By Teppo Eskelinen
Authoritarian politics are manifested not only through open repression, but also through the generation of silences around political issues. Democracy research and democracy support must develop methodologies for understanding such silences, while avoiding paternalistic tones.
A growing body of evidence points to the fact that in the contemporary world, democracy is in retreat. This threatened democracy is not merely a case of crumbling institutions. Rather, current threats to democracy are more broadly attacks on cultures of active participation, deliberation, and contestation. As authoritarianism tightens its grip around the world, the threatened practices are not simply elections, but various forms and venues of free political expression.
Moreover, the decline of such democratic culture is not caused by merely a direct use of force by the state. This does not mean that repression measures felt around the world, such as suppression of public demonstrations, would not be real and very concerning. But the operation of authoritarianism is most effective when it manages to create an atmosphere where people choose to avoid given forms of political expression, even when not explicitly repressed.
Indeed, a very notable feature in declining democracy is the increased cautiousness of people in voicing their political ideas. Authoritarianism works by creating the sense that it is prudent to avoid ‘sensitive’ topics and ways of expression.
Authoritarian governments might intentionally give tacit signs to this direction. Often they emphasize national unity and security as virtues, sometimes aim to purposefully polarize opinions to make political talk unpleasant. Direct or indirect government control of the information sphere creates a sense of futility of voicing oppositional ideas. Authoritarian politics also “amplifies” existing silences around given people, businesses and historical events.
Authoritarianism then works not only by punishing people who have voiced critical opinions and by applying censorship. It is often manifested also and precisely in what and how people choose to talk about.
In an authoritarian political climate, explicit repression and censorship might not even be that frequently needed.
Functioning democracy requires not only the absence of censorship, but importantly the existence of plurality of competing narratives for making sense of society, its problems and its potential futures. In turn, a single narrative functions as an authoritarian tool as people tend to explain the world with the available narratives regardless of whether they find them truly convincing. This has been noted for example in the case of Russia’s imperialist ambitions.
These observations are in contrast with the idealistic liberalist conceptualization of democratic freedoms according to which people are free to choose what and how they wish to talk about unless explicitly censored. If the majority of people choose to be silent over any political matters, in the light of the liberal approach this is only a matter of large number of individuals making a legitimate decision to rather talk about something else.
This conceptualization has obvious limitations, but it also has merits. It is difficult, particularly for outsiders, to identify what is missing in political discourse. To begin with, one would need to make a clear distinction between problematic silences and themes simply considered unimportant.
Importantly, arguing that there is silence is to say that something ought to be discussed: when telling others what they should be talking about, the risk of paternalism is obvious.
Furthermore, political silences are not even always problematic: for example minority groups might see silences as “protective shields”, and societies recovering from post-conflict collective trauma might find silences necessary or even healing.
This leads to theoretical and methodological challenges for democracy studies and democratic strategy. The analysis of silences could have a key role in understanding and resisting authoritarianism, yet this should not mean abandoning the principled liberal idea of the personal right to choose when and how to voice or not to voice one’s opinions.
In terms of methodology, there is need to develop systematic ways to identify and locate antidemocratic silences. A major difficulty derives from the fact that political silences are loud. In other words, they are not missing speech, but missing topics amidst endlessly ongoing speech.
Even if there are context where people prefer to avoid topics perceived as sensitive, there is no such thing as a mute society. Sophisticated analysis is needed to point out political speech that is missing.
Furthermore, analysis is needed not only to identify the existence of antidemocratic silences, but their various causes. The multiple possible reasons behind political silence include the fear of repercussions and the perception of the unimportance of the theme in question, as noted above.
But these do not exhaust the list of possible reasons for silence. Silence can also be due to genuine support for authoritarian politics, political cynicism, as well as opportunism. It can be an outcome of the internalization of autocratic regime’s ideas quite like it can be a strategic choice for someone focused on pursuing their career.
Silence, then, is ridden with dilemmas and challenges as an analytical category, yet necessary for understanding contemporary authoritarianism. The related difficulties should not be taken as a reason to think of democracy through the liberal lens only. Rather, the need to analyze silences should be seen as a necessary challenge for pro-democracy research and activism. Analyzing the missing and the nonexistent is difficult, but anti-authoritarian politics could greatly benefit from nuanced understanding on how silences are generated and enforced and chosen in everyday life.
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.
