Under normal democratic outcomes where the majority rules concerns about minority rights has led to majority rule subject to respecting minority rights avoiding that way the Tyranny of the majority.
This was the democratic landscape in western democracies until 2016 when BREXIT and USEXIT came along.
Now we live in a world where extreme democratic outcomes in some places exist along with normal democratic outcomes in other places. Which leads to my question, Are Brexism(UK) and Trumpism(USEXIT) examples of the Tyranny of the minority at work?. I think yes, what do you think?
I think that Brexism happened due to many errors in Europe majority rule.
Dear Mohannad, thank you for taking the time to write.
You did not answer the question "....are they examples of the tyranny of the minority?", but here is my feedback to your comment.
The flaw in the majority rule based model in place in most western democracies that leads to Brixism and Trumpism is the same, you call them "errors", I call this "Democratic complacency or protest behavior".....
But you need a specific type of complacency to lead to the birth of and to the persistence of extreme democratic outcomes like BREXIT and USEXIT...as when this type of complacency exist, what seems to be impossible happens leading to the after the fact true majority discontent and protest....and questions like "What happened?"....as the tyranny of the minority is now here....
Not much is known about normal and extreme democratic outcomes from my angle, but I will share ideas soon....
Thank you for your comment;
Respectfully yours;
Lucio
Brexism and Trumpism definitely signal a shift in the power structure, concerning the mentioned national territories. The democratic institutions seem to be no more able to check the monopolies and privileges of the few rentier groups; you can observe similar events in other polities on the globe. Cyclical economic crisis has exhausted the growth potential and the surplus value dissappears into a few pockets. This depressive 'tyranny' results from the accounts of our modern monetary society, where book-keeping techniques direct liquidity into assets, thus curbing further productive growth.
Good day Stephen, thanks for your note.
It seems to be you agree that both Brexism and Trumpism are examples of the tyranny of the minority.....
I am interested in providing some ideas highlighting a) what type of complacency leads always to normal democratic outcomes(NDO) in majority rule based models: b) what type of complacency leads to extreme democratic outcomes like BREXIT and USEXIT in majority rule based models; and c) what type of complacency prevents EDOs and what type of complacency reverses EDOs.
I will share ideas related to these issues of interest in the coming months.
Have a nice day
Lucio
Please let me know if this reference/site is useful to you:
Tyranny of the Minority
muse.jhu.edu › Browse › Social Sciences › Political Science
Tyranny of the Minority. ... Download PDF. pp. 40-53. The ... James Madison saw diversity of peoples and interests as the solution to the problem of majority tyranny.
Dennis
Dennis Mazur
Thank you Dennis, I will take a look at it and I will probably cite it in second paper almost finished on the subject of the structure of BREXIT and USEXIT and what it can be done to avoid or reverse such extreme democratic outcomes.....supported by the ideas shared in the following article which I expect to come out by the end of October 2017. As you may know Trumpism/Brexism /extreme democratic outcome has failed in 2017 now in France, the Netherlands, and now Germany....
I am sharing this coming article unpublished here as food for thoughts:
Majority Rule Based True Democracy Under Complacency Theory: Pointing Out The Structure of Normal and of Extreme Democratic Outcomes Analytically and Graphically.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319743153_Majority_Rule_Based_True_Democracy_Under_Complacency_Theory_Pointing_Out_The_Structure_of_Normal_and_of_Extreme_Democratic_Outcomes_Analytically_and_Graphically
Have a nice day Dennis
Respectfully yours;
Lucio
Article Majority Rule Based True Democracy Under Complacency Theory:...
Dear friends, you can now read when you have time the unpublished version of ART122 here and use it as food for thoughts, the article shared above is now published:
Upside Down Democratic Outcomes: Stating the Complacency Conditions Under Which Extreme Democratic Outcomes Such as BREXIT and USEXIT Should Be Expected to Take Place Using Qualitative Comparative Means
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320443702_Upside_Down_Democratic_Outcomes_Stating_the_Complacency_Conditions_Under_Which_Extreme_Democratic_Outcomes_Such_as_BREXIT_and_USEXIT_Should_Be_Expected_to_Take_Place_Using_Qualitative_Comparative_Mean
Respectfully yours;
Lucio
I don't quite think so. But the difference may just be semantic.
