Additional Information to Rules for Rulers Video - Types of Democracies

 

This is the second part of my Additional information to Rules for Rulers Video by CGPGrey, in the first part I did an introduction and covered types of dictatorships and differences between them. In the second I will cover democracies instead. You can read this part alone, but I would recommend you read the first part first.

When I was planning this article I at one point thought of not subdividing democracies into types as certain traits and dynamics remain no matter how advanced or not a democracy is. However later I reconsidered.

Nascent (Transitional) Democracy/Hybrid Regime

When a country finally falls into the valley of revolution and its elites could not find a way to get back to being a dictatorship again, they have no choice but to start painful for them personally process of democratisation: transition from a dictatorial way of doing things to a democratic one.

At first glance a dictatorship, particularly a tight rope one, has all the same institutions as a democracy: elections, parliament, legal system, various codes of law, police, courts, public prosecution, even public ombudsman and so on. That is however only at first glance. In a dictatorships all these structures may be called the same names as in a democracy but they serve dramatically different roles. Electoral system does not counts citizens votes but instead rigs the results to help dictators re-election. Parliament does not make laws, but exists as a spoils system to reward loyalists of the regime. Legal system does not exist to regulate society but to cover up repression with a veneer of justice system. Public prosecution exists not to prosecute crime, but to forge evidence against enemies of the regime. Courts do not exist to determine if person is guilty or not but to churn out guilty verdicts to enemies of the regime while overlooking all the evidence to the contrary. Finally police exist not to keep public order but to harass and intimidate opponents of the regime and population generally.

To make matters worse, in a particularly advanced forms of tight rope dictatorship laws are deliberately written in such a way that makes following them all but impossible. That way dictators would have easier time jailing anyone they want citing one or the other unavoidable violation of their Byzantine legal system.

Finally as a spoiled cherry a top of the rotten dictatorship pie, there is a corruption. Police and bureaucrats are deliberately encouraged to break these Byzantine laws to enrich themselves. That way they will gain a stake in the system, by benefiting from its worst abuses. In exchange the regime gets an easy form of blackmail against the bureaucrats and police. For so long as individual bureaucrats and policemen remain loyal to the regime their crimes will be overlooked, but if they displease the regime, the regime will sent the blackmail to the prosecutor office to get them convicted and jailed. That kind of corruption gives police and bureaucracy vested interest in keeping the regime in place. If regime falls and a democracy is established they will lose their opportunities for illicit self-enrichment and may also be prosecuted for the crimes they committed during the dictatorship.

Needless to say that any of that is incompatible with a democratic system. For a country to become a fully functioning rule of law liberal democracy a transition to a democratic way of doing things is needed. That is not only a lengthy process, but is also rife with numerous complications. Any one of these structures could be so wed to doing things the old way, they will refuse to change no matter what. Electoral officials will rig the results for the candidate they themselves prefer, judges will decide cases based on bribes their receive, prosecutors will open criminal investigations against well-off businessmen and demand bribes to shelf the case, police will harass citizens to extort bribes and so on. How to get from that to what is normal in an established democracy and how long will it take is anyone's guess. 

Transition between old and new way can take decades. Even in best case scenario it will take a lot of time and effort. Sometimes measures as radical as disbanding the entire old police force and then hiring new one with no prior police experience is needed, something Mihail Saakashvili did in Georgia, much to the dismay of not only old police force but also equally old and corrupt bureaucracy and judiciary as well as their colleagues in Russia. That later led to Russo-Georgian war of 2008.

Structures of the old regime will fight back, supporting anti-reform candidates like Victor Yanukovych in Ukraine to preserve their vested interests and at least stop further reforms if they cannot undo them altogether. At this stage it is still possible to get back if not towards outright dictatorship then at least towards lawless might makes right, privilege, nepotism and corruption rules the day ground zero of valley of revolution. Sure country will be dirt poor and everyone will try to emigrate, but vested interest will keep their lucrative positions of power and will defend these positions to death.

In best case scenario the transition will take a decade and a half. Eastern European nations that emerged  from collapse of Eastern Block and joined the EU in 2004 are best examples of transition from a dictatorship to a democracy. However even there certain frictions and democratic backsliding have emerged some years after joining the EU. Best case scenario countries could be called naucent democracies.

In worst case scenario, the country will stuck in the transition indefinitely, unable to reform certain heavily entrenched corrupt old structures. Turkey as well as some Balkan nations like Serbia as well as some post-Soviet states fall into this category. Countries that stagnate and do not show any progress or even sliding back are called hybrid regimes instead.

