What is greatest current threat to international peace, prosperity, and order?
The global landscape has become much more dynamic than it was previously. So, there could be several different ways to answer this question. I will approach this crucial question by consolidating the two perspectives I am most familiar with: that of a journalist and a political scientist.
Academicians and analysts don’t often agree amongst themselves. However, regarding the current state of global stability, there seems to be a general consensus: the risks to international peace are increasing. China’s rise, Russia’s aggressive foreign policies and invasion of Ukraine, an increase of power in the hands of non-state actors, pandemics and the recent escalation in the Israel-Palestinian conflict are the most discussed causes of concern in this regard. However, what is often amiss in these discourses is the rapid backsliding of democracy worldwide. While each of these challenges is critical on their own, their combined threat intensifies with the global decline of democracy.
Lately, the world has seen has a rise in populist leaders and what has followed has become somewhat of a standard everywhere with varying intensity: all possible measures are taken to dilute the system of checks and balances including branches of government and media, a certain category of people are discriminated against and debates on elections rigging are common. This is nothing new, just an upgraded, more systematic version of what was previously called a coup. Previously, when autocrats came to power, it was by ‘snatching’ control as seen in Pakistan after partition or in Egypt during 1950s. Now autocrats prefer to get elected first and then take steps to centralize power, undermine or amend constitutions and slowly chip away at the foundations of democracy to strengthen their control. Hungary, Poland, Venezuela, Brazil, and Turkey all exemplify this trend.
Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman examine the trend of global democratic decline in their book ‘Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World’[1]. Two points from this book stand out—polarization as a cause for democratic backsliding and incrementalism. Whether we examine Xi Jinping’s policies in China or Trump’s almost arrogant polarization in the US, we will reach the same conclusion: such policies divide the people, but greatly benefit the populist leaders in maintaining power by suppressing opposition, solidifying their voter base, and promoting an “us vs them” narrative. The impact is such that their supporters become their fans and in some cases, they form a cult that defends their leader even in absence of rationality or despite being given proof of state sponsored oppression. These supporters can even become violent as we saw with the Capitol Riots in US. Clearly, polarization is an important factor behind the democratic backsliding we see in the world today. However, I also strongly believe that technology and social media have acted as catalysts. The process of picking apart of democratic institutions and spreading hate against non-supporters would not have been so effortless and effective without social media. Today, it is so easy for misinformation, hate and propaganda to reach personal devices of thousands of people within seconds. This has quadrupled the effects of polarization, wounding democracy, quickly and swiftly.
The aspect of incrementalism is also equally interesting and very relevant to modern times. Haggard and Kaufman claim that through small incremental changes, autocrats normalize certain attitudes, behaviors, language, or portrayals of the opposition which are otherwise undemocratic. But due to the psychological effect of these incremental changes wherein people become used to them, majority is unable to see what is going wrong right in front of their eyes. This is worse than aggressive military invasion and occupation of a land because with those, at least there was no debate about whether the violence, invasion and overthrowing of leaders and existing systems was morally wrong or not. Therefore, when the tide turned, people could revolt, and some form of democracy could return. In this new version of a coup, there is no scope for any revolution. In most cases, populist autocrats are successful in conditioning people in such a way that they only see what they’re shown and believe in what they’re told. In this way, soon there is little to no opposition.
Democratic backsliding begins domestically but it has the potential to transcend borders. The global rise of autocracies can therefore, pose a significant and lasting threat to international order. It is often said that democracies don’t go to war with democracies. Similarly, autocrats also learn from, and befriend other autocrats. We’re already seeing a similar story unfold in Bangladesh where the democratic backsliding has led PM Hasina to seek support from China and Russia to tackle western pressure and strengthen her standing in the region[2]. Similarly, in other regions of the world as well, as more autocrats rise, long standing globally beneficial alliances will erode and new ones will be formed with perhaps an alternate view of governance, the global cooperation will reduce, and risks of conflict will increase.
Among a plethora of other concerns, the weakening of international norms and democratic processes established at the international level is perhaps the most worrisome consequence of democratic backsliding. The difference in the ideologies of autocratic and democratic regimes mirrors the difference between governance and control. At the moment autocratic regimes are the minority in the world[3] so international organizations can keep a check on authoritarian regimes, to a great extent. However, if this situation is flipped and democracies are reduced to a minority (however many years/centuries in future), there will be an inevitable decline of western democratic influence in international organizations such as United Nations and IMF. This would essentially mean the lapse of substantial reforms and progress made in the areas of gender, equality, and freedom since autocracies and democracies have vastly different views on these issues. For instance, while the US is pro free speech and believes that internet should be unrestricted, China may not agree and might want to control what people can and cannot access online. We are well aware of this model from North Korea. If such nations gain sufficient power in the international organizations, economic and technological resources, and support from other like-minded members, an extension of their domestic policies and ideologies could be seen on the global scale, which may not be necessarily focused on rights and development.
Terrorism is also a major cause of concern for the world and many countries have collaborated in their fight against terrorism. Countries like US do not ally with nations where there is proven state support for terrorist organizations. However, this is only the case till democracy is dominant at the global level. Once that changes, alliances amongst autocrats may overlook security concerns in favor of other (perhaps economic priorities). In this way, democratic backsliding will provide a fertile ground for security challenges as internal tensions may spill over borders causing regional conflict, followed by bigger threats to global security. There are also concerns of human rights violations, and difficulties in collaborating and mitigating transnational challenges like pandemics, wars, terrorism, or climate change. Therefore, while it is crucial to assess the risks from each of these individual challenges, it is also necessary to mitigate challenges to democracy on the global level and stop the backslide while it is still possible.
[1] Haggard, S., & Kaufman, R. (2021). Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World (Elements in Political Economy). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108957809
[2] Islam, A. (2023, June 16). ‘Is Bangladesh edging closer to China and Russia?’ DW. URL: https://www.dw.com/en/is-bangladesh-edging-closer-to-china-and-russia/a-65921709
[3] Desilver, D. (2019) ‘Despite global concerns about democracy, more than half of countries are democratic’. Pew Research Center. URL: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/05/14/more-than-half-of-countries-are-democratic/