One of the predictions that can be made from having a society that is changing at an ever increasing rate is that people will react to the stress caused by that change. According to the Center for Studies on Human Stress, http://humanstress.ca/, stress is caused from NUTS: novelty, uncertainty, threat to self or ego, and loss of sense of control. Fundamentalism (in any of it's forms, but essentially an unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs) is a way of addressing stress by reducing novelty and uncertainty, and, depending on the details of the type of fundamentalism, trading them for a further loss in the sense of control (and perhaps a change to the threat to self/ego). It doesn't come out perfectly, but there can be a perception of a net loss of stress.
I think Trumpism, Brexit, and Daesh, all come from a fundamentalist reaction to changes in the world economic and political systems. Rather than accepting that the post-peak-conventional-oil economic reality means a significant shift from a growth economy to a near-steady-state economy, the US voter apparently wanted to believe that the good-old-days could come back, if they just didn't have to listen to anyone else in the world. So they voted in someone who doesn't listen to anyone else, and claims that the good old days are just a hope and a promise away.
I think that the US may have Tyranny of the Minority, such as the NRA and the gun control issue, but I don't see Trumpism as an example of that.
Douglas, did you take the time to read the two articles beside the background of the question?....Your comment does not make sense at all, no sense at all....
Have a nice day!
There are democratic outcomes in democratic governments, why would you think that these "democratic outcomes" are "extreme" and not just "normal" democratic outcomes?
Dennis
Dennis Mazur
Dear Dennis, when you have time please read any or both papers shared above; and hopefully then you will see the answer to your question to my question.
Have a nice day
Dear Lucio,
I read your paper “Upside Down Democratic Outcomes: Stating the Complacency Conditions Under Which Extreme Democratic Outcomes Such as BREXIT and USEXIT Should Be Expected to Take Place Using Qualitative Comparative Means”, and I found it very interesting because it raises some interesting points to debate. However, I have some concerns about it that may help me to answer your question.
Firstly, in your work, you speak about “extreme democratic outcomes” and “normal democratic outcomes”, defining them respectively as outcomes in which “the minority view rules” and “the majority view rules. However, it is unclear how you define minority and majority rules. In your paper, you say that the majority view wins, when everybody is expected to participate and vote. I don’t know if I have understood well this point. Are you claim that normal democratic outcomes could be obtained only if all the citizens within a country do participate to the vote? If this is your claim, since in no democratic countries all citizens go to express their vote, how can we distinguish between normal and extreme outcomes?
Secondly, you take US Trump elections and the UK referendum on the exit from the EU as reference cases of extreme democratic outcomes but, again, it is unclear why those cases are classified as extreme outcomes. In my understanding of democracy, a democratic country is a country in which there are at least: i) universal adult suffrage; ii) free, fair, competitive and recurrent elections; iii) more than one credible party; and iv) different and alternative source of information. Beyond that, we may say that a democratic country is a country subjected to the logic of the rule of law, so as that there are clearly defined rules and procedure, separation of powers, and where the rules and procedures are respected. And, among the rules governing a democratic country, there are the electoral law and the law governing referendum. That said, the election of Trump, in a certain sense, could be considered as a case in which the minority view prevailed, since Trump won the elections with 62 984 825 popular votes (46,1 %) against Clinton’s 65 853 516 votes (48,2 %). However, considering the American Electoral System, such a result is not so extreme. Even if does not happen so often, it is not the first time that a President is elected with a share of votes lower than its opponent, or with a share of votes lower than 50%. The first case has happened, for instance, in the case of Bush election in 2000. For what concerns the Brexit referendum, instead, the “leave” won it with 51.89% of votes, against 48.11% of “remain”. Moreover, with a quite important turnout of 72.21%. Therefore, it is unclear to me why we should consider the Brexit referendum as a rule of the minority. But despite these consideration, the democratic rules governing the political life of a country (and therefore also the elections and referendum) should not be considered per se the expression of the majority?
