By Joshua Muravchik and Jeffrey Gedmin By Joshua Muravchik and Jeffrey Gedmin April 19 at 6:00 AM
About the authors
Joshua Muravchik is a Distinguished Fellow at the World Affairs Institute.
Jeffrey Gedmin is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former President and CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Freedomdiminished aroundthe world in 2016for the 11th consecutive year, according to Freedom House.These years sawthe devastating failure of the Arab Spring and thesad turn of Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union back todictatorship. Russia, China and Iran are increasingly assertive in their regions.And illiberal populistparties nearly four dozen of various stripes are on the risein Europein parallelwitha new angry nationalism in the United States.Taken together, its hard not to at least contemplate whether democracy might be an endangered species.
To Americans, democracy is a given. But to the rest of the world, its a fairly recent invention a creature of the past two centuries.Thisisa relatively narrow slice of recorded history, briefer thantheMingor Songdynastiesin Chinaorvarious otherdynastieselsewherethat appear as mere blips in historical memory.Maybe this democratic moment is just another phase.
The original experiments with democracy in ancient Greece and Romedisappeared, and this form of government meaningfully returned only two millennialaterwith the birth of the American republic. Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg that the Civil War would determine whether any nation so conceived can long endure.In the 20th century,Communism, Nazism and fascism presented powerful challenges to the democratic world not only on the battlefieldbut also in the realm of ideas,offering models for how societies should be organized thatmany believed were superior to democracy.
The Washington Post's Griff Witte explains how French youth contributed to National Front party candidate Marine Le Pen's rise in popularity. (Sarah Parnass,Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
With the serial defeat of those enemies, democracysascentseemed assured. Francis Fukuyamasaidthe Wests victory in the Cold War amounted totheend of history, meaning thatdebate about the best form of society was resolvedfor all time.All countriesthat had not alreadyadoptedliberal democracy were nonetheless headed in that direction, he wrote.
Another political scientist, Samuel Huntington, took another approach in The Third Wave. He argued that democracydid not rollsteadily forward,butrose and fellin waves.The firstwavehad begun inthe United States when it was a young country, crested at the conclusion of World War I with the transformation of empires in Europe into independent, democraticstates, and then crashed in the 1920s asmost of those statesdevolved into dictatorships. The secondwave began after World War II, with the liberation of Asian and African colonies, but it too crashed as these newborn democracies fell, one after another,under strongman rule. The third wave began in 1974, with the democratization of Portugal followed by other countries in Southern Europe, then Latin America, then, most dramatically,the Soviet bloc.This wavehad not yetcrested when Huntington wrote, but it did so early in the 21st century, when Freedom House found that nearly two-thirds of the worlds countries were electoral democracies whilea record45 percent fulfilled thegroups more demandingcriteria for being labeled a free country.
[How fascist is Donald Trump? Theres actually a formula for that.]
Since then, democracy and freedom havebeen in gradual recession. The falloff has been modest,butaconstellation ofrecent eventsand trends suggests that an all-out crashcould follow.Each of the first two crashes left the world with a radically reduced number of democratic states.How many democracies might disappear and how many might remain afterathird crash? Since the crest of the third wave was higher than the first two,more might be left intact,butby the same token, a crash from this high crestmightprove tobe all themore momentous, darkening the livesof hundreds of millions of peopleand reshaping international relations and Americas place in the world.
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What makes thisevenseem possible? First,the new century has witnessed some major disappointments for democrats.The Arab Spring of 2011 promised for a moment to bring a large measure of democracy to the region that has been mostresistant to it. But only onesmall country, Tunisia, emerged more democratic, while a handful movedin the opposite direction, either because wary regimes (in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait andothers)tightened the screws or because countries collapsed into warringmilitary factions (as in Syria,Libyaand Yemen).Another bitter disappointment has been the former Soviet Union, which devolved into 15 independent states in 1991, each holding elections and adopting democratic institutions. Today,onlysixremain as democracies, of which half are none too stable; the rest are once again ruled by dictators, including some of the worlds most repressive ones.
