Daniel Ziblatt: How Democracies Die, and the Importance of Political Parties

 

So, I promised a review of Daniel Ziblatt (not Zimblatt as I previously called him) and his book How Democracies Die, which will complement Stuart Stevens' It Was All a Lie. 

I have previously reviewed Ziblatt's book Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy.  The two books stand in interesting contrast.  Conservative Parties is written for professional historians; How Democracies Die is written for the lay public.  Conservative Parties describes the preconditions to make democratic transformation possible; How Democracies Die is about what can go wrong after the transformation.  Conservative Parties sees the primary threat to democracy as on the right; How Democracies Die acknowledges that it can come from the left as well.  Both books see political parties as key to a functioning democracy, and particularly parties' role as gatekeepers, barring demagogues from power and restraining dangerous elements.  

How Democracies Die is aimed specifically toward Donald Trump, and generally toward how demagogues can undermine democracy from within.  Ziblatt presents two basis theses.  First, that political parties are key to preserving democracies, and second, that democracies depend, not just on laws, but on norms.

Political parties

Political parties, Ziblatt argues, serve as "gatekeepers" to democracy, barring potential authoritarian leaders.  Authoritarians rarely become strong enough to subvert democracy without the cooperation of establishment parties.  Inter-war Germany and Italy are particularly notorious examples.  But Ziblatt also describes in some detail how Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela, despite having previously attempted a coup, by making an alliance with a mainstream party leader.  When an dangerous, anti-democratic party arises, Ziblatt argues, mainstream parties can block it by forming alliances across ideological lines, i.e., an alliance between the center-right and center-left to block the extremes.  He offers as examples inter-war Belgium and Finland, and present-day Austria.  All these countries were parliamentary democracies, working by coalition.  In all of them, the center-right made an alliance with the center-left to keep the hard right out of power.  

It can be difficult to understand at a distance, but Ziblatt attempts to explain just how hard such alliances are to make.  "Picture Senator Edward Kennedy and other liberal Democrats campaigning for Ronald Reagan, or the British Labour Party and their trade union allies endorsing Margaret Thatcher."

And he is right.  Given the uniquely binary nature of US politics, the equivalent of forming a coalition with the opposing party is to purposefully lose to it.  That does seem hard.  And yet, I have seen it happen in my lifetime, not at the presidential level, but in Louisiana.  

In fact, although I did not know it, it happened twice in Louisiana in two years, when David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan became the de facto Republican nominee.  Louisiana has a non-partisan primary in which all candidates compete.  If no one wins a majority, there is a run-off between the top two vote getters.  In the 1990 election for Senate, the incumbent was a Democrat.  Duke ran way ahead of the Republican challenger.  The Republicans ended up withdrawing their candidate and throwing their weight behind the Democrat.  It was not any easy thing for Louisiana Republicans to do, but they could take comfort in the knowledge that (1) the Democratic incumbent was a conservative, oil-friendly Louisiana Democrat who has represented the state before without disaster and (2) that he was, in any event, just one of 100 senators.

Rather different was the 1991 election for Governor.  In that case, the Republican incumbent came in third in the primary, and a runoff took place between Duke and the Democratic candidate.  And this candidate was not an ordinary, respectable Democrat.  This was Edwin Edwards, the second least-acceptable candidate in Louisiana.  Edwards' method of governing was to buy popularity by spreading around Louisiana's oil money, ensuring that everyone got a piece, and keeping a sizable portion for himself.  Edwards had served two terms as governor and been indicted (though not convicted) both times.  He was known to go to Las Vegas with briefcases of money.  When I describe him to friends, they think I am talking about Huey Long.  And he famously commented that he could only lose if it got caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy, a sort of precursor to Trump saying he wouldn't lose votes if he shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.  Nonetheless, given the choice between such a man and David Duke, the Louisiana Republican establishment very reluctantly threw its support behind Edwards.  They handed out T-shirts and bumper stickers saying "Vote for the lizard, not the wizard" and "Vote for the crook.  It's important."  Edwards handily won, and Duke's career in mainstream politics was at an end.

Another obvious  example today are the "Never Trump" Republicans throwing their support behind Biden.  More on that later.

Ziblatt is fairly clear that democracy can succeed only if there are brakes on it to prevent it from either descending into mob rule or tearing itself apart by factionalism.  He sees political parties as the primary form of brakes, or "gatekeepers," as he calls them.

But that raises an awkward questions.  Ziblatt warns that we should beware of the populist outsider, denouncing party elites as corrupt and claiming to speak  for the people.  He has a certain tendency to assume that outsider = authoritarian.  

But democracies really can become corrupt and sclerotic, and democratic rulers really can be captured by special interests.  So what happens is a democracy really does begin to stagnate, and to descend into corruption, sclerosis, and capture by special interests. Are we to condemn all political outsiders and all people criticizing the system?  To say that outsiders are to be barred as authoritarians waiting to happen and that criticism is just demagoguery is itself subversive of democracy -- it allows democracy to degenerate into a cozy little oligarchy.

There are two answers to this.  One is that there are dangers in putting power into the hands of an outsider.  An outsider is unlikely to understand the rules of the game, the intricacies of democratic politics, or the complexity of the problems the country is facing.  An outsider may end up wrecking, rather than reforming, the system.  A reform-minded insider is often a better bet.  The candidate running on the promise to cut through the red tape and get things done is often promising to set aside the tiresome constraints of democracy and the rule of law.  (Ziblatt give Peru's Alberto Fujimori as such an example.  He did not run with the express intent of being an authoritarian, but his desire not to be bound by the democratic rules of the game led to his becoming an authoritarian.

The other is that outsiders are not necessarily authoritarians, and that insiders can be authoritarians as well.  What we should look out for in any politicians are signs of authoritarian behavior.  Ziblatt gives four such signs:

1. Rejection of, or weak commitment to, democratic rules of the game, such as
1. Rejection of the constitution or willingness to violate it
2. Willingness to take anti-democratic measures, such as canceling elections, suspending the Constitution, banning certain organizations, or restricting basic civil or political rights
3. Endorsing extra-legal measures, such as military coup, violent insurrection, or mass protests aimed at ousting the government
4. Seeking to undermine the legitimacy of elections
2. Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents, such as:
1. Calling their opponents subversive
2. Calling their opponents an existential threat
3. Baselessly calling their opponents criminals who should be barred from the political arena
4. Baselessly calling their opponents foreign agents
3. Toleration or encouragement of violence such as:
1. Association with armed gangs or paramilitaries
2. Encouraging mob violence
3. Refusal to condemn violence committed by their side
4. Praising political violence in the past or in other countries
4. Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including the media such as:
1. Expanding libel laws, laws restricting protest, or laws restraining opposing organizations
2. Threats to take legal action against opponents or critics
3. Praising such measures in the past or in other countries.

Ziblatt (writing in 2018) sees Trump has having done many (not all) of these things:

• Seeking to undermine the legitimacy of elections
• Baselessly describing opponents as criminals who should be disqualified from participation
• Refusing to condemn violence by supporters
• Praising political violence in other countries
• Supporting laws restricting civil liberties, such as expanding libel law or laws restricting protests, criticism of government, or laws restraining opposing organizations
• Threats to take legal action against opponents or critics
• Praise for such actions in other countries

Note that, although some of the red flags Ziblatt warns against are actual illegality, many are not.  Some are perfectly legal, but violate established norms.  The difficult question of institutional norms will be addressed in my next post.