The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
As long as the coronavirus remains a threat, in either human or economic terms, every failure and every victory is a mark, however misleadingly, for or against particular political systems
| SHADI HAMID | Authoritarianism, in theory, and authoritarian regimes, in practice, were already gaining ground before the spread of the novel coronavirus. During—and after—the pandemic, governments are likely to use long, protracted crises to undermine domestic opposition and curtail civil liberties through increased surveillance and tracing.
It will be challenging to assess the exact degree of deterioration in countries that were already extremely authoritarian, such as China and Egypt. In countries where the U.S. enjoys considerable leverage, as in the Middle East, the goal should be framed as pressuring autocrats to be less repressive than they might otherwise be, rather than engaging in false pretenses of “political reform” or “democratisation.”
In still-democratic countries like Brazil, Israel, and India or in hybrid contexts where strongmen had successfully constrained electoral competition and parliamentary oversight, such as Hungary, ambitious populists will push the limits, testing the levels of both domestic and international resistance.
How much does regime type matter?
The pandemic is both reopening and intensifying one of the most vital debates of the post-post-Cold War era: that over whether democracy or authoritarianism is best suited to deal with new and unprecedented threats.
In a perceptive essay from March, Francis Fukuyama argued that state capacity and trust in government were the crucial determinants, not regime type. If this is true, it still raises the question of what kinds of countries and societies are more likely to enjoy greater state capacity and trust.
With its apparent success in reducing new infections and deaths, China has presented itself as a model for aggressively mobilising state resources to fight the coronavirus. It has also taken advantage of the absence of U.S. global leadership to project soft power and provide aid—including through so-called “mask diplomacy”—to struggling countries, including Western democracies themselves.
The Chinese regime is, in effect, making an argument about regime type, and one that authoritarian regimes are likely to appreciate, regardless of the merits. Then there’s the reality that the largest Western democracies (but not East Asian democracies) have suffered the most in terms of total cases and per capita deaths.
This has led a growing number of Americans and Europeans to doubt not only their governments, which is only natural, but their own political systems. How, after all, could the world’s oldest, most advanced democracies end up with countless dead from the coronavirus?
Responding to China’s authoritarian challenge as well as the continued erosion of democratic confidence at home will be critical over the coming years. This requires American and European recovery and leadership, of course, but it also requires that Western democracies resist the urge to make permanent the temporary mobilisation of state power and institution of overbearing surveillance systems.
The temptation to be in perpetual state of emergency will only grow in the absence of a vaccine or cure. The deployment of wartime language—considering that wars against enemies, seen and unseen, have invariably been used to restrict individual freedoms—is as understandable as it is dangerous.
For established democracies as well as hybrid regimes still holding somewhat competitive elections, there are three pandemic-specific risks worth highlighting: delayed elections, “democracy without protests,” and incumbent advantages.
Postponing elections is obviously problematic (particularly when it’s seen to benefit one party over the other) but holding elections where the risk of transmission is significant creates its own legitimacy deficit. Turnout will be depressed, particularly among older voters.
In either scenario, losers may be more likely to either challenge the outcome or claim the results do not accurately reflect popular sentiment. And that is precisely why elections, however flawed, are preferable to the alternatives; they remain the best way to gauge public preferences at regular intervals. Despite, or perhaps because of, countries becoming “less free” over the past decade, protests have proliferated across the globe, culminating in 2019—an unusually active year for demonstrations and mass action. With the economic fallout from the pandemic, coupled with government missteps, the reasons to be angry are only likely to grow.
The problem, though, is that it’s not easy to organise, at least not in proximate physical space, in an age of social distancing and public gatherings limited to 500 citizens or less. Relatedly, the lack of freedom of movement and access to public space exacerbate the incumbent advantages. In countries like Hungary and Turkey, where media space is dominated by ruling parties, challengers will have even less visibility than usual.
While “reopening” can create its own authoritarian temptations around tracing and surveillance regimes, it at least removes emergency restrictions and, in due time, avails political parties, protestors, and grassroots movements to communicate their platforms and grievances to larger audiences.