Elsewhere,democratic reverses have occurredin pivotal countries thatseem likely to influence others around them. Turkey, for example, has been for decades a leading example of democracy in the Muslim world, especially in its Middle Eastern core, notwithstanding the imperfections of itsdemocraticinstitutions. Now,thegraspof Recep Tayyip Erdoganfordictatorial power will convince many that democracy is incompatible with Islam. In Hungary, the peeling away of freedoms is inspiring imitation in the other countriesof the formerEastern bloc.Unless reversed, recent moves by the government of Viktor Orban to close the Central European University in Budapest since its founding in 1991 a symbol of democratic transition and Western-style academic study are likely to have a chilling effect in the region.Hugo Chvez destroyed democracy in Venezuela and inspired imitators, who have weakened, albeit not eliminated, democracy inseveral other Latin nations. Other mercurial strongmen who have come to power through elections,in the Philippines and South Africa,couldwielda similar impact withintheir regions as well astheirown countries.
Influence is sometimes exerted more forcefully than merelybysetting an example. Threeaggressivedictatorships Russia, China and Iran are exercising increasing sway over theareas around them.
[Chill, America. Not every Trump outrage is outrageous.]
RussiasVladimir Putin,having stampedout the last embers of post-Communist democratization and imposedone-man rule,has invaded two of the former republics of the Soviet Union Georgia and Ukraine and uses economic leverage and dirty tricks to ensure the elimination of democracy inothers. Heno doubt aims to dothe same in thosethat remaindemocratic, but he is not stopping there. He is nurturing anti-democratic forces in former states of the Soviet bloc (Russian influence in media and politics is on the rise in the Czech Republic, once a model of Central European democratic development), as well as of Western Europe (Frances presidential front-runner, Marine Le Pen, recently made a pilgrimage to Moscow that reportedly bankrolls her party and others of its ilk). Putin is evenbeginning to reassert Russian influence in the Middle East, hoping to makehis country onceagain a global power. Likewise, Chinas Xi Jinping, having reversed a four-decade trend of liberalization, pushes forward an intimidating military buildup while flexing Chinas muscles in the surrounding seas. And Iran, having smothered the pro-democracyGreen Movementthat arose after the disputed 2009 presidential elections,has achieved dominance in Lebanonandmuch of Syria and wieldsgreatweightin Iraqand Yemen, all steps ontheway toits self-proclaimed goal ofregional dominance.
These deleterious actions weigh the more heavily in view of the abdication of American efforts in the opposite direction. TheUnited States hasbeen the modern worldsmost influential country and has promoted democracy passively by serving as a model and actively through its diplomatic efforts, aid, and even militaryand covert action practices. But President Barack Obamacameto office aiming to correct the overreach of President George W. Bush, who aspired to impose democracy on Iraq andperhaps the whole Middle East. Obama believed America should practice greater self-restraint andexercise extreme cautionabout saddling others with our beliefs. Wary of neo-imperialism, he resisted calls tomore forcefullycounteract Iranian and Russianassertionsof power.
President Trumps policies go in the same direction as Obamas, only further. This week, he congratulated Turkeys president for eliminating the parliament and consolidating power against the opposition. His America first nationalism focuses on what we can extract from the worldrather thanhow we can influenceit. His moral relativism toward Russia implies utter indifference to the behavior of foreign governments, unless commercial interests are at stake. Recently, he has added a couple further exceptions: Other countries mustnt gas babies or threaten America with intercontinental nuclear missiles. The list still falls dramatically short of Americas issues of interest and realm of influence. In aFebruary interview, when confronted with the assertion that Putin is a killer, Trump replied, there are a lot of killers. You think our countrys so innocent? The foreign policy thinkers who havegathered underTrumps banner have gone out of their way to de-emphasize or disparage Americas role in promoting democracy.
Notwithstanding a recent about-face the alliance is no longer obsolete, he said this month Trump has denigrated NATO, applaudedBrexit,and embracedEuropean politicians who seek to weaken or abolish the European Union. Given that economics and trade seem to be the centerpieces of his international interests andgivenhis apparent view that international relationsconstitutea zero-sum game, onethat America has been losing, it makes sense to welcome the disintegration of the E.U.
