ISSUES WITH DEMOCRACY, A REFLECTION
On populist rhetoric, why we hate each other, and if there is a way out. 
Essay for “Democracy Under Threat” course, Prof. Nina Wiesehomeier, February 2024.

CONTEXT
  This essay was written as a reflection piece on the theoretical section of the course titled “Democracy Under Threat”, looking into my understandings of democracy, populism, etc.
INTRODUCTION
 Over the past weeks, I have been grappling with deeper insights into the issues with democracy and what threats it faces in the modern days, considering my background of having interest in such a topic but never exploring its intricacies at a deeper level. The theoretical part of this course has definitely helped me reshape some of my previous conceptions about topics through analyzing its nuances and looking at the root causes instead of just its manifestations, but also introduced me to other factors that play a part in the complex multifaceted issue with democracy that I was not aware of in the past. In this essay I will discuss changes to my conceptions on populism, polarization, political backsliding, and reform, as well as my introduction to political theory and the adoption of civic values. I would like to preface the body of the essay by saying that my background as a Design student may hamper my ability to analyze certain potential counterarguments to mine, as they may be too complex for me to understand without the proper knowledge of political theory. 



Populism: Am I One?

 One of the main concepts on which my views became more informed was populism; why and how it appears, and how my previous knowledge was more limited in scope. The first instance of questioning my knowledge about the true scope of populism came with a seemingly innocuous quiz from The Guardian titled “How Populist Are You?”. In normal circumstances, I would not refer to myself as any sort of populist, as I only saw it as a right-wing tool used to rouse chauvinistic rhetoric. After taking the quiz, the result surprised me; my tendencies were most similar to those of Pablo Iglesias, the former leader of Podemos, a political party that briefly became the third force of Spanish politics before essentially vanishing a few years later. My issue was two-sided: Is Podemos, a party with the values of which I am mostly in agreement, really a populist party? Was I supporting populism this whole time without realizing it? While this barely had any real-life consequences considering I am a non-European immigrant with no voting rights, it made me reconsider why did I support a party like Podemos; On paper, there was nothing wrong with Podemos’s rhetoric, supporting queer rights, women’s issues, immigration, European integration, and so on.

By definition, populism presents the political world as a Manichean struggle, with two homogenous and antithetical groups fighting against each other; the “pure people”, who represent the united majority, against the “corrupt elite”, who are intent on keeping themselves in power (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017, p. 7). By that definition, Podemos supposedly represents a homogeneous group of people and their struggle against the elite, but the politics say otherwise; Podemos appealed to groups with little in common with each other, that do not have a sort of shared identity. Podemos, in its attempt to create itself as the main left-wing populist alternative, failed to attract voters that could form a base for a homogenous “people”  (Hawkins et al., 2018, p. 6). Populism oftentimes tries to establish means of support making use of the us-versus-them mentality that posits that a populist party represents the interests and will of the people, while the corrupt elite is trying to take away resources and freedom from them (Pappas, 2019, pp. 70-72). It also embraces extremist rhetoric by branding any critics of populist ideology as an ‘enemy of the people’ and creating an intimidating environment where people may not feel comfortable participating in democratic processes (Neumann, 2013, p. 887).   
Polarization: Do I Hate Them? Or Have I Been Told to Do So?


 Polarization plays a huge role in advancing populist rhetoric by creating an “empathy gap” between groups and stopping them from humanizing the struggles and issues of one towards the other. To discuss how the previous us-versus-them mentality comes into play in real life, and how polarization works, I would like to give a personal anecdote: I met up with a friend who I thought at the time had political opinions that were the polar opposite of mine, based at least on her expressing a certain disbelief in the current Spanish government and support for protestors against the amnesty law for Catalan separatists in November. As the conversation went along, we both started to realize that we are a lot more similar than we expected; Not only were we able to reach a consensus on many different issues that polarize Spanish politics, such as freedom to protest, language policy, and minority rights, but also we were able to express civil disagreement with certain opinions on economy. 

