The People vs. Democracy: A Comment.

Yascha Mounk, lecturer at Harvard University, has written and interesting book: The People vs. Democracy.  He argues that liberal democracy as we know it – the world over – is cleaving into illiberal democracies run by populists and undemocratic liberalism as represented by ‘elites’ in the EU, for example.  On the whole Mounk does a more effective job with the former as opposed to the latter, which he sometimes has difficulty pinning down, partly because the term liberalism can mean a great deal of different things to many people.[1]

Closely analyzed is the rise of social media, the problem of economic stagnation, and questions of identity in the face of increased levels of immigration, all of which contribute to the populist phenomena.  Along the way Mounk acknowledges a number of historical gems: not only were women and slaves discounted as citizens of Athens but immigrants and their children were as well.  This meant that even individuals such as Aristotle were prevented from full participation in city-state affairs.[2]  In other words, democracy – despite its decomposition into the demos (people) and kratia (rule) - for most of its history has been rather limited.

 

He also points out that democracy flourished in Europe only after it was ethnically cleansed by World War II.  Today’s loss of homogeneity means that older citizens – pensioners, for example, who voted for Britain’s Brexit - are indeed confronting (and retreating from) much more equal and diverse politics.  But Mounk also warns that millennials (those born after 1980) tend to increasingly express appreciation for strongman politics, for example in the USA, but this trend can also be found in Germany, France and Britain.[3]

The People vs. Democracy is an important book because it approaches populist demagoguery as a global problem – not merely a Trump phenomenon, and it is bold enough offer insightful solutions.  One annoying feature of the text is that the language is very plain – almost as if one were reading from a college textbook.  Perhaps the rise of social media means that even works from Harvard need to be boiled down to their simpler elements.  The chapter on “Renewing Civic Faith” is particularly rewarding, and I encourage all to read it, while supplementing it with some of your own rhetorical flourishes.

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[1] See, for example, Yascha Mounk, The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2018), p. 243.

[2] Ibid., p. 162.

[3] Ibid., pp. 109-111.