensive, again not because of differences in taste or preferences, but because of different abilities. A blind person does not only need different resources but also more resources in order to lead a minimally decent human life. So we’ll have to factor in capabilities (see point 4 below). Hence, equality of basic resources, outside of the capabilities approach, isn’t enough. If that’s your goal, you won’t do justice to everyone.

An additional difficulty is that the composition of the bundles has to be different from one country to another, and not just from one individual to another. A minimally decent life in one society is more costly than in another one. In a highly industrialized and technological society, it’s more expensive to earn a living than in a society where, in a manner of speaking, you can just pick the fruit from the threes. If you add up all these differences in the content and quantity of the bundles you risk ending up with something very arbitrary. The whole concept of a basic bundle may lose its meaning.

Even if we assume that this type of equality does retain some meaning as a separate type of equality, we’re faced with the same incentive problem as in income equality, depending on how costly the bundle of resources is and how heavily we have to tax to produce it.

A final problem with this type of equality is one of fairness. The guaranteed basic income approach, as well as all other forms of unconditional provision of basic resources, seems to reward the lazy and punish the hard working. It’s reasonable to provide basic resources to people who are poor because of bad luck, lack of talents, bad health etc., but not to those who voluntarily choose not to be productive.

4. Equality of capabilities

Amartya Sen

So let’s turn to this next type of equality, which can be seen as a fine-tuning of the previous type. Why do we say that people need a bundle of basic goods for a minimally decent life? Because a minimally decent life means something. It means having the capabilities to engage in certain functionings that are part of a minimally decent life. These functionings include “beings and doings” (in the words of Amartya Sen), such as being nourished and in good health, taking part in community life, culture and thinking etc. People’s capabilities to achieve these functionings should be equalized. That doesn’t necessarily require a fixed and equal basic income. On the contrary, because a fixed basic income does not take into account the different levels of incapability across individuals. Some people need no help whatsoever. Others may need a lot. The blind person mentioned a few times already may need more than the average poor person, but perhaps less than a particular person who’s very deep in poverty.

The problem with this type of equality is the precise determination of the list of functionings and capabilities that really matter and that should be equalized. There’s a risk of paternalism, a lack of neutrality and a sectarian bias. Maybe a democratic approach to this determination can solve that problem. And that’s the link to the next type of equality.

5. Equality of power (political and other power).

In a democracy, people have – formally at least – equal political freedom. They all have the right to vote, to voice criticism or support, to campaign and demonstrate, to assemble and associate, and to stand for office. However, a lack in some of the other types of equality mentioned above may reduce the fair value and effectiveness of this democratic equality for a certain number of citizens, e.g. the poor, the blind, etc. As already argued, even prosperous citizens can have unequal power in a society with large income discrepancies (remember the professor and the tycoon).

So, if we want to promote this kind of equality of power, we first need to promote other types of equality. People may need access to basic resources in order to have the time and energy to devote to politics. And some of these resources are directly necessary for political participation (people have to drive to the polling station, read the newspapers etc.). However, equality of power can also be promoted without first promoting other types of equality. We can regulate campaign financing and access to the media and thereby limit the influence of wealth on politics. We don’t necessarily need to reduce wealth inequality to do that (although there may be other reasons to limit wealth inequality, see above). Equality of power, therefore, doesn’t necessarily collapse into other types of equality. It’s a concept that merits a separate existence.

Equality of power isn’t just equality of political power. Slaveholders have power over their slaves, husbands may have (had) power over their wives etc. Again, equality of power in these contexts can be promoted by first promoting other types of equality. If slaves and women are given basic resources then we reduce the cost of exiting the oppressive relationship as well as the power of the counter-party to keep them in that relationship. We may also want to given them equal rights.

However, I see that this post is dragging along and is now way past the saturation level, I guess. So I’ll stop here and just link to some previous posts dealing with the two remaining types of equality:

6. Equality of rights: here and here
7. Equality of luck or opportunity, i.e. equality of natural and social endowments: here

Related Articles

• Should People Be Equal or Should They Have Enough? (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)

What is Democracy? (53): Secret Ballot, or Public Vote?

The secret ballot has become so common in modern democracies that it’s hardly ever questioned. And yet, there are good reasons why a democratic vote should be public. So, let’s go over the pros and cons of the secret ballot, and see where that gets us.

Advantages of the secret ballot

• The desire to avoid voter intimidation or bribery is the obvious and most commonly cited justification of the secrecy of the ballot. If people in power know how an individual votes, then this individual may be pressured to vote in a certain way. And “people in power” should be understood in a broad sense, including employers, dominant husbands etc. This justification is based on certain key features of a democracy, namely equal influence, one-man-one-vote etc. The risk of coercion is present even in societies where the general level of coercion is low and democratic values are widely shared. And it’s often the least advantaged who will be coerced, because they have most to gain from changing their vote to please someone else, and most to lose from not doing so.
• The risk of pressure can also be present in other, more subtle forms. For example, it has been shown that people are afraid to publicly oppose authority figures. Tests have shown that when an authority figure speaks first, there’s less dissent afterwards. An open ballot can lead to forced conformity.

