The Covid-19 crisis has indicated how relatively easy it is for otherwise democratic institutions to impose autocratic methods to deal with a crisis. Just about every country affected by the virus instituted lockdowns on the population with potentially catastrophic economic consequences.
Now the debate has started about whether the lockdowns need to be lifted and some of the debate is turning ugly.
Is it time for the people to be consulted about this major infringement of long established rights of freedom of association and rights to the family?
Deliberative democracy is a theory whereby more decisions are put directly to the people other than made exclusively by elected governments. Since it is the people who are most affected by crisis management is it not time they had some say it its design?
Democracy is always better then autocracy in every situation. In the crisis even minimum possible discussion is compulsory for better outcome.
Tanja Fajon, a member of the European Parliament (EP) says the coronavirus pandemic must not be an excuse for 'locking' democracy and that governments must not be allowed to impose unlimited powers ...
"Since many governments declared the state of emergency to fight a real threat from coronavirus efficiently it is necessary to monitor if that move is balanced and proportional," Fajon, the chairwoman of the EP Delegation for relations with Serbia ...
http://rs.n1info.com/English/NEWS/a582081/Pandemic-is-not-excuse-for-jeopardising-democracy.html
In a crisis, which for the overwhelming majority of people has a borderline situation, the question of life and death always arises in the limit. And different people decide this question differently. For example, in the last century, when Hitler attacked a number of European countries, almost all surrendered for several weeks. When he attacked the Soviet Union, for example, only the Brest Fortress continued to fight for several weeks, while its last defender was alive. At that time, both of them, democracy and authoritarianism, were not effective: brute force crumbles everything in the long run. It seems to me that in crisis situations the question arises not so much about the effectiveness of a particular system of social structure, but rather the question of a moral imperative. In our time, the СOVID-19 pandemic posed, in my opinion, this very question. The examples affecting this circumstance are well-known, and it’s awkward for me to refer to them out of diligence. But there is one striking example of an unusual pandemic behavior strategy that Sweden has demonstrated to everyone. This is the moral choice of the Swedes. Time will tell whether this moral choice turns out to be an effective choice.
Vadim, I do not want to teach the morals of others. Therefore, I do not give any assessments, including not supporting, but also not condemning the Swedes. This is the first. Secondly, observing recently the arguments of the "highbrow" epidemiologists, I come to the conclusion that everything is just beginning, that is, the "balance" will not have to be brought soon, I think that at least on a two-year scale, simply because in the best case, a proven vaccine may appear no earlier than a year later. So the "experiments" are carried out not only by the Swedes, but by everyone else. It's just that everyone has their own “homegrown experiment” - almost all borders between states are closed. And at the moment, I can’t definitely know whose “experiment” will turn out to be the most cruel in the end by the sum of all the parameters. Unfortunately, at the moment, human civilization as a whole is in a state of complete uncertainty about its future. And I do not see any constructive proposals either in the field of medicine, nor in the field of politics and economics. Therefore, forgive me, the author of this issue, to find out now what is better in the new conditions, democracy or autocracy, is just wasting time in vain. It is bad both that and another simply because we all people according to our habits and behavior "not too good" respond to the challenge presented to us.
Well, I have noticed that the luxury of criticizing those in power is afforded only by those who do not actually know what it means to be in power, but want to seize it for themselves.
People elect govenments, so that a few can govern instead of the many - to streamline policy-making and implementation without being stopped at every step by someone who disagrees (and there are always disagreements). This is how the democratic process is devised.
The electorate should, therefore, like it or not, heed government's judgement.
This judgement is based on looking after everyone's interest the best way possible, bearing in mind that society is made of people with different characters, priorities, drives and understanding of their individual role in it.
The prevailing desire is to curb the more aggressive members of society, who believe that freedom in a democratic society means freedomania pursuited in blind abandonment, in spite of one's social responsibilities. "Whatever suits me is freedom. The rest is not."
