By Teppo Eskelinen
While observations of developments on the global scale always conceal a great amount of nuances, trends can nevertheless be discerned. One such significant trend in contemporary global society is the retreat of democracy: the world in general is more authoritarian than it was a decade or two ago.
Yet more effort is still needed to make sense of what exactly is happening in this field. The common focus on formal institutions, elections and breakdown moments rather than gradual erosion might be misleading when uncovering the current authoritarian developments. So, in addition to the need to study country-specific circumstances, a globally relevant question is, what characteristics are particular to contemporary authoritarianism, as opposed to typical forms of authoritarianism at some earlier point in time.
Is the authoritarianism experienced today simply a re-emergence of the authoritarianism we know from the past? Or is there a need to update the analysis of the phenomenon, and thereby the means to study it? To answer the question, a few points about contemporary authoritarianism are in place.
First,
contemporary authoritarianism is typically initiated from above. While the Cold War years were characterized by the vulnerability of elected governments in the face of military coups, contemporary authoritarianism typically manifests as disregard for democratic values by those already in power.
In other words, democracy in the 21st century is more often threatened by elected presidents and prime ministers than by military coup-makers.
The working of authoritarianism initiated from above does not mean only consolidating power at the top of the political hierarchy. On the contrary,
while this might seem like a contradiction in terms, the contemporary authoritarian state often operates through dispersed power. What can be noted in the functioning of authoritarian governments throughout the world is the empowerment of regulators.
For example, media regulators, immigration officials and many other bureaucratic bodies might have the very same functions, rules of conduct, and personnel as before, but an authoritarian turn sees these officials gain a sense of empowerment and much better resources. This makes them less cautious in stretching their formal mandate, and more capable of enforcing their policies. Furthermore, this development takes place in the context of vastly improved digital means of bureaucratic control. In the process, encouragement from the top can be quite tacit, possibly simply signaling that the officials now have the moral support and means to “do their job.”
Second, the manifestations of contemporary authoritarianism are not primarily related to, or at least not limited to, flaws in electoral processes or other formal democratic decision-making procedures. This point also might seem counterintuitive, as the world surely continues to see rigged elections. Yet key authoritarian developments seem to be happening in other fields of social life. In fact, “objective” indicators of electoral democracy, such as incumbent performance in elections, might in fact show limited evidence of global democratic decline. This implies that authoritarian strategies typically take other forms and generally have become subtler.
If we look at regime categorizations in global democracy studies, it can be noted that
the number of people globally living in ”closed autocracies” has in fact remained fairly constant, whereas a major shift has taken place in the shift of former democracies into the category of” electoral autocracies.” In such cases, elections still take place and sometimes are even formally quite adequately organized, yet other aspects of authoritarianism increase sharply.
This can be related to operations of officials as noted above, restrictions on the media and civil society, general securitization, or some other form of antidemocratic politics.
Beyond categorizations, such developments can also be noted in countries that continue to be classified as democratic. Notably, CIVICUS reports that “restrictions on civil society are increasing in every region and are present in both democratic and authoritarian regimes.” Similar concerns have been expressed about press freedom and press ownership concentration, for instance, again not limited to countries with issues with elections. In many cases, authoritarianism operates exactly by limiting the sphere of freedom of speech and political expression.
Informed speculations – keeping in mind that they often are speculations—could also be made about the popular support of the governments involved in the ongoing authoritarian tide. Contemporary authoritarianisms might find a sufficient degree of support beyond the security apparatus and the immediate circle of complicity, and in some cases even enjoy significant popularity compared to the authoritarianisms of the past, at least temporarily.
This is particularly the case when democratic backsliding has coincided with increasing living standards. Furthermore, better living standards tend to be coupled with broad freedoms in the sphere of consumption, also under otherwise restrictive political conditions.
While governments are all too quick to claim credit for favorable economic developments, the coincidence of democratic backsliding and increasing living standards has been quite commonly experienced after the chaotic years of post-communist adjustment and the global South’s man-made misery of “structural adjustment.”
Contemporary authoritarian governments also tend to be suppressive in a selective rather than comprehensive manner. Democratic freedoms are very limited for some groups, while others can simultaneously be hardly even affected. In such cases, the latter might not mind much the authoritarian power or might even see claims of emerging authoritarianism as a misperception. Authoritarianisms very often draw support from an anti-gender agenda, explicitly suppressing the voice of women and various minorities yet drawing support from others by taking a stance in “culture wars”.
The selective logic of freedoms and unfreedoms also goes deeper into kinds of “implicit agreements” between the government and citizens: citizens recognize an expectation to be silent over given topics, while enjoying more freedoms to debate other themes. Depending on context, the out-of-bounds issues can relate as well to security, geopolitics, environment and natural resources, corruption, land rights, religion, gender, human rights, or some other topic.
Also, the media of discussion can be very unevenly restricted: for instance, a very restricted space for printed media can co-exist with relatively free social media. All in all, the inconsistency of restrictions applies both to groups of people, themes of discussion, and platforms of discussion, resulting sometimes in difficulties in seeing authoritarianism in operation.
Governments also tend to have more financial means for funding anti-democratic politics. A typical example is the manipulation of the information climate to tacitly suppress dissident voices and democratic public discussion in general. Observers note that the suppression of free journalism is seen too easily as merely a product of explicit repression, sidelining economic aspects.
Particularly in the global South, governments can be major players in advertising in newspapers, and the careers of many journalists are ever more often directly influenced by governments through ownership close to political power. Governments might aim to strategically control advertisement funds and channel them to selected outlets: journalists need to fear unemployment, not only arrests.
While the mechanisms discussed above are not entirely new, their scale and normalisation under formally democratic rule mark a qualitative shift. Importantly, these shifts make contemporary authoritarianism harder to detect, measure, and contest with existing democracy-support tools. Mechanisms discussed above, such as dispersed power in authoritarianism, selective silencing, and other non-electoral forms of control, are therefore necessary to understand.
Strategies to promote democracy not only need to be based on an informed idea of the characteristics of contemporary authoritarianism (and numerous country-to-country specifics), but democracy support also needs to remind itself of the very idea of democracy. Promoting democracy is not only about supporting free elections, democratic institutions and the rule of law, but also the space for critical talk, including topics seen as inappropriate, distracting and even revolutionary, actively amplifying oppressed voices.
Teppo Eskelinen is Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland and Adjunct Professor (docent) in political philosophy at Tampere University. His main research interests include global justice, political economy, social movements and utopias. Lately he has been working on the issue of cultures of authoritarianism.
This article is published under the sole responsibility of the author, with editorial oversight. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team or the CEU Democracy Institute.