This meeting, later on, was brought back to my attention when discussing the idea of affective polarization and how it may lead to the elimination of such situations of the accord.  Affective polarization creates a political environment that is very hostile to negotiation and consensus; As described by Yunus Orhan, affective polarization does not have to do with ideological positions, but rather with the existence of the groups that espouse such views; in other words, the ‘in-group’ hates the ‘out-group’ not because they do not agree ideologically with them, but simply because they’re not part of the ‘in-group’ (Orhan, 2022, p. 718). It creates a sense of distrust in the other groups without resorting to meaningful discussion to settle potential differences. This idea of distrust is especially important when extending into the realm of politics and support for democratic institutions; Matthew Wood argues that “individuals lack confidence in an institution or individual when they believe the outputs of the institution or individual [...] do not, or cannot, match the expectations those institutions foster about their normative goals and aims” (Wood, 2021).  One main reason given for the rise of affective polarization is a certain appeal to emotion and empathic concern; Simas, Clifford, and Kirkland argue that individuals who are more empathetic towards the plights of others are also more likely to be driven by negative stereotypes and anger, driving them away from understanding potential grievances of the ‘out-group’ and replacing such empathy towards others with a sense of schadenfreude, as it may be interpreted by the ‘in-group’ that any issue concerning the ‘out-group’ works for their benefit (Simas et al., 2020).
Cycle Deadlock: Is There No Way Out?


 Polarization plays heavily into the erosion of democratic norms and standards and exacerbates the severity of political crises by blocking any attempt at finding compromise. When discussing the rise in polarization, one must also consider the two positions that are argued for through the lens of Jürgen Habermas’s theory of openness and closedness. Habermas argues that pluralism has resulted in a shift from primary to secondary groups and identities and that the opening of new avenues of communication through culture and commerce has led to the liberation of the individual from the dependence on traditional structures (such as familial structures, religious communities, certain political systems, etc) since they now have access to a much wider range of experiences and opinions. However, this ‘openness’ also comes with the issue of accountability and social cohesion; “Each individual is confronted with a freedom that obliges him to count on himself alone, and that isolates him from others as it compels him to take a strategic-rational view of his interests”. In reaction to such ‘openedness’, it could be expected that there will be a desire by “perpetuators” of traditional structures to maintain them in place and fight back any element of change (Habermas, 2009, pp. 484-485).  

This cycle of openness and closedness occurs regularly in politics, but where polarization comes into play is not just the length of the cycle itself, but also the paralyzation of said cycle; we are witnessing either a much quicker cycle between being open to change or closed off to it, or one that has stagnated due to too much push-and-pull force on both sides. Two examples of these two cycle modes are the United States and Spain both post-2015; Since the 2016 presidential elections, there have been only two years where the US government was able to legislate freely (from 2021 to 2023, and even then, it was only possible due to a tie-breaker vote from the vice president), with the political composition of the three main branches (House of Representatives, Senate, and the Presidency) changing with every 2-year election cycle (Party formation since 1857, n.d.). Similarly in Spain, there have been 2 repeat elections in the span of 5 years, with a very close call recently in 2023, due to the inability of political parties to reach consensus on government and continuous political gridlock in the multi-party system (Calvet, 2023). 
Democratic Backsliding: I Know We’re Bad, but They’re Worse!


 This political deadlock and polarization has been also driving some concerning changes to the political environment through the erosion of democratic institutions to push for certain political positions over others, what is also termed democratic backsliding. This occurs when voters are unwilling to ‘punish’ a certain elected official or party of which they are traditional voters, regardless of whether this incumbent had delivered electoral promises and fostered the rule of law or not, because it comes at the expense of voting for another candidate/party that they are radically opposed to in principle, but not necessarily in ideology (as discussed earlier in affective polarization) (Orhan, 2022, pp. 716-717). This means that the elections become more restricted and less competitive (without being undermined so as to not jeopardize the democratic base beyond repair), and weakens the system of checks and balances that guarantee answerability (the obligation to justify public actions of officials) and punishment (imposing negative consequences for undesirable actions), as put forward by Waldner and Lust (Waldner & Lust, 2018).