Thirdly, you speak about complacency and non-complacency considering them as the attitude to express or not a person’s vote. So as that there is complacency when people do not go to vote, favoring the rule of the minority. If I get your point on this, I think that you are make a too strong assumption, namely that all citizens must have always a preference on a certain matter. I mean, if citizens must decide between to outcomes A and B, there will be citizens who will have preferences toward A, and citizens who will have preferences toward B. But there will be also citizens who will have no preferences. This could happen for several different reasons but, in this case, why should we consider this third group favoring the minority? Don’t should we eliminate them from the total of voters? If we would do so, whichever result would prevail among A and B would be anyway the view of majority.
Finally, a minor point about the word “USEXIT” you coined. Are you sure USEXIT is a pertinent definition, and that this term is useful to the understanding of the phenomenon you are studying? I mean, US has not come out of anything, and after all if the election of Trump was an USEXIT, then the Bush election in 2000 would have been the same. The comparison with the Brexit seems little arbitrary.
To conclude and to answer your question, in my opinion the election of Trump and the Brexit could not be considered as cases of tyranny of the minority. Since they have been carried out through the respect of the democratic national norms, so that I think they should be considered in some way as the expression of the majority view.
Dear Marco, I think that if you carefully look at the terminology and operational concepts and models in the paper you should be able to have a little bit more clarity whether you assume that every vote and there is no complacency/theory OR you tally only those who vote as there is complacency....
I suggest you take the time to read the paper that provides the the theory supports this one:
Majority Rule Based True Democracy Under Complacency Theory: Pointing Out The Structure of Normal and of Extreme Democratic Outcomes Analytically and Graphically.
Article Majority Rule Based True Democracy Under Complacency Theory:...
True Democracy and Complacency: Linking Voting Outcome Expectations to Complacency Variability Using Qualitative Comparative Means.
Article True Democracy and Complacency: Linking Voting Outcome Expec...
Marco, Spain and the situation in Catalun~a was in my mind when writing these papers....
I will reply as soon as I can make the time as I am going to expand in the coming months...
Lucio
Dear Lucio, I just finished to read the paper you linked, but my doubts remains.
You defined the difference between normal and extreme democratic outcomes, in your model, basically as a matter of voter turnout, so as that normal democratic outcomes are those in which all the eligible voters go to vote. However, on the one side this has not empirical evidence in the real world, since there is no democratic system in which all voters participate to the electoral race. On the other side, you use the election of Trump as an example of extreme democratic outcome, but the voter turnout of trump election it has been in line with the average voter turnout of the past US presidential elections, and indeed it has also been greater than other US presidential elections.
What I don't understand, and what I disagree with, is the very concept of extreme democratic outcomes. I don't believe democratic outcomes could be normal or extreme. In my opinion, there could be democratic outcomes or non-democratic outcomes, but we cannot decide which democratic outcomes are normal or not. Until elections and referendums are carried out following the democratic norms and procedures, every outcome is a normal democratic outcome. Of course it could happen that we don't like a certain outcome (for instance I really don't liked Brexit) or that we didn't expect it, but we cannot define it as an extreme outcome only because we don't like it, or only because a part of the scientific community and political experts didn't expect that result.
Marco.
Dear Marco, the difference is not about a matter of voter turnout, it is about an unexpected voting result, the murphys law.....look at it as normal liberal democracies where the the best interest of the majority view rules with some majority granted minority rights; and as extreme liberal democracies where the best interest of the minority view rules and moves to dismantle majority rule based institutions and values....
Among concepts reflecting complacency theory shared are:
17) Normal democratic outcome, under no complacency or not protest behavior everybody votes and the true majority wins the democratic contest;governments retain or lose power without big surprises. Inclusion, equality, stability, harmony, the truth, trust, clarity, scientific facts, and the will of the majority for the common good are the heart of normal democratic outcomes.
18) Extreme democratic outcome, under full true majority complacency or full true majority protest behavior the true minority wins the democratic context, governments lose or win power under a big surprise as the democratic option that seems impossible to happen wins the day. Exclusion, inequality, instability, chaos, fake truth, fake trust, confusion,fake facts,and the will of the minority for the good of the minority are the heart of extreme democratic outcomes.
Therefore, there two types of democratic outcomes, the expected one by the model of majority rule with no complacency or with no full true majority complacency; and the unexpected one, which as I have shown can only take place under full true majority complacency.....
Chaos can be used to generate full true majority complacency and be linked to the coming to and the persistence of extreme democratic outcomes....in this direction my research is going...The role of Chaos on BREXIT and USEXIT.....Little by little......