Disadvantages of the secret ballot

• Implicit in the doctrine of the secret ballot is the assumption that the electoral process is no more than the aggregation of individual preferences which have been fixed previously and independently of the electoral process. However, the voting process is, ideally, also formative of preferences, and not merely an arithmetic process based on fixed preferences. That means that people deliberate and discuss about the best way to vote, about the best candidates and policies. But that also means that people have to present their positions and preferences in public. Maybe the ultimate vote can still be secret, but the initial voting intention can’t be if we want democracy to be a lively debate. But if the voting intention can be public, why not the actual vote?
• An open ballot allows representatives to know exactly whom they are representing. One of the advantages of this knowledge is that it allows for some efficiency gains. Representatives know who has to be convinced. Those efficiency gains should improve the electoral process.
• When you vote in an election for representatives or in a referendum, this vote has real consequences. Taken together with the votes of your fellow citizens, your vote is likely to change the lives of a number of people, and sometimes change these lives dramatically. Moreover, those people are likely to be minorities, and hence relatively powerless. It’s therefore important that voters are accountable to their fellow citizens and that they explain and justify the reasons they have for voting in a certain way. This horizontal accountability is incompatible with the secret ballot.
• Why should we have secret ballots for voters and at the same time open votes in parliament, as is usually the case? After all, the justifications for a secret ballot for voters also apply to representatives. They also may be subject to pressure when it’s known how they vote. Maybe to a lesser extent than some parts of the electorate, since they tend to be wealthy and generally powerful, but still. Representatives are less numerous, and hence it’s easier and more effective to use pressure in order to manipulate a vote. Also, the public nature of representatives’ positions makes them vulnerable to specific kinds of pressure that can’t be applied to ordinary citizens (e.g. they may be blackmailed for indecent private behavior and thereby pressured to vote in a certain way). Of course, representative bodies are different from electorates, and therefore not entirely comparable. For example, it’s hard to see how a representative body can be accountable to the electorate when it votes in secret. Voters have to know what the individual representatives have accomplished, or not, so that they can “throw the bums out” at the next election if necessary. Also, this threat of non-reelection can pressure the representatives to act in ways desired by the electorate. So, pressure – at least some kind of pressure – is part and parcel of the representative process, whereas it’s incompatible with a popular vote. However, even if a vote by representatives isn’t entirely comparable to a vote by the people, it still is somewhat comparable, and people arguing for a secret ballot in a general election will have to explain why their arguments don’t also apply to votes in parliament.
• Open ballots, both in representative bodies and in general, force people to restrict themselves to preferences and arguments that they can justify to others. If you vote in a certain way, and are seen to be voting in a certain way, people will ask you why. And if you’re pressured to answer this question and to justify your vote (or voting intention), it’s a lot more difficult to be motivated, or to be seen to be motivated by self-interest only. Hence, the open ballot will make voters more sensitive to the general interest, which is a good thing. Also, this public justification tends to improve the quality of preferences, since people have to think about them, argue about them with others etc. That’s the logic of the marketplace of ideas.
• And, finally, open ballots make electoral fraud a lot more difficult, if not impossible.

A New York polling place

Obviously, not all of these advantages and disadvantages have the same importance, and they don’t make it instantly clear whether a secret or an open ballot should be preferred in principle. Much depends on the specific circumstances. For example, in a country with a lot of economic inequality and gender inequality, the case for a secret ballot for voters is relatively strong. In general, a mixed system is probably best. However, we don’t have such a mixed system at the moment. Most modern democracies strongly favor secret ballots, and seem to ignore the real problems resulting from such a system. I believe some more attention should be given to these problems and to possible solutions, which obviously doesn’t mean that we should go to the other extreme and deny people’s right to keep their opinions to themselves if they so wish. There can’t be a duty of free speech.

More about secrecy here and here. More about publicity here. More posts in this series are here.

Human Rights Maps (134): Gerrymandering

Original cartoon of "The Gerry-Mander", the political cartoon that led to the coining of the term Gerrymander. The district depicted in the cartoon was created by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the incumbent candidates of Governor Elbridge Gerry over the Federalists in 1812. Combining the salamander form and the name of the Governor gives "gerrymander".

Democracy is a human right. This is of course an excessively vague statement, and so we should define democracy. There are many ways to do that (and we have a whole blog series about it), some good and some less good, but for better or worse we usually define democracy as a representative system in which people cast votes for candidate-politicians, and the candidates who collect a majority – sometimes a plurality – of those votes go on to become the representatives of the people. Those representatives govern, again usually by way of majority or plurality votes amongst each other, and this government is considered a good proxy of government by the people (demo-cracy). It’s considered a good proxy because of many reasons:

• Representatives have an incentive to govern in accordance with the wishes of the people, since they supposedly want to be re-elected in the future.
• The people can influence their representatives through free speech, organized political activity and the threat of dismissal.
• The people can verify the coherence between their views and the actions of politicians because of freedom of the press, government accountability rules, freedom of information rules etc.

The argument that we need a proxy for direct government by the people is itself contentious but let’s temporarily bow to standard opinion for the sake of argument.

One problem with this model of democracy is that it can be gamed. For practical purposes, the “people” in this model are usually partitioned into different sections – districts, states, provinces, constituencies etc. Each section of the people then gets to vote, and the majority – or plurality – within each section then appoints a representative to be seated in a national parliament. It’s clear that the way in which the boundaries between these sections or districts are drawn determines to some extent the outcome of the vote, and that decisions to redraw – “redistrict” – can alter the outcome substantially.

This knowledge has led politicians to exert influence on the way in which the boundaries are drawn, so as to favor their electoral prospects. For example, a white upper-class politician can manipulate district lines in such a way that the voters in the district are mainly white upper-class. Her opponent, who happens to be from a poor black community, will likely do less well with the given electorate. If the district boundaries cut across class and race, the two candidates will have a more equal contest.

It can also happen that a particular group of constituents manipulates the district boundaries, perhaps with the help of politicians or officials, for example because of racist motives: attributing black communities to other districts makes it unlikely that black politicians will have influence over racially biased white populations.

These kinds of district manipulation are called gerrymandering, and it includes both a spatial and a quantitative aspect:

• the spatial dimension of borders is manipulated – e.g. poor black neighborhoods are excluded from the district and attributed to another one
• and/or the size of the electorate is manipulated – e.g. boundaries are fixed in such a way that a relatively small pocket of voters is grouped into one district and therefore gets it’s own representative (also called malapportionment).

Needless to say, it’s usually incumbents who engage in this kind of manipulation, since it’s they who often have the authority and power to modify district boundaries.

[I]n no fewer than 44 of America’s 50 states, it is state legislatures, composed as they are of party politicians, who decide where the lines should be drawn for seats in the House of Representatives in Washington, DC. The potential for abuse is so obvious that it is a kind of miracle that the system has survived as long as it has. (source)

As the saying goes, in gerrymandered election districts, the voters don’t choose their politicians – the politicians choose their voters.

The stylized example below shows the possibly dramatic effects of gerrymandering, limited to the manipulation of the borders, not the size of the districts. It’s a fictional country containing 15 citizens. There are three districts, every district gets to vote and the majority in each district decides on one of the three national representatives. The three districts are of equal size and the gerrymandering won’t modify the size of the districts, only the borders. There are two political parties, the Orange Democrats (round shapes) and the Purple Republicans (square shapes). 9 of the 15 citizens systematically vote Purple, 6 Orange, and they keep their residence fixed.