The main examples that arise are the 2020 United States presidential elections, and the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary elections; In Hungary, despite opinion polls predicting a close election, voters ultimately chose the stability of the current Fidesz ruling party in spite of statements by Viktor Orbán, the current Prime Minister, affirming that Hungary ruled by Fidesz is an illiberal democracy. This also contrasts with the big-tent Egységben Magyarországért opposition coalition that was marred by not only internal division, but also by Orbán’s control over the media and deriding them as enemies of the people, an important element of populist rhetoric employed by Fidesz (Dull, 2022). In the United States this had perhaps more dangerous outcomes; the aftermath of the 2020 elections led not only to an increase in distrust in the judicial system, but it led directly to the January 6 attack on the Capitol in the name of rejecting “corrupt” institutions that challenge the will of the people (Macaro, 2021).

Reform and Values: Learning from the Design World


 Perhaps what we need to see right now is a shift from radical change and polarization, back to a more reform-based political system. Borrowing from the design realm, there are two principles that the political world could try to implement, namely the MAYA (most advanced yet acceptable) principle and the 3% rule. MAYA was coined by Raymond Loewy, a French-American industrial designer who worked with entities such as Studebaker and NASA, and posits that “The adult public's taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if this solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm.” In other words, they will go only so far. Therefore, the smart industrial designer is the one who has a lucid understanding of where the shock zone lies in each particular problem” (Loewy, 1951). Similarly, Virgil Abloh’s 3% rule states that creating something new can happen by only changing a process, a product, a perspective, etc. by 3 percent (Haden, 2023). Applying these two principles to the political realm, it could be argued that introducing radical reform in a certain area will only result in significant backlash and pushback against change and a desire to maintain the status quo. On the other hand, inducing incremental yet long-term change may result in a substantial shift in public perception of certain policy issues over the long run. This is similar to the thought experiment of the Ship of Theseus; in principle, the core of certain policies remains the same, not replaced or overhauled in one step, but the incremental change allows for public opinion to warm up gradually, until reaching a point where the policies they support have changed radically but still maintain popular or multi-partisan support.


The adoption of democratic principles into the folds of the social contract may help reduce the problem of distrust of government institutions and the desire to promote undemocratic or illiberal alternatives, as it allows for debates about the way the country is managed and run, no matter how salient the differences are, as long as there is an element of willingness to listen to the other side, regardless. As Sara Goodman puts it in her article titled Good Citizens in Hard Democratic Times: “Citizenship establishes national unity, balancing and subduing otherwise divisive group differences through a consensus of ideas. Citizenship does not reduce differences but defangs them to allow for democratic governance”. Certain characteristics must exist within the framework of how citizens behave in order to ensure that this works, including mutual toleration of other opinions, equality, and accepting diversity. This last characteristic is very important in particular - The promotion of national unity should not imply homogenization (one of the main pillars of populist rhetoric), nor nationalism, but rather establishing a certain common base that everyone can agree on. (Goodman, 2022, pp. 68-71).

One shining example that stands out for its complexity is the European Union and the promotion of democratic values as civic values; The EU, being a sui generis entity that comprises 27 countries with varying languages, cultures, and traditions, cannot promote a certain identity based on any of the aforementioned elements, for it would only result in the relegation of whichever national identity that was not used to a minority position, nor is the EU able to amalgamate cultures together (perhaps not at this point in time?). The European Union’s United in Diversity motto in reality limits the ability of the EU to do such actions, as it implies that all cultural elements of member states are to be preserved. Therefore the EU must resort to a sui generis identity - a collective identity, which has been considered as an element that helps keep the macro-level political system operating, which in this case, depends entirely on democratic values. In fact, the accession to the Union requires adherence to such values, as outlined in the Copenhagen Criteria (Article 6(1) of the Treaty on the European Union), stating that ‘that a candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities’. This ensures that whichever country with aspirations to accede to the Union cannot cause a drastic change in the average democratic nature of the EU, and that it is willing to reform its institutions to adopt the democratic values identity of the Union (Oshri et al., 2015, pp. 115-117).
CONCLUSION










