There are four subtle stages on the road to autocracy
Millions of Turks are now terrified of their president. However, plenty admire him for protecting them from the Gulenists. Adem, an estate agent in Istanbul, congratulates President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for “cleaning away the enemies within” — echoing a government slogan. He says of the purge’s victims: “They’ve been arrested because they’ve done something wrong. In America if you steal state secrets they put you in the electric chair, don’t they?”
At an election on June 24, Erdogan is expected to consolidate his power. Despite double-digit inflation and a tottering currency, he is likely to win re-election (though his party may struggle). And his office will become much more powerful, thanks to a constitutional change he pushed through last year. As “executive” president, he will be able to issue decrees with the force of law and pack the judiciary with loyalists.
Turkey exemplifies a dismal trend. The world has grown more democratic since World War II. In 1941 there were only a dozen democracies; by 2000 only eight states had never held a serious election. But since the global financial crisis of 2008, democracy has regressed.
Most watchdogs concur. The latest survey by Freedom House, an American think tank, is called Democracy in Crisis. Last year, for the 12th consecutive year, countries that suffered democratic setbacks outnumbered those that registered gains, it says. According to the Democracy Index from The Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company of The Economist, 89 countries regressed last year; only 27 improved. The latest Transformation Index from the Bertelsmann Foundation, another think tank, which looks at emerging economies, finds that the “quality of democracy … has fallen to its lowest level in 12 years”. What these indices measure is not simply democracy (that is, rule by the people), but liberal democracy (that is, with a freely elected government that also respects individual and minority rights, the rule of law and independent institutions).
This distinction is important. In The People v Democracy, Yascha Mounk of Harvard University stresses that liberalism and democracy are separable. Voters often want things that are democratic but not liberal, in the most basic sense, which has nothing to do with left or right-wing policies. For example, they may elect a government that promises to censor speech they dislike, or back a referendum that would curtail the rights of an unpopular minority.
At the same time, plenty of liberal institutions are undemocratic. Unelected judges often can overrule elected politicians, for example. Liberals see this as an essential constraint on the government’s power. Even the people’s chosen representatives must be subject to the law. In a liberal democracy, power is dispersed. Politicians are not only accountable to voters but also kept in line by feisty courts, journalists and pressure groups. A loyal opposition recognises the government as legitimate but decries many of its actions and seeks to replace it at the next election. A clear boundary exists between the ruling party and the state.
This system is now under siege. In many countries, voters are picking leaders who do not respect it, and gradually undermine it, creating what Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban proudly calls “illiberal democracy”. Eventually, when enough checks and balances have been removed, a would-be autocrat finds it easier to neuter democracy itself, by shutting down opposition (as in Turkey) or neutering the legislature (as in Venezuela, where the government staged a sham election on May 20).
The mature democracies of the West are not yet in serious danger. Donald Trump may scorn liberal norms, but US checks and balances are strong, and will outlast him. The real threat is to less mature democracies, where institutions are weaker and democratic habits less ingrained. Nonetheless, what happens in the West affects these places. The US once inspired subjugated people and sought to promote democracy. It now has a president who openly admires Vladimir Putin and claims a “special bond” with Kim Jong-un.
Meanwhile, China supplies an alternative model. Having grown much less dictatorial after the death of Mao Zedong, it is reconcentrating power in one man, Xi Jinping, whose term limits as president have just been removed. Some would-be autocrats cite China as evidence that authoritarianism promotes economic growth — though what they often mean is that they too want to be presidents for life.
Globally, public support for democracy remains high. A Pew poll of 38 countries found a median of 78 per cent of people agreed that a system where elected representatives make laws was a good one. But hefty minorities approved of non-democratic alternatives. A worrying 24 per cent thought military rule would be fine, and 26 per cent liked the idea of “a strong leader” who “can make decisions without interference from parliament or the courts”. In general, autocracy was more popular among the less educated.
With such large majorities favouring it, leaders cannot openly admit they plan to abolish democracy. However, many have grown adept at subverting its essence while maintaining its outward appearance. The details vary from country to country, but it is striking how much the new autocrats have in common and how attentively they learn from each other.