Yet it is preciselytherethat the dangers ofademocratic crash weighmost heavily. The countries of Western Europe have not only been Americas principal allies in the Cold War and the war against terrorism, they also, as stable, advanced and successful countries, constitute the other main cornerstone of the democratic world. The young democracies of Central and Eastern Europe were seen two decades ago as a source of inspiration for the older, more established West. Today,there is reason to fear for the solidity of Europes democracies (both East and West).
[Heres what demagogues like Trump do to their countries when they take power]
Many of these nations are being whipsawed between, on the one hand, burgeoning immigrant-and-refugee populations from predominantly Muslim landsthat sometimes show little attachment to their new countries or democratic institutions, and, on the other hand, populist parties channeling anti-immigrant feelings parties that are themselvesequivocalin their commitment to democratic values and institutions.Conditions vary from country to country, but a variety of additional factors also lie at the root of European populism, including low growth and high youth unemployment in the south; voter frustration with Brussels over regulations and matters of sovereignty; anxiety about terrorism; and dissatisfaction with globalization and free trade. The central problem is not that citizens speak out and voice concern in a number of areas, of course. The threat is what populist leaders do with all this.Populists see themselves as sole moral representatives of the true people,Princeton Universitys Jan-Werner Muellersays. Media, courts, even universities can be viewed as enemies of the people.
None of this will go away easily, or soon. In French elections, Marine Le Pen may end up losing in second-round voting in May. But her populist National Front would almost certainly gain more support than last time. Germanys Alternative for Germany party is down to 8 percent in polls compared with 15 percent earlier this year. The right-wing populists nevertheless now hold seats in 10 of Germanys 16 state parliamentsand will almost certainly enter the Bundestag throughnational elections in September.
The sky is not falling yet. But were todays E.U. to break apart, expect a surge of protectionism, illiberal nationalism and anti-American sentimentin pockets across the continent. Count on even greater Russian assertiveness in Europe in backing anti-democratic forces. Moscow is the source of none of these unfortunate trends, but it has shown itself eager to support and promote all of them.
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ScholarsRoberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk have recently challenged the establishedviewinpolitical sciencethat democracy in economically developed countries cannot be reversed.In academic jargon, countries that havealternated powerpeacefully through electionsa couple of timesor moreand have surpassed a certain income level are deemed to be consolidated democracies. Never has such a country slid back to authoritarianism.But Foa and Mounk have adduced a range of surveys showing that publics in Europe and the United Statesare registering an unprecedented loss ofattachment to, even disillusionment with, democratic norms. They ask whether democracy in some of these countries might be in the process of becoming deconsolidated.
In our eyes, American democracy is sturdy enough to withstandthis trend and even the rise ofan erratic, megalomaniacal president. The questionthat troubles us moreis whethertheglobalanti-democratic trends of the past decade will be accelerated byAmericas abandonment ofits historic role asmodel andchampion of democracy. Already Trumps egregious behavior has weakened Americas impact as an exemplar. At this moment, much of the world looks at us astonished or aghast rather than in admiration.The further issue is whether our actions in the realms of diplomacy, commerce and foreign aid will count democracy as an important value or will they all be guided by the pursuit of the deal and of ego gratification. The presidents impulses to destabilize Mexico, appease Russia and congratulate Turkey do not bode well in this regard.
[In Venezuela, we couldnt stop Chvez. Dont make the same mistakes we did.]
The withdrawal ofAmerican supportfordemocracy couldcompoundthe various anti-democratic trends we have described and lead to the fall of Huntingtons third wave. Thatcrashmight carry away many of the newly minted democracies of the developing world and of the former Soviet empireand might even send tremors through other parts of Europe.
So what? Trump says he wants to put only America first. So why care how democracy is faring elsewhere? The answer is that a less democratic world will be a less stable world, more rife with conflict, more fertile with terrorism and less friendly to the United States. The members of Team Trump are not the first Americans to dream of avoiding foreign wars, but time and again we have found ourselves drawn in, however reluctantly.
A range of developmentsmake this a dangerous time. Americas abdication ofleadership, of its devotiontoideals and practice of generosity in favor of a policy of narrow and short-term self-interest will only make this time more dangerous, not least for America itself.
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This is what the beginning of the end of democracy looks like - Washington Post