New wave of protests represents a global crisis of democracy

A wave of protests has spread across the world this year. Traumatic scenes from Hong Kong, showing student demonstrators in gas masks as they take on the Beijing behemoth, have been punctuated by trouble in Port-au-Prince, where Haitian men and women are bringing their government to a grinding halt. In many of these places, protests which began over single issues are now expanding into general discontent with the entire system of government in their respective countries.  

Leaving Hong Kong aside, what we are witnessing is a general crisis of democratic politics. Many of the recent protests are occurring in places where varying forms of democratic government have been introduced or reintroduced only very recently. They are symptomatic of a problem in regions where at least two of a fatal synergy of socio-economic inequalities, high levels of corruption, and the threat of religious sectarianism, have precluded the transparent operation of institutions to redress popular grievances.

The current Haitian democracy was only introduced in 1987 after decades of military rule while in Chile, a transition to democracy was only established in similar circumstances, after the end of General Augusto Pinochet’s regime in 1990. In both of these locations, there are signs that a toxic combination of egregious  inequalities in income and opportunities are at the heart of the present dilemma.

Chile is a shining example of a successful transition to democracy and the rule of law, and the country has enjoyed strong economic growth for many years. Yet it remains one of the most unequal countries in the world – the UN estimates that the wealthiest one per cent earn one-third of the national wealth. This state of affairs is exacerbated by a low minimum wage, slow wage growth, and a lack of affordable housing and healthcare. In these circumstances, the rise in subway fares announced by President Piñera was merely the straw which broke a beleaguered camel’s back.

Where Chile regularly ranks highly in international reviews of freedom and transparency, the story in Haiti is different. The precise target for the Haitians is President Juvenel Moïse, who promised to invest in infrastructure and fight decay using the loans from a Petrocaribe deal struck with Venezuela in 2006, only to have been found with his own hands in the till by Haiti’s corruption watchdog. Adding fuel to the flame of revolt is the country’s broken education system – Haitians are frustrated with the obstinate social barriers set up by an education system which is dominated by teaching in French, a language spoken fluently by only 5-10% of Haitians. Socio-economic disparities and cultural stratification work hand-in-hand in Haiti. 

Elsewhere, in Lebanon and Iraq, democratic governments have tried to paper over the cracks of civil societies torn apart by the legacy of sectarian conflict and a kleptocratic political culture. Socio-economic degradation and a sense of relative economic deprivation are blamed upon governments who are motivated by an entrenched religious identity politics.

The protests which have gripped Beirut began last month after the now departed Prime Minister, Saad Harriri, announced a new tax to be placed upon WhatsApp messages. The movement has since turned into a general expression of dissatisfaction with the entire political system. It rages against the failings of a power-sharing government established in 1990 after a bitter sectarian war which tore the country apart from 1975.

Instead of passing much needed economic reforms, sectarian leaders within the government have abused their power, parcelling out funds and state contracts amongst their own supporters. Meanwhile, jobs for the general population are in short supply and state infrastructure falls into disrepair.

But for all of their raging against the establishment, the protests risk being too vague to achieve anything. In Iraq, the protests have led to calls for a total overhaul of the established government. One woman present at the mass protest in Tahrir Square which took place last Wednesday, told Le Monde that “We don’t want this government any more. We want a transitional government and constitutional change”. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, there have been calls for the formation of a non-sectarian, technocratic government to spearhead radical reforms.

There is no guarantee that the apparent overhaul of current governments will not lead to the perpetuation of the status quo in other ways. What the protestors in Lebanon and Iraq have yet to produce are concrete plans for an effective constitutional transition. There has been little consideration of how such plans will tackle practical challenges such as the ongoing, persistent issue of deeply-rooted sectarianism beyond secular urban circles in Baghdad and Beirut.

The abstract ideals of the protestors clearly strike a chord, but the question remains: will the protests succeed in gaining the concessions? Or will their endeavours simply become, in the memorable phrase of A.J.P. Taylor, a turning point at which history fails to turn? In Iraq, it is hard to see calls for constitutional shock therapy surviving the hardening resolve of the established regime. In Haiti, the continual conflict to combat the endemic cabalism and cronyism will not transform centuries of neglect and state failure overnight.

In Lebanon and Chile, on the other hand, conciliatory overtures by the respective governments indicate that the protestors’ message will stimulate reforms. Yet successful measures to tackle socio-economic disparities and corrupt political practices will not be achieved straight away. The leader of the pro-government Lebanese Christian party, Michel Aoun, has acknowledged: “The people have revolted because their rights are missing” and because “people have lost confidence in the state”. Yet he also cautioned that “corruption will not end easily because it has been deeply rooted for decades.”

In the end, this may be the chief problem that the world’s protestors face – many of them are animated by a sense of urgency and imminence, a desire to do away with the system and rebuild from a tabula rasa. Yet it is one thing for a protest movement to call for the overthrow of a regime or political establishment, and it is another to have a coherent idea of what should replace it. These movements are all very good at expressing what they’re against (the establishment), but not what they wish to create. The world’s protestors, as Niall Ferguson wrote in the Sunday Times recently, are united more by their disruptive tactics than by any concrete common strategies or goals.

The protesters in the Middle East and Haiti in particular are hamstrung by the failure of democracy to function. This leaves their political movement in a kind of stasis, calling for meaningful change, but unable to identify the precise source of all political evils beyond a vague opposition to an elite. The question is: what do you replace a democratic government with when a democracy cannot function?

Iraq, Lebanon and Haiti are not crippled by any one institution which can be eradicated overnight, but by corrupt behaviours which have become endemic. They are officially governed by the rule of law, but the law is systematically subverted. Their governments are nominally representative, but they are neither meritocratic nor transparent. They have free elections, but they are often not a fair contest. Identifying a dictatorship or junta as a cause of political evils is fairly easy. It is altogether harder to uproot ubiquitous networks of privilege and extortion which adopt a democratic guise.

Together, these states offer stark warnings of what happens when the conditions for a successfully functioning democratic system are placed under severe strain by unequal opportunities, a loss of faith in institutions, identity politics, and a lack of basic accountability. They reflect Alexis de Tocqueville’s shrewd observation about the 19th century United States: “The surface of… society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.”

The democratic paint in these countries is wearing thin, but there is not yet any indication of what will replace it.