To oversimplify, a democracy typically declines like this. First, a crisis occurs and voters back a charismatic leader who promises to save them. Second, this leader finds enemies. His aim, in the words of 20th-century US wit HL Mencken, “is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Third, he nobbles independent institutions that may get in his way. Finally, he changes the rules to make it harder for voters to dislodge him. During the first three stages, his country is still a democracy. At some point in the final stage, it ceases to be one.
In Hungary, two shocks undermined faith in the old order. First came the financial crisis. Before it, many Hungarians took out absurdly risky foreign-currency mortgages. When the Hungarian forint crashed against the Swiss franc and they lost their homes, they were furious. Fidesz, a party that was once quite liberal but has become dramatically less so, won an election in 2010 by blaming the previous government and vowing to make borrowers whole.
The second shock was the Syrian refugee crisis of 2015-16. Hardly any Syrians settled in Hungary but thousands passed through on the way to Germany, so Hungarians saw them on television. They gave Fidesz’s leader, Orban, two handy enemies: the Muslim hordes and the liberal elite who wanted to let them in.
Orban built a fence that largely stopped the flow of refugees. But he continued to play up the threat. His government ordered a poll asking voters what they thought of a fictitious plan by George Soros, a Hungarian-American billionaire, to bring one million Middle Eastern and African migrants to Europe. A campaign poster showed Soros grinning evilly and embracing opposition leaders holding wire cutters. “They would remove the fence together” ran the slogan.
On April 8 Orban’s party was re-elected with a thumping majority. In May Soros’s foundation closed its office. “Hungary disproves the notion that when you reach an income per head of $US14,000 your democracy is safe,” Mounk says of a theory popular with political scientists.
Picking the right enemies is crucial. Migrants are good because they cannot vote. Soros is even better because he is rich, funds liberal causes and is, you know, Jewish. He can be painted as allpowerful; but because he is not, he cannot harm the demagogues who demonise him.
Stirring up ethnic hatred is dangerous. So rabble-rousers use dog-whistles. Former South African president Jacob Zuma denounced “white monopoly capital” rather than whites in general. Many leaders pick on small, commercially successful minorities. Former Zambian president Michael Sata won power after railing against Chinese bosses.
Criminals make ideal enemies, since no one likes them. Rodrigo Duterte won the presidency of The Philippines in 2016 on a promise to kill drug dealers. An estimated 12,000 extrajudicial slayings later, the country is no safer but his government has an approval rating of around 80 per cent.
Would-be autocrats need a positive agenda, too. Often they pose as defenders of an identity that voters hold dear, such as their nationality, culture or religion. Poland’s ruling party, for example, waxes lyrical about the country’s Catholic way of life and lavishes subsidies on big families, who are likely to be rural and religious.
Parties of the nationalist right have learned from the left how to exploit identity politics. Both sides tend to favour “group rights” over those of individuals. The “Hungarian nation is not a simple sum of individuals”, Orban said in 2014, “but a community that needs to be organised, strengthened and developed”.
To remain in power, autocrats need to nobble independent institutions. They do this gradually and quietly.
The first target is often the justice system. Poland’s ruling party passed a law in December forcing two-fifths of judges into retirement. On May 11 Duterte forced out the chief justice of The Philippines, who had objected to his abuse of martial law.
The media must be nobbled, too. First, an autocrat in waiting puts his pals in charge of the public broadcaster and accuses critical outlets of spreading lies. Rather than banning independent media, as despots might have done a generation ago, he slaps spurious fines or tax bills on their owners, forcing them to sell their businesses to loyal tycoons. This technique was perfected by Vladimir Putin in Russia, and is now widely copied. In Turkey, the last big independent media group was sold to a friend of Erdogan in March.
Getting the security forces on side is essential. Former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe took their loyalty for granted and was thrown out. Other strongmen are less complacent. To keep the men with guns happy, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro lets them loot the national food distribution system. Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who won 92 per cent of the vote in March, lets the police top up their salaries by robbing civilians.
With the courts, press and armed forces in his pocket, a strongman can set about neutering every other institution that counts. He can sideline parliament, redraw the electoral map and silence serious opponents.
