Democracy Strikes Back?
Continuing our series on the Second Cold War or Democracy’s Cold War, this article looks at recent surprising events in three bastions of authoritarianism that could portend major changes in the near future. Specifically, let us consider the possibility that Iran, Russia, and Cuba could become functioning legitimate democracies in the next few months or years. This is certainly not a guarantee or perhaps even likely, but it is certainly less fantastic than it might have seemed just months ago. In this series we have established that global politics is increasingly defined by a competition between proponents of democratic government and those of authoritarianism, with the two sides grouped around the poles of the United States and China respectively. While China is undeniably the chief global power of what we have termed the Authoritarian Bloc, Iran and Russia constitute its two most important allies upon whom it relies to join it in opposing the United States and its fellow democratic powers. Cuba on the other hand does not hold the same strategic importance but it is the Western Hemisphere’s longest standing authoritarian regime and holds a good deal of symbolic and historical importance. Recently, anti-government sentiment has been growing in all three countries and their regimes are more unstable now than they have been in a long time.
For some time, experts have pointed to a global crisis of democracy. Around the world authoritarianism made inroads for years on end. Freedom House, which measures levels of freedom and democracy around the world, found that 2021 was the 15th year in a row that global freedom declined. This increase in authoritarianism has even made its presence felt in Western Europe and the United States. Yet the relative ascendency that authoritarianism has enjoyed for the last two decades appears to have been upset.
Iran
The Islamic Republic of Iran was born of a 1979 revolution that toppled an autocratic monarchy backed by the United States and United Kingdom that had introduced a repressive pro-West regime. The oppression of that constitutional monarchy, led by Iran’s shah, combined with the inflation caused by the 1970s oil crisis caused opponents of the regime to coalesce around far right religious zealots led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Once the shah was deposed, the broad opposition tent collapsed, and the Ayatollah instituted the totalitarian theocracy that has dominated Iran ever since with the regime rigidly enforcing extreme interpretations of Shia Muslim precepts. The Ayatollah commands supreme authority over a government with an elected president and parliament whose authority has ranged from restricted to non-existent. It is supported, as is often the case for dictatorships, by many elite individuals who profit from the corruption it funnels their way.
On September 16th, 2022, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died in the custody of Iran’s morality police after they arrested her for improperly wearing her hijab whilst she was on a trip to Tehran. The result was mass protests led by women that have turned into a full-fledged anti-government movement. Protests have chanted for “death to the dictator” referring to the current Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei. These chants echo those directed at the shah in 1979. Women across the country have burned their hijabs or refused to wear them in public. In October, Iranian competitive climber Elnaz Rekabi made headlines by competing in an international competition held in South Korea without the headscarf that is mandatory for all female Iranian athletes. She was quickly whisked back to Iran where she was received by cheering crowds. A message of dubious origins was posted to her social media explaining that she had competed without the scarf by accident, and she has since been silent with all information about her following her return being controlled by the government. Attempts by the government to repress protests, killing many and imprisoning thousands, have failed and the movement has only grown. The Iranian government continues to insist that the protests are being manufactured by external enemies like the United States. On October 15th, Iran’s Evin Prison, where it houses most of its political prisoners, mysteriously caught fire. An event that many have compared to the destruction of the Bastille Prison at the start of the French Revolution in 1789. With the movement made up of large numbers of women and young people, finding a home in universities across the country, the Iranian regime is faced with opposition from those who control its future.
Russia
The origins of Russia’s dictatorship can be traced back to the end of the First Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia began to chart a new path. In the 1990s, Russian President Boris Yeltsin oversaw an attempted liberalization of Russia as the country turned to democracy and free market economics. Yeltsin’s would be liberalization, however, encountered stiff resistance from those that remained loyal to the defunct Soviet Union and others who opposed reform. Eventually, Yeltsin’s political position became untenable, and he resigned in 1999 in favor of his hardline Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, who became the acting president. Putin, a former member of the Soviet Union’s secret police force the KGB, passed the subsequent decades amassing power and eradicating any semblance of functioning democratic institutions. It has been a gradual process that has involved multiple power grabs and revisions of the Russian Constitution. From 2008 to 2012 Putin even stepped away from the presidency due to term limits, though he served as Prime Minister and remained the actual decision maker at the top of the Russian government. Today Putin heads a regime where his power is absolute, and elections are nothing more than a sham.