(source)

The original district lines, A, gives 1 district to Orange and 2 to Purple, roughly equivalent to the total voting pattern of 6:9. Now, as a result of this more or less correct districting, Purple becomes the majority in government, and therefore able to engage in some redistricting, which gives us situation B. Given districting B, the next election guarantees a 3 district win for Purple, a result that’s disproportional considering the nation-wide 9:6 Purple majority. Orange is no longer represented at all. However, for some mysterious and irrelevant reason, some further redistricting occurs, which gives situation C. At the next election, Orange ensures a 2-1 win notwithstanding its nation-wide minority position of 6:9.

Gerrymandering can have different motives:

• It can be used to give a certain political party a disproportionate share of national power (especially when district systems are combined with first-past-the-post elections in which the one candidate with the most votes – majority or plurality – wins the seat reserved for that district; in political systems that give seats in parliament in proportion to the total national votes, it makes no sense to gerrymander).
• It can be used to favor a certain political class (e.g. when wealthy people are systematically attributed to smaller districts).
• An individual candidate can use it to impose an electoral disadvantage on a particular opponent.
• Groups of citizens can use it to maintain supremacy and to exclude others from political participation. This exclusion can take many forms:
  • groups may be included in another, very large district in which their voice will be drowned
  • a group may be scattered over many districts so that they can’t unite in a coherent voting block
  • or they may be attributed to a district in which their group will win anyway, in which case their votes are wasted.
• etc.

This means that it can also be used in a positive way, e.g. to give disadvantaged groups a larger weight in elections. However, the word gerrymandering usually has negative connotations, and rightly so.

Sometimes it’s difficult to prove that gerrymandering took place, but a highly irregular geographical shape of a district, or big differences between the sizes of the populations of districts are good indications. Ideally, districts boundaries should be drawn randomly on the basis of census data, and should therefore not result in highly irregular and contorted shapes.

Some examples of such irregular shapes from the US:

California's 11th congressional district drawn to favor its then-Republican incumbent

(source)

The earmuff shape of Illinois's 4th congressional district packs two Hispanic areas while remaining contiguous by narrowly tracing Interstate 294

(source)

Utah's 2nd congressional district was redrawn after the election of Democrat Jim Matheson in 2000 to favor future Republican majorities. The predominantly Democratic city of Salt Lake was connected to predominantly Republican eastern and southern Utah through a thin sliver of land running through Utah County. This particular redistricting did not have the desired effect, as Matheson is still in office.

(source)

U.S. congressional districts covering Travis County, Texas (outlined in red) in 2002, left, and 2004, right. In 2003, the majority of Republicans in the Texas legislature redistricted the state, diluting the voting power of the heavily Democratic county by parceling its residents out to more Republican districts.

(source)

More maps about democracy are here. More human rights maps in general here.

Related Articles

• “Gerrymandering” carves out a dull argument (reuters.com)
• Jeff Reichert: What Is Prison-Based Gerrymandering? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Electoral boundaries in America: Time to bury Governor Gerry (economist.com)
• Redistricting: Gerrymandering as a Competitive Sport | Dissident Voice (wilderside.wordpress.com)
• Florida Supreme Court Rules Against Attempts to Stop Redistricting Reform Ballot Measures (elections.firedoglake.com)

Are “Social Media” and the Internet in General Good or Bad for Human Rights?

(source, the original is here)

Well, it depends, as they say. “Both” is of course the only correct answer. If you’re an optimist, you would say that:

• Social media make it easier for people to mobilize and coordinate their activities in the event of anti-authoritarian protests; to publish alerts in case of police attacks etc. They are a useful tool in strengthening resolve and confidence, given the fact that people will only turn up at potentially dangerous protest marches when they feel confident that a very large group will turn up (see here).
• Free speech is of course greatly enhanced by the internet, including the right to information (the passive side of free speech).
• The internet improves the marketplace of ideas; see here.

(source)

On the other hand, if you’re a pessimist, you would say that:

• The internet and social media allow governments to monitor dissidents. For example, an authoritarian government can track dissident groups through Facebook profiles and friend networks, through Twitter communications and email etc.
• Those governments can also use the internet to distribute propaganda, while stifling dissenting voices (they have the hardware, the software and the access to providers necessary to censor the internet).
• Terrorist groups also have been successful users of the internet, particularly through video messages and videotaped atrocities.
• There are the obvious privacy concerns. Etc.

The question therefore isn’t “good v. bad” but how to promote the good effects while minimizing the bad ones. In any case, internet euphoria about “twitter revolutions” and such seems very simplistic.

Human Rights Maps (132): Democracy, the Difference Between Self-Identification and Reality

First, if you doubt that democracy is a human rights issue, go here. The following map shows the countries of the world that self-identify as a democracy in green, and the tiny minority that doesn’t in red (Vatican, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Fiji, Tonga and Brunei):

countries that self-identify as democracies (green) or not (red)

(source, click image to enlarge)

Now, compare this to the latest Freedom House scores, which helpfully but completely coincidentally have the same color codes:

Freedom House scores for 2001 and 2009

(source)

This raises two related questions: why is there a difference between self-identification and reality, and why do countries think it is important to claim that they are democracies, even when the facts clearly belie this claim and the governments making the claim probably know better? Self-delusion can’t be excluded. Some governments probably have an excessively optimistic view of their country’s institutions and achievements. Some may have an excessively minimalistic view of democracy (but then again, Freedom House makes the same mistake…). Some may believe to have the support of the people and think that this is a sufficient condition. Some may hope that claiming the support of the people will allow them to get away with more on the international scene, or to get some beneficial treatment from other countries. And some may hope for a self-fulfilling prophecy effect.

What we can take away from this is that the idea of democracy seems to be very powerful. I just wish it was more than merely the idea that is powerful.

More maps about democracy are here. More about democracy measurement is here. More human rights maps are here.

What is Democracy? (52): Predictability or Uncertainty?

Why would this question be even remotely interesting? Well, I can see several reasons. Maybe not in the West but elsewhere in the world democracy is often rejected because it supposedly undermines predictability and hence economic performance. A strong central government that doesn’t have to worry about the next election is said to be more efficient, economically speaking, because it can apply long term planning. Talkative democracies with their frequent elections, rotation in office and often federal structures are simply unable to plan and are forced to pander to the short term interests of a lot of small groups because elections are at stake. Also, people seem to prefer predictability over uncertainty in general, not just because of the economy.

