1 / 13

Elites and Democracy: The ‘Futility Thesis’Today

Elites and Democracy: The ‘Futility Thesis’Today. John Higley University of Texas at Austin. ‘Classical’ Elite Theory. Gaetano Mosca (1856-1941): Minorities always outwit majorities.

roosevelt
Download Presentation

Elites and Democracy: The ‘Futility Thesis’Today

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Elites and Democracy:The ‘Futility Thesis’Today John Higley University of Texas at Austin

  2. ‘Classical’ Elite Theory • Gaetano Mosca (1856-1941): Minorities always outwit majorities. • Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923): Elites are those most adept at using force or persuasion and there is no escaping their rule; as regards ‘democracy,’ only a ‘demagogic plutocracy’ is possible. • Robert Michels (1876-1936): In mass parties and all other large organizations ‘Who says organization says oligarchy’.

  3. The ‘Futility Thesis’ The inevitability of elite rule makes democracy an imaginary dream. Elites can never be accountable to ‘the people’. There is an inverse relationship between elites and democracy so that institutions proclaimed to be ‘democratic’ are in reality exercises in futility. - adopted from Joseph Femia, Against the Masses (2001)

  4. The ‘Third Wave’ at its Crest • In 1999 and using Freedom House rankings,120 of 194 countries could be termed ‘democratic’; • But 20 of the 120 were microstates, so consequential ‘democracies’ numbered 100; • A ‘last spurt’ in the Third Wave were the democratic transitions in Serbia 2000, Georgia 2003, and Ukraine 2004.

  5. A ‘democratic’ hodgepodge • Only 29 of the 100 larger ‘democracies’ receive the highest 2008 Freedom House rankings for political rights & civil liberties; • All but 3 of these 29 are European or Anglo-American countries; • In the other 71 or so ‘democracies’ there are significant shortcomings in political rights & civil liberties and most are politically unstable (i.e., recent or attempted or widely expected irregular seizures of power by force).

  6. Recent setbacks for democracy • Military coups in Kyrgyzstan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand and an attempted coup in Gambia; • Rigged or not significantly competitive elections in Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Venezuela; • Democratic practices are precarious in Georgia, Philippines, Ukraine, Mexico

  7. 23 Strategic ‘Swing’ States Authoritarian: China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Vietnam ‘Electoral authoritarian’: Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, Bangladesh Illiberal/unstable democracy: Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Ukraine, Thailand, Brazil? Liberal/stable democracy: India, So. Korea, Poland, Argentina? South Africa? Taiwan? Compiled from Larry Diamond, Spirit of Democracy (2008, p. 63)

  8. The World in 2007 • Freedom House democracy rankings declined in one fifth of all countries; • Declining rankings outnumbered improving ones 4 to 1; • Many undemocratic countries became more so; many that had become loosely democratic were unable to sustain this; • None of the 23 countries dominated by oil exports were democratic; • Of 20 Middle Eastern countries only 2 held regular, if restricted, elections: Israel & Turkey

  9. One origin of ‘live and let live’ elites Settlements of basic elite disputes that are deliberate, sudden and highly contingent. These have occurred only a score of times during the past 500 years worldwide. Examples: England 1689; Sweden 1809; Switzerland 1848; Austria 1945-46; Spain 1977 78; Poland & Hungary 1989

  10. 2nd origin of ‘live and let live’ elites Colonial opportunities to practice cautious and limited representative politics during long periods of colonial home rule. There were a dozen cases, most of them from British colonial rule. Examples: American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Indian, Jamaican, probably Malayan colonies.

  11. 3rd origin of ‘live and let live’ elites Convergences toward shared norms of political behavior among elites competing for popular support in prosperous electorates with majorities that are averse to radical alternatives. These have also occurred about a dozen times in the 20th century and past 15 years Examples: France, Germany & Italy 1960s-70s 1970s; Greece, Portugal 1980s; Czech Rep., Slovakia, Baltic states during past 15 years.

  12. Democracy as teleology • ‘In the horizon of the long run the whole world could capture democracy’ (Larry Diamond, 2008, p.14) • Francis Fukuyama in 1989: ‘What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War…but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of western democracy as the final form of human government.’

  13. John Gray’s grim thesis The Enlightenment transformed apocalyptic Christian religious belief into a ‘secular humanism’ leading westerners to believe that they can achieve Utopia without Divine assistance; Democracy has been the principal western Utopia since the French Revolution; Its pursuit has led to horrors of many kinds; But this Utopia has died in Iraq’s desert; The secular era has ended and it will be replaced by a return to apocalyptic beliefs and wars waged in their name. - John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007)

More Related