Our piece that began this series on the Second Cold War, pointed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the beginning spark of that conflict. Since then, the war has taken multiple surprising turns as Ukraine has admirably and heroically resisted its attacker with the backing of NATO governments and weapons. So effective has said resistance been that Ukraine has recaptured much of its own territory and has repeatedly delivered major body blows to Russia. Most recently, Putin was humiliated when the Kerch Bridge which links Russia to Crimea (which Russia unlawfully annexed away from Ukraine in 2014) was devastated by a massive explosion. The bridge had been a point of pride for Putin who now seems to spend his days in fits of rage and terror, threatening to launch nuclear weapons as his war effort fails around him.
The disastrous war in Ukraine is damaging Putin’s dictatorship. The decision to invade and later to begin a draft has led to widespread protest and popular resistance. The government has responded by restricting media and internet access while arresting and brutalizing protesters. Unlike Iran, however, popular protest is not Putin’s biggest problem. More so than Iran, Putin and his regime rely for their existence on oligarchs. This oligarchy is mainly constituted by a swath of Russian billionaires whose wealth is either wholly or partially given to them via corrupt connections to the Russian state. Over time, Russia’s oligarchs have become more subservient to Putin who makes sure they continue to enjoy opulent wealth. However, there is reason to believe that these backers are increasingly worried about the negative consequences of Putin’s failing war that will hurt their bottom line. Through anonymous contacts and interviews with political scientists, The Economist recently concluded that many within the Russian power structure are starting to consider what the future might look like without Putin. With the state of the war worsening — Russian forces withdrew today from the last provincial capital city under their control — Putin will only grow more desperate. As his failures mount and his behavior becomes more erratic it is likely that members of Russia’s oligarchy and military leadership will prove less willing to follow where he leads.
Cuba
The Cuban communist dictatorship is the oldest regime discussed here. It came about at the height of the Cold War when the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro achieved its ends in 1959. Castro served as the island country’s dictator for more than four decades until 2008. Similar to events in Iran, the Cuban Revolution overthrew a dictatorship backed by the United States. Once in power, Castro cast about for support, finding it in the Soviet Union he began to play the part of a disciple of Soviet communism. Cuba took center stage in the First Cold War in 1962 during the so called Cuban Missile Crisis when the Soviet Union attempted to install nuclear weapons on the island to threaten the mainland United States. It is generally considered the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. After Fidel Castro stepped down in 2008, his brother took over until 2018. The third and current dictator of the communist regime is President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
The regime has usually been successful in suppressing open dissent but in July of 2021 protests erupted across the island in response to ongoing economic crises and food shortages. Many protesters openly called for an end to the regime and chants like “down with the dictatorship” were common as were calls for “freedom.” President Díaz-Canel and his government reacted quickly by jailing protesters and committing multiple human rights violations along the way, including torture. Díaz-Canel, like the Iranian regime, declared that the protests were the result of interference by the United States, a bogus charge trumpeted by many international far-left actors eager to avoid seeing the Cuban regime cast in a negative light. For a time, government repression seemed to quell the unrest. However, in September 2022 Hurricane Ian caused widespread blackouts and food shortages once more and protests resumed. Again, calls for “freedom” rang out across Cuba. Continued government interventions in the economy are worsening and reinforcing the country’s dire economic crisis and Cubans have no reason to believe things will get any better as long as the dictatorial regime persists.
What Comes Next?