Let’s just bracket the question whether or not uncertainty is in general a bad thing, and whether or not we want to limit it (uncertainty is and always will be a fact of life so limiting it is all we could do if we decide that that is what we want). Those are not questions I’m particularly interested in since the answers can reasonably go both ways (planning can be good or bad, certainty can be comforting or stifling etc.). I’ll focus on the relationship between democracy and uncertainty. Is it true, as some authoritarians claim, that democracy promotes uncertainty? Yes, for some reasons, and no, for others.

There are indeed some forces that compel democratic politicians to favor the short term. Elections need to be won, and voters naturally value short term benefits more than long term benefits, even if these long term benefits are much larger (this is called time preference). They have some good reasons for this: maybe they think that they won’t be around in the long term (or that the probability of being around decreases when the time horizon is further in the future), or maybe they don’t believe in the long term: since life is unpredictable, especially in the long term, it’s better to count on short term benefits, even if they are small in comparison, than on large but unlikely long term benefits. If that is how voters think, then they will favor politicians who focus on the short term. Democracy therefore exacerbates life’s inherent unpredictability.

Also, voters are correct in thinking that politicians have more power over the short term than over the long term, which is another reason to favor politicians who promise short term benefits. This “short-termism” may be misguided for other reasons – especially when the short term benefits are detrimental to long term benefits (e.g. driving SUVs) – but it’s indeed to some extent a fact of life in a democracy, and one which, by definition, produces uncertainty because it makes long term planning very difficult if not impossible.

It’s also true that some non-democracies have proven themselves to be better long term planners, although most non-democracies have been short term kleptocracies that ruined their national economies. Dictatorships have also shown that long term planning doesn’t need to be benevolent: the long term planning they engaged in mostly focused on the long term survival of the ruling class, not the long term benefits of the people or of business. Predictability then means eliminating opposition and dissent. And even if prosperity is the motivation, the result is often the destruction of freedom.

Another reason why democracies are particularly unpredictable is the game of action and reaction. In a democracy, the majority has to take into account reactions of the minority and reactions of a future majority. (Democratic minorities have some power, e.g. their rights cannot be violated by the will of the majority). When people react to what you’re doing, you can never be certain that the actual consequences of your actions correspond to the imagined ones. A carpenter working in isolation can be quite sure that the table he’s making will look a lot like the one he imagined. A democratic politician will most often see things happening quite differently from the way he or she expected them to happen. The plurality of a democracy means that many different kinds of reactions can interfere with actions. As a result, there’s unpredictability. Goals will not be achieved exactly the way they were intended, or will not even be achieved at all.

A democracy does not try to suppress or eliminate reactions and contradictions. It tries to ritualize them, soften them and take the violence out of them, but it needs them. It needs conflicts, opposition, criticism, plurality, rotation etc. Democracy is a game of action and reaction that is institutionalized and accepted as an inevitable fact of life in a community with different people and different goals. It cannot exist without events initiated by some and reacted upon by others. Hence democrats embrace uncertainty and unpredictability, however unpopular this may be. They don’t accept that there is necessarily a purpose, a clear plan unfolding in history, an evolution toward a certain goal, a plan or a process that can be known in advance and implemented in a predictable way. They are weary of planning because they don’t believe that planners can have the necessary knowledge to plan and because of the tyrannical nature of planning: planning has to result in the exclusion of reaction.

However, let’s not exaggerate. Non-democracies can also be quite unpredictable, and beside the fact that short-termism isn’t an exclusively democratic vice there are other things that disprove the claim that democracy is especially bad for certainty and predictability. Democracies are rule based, and much more so than dictatorships. They favor the rule of law, which means that public policy is much less impacted by changing individuals. Governments can only do what the laws allow them to do, and their actions are therefore much more predictable. You could say: so what, they can always change the laws. True, but only within the confines of a constitution which is incredibly hard to alter. Judges in a democracy have the power of judicial review and can undo acts of legislation that violate the fundamental rules of a democracy.

This “hard-coding” of the constitution shows that a democracy, like any form of government, wants to be certain of its survival. In that sense, it needs predictability, but not predictability of policy. A democracy tries to eliminate only anti-democratic reaction and opposition, not opposition to policy. An entrenched constitution is one way it does this; asking people to promise respect for it is another way. Promises produce some certainty, a certainty and predictability based on freedom. Promises imply freedom, because a promise is only valid if it is voluntary. This kind of certainty is therefore radically different from certainty produced by the elimination of reaction. In a tyranny, everybody is certain – to some extent – that the regime will survive because nobody can or dares to react, or because indoctrination and propaganda have conditioned people in such a way that they do not even contemplate reaction. In a democracy, there is relative certainty because enough people keep their promise to respect the regime, and because there are institutions enforcing respect for the basic rules. Those promises are the rationale behind the so-called “pledge of allegiance“.

Of course, this does not mean that everything in a democracy is free and voluntary. There has to be some coercion because some people will not make or keep the necessary promises. There will be coercion, not of promises, but of reactions. Promises cannot be coerced. Anti-democratic reaction is the only type of reaction that is eliminated in a democracy. Every other kind of reaction is cultivated.

An anti-democratic reaction is somewhat of a contradiction in terms. It is because of democracy that reaction is possible: democracy softens and hence promotes reaction. If reaction becomes an activity without risk, as is the case in a democracy, then reaction blossoms. Reacting against democracy is not only ungrateful, it is self-destructive.

But apart from this predictability of the institutions necessary for unpredictable political life, it is clear that the focus of democracy is on conflict, contradictions, opposition, reactions, unpredictability and uncertainty. Freedom does not always go hand in hand with control, although on an individual level this may be the rule. An individual is free if he controls his life. But a society is not free if people try to control consequences and the future. Unpredictability does not mean that people are not free to choose their future. They are just not certain that the future will be the one they have chosen.

The freedom to react disappears when politicians want to be certain of their goals. They want to be like a lone craftsman who makes a product without much interference from other people and other goals. Society is in need of a blueprint and a makeover. Reality has to be made in order to conform to the plan or the model. It is no longer the uncertain and unpredictable result of human action and reaction but the product of a plan and of the concerted efforts to realize it. Freedom is replaced by the execution of a plan and of the orders of those who best know the plan and the means to realize it. (Arendt was one of the first to make this argument).

