The Last Word
When Christine and I settled on ‘Democracy: A Consensus?’ as the title of this issue of The Sydney Globalist, the inclusion of that question mark was intended to convey more than just a witty pun. We wanted to emphasise not only that democracy is an elastic concept, but also that the pursuit of unwavering consensus may be a red herring in a world mired by power politics, moral partisanship and flirtations with authoritarianism.
All too often, consensus is a convenient euphemism for the repression of healthy social conflict. An effective civil society may require scepticism, or even outright cynicism, towards the too-good-to-be-true notion of consensus. As Michel Foucault maintained, a functioning democracy demands an unrelenting critique of each and every complacent compromise reached by civic and social institutions. Perhaps, then, we should front up to the reality that any agreement reached in political and legal fora is intimately bound up with the power relations and self-interest of the parties involved. For when we do not, consensus simply becomes the most insidious form of subjugation.
“Perhaps … we should front up to the reality that any agreement reached in political and legal fora is intimately bound up with the power relations and self-interest of the parties involved.”
In this edition’s lead article, David Howell and Edward Cohen wisely suggest that more is to be gained from the systematic refinement of global institutions, rather than the ideological germination of a neo-Cold War. Indeed, ‘leagues of democracies’ may be little more than opening wedges for the reassertion of neo-conservative foreign policy. More often than not, democratic solutions involve the ongoing improvement of existing frameworks for informed discussion, rather than their outright abolition in favour of radical alternatives.
Nor is democracy beyond reproach in its domestic application. As is evident from Patrick Hurley’s article, democratic elections are not necessarily equitable elections. If democracy must operate within the ruthless parameters of the free market, aspirational elections driven by policy analysis may be little more than a myth. Perhaps more lethal to democracy, however, are the megalomaniacal personalities of those who acquire the top job. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Cambodia’s Hun Sen are cases in point. Compounding such flagrant self-interest are the elitism and historico-cultural forces that Zilka Grogan suggests are also complicit in undermining democratisation.
“It is difficult to argue that there is no correlation between democracy and the robust protection of inalienable human rights.”
In order for such authoritarianism to cease masquerading as consensus, the body politic – as opposed to its self-anointed spokespeople – must hold democratic institutions to account. Lukasz Swiatek foreshadows a model of public journalism geared precisely towards that end. Elizabeth Watt intimates that such reasoned critique need not be parochial or tailored to each nation’s political palate. Notwithstanding the specious reasoning of cultural relativists, non-Western proto-democracies confront the same issues as their Western counterparts, albeit in markedly different contexts and political metalanguages.
Yet just as we scrutinise the divide between democratic norms and realities, we must also question the efficacy and ethicality of competing systems of governance. Using Chinese authoritarianism as a case study, Kate Sullivan convincingly argues that there is no identifiable link between democracy and economic development. But at the same time, it is difficult to argue that there is no correlation between democracy and the robust protection of inalienable human rights. The ideally functioning democracy fosters executive accountability and strict adherence to the rule of law. Authoritarianism, operating as it does on an overly pragmatic logic of ‘if it works, do it’, lacks these impressive credentials.
And that, ultimately, explains the persistence of democracy in the face of its often disappointing and sometimes reprehensible results. When it works, it works resoundingly. I only hope that as readers flick through these pages, they temper their healthy scepticism with a hint – just a hint – of that idealism.
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