In addition to that there are certain countries that cannot be clearly identified as either nascent democracy or hybrid regime. They are in a flux, as they try to be the former, but sometimes fail back to be the latter. 

Nonetheless all three of this type of nations have one thing in common and that is a mixed rules system between rule of law and rule of authority. 

Ethnically/Religiously Divided Country

There is also a special case of such transient democracy, that is a country divided by ethnicity, religion or both. Examples are Bosnia, Latvia, Montenegro or Northern Ireland. Even something as rich and developed as Singapore is prone to this problem. In a country like that people vote for the parties that represent not their political views or economic interests but rather their ethnicity. 

While that looks democratic enough at first glance, as there are several strong parties, in reality it is far from it. Often party of the largest ethnic group hold power forever and uses that power to entrench dominant position their ethnicity while disenfranchising all the others. Parties from other ethnic groups are often not any better, clearly favoring their ethnic group over others and sometimes downright hostile to the state they run for political offices in.

It is not democratic as voters often have no real choice between parties. You either support a party of your ethnicity or risk of becoming a second class citizen under the party of the other ethnicity. Mutual animosity and distrust between ethnicities prevent them from working together or even trusting each other.

Countries like this often have the same party in power for decades or even centuries. Inability to lose power due to ethnic animosity makes them prone to corruption, mismanagement, laziness and abuse of power. How bad it can get depends entirely on political culture of the country in question, but it will fall as low as possible without downright alienating voters. Sometimes votes could create a rival ethnic party, like DUP that would eclipse the "official" UUP, sometimes they would just helplessly watch as their corrupt leaders keep abusing the system more and more.

Established Democracy

Say you managed to finally go through all of the democratization reforms and your country finally joined European Union and OECD. Or you got tired of waiting when it will happen and managed to migrate to one of the established traditional democracies. Does that mean that you are finally in the perfect land of justice and good governance and have nothing more to worry about. Short answer is no and long answer is the following:

Dynamics that characterise the nascent democracies or even dictatorships do not disappear even in a very old and very well established democracy. They simply evolve into a different kind of confrontation.

In an established democracy ruling elites of the other types of governments do finally exit corridors of power and leave day to day governance to the professional class of public servants. They however do not disappear into nowhere. They simply transform into a different kind of privileged class, the one that owns properties, companies shares and so on. This owner class becomes a new elite. 

Some of these new elite members emerge from the old elite, some arise through the meritocratic advancement in a democratic market system. However both of these types eventually arrive to the realisation that their interests are not necessary aligned with the system or the government. Even those who climb up through the system eventually realise that a system that allowed them to climb to this heights is no longer needed when they are at the top. In realising that they become part of the conservative establishment.

Most established democracies typically have two party systems. Even those who have multiparty systems do often have parties clearly gravitate towards broad left and right grouping, sometimes these groupings are almost official, like Pan-Green and Pan-Blue coalitions in Taiwan or recently Orange block in Ukraine.

That is not a coincidence. Surely it is partially conditioned by the electoral system, but there is 1 important deep underlying reason for that. One of the parties always represent democracy and its productive highly educated workers and their interests. The other always represents the vested interests of the owner-elites that often go contrary to the rules of the system.

Compare to nascent democracy, elites could no longer entertain the idea of going back to the old ways of dictatorship. By now such move will destroy the prosperity the country creates and endanger the elites new status and wealth. There are however still ways for the elites to push for their interests that often revolve around weakening the state, law and reducing taxes. After all liberal democratic law protects their employees from their employers and so on. That does make democracy attractive for employees to migrate and in work and be productive. However business owners would be very happy to erode these protections to squeeze their employees even further. After all what will they do if that happens, flee to a democracy? They are already in one. Social programs again benefit the employees more than employers, sure employers need people to be educated to do their jobs, but they do not need them to be supported if they cannot work. These and a few other issues often become right wing talking points in an established democracy.

Thus an established democracy is a tug of war between the working class, that now also includes public servants and an elite owner class. That is why elections attract a lot of attention, campaigning and emotion. Sure democracy create prosperity, but the prosperity pie can be divided in many different ways, winning election means that more will be diverted your way at the expense of losers.

It is often said that conservatives drag country backward. That is not per se inaccurate. Conservatives are also a lot more cozy with dictators compare to liberals. When Orban in Hungary or Kachinski in Poland began their rule with eroding democracy, left wing parties cried alarm over that but right wing ones were rather coy and chill about it. Right wing does fancy some backsliding on democracy and rule of law as it often does serve their interests.