Hannah Arendt

Politics becomes a goal producer, and is no longer the platform on which different goals can be shown, can interact and can fight peacefully for supremacy. People become a means for the realization of the plan, instruments or material for the creation of society. And if they are resistant material they are forced into line, or perhaps they are even “waste”. In any case, the application of force to the materials is necessary in order to shape them. If you want to create society, you have no other means but people. People will have to be transformed. Their thinking has to be conditioned by way of education, propaganda, indoctrination, punishment, forced labor or genetic manipulation. Perhaps even selective abortion, euthanasia or simply extermination. Some materials do not allow transformation or improvement.

However, it is far from certain that the elimination of reaction is possible. It may be counterproductive and create more reaction than initially anticipated. Plurality is probably unavoidable, and therefore uncertainty as well.

More on the future here, here and here. More on democracy here.

(image source)

Related Articles

• Can democracy thrive in Africa? (cnn.com)

Why Do Countries Become/Remain Democracies? Or Don’t? (18): External Triggers

"I'm confused. Tell me again. Which countries have dictators we like?"

(source unknown)

In the previous posts in this blog series, I only discussed internal reasons why a particular country moves towards or away from democracy. But of course, no country stands on its own, unaffected by what happens in the rest of the world. Democratization is hardly ever a purely domestic event or the sole result of internal democratic forces. There are and have been important external triggers, both helping and impeding the transition to democracy.

The fall of the Soviet Block in 1989 and the defeat of the Axis powers after WWII were global events that led to the overthrow of a whole series of authoritarian governments. On the other hand, the Cold War meant that authoritarian leaders everywhere in the world were buttressed or installed as a buffer against communism or capitalist imperialism (“he’s a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch“). Furthermore, the economic interests of powerful countries often convinced them and sometimes still convince them to support dictators in oil-rich countries (Saudi Arabia for instance). And besides oil there are other strategic interests that may make it “necessary” to support dictators in other countries (for example, concern for the security of Israel led the US to support Mubarak in Egypt).

Sometimes, powerful countries decide that they should use their military to directly intervene in a country and install democracy by force (Grenada may be an example, and people sure try hard in Afghanistan and Iraq and perhaps also in Libya). Another form of intervention intended to support democracy is conditional aid: wealthy countries or international institutions often tie aid to “good governance” requirements.

And a final external trigger for democracy development is the dominance of the West in the international entertainment industry. When people in authoritarian countries consume western entertainment, they learn to associate democracy with prosperity and freedom.

Of course, external triggers alone won’t produce an enduring democracy, and certainly not when those triggers don’t encourage domestic aspirations. For example, it’s futile to force a country to hold elections through the use of conditional aid or military intervention when the rule of law isn’t in place, when there’s sharp polarization between groups or when a democratic culture isn’t in place. Democracy depends on internal support. People have to believe in democracy and participate, and the institutional structure has to be in place. However, the appetite can come while eating: a certain amount of experience with democracy may be required for institutions and mentalities to grow. Hence, it’s just as futile to wait with external triggers until all the preconditions for democracy are in place.

More posts in this series are here.

The Causes of Human Rights Violations (26): Are False Beliefs Useful For Human Rights?

I would say yes, but only some. For example, if we go around and successfully propagate the theory that wrongdoers will burn in hell, then this may have a beneficial effect because fear may inculcate morality (as all deterrence theories about crime have to assume). Similarly, false beliefs about the efficacy of law enforcement and the honesty of law enforcement officials also help.

Many false beliefs about high levels of risk can produce risk-averse behavior which in fact lowers the risk and makes it more likely that human rights are protected. For example, if people wrongly believe that their privacy is threatened in certain circumstances, they will take action to secure their privacy and make their privacy more secure than it already was. (More about human rights and risk here).

Human equality – “all men are created equal” – is obviously a false belief when taken as a fact, and in the quote it is taken as such. People are born with different abilities, talents, endowments, advantages etc. And yet we act as if the phrase is more than just a moral imperative. It seems like it’s easier to convince people to treat each other as equals when we say that they are equals.

Certain forms of self-deception also seem to be beneficial from the point of view of human rights:

Self-deception … may be psychologically or biologically programmed. The psychological evidence indicates that self-deceived individuals are happier than individuals who are not self-deceived. … Lack of self-deception, in fact, is a strong sign of depression. (The depressed are typically not self-deceived, except about their likelihood of escaping depression, which they underestimate.) Individuals who feel good about themselves, whether or not the facts merit this feeling, also tend to achieve more. They have more self-confidence, are more willing to take risks, and have an easier time commanding the loyalty of others. Self-deception also may protect against a tendency towards distraction. If individuals are geared towards a few major goals (such as food, status, and sex), self-deception may be an evolved defense mechanism against worries and distractions that might cause a loss of focus. Tyler Cowen (source)

We can claim that, to some extent, happiness, self-confidence, achievement and risk taking are indicators of and/or conditions for the use of human rights. Happy and confident people who are willing to take risks are more likely to engage in public discourse, to vote, to associate and to exercise their human rights in other ways. If that’s true, and if there’s a link between happiness, confidence and self-deception, then self-deception is another example of a falsehood that is beneficial to human rights.

I could go on, and I also could, very easily, list several counter-examples of falsehoods that are detrimental to human rights (take the 72 virgins for instance, or communism). The point I want to make is another one: should we actively promote certain false beliefs because of their beneficial outcomes?

Most of us believe that there is something like a benevolent lie and that lying is the right thing to do in certain circumstances. A strict rule-based morality is hard to find these days. Few would go along with Kant who said that we shouldn’t lie when a murderer asks us about the whereabouts of his intended victim (“fiat justitia et pereat mundus“). People tend to think that the expected consequences of actions should to some extent influence actions and determine, again to some extent, the morality of actions (“to some extent” because another common moral intuition tells us that good consequences don’t excuse all types of actions; most of us wouldn’t accept the horrible torture of a terrorist’s baby in order to find the location of his bomb).

On the other hand, we should ask ourselves if such an enterprise, even if we deem it morally sound, is practically stable. Some false beliefs have proven to be vulnerable to scientific inquiry and public reasoning (hell could be one example). It’s not a good idea to build the system of human rights on such a weak and uncertain basis. But perhaps we should do whatever we can to promote respect for human rights, even if it’s not certain that our tactic is sustainable.