If you look at liberal democracies from the paradigm shift point of view, a shift from normal to extreme demicratic outcomes; and therefore a shift from what is good for the majority to what is good for the minority, then you may be able to see that all policies and actions after USEXIT by Trump are conistent with the expectations of an extreme liberal democracy....
As an EDO is not an NDO, but NDO countries are looking at them as NDO you see they are having difficulty figuring out how to respond/ how to deal with them as traditional democracy theory is not consistent with extreme democracy theory.....
In summary, complacency theory is not about outcomes that you like or you do not like its about framing expected democratic outcomes and unexpected ones to be able to explain them and be able to SEE what can be done either way to deal with them based on a clear understanding of their structure and expectations....
Plus the paper is about democratic outcomes, EDO are democratic outcomes too, yet perhaps the true majority was FOOLED
Thank you for your comments
According to an interesting survey the centrsist liberals are the most autocratic of all.
Dear Barry, thanks for your comment....
I took a quick look at the information you provided and I did not find what "centrists" for him clearly means. However, I think you can not look at extreme democratic outcome dynamics from the normal liberal democracy point of view as you will probably define groups/characteristics incorrectly....THIS VIOLATES THE THEORY-PRACTICE CONSISTENCY PRINCIPLE....
The current liberal democracy fight in europe and all western countries is between morallly based democracy and amorally based democracy....Normal liberal democracy is morally based to promote the best interest of the true majority, whether pure morality or practical morality; extreme liberal democracy is amorally based to promote the best interest of the true minority.....
So USEXIT 2016 should have been expected to work to undermine normal liberal democracy values, institutions and organizations, locally and globally, WHICH AS YOU MAY AGREE HAS DONE WITH FLYING COLORS....
Think of inverse opposite situations with morality at the top and amorality at the bottom, normal liberal democracy is at the top, morality based; then you flip it, to get extreme liberal democracy at the top, amorality based.
Have a nice day!
Lucio
Lucio
Judging by the comparative nature of the study (right-centre-left) he means simply the neither hard right or hard left.
I think he has a point, I often find people from educated liberal backgrounds saying very undemocratic things. Many do not believe in consulting the electorate and even think that the Brexit referendum should not have been implemented as policy. Many are demanding a second referendum and even though they call it a 'people's vote'. they are only interested in one outcome.
It is quite alarming that significant numbers among the 'moderates', those neither left or right wing think that democracy is not necessarily a good thing.
Barry, good day. As I said, looking at extreme democratic outcome/extreme liberal democracy dynamics from the lens of normal democratic outcomes/normal liberal democracy as the author is doing and you are doing can lead you to the wrong conclusion or understanding, complicating the need to take corrective action or advise...but explains why the UK and the USA has had difficulty first understanding what happened in 2016, and then difficulty on figuring out what to do,,,,.
To look at what you shared from the extreme democratic outcome point of view, we need to inverse the statements you made:
1) Study (right-centre-left) ---->> Study (right-extreme-left)
2) He means simply the neither hard right or hard left---->> He means then only extreme right or extreme left....
3) The centrist liberals are the most autocratic of all.---->> The extreme liberals are the most democratic of all.
Obviously statement 3 is not true and you can see that the inverse statements tell you that to UNDERSTAND EXTREME DEMOCRATIC OUTCOME DYNAMICS you must look at the situation from the extreme lens point of view....
In the case of BREXIT and USEXIT the EXTREME LIBERALS ARE THE EXTREME RIGHT/extreme conservatives, a true minority who managed to fool a true majority, a true majority wishing after the fact they could vote again to undo the past.....
As I have indicated in my papers, an extreme democratic outcome, decision or office holder, can only take place when there is full true majority complacency or protest behaviour especially under targeted chaos aimed at tricking a true majority into voting in ways that will work later against them.
Barry I am about to finish the introduction on my next article linking targeted chaos to extreme democratic outcomes.
Have a nice day!
Some food for thoughts on democracy under amorality can be found here in this paper:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329905677_Moral_and_Amoral_Liberal_Democracies_How_Targeted_Chaos_Can_Affect_the_Democratic_Process
- Badges
- Science topic