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Democracy and its enemies

By John Micklethwait

Democracy and its enemies

The Economist

In the coming year the people who run the world will change—and so could the ideas, predicts John Micklethwait

Politics always operates at two levels. There is the immediate, pragmatic level of the struggle for power: which party wins an election, who becomes prime minister, dictator or king. But there is also the underlying struggle of ideas: the battle between left and right, between liberalism and autocracy. Occasionally, these two sorts of politics coincide dramatically—as in France in 1789, Russia in 1917, eastern Europe in 1989 and arguably the Arab world in 2011. More often, though, the faces change more quickly than the theories, especially in democracies, and the pattern is obvious only in retrospect. Few Britons realised how important Margaret Thatcher would be when they elected her in 1979; even fewer Americans spotted the arrival of a new brand of conservatism in Barry Goldwater’s humiliating defeat in the 1964 presidential election.

From this perspective, predicting that any year will come to be seen as a political landmark is a mug’s game. But 2012 stands a good chance of being pivotal, both in terms of people and a clash of ideas.

Among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Britain’s David Cameron is the only leader who seems (more or less) certain of still being fully in power at the end of the year. Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy face presidential elections which they may well lose. Dmitry Medvedev has already ceded the Russian presidency back to Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile in China Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao are due to prepare the handover in early 2013 of the presidency and the prime ministership to Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang; altogether some 70% of China’s leadership is expected to change.

Militarism, xenophobia and protectionism will remain beguiling options

Look at the current odds and the narrow probability is that the Security Council personnel will not change that much. Messrs Obama and Sarkozy could scrape home against less-than-inspiring challengers; Mr Xi is unlikely to change much from Mr Hu; and Mr Putin has been running Russia anyway. But the possibilities of dramatic change are there. By early 2013 America could be ruled by President Rick Perry, France by President Marine Le Pen and Mr Cameron’s coalition could have fallen apart. There is no guarantee that the changes of power in China and Russia will not turn fratricidal: the seamless way in which Mr Medvedev and Mr Hu took over their presidencies in 2008 and 2003 were after all the exceptions, rather than the rule. And beyond the big powers, from Venezuela to Taiwan, shifts at the top that could have wider repercussions are also on the cards in 2012 (see map).

There is, in short, a lot to play for—and even more so once you consider the battle for ideas. In the 1990s, with the Soviet Union vanquished, it was fashionable to talk about the end of history, and the inevitable triumph of Western liberalism, both economic and political. But the past decade has been more difficult for those, such as The Economist, who wanted a freer, more open world. September 11th 2001 was a shocking, bloody reminder that a violent minority had always dissented from the West’s creed of liberal democracy. More recently, the West’s financial crisis has raised doubts about the worth of liberal capitalism, just as the continuing rise of undemocratic China has advertised the supposed strengths of one-party efficiency.

Nowadays, authoritarian regimes in the emerging world have plenty of excuses for ignoring Westerners lecturing them about privatisation and human rights. Asian autocrats are once again talking about Asian values being different. And, in private at least, some Western business leaders agree: fed up with the partisan gridlock in Washington, DC, or the dysfunction of the euro zone, chief executives swoon about the swift decision-making in Beijing, the rapid permission given for their new factory, the road built speedily to their new software centre.

In 2012 ideas of all sorts are likely to clash still more vividly. In the West real politics will return with a vengeance, as deficits are cut and hard choices have to be made. The coming elections, rather than being about “sharing the pro



    
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