Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Democracy Under Stress

Thorvaldur Gylfason 29th May 2017

Thorvaldur Gylfason

Thorvaldur Gylfason

Freedom House recently demoted the United States from top rank among the world´s democracies. The reasons given include ‘the cumulative impact of flaws in the electoral system, a disturbing increase in the role of private money in election campaigns and the legislative process, legislative gridlock, the failure of the Obama administration to fulfill promises of enhanced government openness, and fresh evidence of racial discrimination and other dysfunctions in the criminal justice system’.

Given the historical role of the US in pioneering democracy around the world, this demotion may have international consequences. It was practically the world´s sole democracy until 1850 when Europe was swept by revolutions that led to the gradual proliferation of democracy. However, following the outbreak of WWII, there were only five democracies in Europe in 1943: the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Sweden and Switzerland. Under US leadership from 1945 to 2000 the number of democracies around the world rose to 90, nearly a half of all states, but thereafter the spread of democracy halted again. Even Hungary and Poland, fully fledged EU members, show new signs of dwindling respect for democracy and human rights, flirting openly with “illiberal democracy.” The hope that the former Soviet republics would evolve toward liberal democracy post- Cold War has not materialized, with the striking exception of the three Baltic states.

So what went wrong in the US and what are the prospects of restoring the international spread of democracy?

Inequality undermines democracy

Increased income inequality is closely related to some of the factors cited by Freedom House as the basis for its lowering of the US democracy score. The increase in income inequality has been amply demonstrated by economists, including Thomas Piketty, Anthony Atkinson et al. The income share of the top 1 percent of US households rose from 10 percent in the 1960s to 20 percent in 2013. Even more strikingly, the income share of the top 0.1 percent of US households rose from 3 to 10 percent over the same period. This information is relatively recent. Political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson describe increased income inequality as both a cause and a consequence of “Winner-Take-All Politics.” No country in Western Europe comes even close to US income inequality even if inequality has grown also there in recent decades.

The rise in US inequality weakens democracy in several ways.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

First, unequal voting rights tend to weaken resistance against social and economic inequality among politicians who benefit from them through uneven apportionment of seats in the Senate, discriminatory voter registration practices, and gerrymandering. Five of the 45 US presidents, including two out of three since 2000, took office without having won the popular vote: a clear sign of corrosive systemic flaws.

Second, increased income inequality has gone along with increased politicization of the US Supreme Court. This culminated in its 2010 ruling that no legal limits can be placed on corporate contributions to political campaigns, further undermining popular confidence in the Court. Less than a decade earlier the Court´s decision to hand the presidency to George W. Bush in 2001 by five votes to four along party lines had led John Paul Stevens, the third longest serving justice in the Court’s history, to state: ‘Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law’. Unchecked private money in political campaigns exacerbates economic inequality by enabling wealthy donors to dictate their instructions to increasing numbers of politicians.

Third, legislative gridlock appears correlated with increased income inequality. Gone are the days when Republicans and Democrats in Congress could work together in the national interest or even get along. The term ‘liberal Republican’ – remember Nelson Rockefeller? – has almost become an oxymoron. There are different ways to narrate the story of the disappearance of bipartisanship. Perhaps the problem arose with the resignation of President Nixon that led the Republicans to go after President Clinton with unprecedented ferocity as if to seek revenge. The contemptuous treatment of President Obama by Republicans in Congress, including their unwillingness to even consider his Supreme Court nominee in 2016, can be viewed in this light.

Moreover, increased economic inequality may have encouraged political polarization by reducing the number of voters who participate in elections and who make informed decisions. Deteriorating public education and racial discrimination showing few signs of abatement reflect growing regional discrepancies in public services. ‘Alternative facts’ and outright lies played a striking role in the last Presidential election – and still do. Contrast this with Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation in Democracy in America (1835, 1840) that ‘… not only are fortunes equal in America, equality extends to some degree to intelligence itself. I do not think that there is a single country in the world where, in proportion to the population, there are so few ignorant … individuals as in America’. He saw equality as an important pillar of democracy.

Democracy must prevail

Abraham Lincoln understood the problem, saying: ‘I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer’.

If economic inequality continues to intensify, the outlook for democracy to recover in the US and elsewhere appears dismal. This vicious circle can be broken by reversing the rise in inequality through campaign finance reform to release politicians from the suffocating embrace of wealthy donors. More progressive public expenditure and tax policies would also help.

Without such reforms, just as increased inequality of income and wealth may spread like weed within and across countries, dwindling democracy may prove to be contagious. When the US misbehaves, other countries may consider it safe to follow. And Europe needs to assume the lead by showing the rest of the world the benefits of a more egalitarian society.

Thorvaldur Gylfason
Thorvaldur Gylfason

Thorvaldur Gylfason is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Iceland and a former member of Iceland´s Constitutional Council.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

You are here: Home / Politics / Democracy Under Stress

Most Popular Posts

Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse
income inequality,inequality,Gini,1 per cent,elephant chart,elephant Global income inequality: time to revise the elephantBranko Milanovic
Orbán,Hungary,Russia,Putin,sanctions,European Union,EU,European Parliament,commission,funds,funding Time to confront Europe’s rogue state—HungaryStephen Pogány

Most Recent Posts

reality check,EU foreign policy,Russia Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a reality check for the EUHeidi Mauer, Richard Whitman and Nicholas Wright
permanent EU investment fund,Recovery and Resilience Facility,public investment,RRF Towards a permanent EU investment fundPhilipp Heimberger and Andreas Lichtenberger
sustainability,SDGs,Finland Embedding sustainability in a government programmeJohanna Juselius
social dialogue,social partners Social dialogue must be at the heart of Europe’s futureClaes-Mikael Ståhl
Jacinda Ardern,women,leadership,New Zealand What it means when Jacinda Ardern calls timePeter Davis

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The EU recovery strategy: a blueprint for a more Social Europe or a house of cards?

This new ETUI paper explores the European Union recovery strategy, with a focus on its potentially transformative aspects vis-à-vis European integration and its implications for the social dimension of the EU’s socio-economic governance. In particular, it reflects on whether the agreed measures provide sufficient safeguards against the spectre of austerity and whether these constitute steps away from treating social and labour policies as mere ‘variables’ of economic growth.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The winter issue of the Progressive Post magazine from FEPS is out!

The sequence of recent catastrophes has thrust new words into our vocabulary—'polycrisis', for example, even 'permacrisis'. These challenges have multiple origins, reinforce each other and cannot be tackled individually. But could they also be opportunities for the EU?

This issue offers compelling analyses on the European health union, multilateralism and international co-operation, the state of the union, political alternatives to the narrative imposed by the right and much more!


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube