‘Soft authoritarianism’, a new face of electoral democracy?

Democracy in Question?

A new kind of elected leader has emerged across the globe: one who rules with a large parliamentary majority and with a claim to democratic legitimacy, but who uses power to hollow out democracy from the inside. So is such ‘soft authoritarianism’ a new face of electoral democracy? Professor John Keane (University of Sydney) helps us dissect this pervasive pattern of new despotisms and their strategies of rule.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Production Company Earshot Strategies

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

• The New Despotism. (2020).

• Power and Humility: The Future of Monitory Democracy. (2018).

• When Trees Fall, Monkeys Scatter: Rethinking Democracy in China. (2017).

• Click here to find more of John Keane’s books.

GLOSSARY

What is the new despotism?

(00:01:00 or p. 1 in the transcript)

With this term John Keane describes governments across the globe that have mastered a combination of political tools threatening the established ideals and practices of power-sharing democracy. Casting doubt on terms like dictatorship, autocracy, fascism, and authoritarianism, Keane makes a case for retrieving the old term “despotism” to make sense of how these regimes function and endure. They mobilize the rhetoric of democracy and win public support for workable forms of government based on patronage, dark money, steady economic growth, sophisticated media controls, strangled judiciaries, dragnet surveillance, and selective violence against their opponents. They cooperate regionally and globally and draw strength from each other’s resources while breeding global anxieties and threatening the values and institutions of democracy. Source.

What is soft authoritarianism?

(00:01:00 or p. 2 in the transcript)

The term soft authoritarianism is used to describe countries which have multiple parties and elections, but where the regime keeps the media and influential institutions on a short leash, exercising its power behind the ostensive freedom of choice. Source.

What is an autocracy?

(00:02:30 or p. 3 in the transcript)

Autocracy is a system of government in which supreme political power to direct all the activities of the state is concentrated in the hands of one person, the autocrat, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control.

Who are Alexei Navalny and Jamal Khashoggi?

(00:06:00 or p. 4 in the transcript)

Alexei Navalny is a Russian opposition politician and critic of Vladimir Putin who suddenly fell ill in August 2020 during a flight in Russia. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Navalny was exposed to the Novichok nerve agent. Western security agencies believe the Kremlin intended to kill Navalny; meanwhile the Kremlin is denying all accusations and accusing Germany of a “mass disinformation campaign”. Click here and here to learn more.

Jamal Khashoggi was a US-based journalist and critic of Saudi Arabia's government, who in 2018 was murdered in the country’s consulate in Istanbul by agents of the Saudi government. Learn more.

Which incident regarding the Iranian elections 2009 is John Keane referring to?

(00:08:30 or p. 6 in the transcript)

In 2009 John Keane, Jürgen Habermas and Richard Rorty were accused by Iranian officials to be acting as CIA and MI-6 agents who were planning to overturn the present regime by means of a ‘velvet counter-revolution’. The accusations happened just a few days after the Iranian elections, which were believed by many to have been rigged and therefore caused huge protests across the country. Click here to learn more on John Keane’s blog.

What is a plutocracy?

(00:16:00 or p. 10 in the transcript)

A plutocracy is a country which is ruled by its wealthiest people, or a class of wealthy people who rule a country. Source.

What is crony capitalism?

(00:16:00 or p. 10 in the transcript)

An economic system in which family members and friends of government officials and business leaders are given unfair advantages in the form of jobs, loans, etc. Source.

What is a poligarch?

(00:16:30 or p. 10 in the transcript)

The Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar has a name for it: a mafia state. By Magyar’s definition, the mafia state is run by a clan—a political family—that consists of poligarchs, oligarchs, and stooges. The word “poligarch” combines “political” and “oligarchy”; the poligarchs are first endowed with political power, which they use to procure material wealth. Source.

What is a speculative bubble?

(00:16:30 or p. 10 in the transcript)

A speculative bubble is a spike in asset values that is fueled by speculation as opposed to fundamentals of that asset class. Such a bubble is usually caused by exaggerated expectations of future growth. This speculation drive trading volumes higher, and as more investors rally around the heightened expectation, buyers outnumber sellers, pushing prices beyond what an objective analysis of intrinsic value would suggest. Eventually prices fall back down to normalized levels when the bubble pops: a period of steep decline in prices, during which most investors panic and sell out of their investments. Source.