Democratic Problems: Gaps, Traps and Tricks_Parliamentary Affairs

*A  slightly  amended  version  of  this  comment  is  published  in  Parliamentary   Affairs,  2015  69:  204-­‐206.     Democratic  Problems:  Gaps,  Traps  and  Tricks     Jack  Corbetti     Few  scholars  have  done  more  over  recent  years  to  engage  with  and  raise  public   awareness  about  the  issue  of  ‘anti-­‐politics’  or  ‘democratic  disaffection’  than   Matthew  Flinders.  In  the  spirit  of  this  ongoing  conversation  it  is  a  pleasure  to   respond  to  this  latest  iteration  of  his  thinking  that  both  deepens  and  extends  his   previous  work,  and  Defending  Politics  (2012)  in  particular.  His  latest  article   advances  the  debate  in  a  number  of  ways  not  the  least  of  which  is  the  use  of  the   concepts  ‘noise’,  ‘listening’  and  ‘silence’  to  describe  the  way  publics  engage  with   modern  democracy;  the  noise  is  deafening  but  nobody  is  listening  and  even   when  they  do  there  is  silence  about  the  negative  impact  wrought  by  certain   changes,  especially  technological,  to  the  way  we  do  democracy.  It  is  a   provocative  assertion  that  that  bears  many  of  the  hallmarks  of  his  earlier  work   (for  my  take  on  where  his  work  fits  in  this  literature  see  Corbett  2014;  2015).   Flinders  is  interested  in  the  growing  ‘gap’  between  citizen  expectations  and   practical  realities,  and  the  ways  it  is  being  driven  from  the  ‘demand’  side;  that  is   by  citizens.  He  does  not  employ  his  phrase  ‘democratic  decadence’  here  but  it   reverberates  throughout  the  piece  nonetheless.     I  find  much  to  like  about  this  analysis  and  yet  want  to  push  him  a  little  on  certain   aspects  of  his  account.  All  of  the  seven  ‘problems’  with  democracy  Flinders   identifies  refer  to  problems  that  we,  as  citizens,  have  with  this  form  of   government.  By  naming  and  shaming  them  Flinders  is  in  effect  calling  us  to   action,  challenging  us  to  do  something  to  stop  the  rot:  stop  talking  and  start   listening,  stop  complaining  and  start  participating,  etc.  But  what  if  the  problem   with  democracy  isn’t  entirely  all  our  fault?  What  if  democracy  is  also  fallible?   What  if  it  has  endemic  limitations  that  contribute  to  this  rising  tide  of  citizen   cynicism?  What  if  the  problem  with  democracy  isn’t  best  characterized  as  a  ‘gap’   but  a  ‘trap’?     The  author  that  speaks  to  the  ‘trap’  account  of  this  phenomenon  most   substantively,  but  with  whom  Flinders,  despite  having  an  enviable  grip  on  the   relevant  literature,  does  not  engage,  is  David  Runciman  and  his  recent  history  of   democracy  in  crisis  (Runciman  2013).    Like  Crick,  Runciman  emphasizes  that  the   great  strength  of  democracy  is  its  capacity  to  muddle  through  against  the  odds.  It   is  a  flexible  form  of  government  that  innovates  and  reinvents  itself  in  the  face  of   internal  and  external  threats.  In  light  of  this  adaptability,  the  problem   democracies  face,  Runciman  argues,  is  that  they  work  too  well.       In  making  this  argument,  Runciman  draws  heavily  on  Tocqueville.  When  he  first   arrived  in  America,  Tocqueville  observed  much  in  the  day-­‐to-­‐day  practices  of   democratic  politics  to  satisfy  the  worst  fears  of  its  critics:  it  was  often  messy,   petty,  chaotic,  irresponsible,  and  prone  to  populist  excess.  But  he  changed  his   mind  once  he  peered  beneath  the  surface.  Democracy  wasn’t  a  ‘trick.’  It  was  the  

