On Tuesday, Oct. 8, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Agora Institute, in partnership with Johns Hopkins Model United Nations (HopMUN), hosted “How to Lose a Democracy,” a panel discussion that brought together four regional experts to present case studies of de-democratization.
In an email to The News-Letter, HopMUN president Arusa Malik described the organization’s intention behind co-hosting the event and provided insight into what she hopes attendees will learn from the discussion.
“We hope that students will learn both the values and qualms associated with democracy — but above that, understand why democratic backsliding can be dangerous,” she said. “Tying the conversation back to relevant case studies, looking at Turkey for example, is a key way to demonstrate what democratic backsliding looks like and the consequences associated.”
The panel featured Lisel Hintz — a Johns Hopkins assistant professor of International Relations and European Studies, Sanjay Ruparelia — Associate Professor of Politics at the Toronto Metropolitan University, David Smolansky — Dissident in Residence at the SNF Agora Institute, and Otto Kienitz — an SNF Agora Institute postdoctoral fellow.
In an interview with The News-Letter, freshman Julia Schager described her reasons for attending the event.
“I want to take advantage of the resources available to all students on campus, but also, myself as an International Studies major,” she said. “I’m a non-voting member of the Johns Hopkins community, so I think I'm trying to gain all the knowledge that I can before I become a voting member.”
The event opened with a discussion of the democratic situation in Turkey presented by Hintz. She began by establishing that terms such as democratic backsliding, erosion and breakdown are linear terms which suggest the direct backward movement of a country. The reality of the situation, she argued, is often different.
“When you actually look at the path that countries take between autocracy and democracy, it's these very spiraling designs,” Hintz said. “So I, rather than “erosion” or “breakdown” and those kinds of terms, prefer “de-democratization” and “democratization.””
She then described how the term “de-democratization” is representative of Turkey’s current political situation, explaining that the unexpected gains for opposition parties in local elections occurred due to heightened centralization of the ruling Justice and Development Party. Hintz emphasized that Turkey’s problem is not political Islam but rather authoritarianism, and that its ruling party has historically reconfigured institutions to consolidate power while simultaneously categorizing those reforms as “democratizing.”
“When the Justice and Development Party, the AKP, comes to power in 2002, they make the argument that in order to join the EU they need to reduce the role of the military,” she began. “Now this makes sense. However, in doing so, they were able to remove some of the checks on the political Islamist tendency that the secularists in the country had worried about.”
The panel then transitioned to Ruparelia, an associate professor of politics at Toronto Metropolitan University. His presentation centered around Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Ruparelia argued that while India has a parliamentary federal system, Modi behaves more as a president than a prime minister. Ruparelia also detailed how Modi’s rule has reinforced de-democratization in India, specifically through the ways he has restricted various areas of political society.
“The first is targeting social activists in civil society,” Ruparelia said. “We’ve seen a clampdown on dissent... in both civil society and the political system. Largely what's very striking in the realm of civil society is the criminalization of dissent, so people who oppose the government can often be charged with sedition.”
Ruparelia then identified a second area of political society that he believes has contributed to de-democratization: the categorization of India as a Hindu nation rather than a secular one. He argued that this has reinforced religious violence instigated by the BJP, and contended that Modi has instituted legal obstacles to further reduce Muslim political power in India, exacerbating de-democratization.
Smolansky, a Dissident in Residence at the SNF Agora Institute, continued the discussion by presenting the current state of democracy in Venezuela. He began with an explanation of the nation’s recent political history.
Smolansky highlighted that in the second half of the 20th century, Venezuela was one of the most stable democracies in South America and had one of the most prosperous economies of the time. Democracy began to backslide, he argued, with two coup d’états in 1992, both led by Hugo Chávez. Smolansky explained that while Chávez was ultimately unsuccessful, he served as a symbol for Venezuelans who were unhappy with the system, and he was released from prison with full political rights.
“I think the mistake was to restate the political rights after what he did,” Smolanksy said. “He was convinced to run for president. All politicians at that moment told him, ‘Try to conquer power using the election.’ And unfortunately, Venezuela has become, in this century, a main reference on how democracy is used to destroy the laws.”
Since Chávez’s election, Smolanksy argued, Venezuela has progressively lost the democratic components of its political system, such as through the nationalization of companies and land, which fueled a system of corruption. He then touched upon the erosion of the freedom of the press, and how he sees these elements of de-democratization currently manifest in President Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
The final speaker was Kienitz, who discussed the state of democracy in Georgia and Moldova, two post-communist states that he argues have seen uneven cycles of political opportunity among parties in the last few years. He referred to their current political status as “pluralism by default.”
“These are examples of what political scientist Lucan Wey has called pluralism by default, in which no side is strong enough to end democratic competition, and thus we see kind of a churning cycle of Democratic leaning and authoritarian leaning,” Kienitz said.
He then recounted the electoral histories of Georgia and Moldova. Beginning with Georgia, Kienitz described the rise to power of the Georgian Dream Party in the 2010s and explained that the party has been accused of promoting de-democratization through election fraud, eroding journalistic freedoms and mistreating political prisoners.
He followed with a presentation of Moldova. According to Kienitz, Moldova — like Georgia — had a relatively shaky transition from post-communist politicians to neoliberals. He highlighted the Moldovan-Russian political bloc known as The Victory, run by oligarch Ilan Shor, and argued that the bloc has since attempted to boycott elections and buy votes in light of a European Union referendum.
Freshman Sophia Sileo described her main takeaways from the event in an interview with The News-Letter.
“It helped put into perspective how good we have it here, even though the only political scene that [our generation] knows is all around kind of depressing, but then, looking at what else is going on in the world, you're like, ‘Okay, there is hope.’ There are things that I can do as someone who can now vote and who can share my opinion and listen to others,” Sileo said.
The event concluded with a Q&A session with the panelists, during which they discussed how the de-democratization in each case study has manifested itself across the globe and is not solely concentrated in the five nations discussed.
In an email to The News-Letter, Senior Academic Program Coordinator for the SNF Agora Institute Kara Piccirilli described the Institute’s reasons for hosting the event.
“By examining elections in these countries, we seek to compare these case examples, where we can, and synthesize trends and patterns across them,” Piccirilli wrote. “Finally, we seek to determine how the same trends are or are not at play in the United States during its election period, and what can be learned in the comparative analysis, particularly for those who seek to strengthen democratic principles and practices and democratic institutions.”
Josh Lonstein contributed reporting to this article.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The News-Letter.