Freedom of association can be put on hold, when through association one can transmit infectious disease. The same applies to rights to the family.
Economies must re-open, provided strict protective protocol is observed, as currently, there is no cure to what ails us. We cannot wait until such a cure materializes.
People must work to make money to live. The government cannot gather taxes only from those working for it, while, at the same time, sponsoring those who do not work.
Critical unemployment, staved off through quarantine (and the situation could have been worse without the quarantine), must be further reduced through economic engagement.
:)
Hi it seems that autocracy vs deliberative democracy does not explain differences in COVID outcomes. Germany, Austria and Switzerland, which are deliberative democracies, have done good so far in controlling the outbreak. Russia, rather autocratic, is apparently not doing so good.
Jacques Merat ,
Strange you should mention it.
I have noticed that most of the worst affected countries (the original one to the outbreak too) have serious economic troubles, exacerbated by the financial crises of the past 20 years.
For the rest that are not doing so well, the bigger economy one has, the more the pressures from within and without, and the worse the situation gets during the outbreak.
So, perhaps, we should look into political economy and medicine, rather than just politics.
In such a historically downspiraling economic shape as some countries find themselves into, who knows how has the political economy therein impacted the bodies of their citizens (e.g. nutrition, onset of disease, ability to manage one's diseases effectively - i.e. health insurance status), especially in traditionally economically vulnerable groups.
Also, the current outbreak has shown that due to economic interdependencies people and states alike (even irrespective of economic stability) cannot endure financially such crises for a long time. Economies need to re-open for further crisis management to take place.
:)
w.r.t the ans Dr.Anastas Ivanov Ivanov ,
i must be coencident that Corona crisis must violate the domain of liberal democrasy with every respect . A black marketing results as a part of long
lock down management .
Autocracy may be more effective at the time of the first emergency measures but democracy is essential to working out what to do after that. In fact people in most democracies recognise when there is a need for emergency action, so there is spontaneous acceptance for such measures at the start. Here in Britain (where people actually wanted stricter measures at the start, and government hesitated) the problem now is the narrowness of government and media debate about what to do next.The entire narrative is about 'how and when to get back to normal economic activity', not 'how to use the crisis to change the economy onto a better environmental basis' . Government and media are telling, not listening. There needs to be (and not only in Britain of course) big regeneration schemes inventing eco-jobs including making each country more self sufficient in essentials (eg food in Britain) but fully international on environment, health and human rights. To explore and develop this requires open debate between citizens and government, and real space in the media to reflect it.
I think there's no autocracy in this world. Perhaps democracy in some countries. In China, a dictatorship, the government could do so many things that wouldn't be possible in USA, Germany, France or in Sweden. It's the power, the strenght of a government that is above the laws. It's difficult to talk about it, because we don't know other ways of life, like in Iran or Iraq, or China, by example. Sometimes, people think that a dictatorship is better than democracy - never. With all the problems, to resolve issues with dialogue is the best way to do it. As I think.
If I do speak about Serbia, Hungary, Turkey..., I would discuss the term "stabilitocracy"!
Defects in democratic elements and deficiencies in liberal elements, as well as unstable political, economic and security environment – these are all circumstances in which so-called stabilitocracies are created. Stabilitocracies may be described as the orders formally based on the principles of liberal democracy, yet in practice their formal shell is filled with undemocratic and illiberal contents, and they receive external and internal support for it. The internal support is not entirely legal and legitimate, since the support received by the regimes in stabilitocracies is based on privileges and usurpations in the political, media, and economic spheres. Such usurpation directly influences:
1. Usurpation of state and social institutions
2. Rejection of meritorious principles
3. Breaching the rules of the election process
4. Media control ...
From the book of my dear friend Zoran Lutovac : POPULISM, STABILITOCRACY AND MULTICULTURALISM , Institute of social sciences, Belgrade, 2020
I like the concept of stabilitocracy! Regarding degree of control of coronavirus and regime type I am really interested in analyzing what explains varying outcomes. There are surely plenty of variables. But a one that could deserve exploration for political scientists is the degree to which populations line up with government instructions and what explains variations in this respect. As a decentralization and democracy specialist, all other conditions being equal, I would be happy to have a confirmation that federalist countries have more capacity to respond to that crisis than centralized regimes. This would be because in federalist and democratic regimes people feel more they are co-responsible of collective problems together with state authorities while in centralized regimes people tend to rather think solving collective problems belongs to the government. Having said that in the coronavirus case another key element was whether or not borders were closed soon enough, which was in the hands of central or federal governments in any case. Let's say the argument refers more to how well people apply government instructions for social distancing, self-isolation, wearing masks, etc... Probably cultural variables would play a role too: families in German tradition are placed under the durable strong authority of the father which makes individuals accept authority more easily than say in the Anglo-saxon or French traditions in which individual are more autonomous and responsible for their own decisions as soon as become adults (I would refer here to the interesting theory developed by Emmanuel Todd). Somehow where government is seen as benevolent father instructions are followed better, simply put!
If there ever was any room for doubt, now it is gone – the government, led by Aleksandar Vucic, has decided to sacrifice the health and lives of the citizens of Serbia for the sake of its own ratings. There were many opportunities to introduce meaningful measures, and they’ve missed them all. Now that the situation has become so relentlessly bad due to their own irresponsibility, that the only solution is to resort to the strictest of measures – lockdown and restriction of assembly – the government refuses to do so and, instead, introduces meaningless symbolic measures that are unheard of elsewhere in the world...
The virus is ruthless and stupid, though not as stupid as a regime that believes a pandemic can be fought with symbolic acts, and not as ruthless as a regime that would sacrifice thousands of its citizens for electoral success...
https://pescanik.net/cunning-of-fools/
Using the Arab Spring as an example, I show that autocracy is a way of regulating social movements and democracy in general. When a society agrees with power, then the principle of deliberative democracy plays the opposite role - it involves the political system in autocracy in order to protect it.
Article Rethinking the Arab Spring in the context of geohistorical t...
The notion of civic space is essential to democracy. Even if we cannot have democracy without solid institutions, laws and elections, these are not sufficient to create and maintain democracy. Democracy is not just about formal arrangements. Democracy is also, and maybe above all, about attitudes and behaviours, about commitment and engagement. Democracy is not only representative, but also participative and deliberative. In brief, democracy builds not only on institutions and laws but requires a culture of democracy to flourish and thrive...
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20220128135734953
Divya Bheda shares five ways educators can embody democratic principles through their assessment practices to help students learn civic-minded values and behaviour...
A common value that undergirds higher education is one of advancing public good. This democratic value is at the core of why universities exist. With democracy often under threat, espousing such values requires living by example. Educators must prepare students to understand and participate in democratic societies as responsible global citizens. However, when we engage with students as assessors, we often feel called upon to play the part of an authoritarian and fail to embody democratic values...
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/democratic-assessment-why-what-and-how?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial-daily
How can universities and colleges work together locally, nationally and globally to respond to the populist attacks on democracy itself, including attacks on electoral systems, free and independent media, and truth...
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20220625072144634
Evidence of turbulence is all around us, from the horrors of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, to the disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic and the steady rise of populist rage and partisan vitriol in even the most stable democracies. These events have fuelled and been fuelled by precipitous declines in the health of democracy and public trust in core institutions.
The Varieties of Democracy Institute reported this year that the share of the world’s population living in autocracies grew from 49 per cent to 70 per cent between 2011 and 2021, and according to Gallup, 2022 was distinguished for “record-low confidence” in institutions ranging from organised religion to news media.
Higher education has not been immune to these corrosive forces...
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/raising-regard-academic-enterprise?spMailingID=22730284&spUserID=MTAxNzcwNzE4MTk2NAS2&spJobID=2113212458&spReportId=MjExMzIxMjQ1OAS2