In contrast left wing often tries to shore up democratic institutions and make backsliding harder if not impossible. Its a constant battle.

There are more underlying reasons why even very old established democracies still have to deal with this constant tug of war over power and rules of the system. That is economic one. Sure most of wealth in a democracy is produced by educated productive workers but not all of it. The US has plenty of oil and other natural resources. However natural resources, valuable by themselves with no added value, are what makes dictatorships what they are. Presence of such forms of wealth in a democracy produces a dictatorial stain of sorts, a powerful key to power from an important industry who cannot be ignored. A private (pty ltd type) company with a charismatic founder owner also adds dictatorial stains. That partially skewers democracy towards more dictatorial tendencies without necessary changing anything in the core of the system.

In general the larger the country is, the more complex its economic and social fabric gets. There are sometimes complex small countries but hardly any simple large ones. This complexity leads towards mixed and complicated political system. In a democracy bloated parties that represent so many different interests it seems they do not represent anything at all. In a dictatorships there are sometimes special economic zones with different rules from the rest of the country: China governs Shanhai and Shaanxi in a vastly different way. Different types of economy need different form of governance for them to work effectively or sometimes at all.

That said democracies are still better places to live, both for workers but also for the elites as well. A security democracy offers wins elites over in principle. Even members of the ruling classes in a dictatorship often seek to hedge their bets against unfavorable political change at home and want to have safe heaven in a democracy. If you ever wondered why Chinese massively buy out properties in Australia, now you do.

Finally, as much as some dictatorships sympathizers do not want to believe it, democratization is one way process. Sure there could be democratic backsliding but truly reverse course and return back towards dictatorial ways is impossible. Democratic added value economy could only functions under rule of law and democracy. 

No one will commit to long term investment in a country where dictator can just seize the company by force or fraud and there are no independent courts and police to stop them. If you want foreign investments, you have to have independent judiciary, police and so on. Without long term investments a country could never fully modernise and will always lag behind.

That is why democratic leaders are optimistic about the future and draw large plans where Russia and China will finally become parts of the Western liberal order while dictators resort to ever more crazy means to prolong their existence for another several years or so.

Perfect Democracy

Just like incredibly stable two road dictatorships, perfect added value economy democracies do exist. They too are rare and often very small. Switzerland, Finland, possibly Sweden, may be a few more and that is about it. You hear about these countries more often than about Brunei but they are hardly news anchors. 

All of these have very diversified economies that import resources and produce added value products. There are no any large companies owned by ultra rich billionaires that dominate industry or have disproportional influence on politics. Ikea may be have Swedish identity and branding, but actually incorporated in Netherlands and pays tax in tax heavens. That prevents Ikea's ultra rich founder and owner from having much say in Swedish governance as his non-tax paying interests are irrelevant for the government in Stockholm. For them Ikea is no different from any foreign company.

Perfect democracies often move from a two party tug of war towards more consensus based decision making. However only Switzerland uses that as part of formal system of government. In general the less there are animosity between different parties and sections of society the close the country is towards perfect democracy. You never hear Finns or Swiss divide into two groups and call each other insulting names over token issues that could be solved in a reasonable mutually acceptable way like Americans do. Dictatorships like to imitate that and pretend they have total inner harmony and stability, but if you dig a little bit you uncover a lot of hidden tensions. In perfect democracies there are no hidden tensions, issues just get resolved to everyone's satisfaction and live goes smooth. Talk to a Swiss about their governance and notice how much you miss out on without governance like that.

Conclusion

Fundamentally each government reflect the economy and society in question. Every country is governed in a manner most appropriate to it. However if there are tensions within the country, it do means that the country or part of it outgrown its form of government and a change is needed. Most of the time it will be more democratisation but not always. 

For example even in Europe sometimes levels of autocracy increasing. For example Liechtenstein recently voted to increase powers of their Prince and reduce power of elected democratic institutions. They did it not because they somehow embraced autocracy as better form of government but due to a simple fact that the only source of income in Principality is a property management company owned by the prince. If he leaves and take his money with him, the rest of the county will have no income to speak of.

However Liechtenstein is an unusual country or 30 000 people and more of an exception to the overall trend. Globally democracies are on the rise and dictatorships are in decline. However not all dictatorships will fall and disappear, a certain balance, based on the economic realities will continue.