Whatever ideology they profess, autocrats are often opportunistic. Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua started as a revolutionary Marxist, seizing power in 1979. He lost an election in 1990 partly because he was anti-Catholic. So he rebranded himself as a devout Catholic — pushing a ban on abortion even if the mother’s life is at risk — and was re-elected in 2006 against a divided opposition. Last year his wife, Rosario Murillo, became vice-president, thus establishing a dynasty resembling the dictatorship he once overthrew.
Ortega and his Sandinistas have commandeered the Supreme Court, which abolished presidential term limits, and created shell “opposition” parties to simulate choice while repressing genuine opponents. Critical media find themselves under new ownership, often that of Ortega’s family.
None of this chipping away at democracy sparked unrest. It was only when Ortega tried to grab Nicaraguans’ pensions that they rioted. The ruling Sandinistas’ mismanagement and graft has left the public pension pot all but empty. Ortega told workers to top it up. In response, tens of thousands took to the streets in April and tore down statues erected in honour of Murillo. The regime has clung to power by shooting people.
Autocrats who plan to stay in power forever need to indoctrinate children. “Most countries don’t have events from two years ago in their school history books. We do,” says a Turkish liberal, aghast that Turks as young as four are taught that their President saved the nation from the Gulenists. Venezuela’s Bolivarian University offers free tuition to students who submit to lectures blaming the US for food shortages.
Much has been said about the failures of liberal democracies. Although they are typically rich and peaceful, many of their citizens are disgruntled. Globalisation and technology have made them fear for their jobs. The culture wars ensure more or less everyone feels disrespected by someone. The rise of autocracy is in part a reaction to these big historical trends. But it is also because power-hungry leaders have learned how to exploit them. You cannot have autocracy without an autocrat.
Most authoritarian regimes are filthy. Of the countries and territories in the dirtiest third of Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index, not one is rated “free” by Freedom House. Of those in the cleanest 20, only Singapore and Hong Kong fail to qualify as free.
Autocracy and graft create a vicious circle. Power with few constraints enables those who wield it, or their friends, to get rich. The more they steal, the more incentive they have to rig the system to remain in charge. If they lose power, they risk prosecution, as Zuma is discovering in South Africa. Thus, whenever an autocrat makes a stirring speech about national pride, his real aim may be to deflect attention from his own skulduggery. Orban’s opponents would love to discuss why his friends are now among the richest people in Hungary, or why there is a huge football stadium in his tiny home town. But his friends control the media, and would rather talk about immigrants.
Democrats can fight back. Five recent examples stand out.
In Sri Lanka, the opposition united to beat a spendthrift, vicious autocrat. In the Gambia, the threat of an invasion by neighbouring countries forced a strongman to accept that he had lost an election. In South Africa, an elected leader who subverted institutions and let cronies loot with impunity was tossed out by his own party in January. In Armenia, an autocrat was ousted in April by mass protests.
And in Malaysia, former prime minister Najib Razak tried to steal an election in May but failed. Despite his gerrymandering, censorship and racist appeals to the Malay majority, voters dumped the ruling party of the past 61 years. Its sleaze had grown too blatant.
America’s justice department has accused Najib of receiving $US681 million from 1MDB, a state fund from which $US4.5 billion disappeared. He says the money was a gift from an unnamed Saudi royal. The opposition gleefully contrasted the vast sums Najib’s wife spends on jewellery with the difficulty ordinary folks have making ends meet. “Najib just makes up his own rules,” says a taxi driver who switched sides to back the new government.
That strongmen make up their own rules is why liberal democracy is worth defending. And in the long run, it seems to deliver better material results. A study by Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that switching from autocracy to democracy adds 20 per cent to income per head across 30 years, though some economists dispute these findings. Guillermo Vuletin of the World Bank argues that autocrats fall when economies slump, and the democrats who succeed them take credit for the inevitable recovery.
What is certain, however, is that freely elected governments bound by the rule of law have less power to abuse citizens. “Little by little they took away our rights,” says a journalist in Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey, who was recently arrested for five innocuous tweets. “Every day I check the news to see which of my friends has been detained.”
