[fusion event]How Do Democracies Survive a Fickle Electorate?

The rise of authoritarian democratic politics around the world has brought the question of whether democracies, including ours, can survive long term to critical importance.

My primary reference on the philosophy of democratic governance is Karl Popper's Open Societies and their Enemies. The primary enemies that Open Societies have are governing ideologies. The early rivals to Open Societies were theocratically guided aristocracies, and/or the enforced imposition of cultural conservatism. The economic ideologies of Communism, Fascism, and Libertarianism are more recent 19th -21st century rivals.

Popper basically was concerned about thought control movements, not the casual end of democracy when a populist despot gets elected. Popper's primary example case was Athens, which had populist anti-opposition leaders elected several times, as similarly did Rome. Athens was defeated by Sparta as a result of the foolishness of one such populist, who destroyed Athen's army in a bizarre effort to "punish" far distant Syracuse. This led to Sparta imposing aristocracy and kings upon Athens, but popular revolt restored democracy within several decades. Rome similarly suffered multiple military disasters when blowhards were elected, and led Rome's armies into defeat by Hannibal -- but Rome's democracy likewise survived those disasters.

Athen's democracy did not survive the later conquest by Macedon.

Then, Rome's democracy did not survive the affluence and arrogance of Empire, and the military leaders of the late Republic accrued popular hero worship, and became the emperors. The first to do so was assassinated by democrats in the name of the Senate, but the citizens of Rome did not rally to the Senate, unlike those of Athens. When the citizenry of a country willingly hand dictatorial control to a Dear Leader, democracy can end for centuries.

Later examples -- England always had a strong parliament. Under a religious ideology, Parliament set out to displace the King, and establish a religiously guided democracy. This was not an Open society, and the parliamentary leaders ran afoul of the General who had won their war, and has a more strict interpretation of the religious ideology, and were dissolved by Cromwell. Democracy and theocratic guidance is -- not a stable combination. It is not an Open Society. The Iranian Islamic Republic faced the same issues -- the electorate kept voting for insufficiently dogmatic politicians, so the Mullahs repeatedly used the army to "correct" their voting public.

Latin America, for most of a century, faced mostly conservative military coups against one democracy after another seeking to enforce religious and cultural conservatism. This was Popper's classic enemy. Mexico, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Argentina were exceptions where socialist populism motivated many of the coups/revolts. Both ideologies COULD accept democracy, and electoral defeats, and currently in Mexico and Argentina they have.

Russia lost its democracy in 1917 to an ideological coup, then in the early 2000s to a Dear Leader cult, who then installed nationalism/religiosity to bolster his credibility. Germany and Italy lost their democracies to populist Dear Leaders prior to WW2, who likewise turned to nationalism, but split on ideology between the socialist National Socialists and the culturally conservative Fascists. Spain's fascists gained power in a military rebellion, not a military coup or an executive coup.

This historical survey suggests that there are three threats:

• Loss of interest, as with Rome
• Foreign conquest
• Ideologically motivated populist executives eliminating democracy in the name of a popular ideology

Russia appears not to have a motivated enough populace to maintain a democracy, as Putin's opposition, even at the height of its popularity was only perhaps a bare majority. Russia faces the loss of interest issue.

Foreign conquest can end democracies, with application of sufficient oppression. Military coups, however, seem not to be stable. Latin America and coastal Asia have had democracy repeatedly revive after coups.

This suggests the key to maintaining a democracy is to teach the principles of Civics, and the grounding of the justification of governance in the Choice of the People.

Note -- I am not an expert in this subject, and there are multiple other philosophers besides Popper and Locke who can offer insights. So questions:

>> Who is familiar with other philosophers whose thoughts are relevant here? Please offer capsule summaries in comments.

>> I took a broad definition of democracy, including Athens and Rome with their very limited electorates, and the USA which initially limited the electorate to landowners. I also didn't worry about how democracy is implemented between "direct democracy" or Republic Representationalism, as the legal framework has varied dramatically between applications. Does this matter? I did not mention Venice, for instance, which was a stable oligarchy Republic for centuries.

>> My survey suggests the democratic backsliding of our era is -- not a long-term phenomenon. Is this a wildly optimistic conclusion?

>> Are there stronger methods to maintain a democracy more than Civics classes?

>> Open table -- what other thoughts do folks have?

We meet in person and online. In person will be at the cafeteria of the applied physics lab. Snack and drinks are available for online purchase. Pizza will be provided as well at a price of $2/slice. Online will be: https://teams.live.com/meet/93583191724730?p=hY3jxVvnOciVl2aRn5
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