And yet, actively promoting falsehoods is in direct opposition to one of the main justifications of human rights, namely epistemological advances (I stated here what I mean by that). We would therefore be introducing a dangerous inconsistency in the system of human rights. We can’t at the same time promote the use of falsehoods and argue that we need human rights to improve thinking and knowledge. So we are then forced to promote the use of falsehoods in secret – which is necessary anyway because people will not believe falsehoods if we tell them that they are falsehoods – but thereby we introduce another inconsistency: human rights are, after all, about publicity and openness.

(image source)

The Causes of Human Rights Violations (25): To What Extent Do Human Rights Depend on Large Numbers?

James Ensor, Masks

Let’s assume that the likelihood of a successful revolutionary overthrow of an authoritarian regime depends on how many people are involved in anti-government protests. (That’s a reasonable assumption, given the fact that mass opposition can grow so wide that repression becomes too costly. We’ve seen that recently in Egypt and elsewhere. See also here). If that is correct, then political freedom and respect for human rights (the latter almost always resulting from the former) depend on large numbers of individuals participating in protests. (It also depends on many other things, obviously. Democratization is a hugely complex process).

The next question is then: when will large numbers of individuals actually participate in protest and a revolution? A single individual will decide to participate after he or she has analyzed the possible costs involved. One element of the cost is the chance of being arrested, beaten up by the police or getting shot. The more people participate in the protests, the lower the probability for each individual of incurring this cost. It’s simply less likely that you get arrested, beaten or shot when there are many people surrounding you. In order to get many people involved, it’s therefore important that every individual has the impression or conviction that many people will be involved. This conviction can be encouraged by social networking websites, such as Twitter or Facebook. Communication about the protest through these media helps to spread the conviction that large numbers will be participating, which will encourage large numbers to participate.

One could argue that something similar happens in cases of racism, discrimination or bigotry. For example, when large numbers of gays and lesbians are allowed to marry, people who initially frowned upon same-sex marriage are now confronted with lots of married gay couples and may start to realize that their initial fears were unfounded. On the other hand, the close proximity between slave holders and large numbers of slaves didn’t reduce racism. Likewise, a larger number of immigrants usually – but not always – leads to more widespread and more intense anti-immigrant feelings rather than less.

Something more positive happens with the numbers involved in gendercide. When the number of sex-selective abortions reaches a certain point, the remaining women may start to escape their inferior position which was the original cause of gender selective abortions. They may do so because their bargaining power will increase: the gender ratio is now 1:<1 rather than the natural 1:1, and men – the majority of whom will still want a wife, I assume – will conclude that it’s necessary to make concessions to women as a means to gain the upper hand in their increasingly competitive struggle for mates.

The infamous rape scene from "A clockwork orange"

When reporting of rape is taboo, rape will remain common. But when more and more women start to report rape, the stigma will move from the victims to the perpetrators. Also, when large-scale reporting makes people aware that rape is a widespread phenomenon, women will increasingly adapt their behavior so as to limit the risks. On the other hand, common knowledge of the widespread occurrence of rape can give (certain) men the impression that the practice is normal and acceptable.

Measuring Democracy (6): Three Waves of Democratization According to Polity IV and Google Ngrams

(source)

Following Samuel Huntington, many political scientists believe that there have been three waves of democratization in recent history. The first wave of democracy began in the early 19th century when suffrage was gradually extended to disenfranchised groups of citizens. At its peak, however, there were only about 20 democracies in the world during this first wave. After WWI, with the rise of fascism and communism, the wave started to ebb, and this ebb lasted until the end of WWII. The second wave began following the Allied victory in World War II. This wave culminated in the 1960s with around 30 democracies in the world. The third wave started in the 1970s and really took off in the late 1980s, with the democratization of Latin America and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today there are some 60 democracies in the world.

Maybe recent events in the Maghreb and the Middle East are the start of a fourth wave, now focused on Arab countries.

Those numbers I cited above come from one of the two major democracy indexes, namely Polity IV. Polity IV gives countries a score ranging from -10 to +10; the numbers above are of countries achieving the rather ambitious score of +8 or higher (in other interpretations of the Polity IV score, +6 is already a democracy). Freedom House, the other index, usually gives a higher number of democracies, but is only available for the most recent decades. I don’t want to discuss the relative merits of either measurement system in the current post. Let’s just assume, arguendo, that Polity IV is a good measure (Freedom House probably measures something a bit different). In the graph below, the green line represents the Polity IV score (number of countries with a score of +8 or more):

(source, source; click image to enlarge)

The three waves are clearly visible in the green line. Although some have expressed doubts about the quality of Huntington’s work and the reality of the three waves (see here for instance), there does seem to be at least some truth in the metaphor.

I’ve also included in the graph above the results of a search in Google’s Ngram tool. I searched for “democracy” (blue line) and “democratic” (red line) (democratic without a capital D because I don’t want results including mentions of the Democratic Party). As you may know, this tool allows you to calculate the frequency of keywords in the millions of books available in Google’s book collection. Such frequencies can be thought of as approximations of the general use and popularity of a word at a certain time. One can assume that when there’s a wave of democratization there’s also an uptick in the frequency of the use of word such as “democracy”.

I find it interesting that both the first and the third wave of democratization are reflected in a rising popularity of the words “democracy” and “democratic”, but not the second wave. When the number of democracies was at its lowest point in the 30s and 40s, talk about democracy was most common, more common even than today. And the interest in democracy decreased steadily from the 50s until the 80s, while the number of democracies rose during those decades.

More posts in this series here. Another post on Ngrams is here.

Why Do Countries Become/Remain Democracies? Or Don’t? (17): Inequality

Riot scene from Chaplin's Modern Times

A transition to democratic government is very unlikely when the population of a country is sharply divided in unequal classes or groups. Some of these groups will try to monopolize political power in order to repress rival groups and maintain the distributional status quo. For example, when there’s a division between a landowning class or an industrial class on the one hand, and a group of impoverished rural or urban workers on the other hand, then the former group will fear election victories by the latter group because such victories will lead to redistribution of land or other assets. Privileged classes will therefore work against democracy. As a result of this, the working classes will radicalize and aim for a revolutionary overthrow and the abolition of property rights altogether, thereby also making democracy less likely.

Something like this is arguably a good description of much of the recent history of Latin America. Positively stated: more economic equality – perhaps following the expansion of a middle class – will make democracy more viable, since different groups have less to lose from a democratic power shift.

