Innovating Leadership:
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Episode Content:

How Democracy is Being Strangled by Stealth

As members of a democratic country, I (Maureen) am sharing the analysis of Matt Qvortrup for your consideration. Matt is a scholar on the topic of democracies based in the United Kingdom. I want to offer this largely historic analysis as an invitation for all of us who get involved in politics through voting and advocating to consider the actions we take and the actions we don’t take. It is easy for busy people to make a decision that seems right in the moment, only to learn that the decision requires many interconnected decisions. To take it out of the political realm entirely, when I change something in my home, like the recent lock change on my front door, the project became larger. Suddenly I needed to replace door handles, reinforce the door, etc. When we consider the substantive issues of organizational and political governance, the small daily decisions often have a more significant impact than the periodic large decisions.

We have seen corporations reconsider their roles in politics when they freeze or pull donations to parties and candidates. Some have even asked for donations to be refunded.

We are seeing social media companies mandate what they will allow on their sites. Depending on where you stand, this is averting violence or it is censorship or even both. Again, we are not sharing an opinion, rather we are asking leaders to consider the implications of their policies and encourage all of us to take a deeper look at the impact our choices have on our followers, our organizations, our suppliers and business partners and our missions. What we do matters. How we do it matters.

Now, Matt talks about Democracy from his upcoming book.

We tend to think of democratic breakdowns as momentous events, like General Pinochet’s violent overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973 – or more recently of Al Sisi’s military coup in Egypt.

But this is not how democracies die. Most democracies wither by stealth; almost imperceptivity. The despotic leaders do not start by sending in the marines.

No, they win power – often by using fake news – they then gradually replace the judiciary and other checks on power, and then they use libel or tax laws to silence the press, tax-laws to eliminate opponent and business leaders and presto after a few years the country falls into dictatorship. This is what I have just written a book about, it is called Death by a Thousand Cuts.

What we are witnessing now is not, therefore, a violent overthrow of power by a subtle undermining of democracy. Many of the institutions remain the same. Not much

changes. Not formally, at least. Tout c’est la même chose, mais plus ça change – to turn the French saying upside-down.

I know one ought to be careful not to selectively cite the past as evidence for the future. “History does not repeat itself, but it often rimes”, Mark Twain reportedly said. (I have not been able to verify that he actually uttered these words!)

The Roman Republic did not die in a revolution. No, not at all, it died a slow and imperceptible death. After Octavious (later Augustus) had taken over as princeps (note he did not call himself chief, emperor or king!) around 30 BCE, he did not abolish the Senate. Many of the rules and institutions stayed the same.

The Roman historian Suetonius (70-130 AD), observed in The Twelve Caesars how the emperor – on the face of it – democratized the Roman state, “by granting city councillors of the colonies the right to vote”, and even how “ballots were placed and sealed in containers and counted at Rome on polling day” (Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Penguin, p. 71).

And, yet, a more critical historian of the same vintage, namely Tacitus (56 – 117 AD), sounded a more cautious note,

He [Augustus] seduced the army with bonuses, and his cheap food policy was successful bait for civilians. Indeed, he attracted everybody’s goodwill by the enjoyable gift of peace” (Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, Penguin, p.32).

So far so good, but then, Tacitus as noted in a kind of punchline, “he gradually pushed ahead and absorbed the functions of the senate, the officials and even the law” (Tacitus, ibid).

It is the word “gradual” that is the key here. The overthrow of government does not appear overnight but little by little – almost by stealth. It is the same today, as political scientists Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Franz wrote,

The playbook is consistent and straightforward: deliberately install loyalists in key positions of power (particularly in the judiciary and security services) and neutralize the media by buying it, legislating against it, and enforcing censorship. This strategy makes it hard to discern when the break with democracy actually occurs, and its insidiousness poses one of the most significant threats to democracy in the twenty-first century (Kendall-Taylor, Andrea, and Erica Frantz. “How Democracies Fall Apart.” Foreign Affairs (2016).

In the first decades after the Second World War, democracies were for the most part destroyed by military coups; 64 per cent died in this way. But since the beginning of the 1990s, democracies have been undermined by gradual, piecemeal, erosion of democratic norms by elected leaders. (See: Barbara Geddes, Joseph Wright, and Erica Frantz. 2014. “Autocratic Breakdown and Regime Transitions: A New Data Set.” Perspectives on Politics 12(2): 313-331

We are back to a more historically familiar pattern; Octavian to Viktor Orban, from Russia to Rwanda, democratic breakdowns have been (is this thought finished?)

Democracies are dismembered in four stages, first a demagogue is elected, secondly, he (and it is typically a man!) changes the rules of the games (the electoral system, for example), thirdly he draws up new rules and lastly the new rules are then used selectively against opponents of the regime, and after that the ruler has dictatorial powers. The general pattern is a kind of perverted rule of law; “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law!” (Kurt Weyland, (2013) ‘The Threat from the Populist Left’, Journal of Democracy, Vol.24 (3), pp. 19-32, at 25).World historical events”, Karl Marx observed, “occur, as it were, twice…the first time as tragedy the second time as farce” (Robert Tucker (editor), The Marx-Engels Reader, Norton, p. 586).

Again, history does not repeat itself exactly, but there is a strange tendency to see some of the same patterns reoccur. In recent years, we have seen several examples of rich businessmen who transform themselves into political leaders, Berlusconi in Italy, and Andrej Babis in the Czech Republic.

Reflecting on history, it is odd to note how much has not changed.

Back to Maureen, As we consider this history, I encourage leaders to reflect on their actions. We face significant risks, no matter what decisions we make, In a polarized world, it is unlikely that we can act without impacting our stakeholders. So, when we act, we must be mindful of the impact our actions have short term and long term.

We appreciate the thoughtfulness and courage leaders are demonstrating at this time to continue to meet their organizational missions and taking positions that align with their values and the values of their organizations.

Professor Matt Qvortrup’s book Death by a Thousand Cuts will be published by DeGruyter this Spring. https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/590418?language=en