BIBLIOGRAPHY
 In the end, there are a lot of challenges facing democracy; power-greedy populism on the rise, democratic backsliding in countries long famous for its respect for the rule of law, the rise in extremist rhetoric and the polarization of the opposing camp to the point of societal stagnation and animosity. All of these issues, while usually focused on in regards to their consequences, like the decline in quality of democracy or political deadlock, all have deep roots within the way society functions and organizes itself, and in the way society builds its own identity. I believe that by tackling the core issue of whether society allows itself to be democratic, we can mitigate (perhaps not eliminate) the salience of such issues and therefore reduce the risk of losing democracy, in a world where it is still under threat.


Calvet, J. M. (2023, July 24). El Fantasma de la repetición electoral. La Vanguardia. https://lavanguardia.com/politica/20230724/9129561/fantasma-repeticion-electoral.html (¨The ghost of electoral repeat”)

Dull, S. (2022, April 4). A fidesz újabb Kétharmadának öt Fontos Tanulsága. Telex.hu. https://telex.hu/valasztas-2022/2022/04/04/a-fidesz-ujabb-ketharmadanak-ot-fontos-tanulsaga-ot-pontban ("Five important lessons from the new two-thirds of Fidesz")

Habermas, J. (2009). The Post-National Constellation and The Future Of Democracy. In Democracy: A Reader (pp. 483–490). essay, Johns Hopkins University. 

Haden, J. (2023, March 9). Emotionally Intelligent Leaders Use the 3 Percent Rule to Help People Embrace New Ideas, Products, and Processes. Inc.com. https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/emotionally-intelligent-leaders-use-the3-percent-rule-to-bypass-hesitation-fear-help-people-embrace-new-ideas-products-processes.html

Hawkins, K. A., Carlin, R. E., Littvay, L., & Kaltwasser, R. C. (2019). Conditional populist voting in Chile, Greece, Spain, and Bolivia. In The ideational approach to populism: Concept, theory, and analysis (p. 6). essay, Routledge. 

Goodman, S. W. (2022). “Good Citizens” in Democratic Hard Times. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 699(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162211069729 

Loewy, R. (1951b). Never leave well enough alone. Johns Hopkins University. 

Macaro, L. (2021, May 21). Trump thrusts Supreme Court pick into election turmoil. Associated Press News. https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-joe-biden-donald-trump-voting-e7fa904df7e51320e154efd7c0d7fd2a

Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, R. C. (2017c). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.

Neumann, P. R. (2013). The trouble with radicalization. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), 89(4), 873–893. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23479398 

Orhan, Y. E. (2022). The relationship between affective polarization and democratic backsliding: comparative evidence. Democratization, 29(4), 714-735, DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2021.2008912

Oshri, O., Sheafer, T., & Shenhav, S. R. (2015). A Community of Values: Democratic Identity Formation in the European Union. European Union Politics, 17(1), 114–137. https://doi.org/10.1177/1465116515608957 

Pappas, T. (2019). Populists in Power. Journal of Democracy, 30(2), 70-84.

Simas, E. N., Clifford, S., & Kirkland, J. H. (2020). How Empathic Concern Fuels Political Polarization. American Political Science Review, 114(1), 258–269. doi:10.1017/S0003055419000534

US House of Representatives. (n.d.). Party government since 1857. US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives. https://history.house.gov/Institution/Presidents-Coinciding/Party-Government/ 

Waldner, D., & Lust, E. (2018). Unwelcome change: Coming to terms with Democratic backsliding. Annual Review of Political Science, 21(1), 93–113. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050517-114628 

Wood, M. (2021). The political ideas underpinning political distrust: Analysing four types of anti-politics. Representation, 58(1), 27–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2021.1954076