But polarization doesn’t have to be exclusively economic in nature. Religious or ethnic divisions can also hinder the creation and continuity of democracy, especially when there’s also a spatial division between groups. This is probably what happened in Africa since decolonization. Of course, non-economic divisions are often exacerbated by economic ones, in which case we can hope that more economic equality will take the sting out of ethnic divisions.

More posts in this series are here.

Why Do Countries Become/Remain Democracies? Or Don’t? (16): Climate and Geography

rain in London, 1903

(source)

There are some contingent reasons why countries’ governments develop or fail to develop a strong system of centralized control over resources. And those that fail to do so tend to be more democratic. The detailed argument is here, but I’ll give you a short summary.

Montesquieu already related differences in human political conditions to climatic differences. And indeed, it’s not uncommon to see the argument that water for instance plays a crucial role. Water makes land valuable, but only in countries where there’s continuous rainfall over the seasons will water be available in sufficient quantities. In other countries, a centrally coordinated irrigation system will be necessary, and this requirement favors a strong central government. In countries where citizens don’t depend on the government for water for their agriculture for instance, those citizens have more bargaining power.

Also, continuous rainfall results in agrarian surpluses, which in turn favor urbanization and taxation. Taxation is a well-known cause of democratization (“no taxation without representation“), and popular mobilization against authoritarian rule is easier in large cities. Urbanization also leads to commerce, specialization and industrialization, phenomena which result in a large and powerful middle class, able to bargain the taxes it pays against more rights and freedoms. This process is depicted in the following drawing by Christian Welzel:

(source, click image to enlarge)

In light of this, it’s not surprising that democracy developed first in North-West Europe and North America, regions with plenty of rainfall. And neither is it surprising that so many non-democracies suffer from the so-called resource curse: countries that are endowed with natural resources that – unlike rainfall – can easily be brought under central control tend to develop governance structures that favor such control. Government will be centralized and authoritarian because the resource rents for the leaders are very high. And when there’s central control over resources, there’s also central control over all the rest: leaders have a strong financial incentive to stay in power and to oppress opposition movements.

But it’s not just climate that favors democracy or autocracy. There’s also geography. A country that is shielded from external military threats as a result of its geography or topography – for example because it’s an island, has a long coastal line, or is situated in a mountainous area – doesn’t need to sustain a standing army at the exclusive disposal of its leader. Without such an army, the leader’s control over coercion is limited and it’s much more difficult to develop a centralized governance system. Perhaps the success of democracy in countries such as Iceland, the UK, Scandinavia and Switzerland can be explained in this way. The army in Switzerland is really a volunteer militia, whereas the army in the UK has long been the hobby of the nobility.

So these are two examples of climate and geography deciding the balance of power in favor of citizens. A government that isn’t favored by climate or geography in its attempts to centralize power faces a stronger citizenry. Likewise, if a government depends on its citizens’ agreement for the use of an important resource such as the military – for geographic reasons – then those citizens have bargaining power. They will only participate in war or conquest if they get something in return, e.g. more rights and freedoms.

Of course, it would be silly to claim that climate factors or geography determine political outcomes, or even that they are the main causes. Democracy depends on a lot of things, especially beliefs and intentional collective action , much more than objective and contingent circumstances. But those circumstances do play a role, as they always do. Other causes are discussed in other posts in this blog series.

The Most Absurd Human Rights Violations (72): Political Rights in Zimbabwe

Nearly a third of Zimbabwe’s 5.5m registered voters are dead, research has found. Others appear to be up to 120 years old, improbably outstripping the country’s average life expectancy of 43.

The independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) said the country’s electoral roll was a “shambles” and should be overhauled before fresh elections, which could be held this year.

A new electoral register is a key demand of the Movement for Democratic Change , which has accused President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party of counting “ghost voters” in its own favour. (source)

If you’re unclear about democratic rights as human rights, go here. More about Zimbabwe here. More absurd human rights violations here.

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• The Most Absurd Human Rights Violations (67): Shot in the Butt Over Saggy Pants (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
• The Most Absurd Human Rights Violations (68): Advocacy Equals Insanity (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
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Why Do Countries Become/Remain Democracies? Or Don’t? (15): Presidential v. Parliamentary Democracy

Mount Rushmore

This post in the series focuses on the “remain” part rather than the “become” part. Juan Linz has famously argued that presidential democracies don’t work, with the exception of the US. To simplify things a bit, in a presidential democracy – where you have of course also a parliament – the executive power is elected directly by popular vote. People elect a president and this president selects her government. The people also elect members of parliament in separate elections. In a parliamentary democracy the executive isn’t elected directly by the people. The people elect only the members of parliament. The political party (or parties) that manage to get a majority of elected members of parliament then form a government (often after coalition negotiations between parties when there isn’t one party that has managed to acquire a majority of representatives in parliament).

One of the causes of the breakdown of presidential systems is the opposition between legislature and executive: both the president and the majority in the legislature have democratic legitimacy since they are both directly elected. That’s not a problem when both are of the same political family, but when they are not, it’s a recipe for stalemate at best and breakdown at worst.

Under such circumstances, who has the stronger claim to speak on behalf of the people: the president or the legislative majority that opposes his policies? Since both derive their power from the votes of the people in a free competition among well-defined alternatives, a conflict is always possible and at times may erupt dramatically. Theme is no democratic principle on the basis of which it can be resolved, and the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate. It is therefore no accident that in some such situations in the past, the armed forces were often tempted to intervene as a mediating power. (source)

On the other hand, parliamentary systems seem to be less stable in countries plagued by bitter ethnic conflict, as is the case in many African countries.

More posts in this series are here.