So, what comes next? Is democracy about to strike major blows at the heart of the Authoritarian Bloc? That is far from certain. First any or all of these regimes may yet stabilize their situation through combinations of brutal repression and measures designed to appease the population. All three are longstanding dictatorships who have learned how to survive. However, their current levels of instability appear unprecedented. But if they were to collapse, that would present a second hurdle, there is no guarantee that democracy would follow. Indeed, it can be said that the most difficult part of regime change is not deposing the old but constructing the new. Revolutions frequently collapse in on themselves. The most famous historical example being the period known as The Terror during the French Revolution that saw a vicious cycle of purity tests and mass executions that led to chaos. The brief democratic experiment of that revolution ended with Napoleon as dictator. In Iran, some have suggested that the military could depose the theocratic dictatorship in favor of one of their own. Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, argued that if Putin were to be replaced by some other oligarch it would do little to improve Russia’s current condition. Cuban leaders undoubtedly hope that the protests will disappear once the damage from the hurricane is repaired.
Still, there are a lot of reasons for hope. First, these movements are internally motivated. Despite, the desperate claims of their governments, the resistance is not emanating from the United States. The US has offered public shows of support and may perhaps at some point offer clandestine aid, however, if US intervention was sufficient to destabilize these governments then they would have been deposed long ago. As failed US interventions in places like Afghanistan and Vietnam have demonstrated, successful democratic regimes cannot be imposed top-down by an external benefactor. The fact that these resistance movements are home grown mean they are the best chance of success for democracy.
In the case of Iran there is a lot different this time around; The Economist recently noted: “Protests against the regime have erupted before. Big ones have occurred every decade or so, but of late have come faster and more furiously. This one has been on a very different scale. The protesters no longer demand bigger handouts or political reform within the system, but the overthrow of the theocracy. The outrage has lasted longer than before and has spread beyond the middle class.”
In Russia, opposition leader Navalny believes that a successful democratic transition is possible. He insists that it is necessary for Russia to adopt a parliamentary model for its democratic government. According to Navalny this would allow those who currently support Putin’s regime to “fight for power while ensuring that they are not destroyed by a more aggressive group” that gains control of an overly powerful executive branch. Indeed, his point can be generalized to all these cases. For a transition to democracy to really be considered successful, each country must adopt institutions appropriate to their history and culture that allow for participation and competition from all sides without manipulation by one.
Finally, Cuba’s communist dictatorship may be in the most untenable position of the three regimes discussed here. No government of any type can survive an unending period of economic crisis. Cuba’s economic downturn certainly seems indefinite as long as the dictatorship and its current policies persist. This means that the regime can either maintain its iron fist until it provokes its own downfall or allow for an economic opening that would also likely bring about a political opening.
The final reason for hope is that there is so much positive change that could come of these transitions were they to happen. First, millions more people across the world would be given a voice in their own governments. Next, the nuclear threat to world peace would be dramatically reduced by the additions of Russia and Iran to the family of democratic nations. The war in Ukraine would also be brought to a merciful end. Indeed, peace in general would be more likely. Lastly, democratization in these bastions of authoritarianism would serve to disillusion those enchanted by authoritarianism elsewhere. For years now, the countries of the Authoritarian Bloc have sold their methods as the best model for developing countries while delighting in the chaos caused by populist leaders and polarization in democratic countries as evidence of the failings of that type of regime. Russia’s failure in the war in Ukraine has already damaged the image that the authoritarian nations wish to project. Democratization in any of these authoritarian strongholds would further expose the evils and pains that dictatorship bring. Meanwhile China, where Xi Jinping has solidified himself as president and leader of the Chinese Communist Party for life and declared goals of aggressive expansion and global domination, would find itself significantly isolated on the world stage.
The future is never certain, and these dictatorships will cling to power with violence and deceit. Nevertheless, these situations bear watching, and citizens of these countries have given the rest of us reason to hope for a better future for global democracy. After years of authoritarian advances, it might just be the time that democracy strikes back.
Check out the previous stories in this series:
The Lessons of the Second World War for the Second Cold War
Also take a look at the full catalogue of Democracy’s Sisyphus here and please follow for more!