real  deal,  and  would  remain  so  as  long  as  people  had  faith  in  what  it  could   achieve.  The  problem  is  that  once  that  faith  was  established,  democratic  citizens   tend  to  become  fatalistic  and  overconfident.  That  is,  citizens  become   overconfident  in  what  democracy  can  achieve  and  in  doing  so  forget  what  it  is   about  democracy  that  makes  it  worth  the  effort.  The  capacity  of  democracy  to   consistently  survive  crisis  emboldens  citizens  to  believe  that,  when  the  time   comes,  they  will  find  a  way  through  anything,  leading  to  complacency  and   inertia.     Runciman’s  emphasis  on  complacency  and  inertia  mirrors  Flinders’  account  but   the  key  difference  is  that  the  problem  isn’t  entirely  the  fault  of  decadent  citizens;   it  is  also  a  problem  of  democracy  itself.  Democracy  is  so  successful  that  it  breads   overconfidence.  It’s  not  a  ‘gap’  or  a  ‘trick’.  It’s  a  ‘trap’.  The  surveys  that  confirm   the  high  level  of  support  for  democracy  underscore  that  we  have  every  reason  to   be  self-­‐assured  about  our  choice  of  regime  at  the  point  in  history  when  it  enjoys   unrivalled  legitimacy  around  the  globe.  That  is,  there  are  very  few  external   threats  to  democracy,  which  is  a  marked  contrast  from  last  century.  And  yet,   paradoxically,  we  are  so  assured  that  democracy  has  an  answer  to  every  problem   that  we  have  forgotten  that  the  messy,  petty,  chaotic,  irresponsible  and  excessive   aspects  of  its  day-­‐to-­‐day  practice  are  part  of  the  reason  that  it  muddles  through   against  all  of  the  odds.       Like  much  of  the  anti-­‐politics  literature,  Flinders’  diagnosis  of  democracies   problems  tells  us  much  about  what  is  new  about  ‘democratic  disaffection’.  What   the  ‘trap’  account  reveals  is  that  there  is  also  a  considerable  amount  that  is   constant.  Citizens  have  never  really  liked  the  day-­‐to-­‐day  aspects  of  politics.  Nor   have  politicians,  as  a  group,  ever  been  popular.  We  might  say  that   disenchantment  with  this  form  of  government  is  rising  but,  at  this  point  in   history  when  there  appear  to  be  so  few  obvious  alternatives,  in  the  ‘trap’  account   this  is  an  anticipated  phase  in  a  long  cycle.       Greater  recognition  of  the  ‘trap’  account  would  press  Flinders  to  expand  the   discussion  in  two  directions.  The  first  is  temporal:  as  the  Tocqueville  reference   reveals,  anti-­‐politics  as  a  term  and  an  idea  has  a  long  history.  It  is  only  by  paying   greater  attention  to  this  history  that  we  can  further  substantiate  if  and  how   much  the  ‘gap’  has  increased.  The  second  is  spatial:  Flinders’  list  of  problems   tells  us  much  about  modern  ‘Western’  democracies  but  less  about  the  rest  of  the   world  where  this  form  of  government  is  newer  and  more  fragile.   Democratization  scholars  observe  growing  stagnation  and  repeated  reversals   (e.g.  Platner  2015).  In  parallel,  apparently  authoritarian  regimes,  like  China,  are   embracing  forms  of  deliberative  governance  in  some  instances  (e.g.  Fishkin  et  al   2010).  By  broadening  the  number  of  cases,  temporally  and  spatially,  we  can   begin  to  unpack  which  of  democracies  problems  are  the  product  of  certain   contexts,  and  which  are  symptomatic  of  the  limitations  inherent  to  this  type  of   regime.         References    

Corbett,  Jack.  "But  why  do  we  need  politicians?  A  critical  review."  Policy  Studies   35.5  (2014).     Corbett,  Jack  “Diagnosing  the  problem  of  anti-­‐politicians:  a  review  and  an   agenda”  Political  Studies  Review.  Advanced  Access  DOI:  10.1111/1478-­‐ 9302.12076  (2015).     Flinders,  Matthew.  Defending  Politics:  Why  democracy  matters  in  the  21st  century.   Oxford:  Oxford  University  Press,  2012.     Fishkin,  James  S.,  et  al.  "Deliberative  democracy  in  an  unlikely  place:  deliberative   polling  in  China."  British  Journal  of  Political  Science  40.02  (2010):  435-­‐448.     Plattner,  Marc  F.  "Is  Democracy  in  Decline?"  Journal  of  Democracy  26.1  (2015):  5-­‐ 10.     Runciman,  David.  The  confidence  trap:  a  history  of  democracy  in  crisis  from  World   War  I  to  the  present.  Princeton:  Princeton  University  Press,  2013.                                                                                                                     i  Jack  Corbett  is  a  research  fellow  at  the  Centre  for  Governance  and  Public  Policy   and  the  Griffith  Asia  Institute,  Griffith  University,  Brisbane,  Australia.  He  is  the   author  of  Being  Political:  Leadership  and  Democracy  in  the  Pacific  Islands,  and  his   work  has  appeared  or  will  soon  appear  in  journals  such  as  Comparative  Political   Studies,  Journal  of  European  Public  Policy  and  Democratization.  With  all  the  usual   disclaimers,  he  would  like  to  thank  John  Boswell  and  Paul  Fawcett  for  their   comments  on  an  earlier  version  of  this  piece.