Related Articles

• Presidential system of government encourages corruption – Awujale (vanguardngr.com)
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The Causes of Human Rights Violations (24): Political Rhetoric, Violence and Free Speech

editorial cartoon by Clay Bennett, about violence and political rhetoric

(source)

My two cents about the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords:

• The attack was obviously politically inspired, even though the shooter may have been insane. An insane act isn’t necessarily apolitical. There may or may not be a direct causal link between the attack and the “heated political rhetoric” that has come to characterize American politics and that often borders on incitement. (Compared to other western democracies, the political language is indeed extreme in the US). If there is such a link, it will be very hard to establish, given what we know about the psychology of the attacker.
• In general, violent rhetoric can contribute to actual violence (see this paper for example). The case of the Rwanda genocide is well-known. And we don’t need to go and look at extremes in order to find cases of hate speech turning into hate crime. There are not a few pedophiles who have had there whereabouts shouted from the rooftops and who suffered the consequences. Given the omnipresence and ease-of-use of the media in developed societies, what is published and broadcast through these media may very well nurture or even provoke extremism and hate in society. It’s futile to deny this possibility.
• This general conclusion does not warrant the automatic linking of a case of violence to instances of political rhetoric that seem to be a possible inspiration. In other words, it’s not because Sarah Palin was silly enough to publish a map with cross-hairs “targeting” Giffords (among others) in a purely political and non-violent way, that her actions caused the attack. Maybe these actions contributed, maybe not. Most likely we’ll never know. And even if they did contribute in driving a sick person over the edge – which is not impossible – then they are most likely only one element in a large set of causal factors, including the perpetrator’s education, medical care (or lack thereof), the ease with which he could acquire a gun etc. That large set doesn’t drown individual causes but it does diminish the importance of each (possible) cause. Human motivation and the determinants of human action are almost always highly complex. (Something which is too often forgotten in criminal sentencing).

John Stuart Mill

• Given the general possibility of speech resulting in violence, is that possibility a sufficient reason to limit our freedom of speech, even before the actual violence occurs? Yes, but only in very specific cases, namely those cases in which the link between speech and (possible) violence is clear. John Stuart Mill used the example of an excited mob assembled in front of the house of a corn dealer accused of starving the poor. Hate speech in such a setting is likely to lead to violence, while the exact same words printed in an obscure magazine are not. The words in the magazine should be protected by freedom of speech; the words of the mob leaders probably not.
• Yet even when words should be left free by the law, morality requires of speakers that they consider the possible consequences of speech.
• Are the events we witnessed recently of the same nature as the words of the mob leaders? And what about similar recent events? I don’t think so. Which means that the people concerned have not abused their freedom of speech.
• Does that mean that they used their freedom in a good way? No, it doesn’t. Heated rhetoric is almost never the best way to talk, not even for the purposes of the speaker. It doesn’t tend to accomplish a lot or to further anyone’s interests (apart from the interest in getting attention). So those of us who insist on “turning it down a notch” have good reasons to do so. This insistence obviously doesn’t imply curtailment. It’s just a question, and it deals with form rather than content. People are generally too fast to claim their right to free speech when confronted with criticism of the way in which they use or abuse this right. Criticism of speech doesn’t automatically imply the will to prohibit speech, and freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from criticism. Quite the opposite.

More here and here.

Related Articles

• Extremist Rhetoric, Violence and American History (themoderatevoice.com)
• Violence, Language, Politics (secularshawshank.wordpress.com)
• Clinton warns against demonized rhetoric (thehill.com)

Migration and Human Rights (39): The Democracy Argument Against Open Borders

Usually, arguments against open borders and in favor of varying degrees of immigration restrictions are based on economic or cultural considerations. Often, such arguments can be easily dismissed as prejudiced, chauvinist and selfish, and the data don’t support them anyway. However, a potentially stronger argument against open borders is based on the requirements of democracy. It’s potentially stronger because it goes to the heart of the same liberal values that animate the push for open borders.

Central to the idea of democracy is that those who are governed by laws should have a say in the drafting of the laws. In the words of Jürgen Habermas:

Gültig sind genau die Handlungsnormen, denen alle möglicherweise Betroffenen als Teilnehmer an rationalen Diskursen zustimmen könnten.

Jurgen Habermas

People are obligated to obey the laws of government only insofar as they have consented to those laws (or to the power exercised in passing those laws). That’s the whole idea behind self-government.

Now, what would happen to this idea where we to open the borders? It’s claimed that the constant coming and going of people that would result from open borders, would make self-government impossible. People would vote on laws that would not apply to them in the future because they come and go, and other people would not be able to vote on laws that would apply to them because they won’t be here yet. Open borders would mean that people are allowed to decide on things they don’t care about and won’t have a stake in. Self-government would not be possible because the “self” that governs would never match the “self” that is governed.

Another democracy based objection to open borders is a practical one. The effective functioning of democracy requires a common language, since democracy is essentially deliberation. It also requires knowledge of the political system and the political culture, and a feeling for what is achievable and acceptable to the wider community. Open borders inhibit this effective functioning.

There are basically two ways to respond to these arguments. First, the arguments seem to confuse access rights and citizenship rights. It’s correct that citizenship in a democracy should be tied to certain conditions, such as knowledge of the language and permanence of residence, and that citizenship is a necessary condition for most democratic participation. I made that argument here so I won’t repeat it now. Suffice it to say that there are good reasons to distinguish – but not separate – different parts of humanity by way of conditional acquisition of citizenship – with each part hopefully having democratic rights within its own country. However, these reasons don’t, by themselves, justify closed borders. Access rights and citizenship rights are different things.

Michael Walzer

However, as Michael Walzer has argued, when we decide to allow people in but at the same time deny them citizenship, we run the risk of creating a permanent underclass of disenfranchised non-citizens, who live and work in the country but can’t effectively protect their interests through political participation. Hence, an open border policy should also include a pathway to citizenship. The problem is then to strike the right balance between the need for flexible citizenship and the risks to democratic governance resulting from a notion of citizenship that is too weak.

Secondly, the central idea of democracy – that people governed by laws should have the right to participate in the framing of those laws – can be used to argue in favor of rather than against open borders. A decision by one part of humanity to exclude others from a certain part of the earth’s surface clearly violates this central idea. The potential immigrants who are excluded obviously don’t have a say in this decision, and yet they are governed by it. If they had a say, they would probably carry the day, given their numerical strength.

Some would claim that it’s foolish to allow potential immigrants to participate in such decisions. Would we allow a mob of homeless people, demanding access to our house, to vote, together with us, whether or not they have a right to access? No we wouldn’t, but the analogy is baseless. We do have a legitimate property right to our house (at least most of us do), but the citizens of a country don’t have a similar right to a part of the surface of the earth.

It’s of course an open question how we would practically organize such a common decision. Perhaps we should take the next logical step and institute some kind of federal world democracy. But that’s for another post.

More on open borders here.

Related Articles

• The Conservative Case for Open Borders — By: Ramesh Ponnuru (corner.nationalreview.com)
• The case for open borders (trueslant.com)
• The Social Security Argument Against Open Borders (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
• The Cultural Argument Against Open Borders (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)