The Evolution of Democracy
Factors Behind the Rise and Fall of Democratic Societies
A society’s Evolution is defined by the distribution of power. Individuals will promote whatever evolution satisfies their needs. These interests depend on what needs are already satisfied.
For example (following Abraham Maslow), an individual would first look to satisfy their most basic physiological needs for warmth, air, water, food, shelter, sleep, and sex. Next, they will try to guarantee their physical safety — physically, emotionally, and financially. Once this is also satisfied, they will try to satisfy more complex, social needs from family and friends. Continuing this process, they will try to satisfy higher and higher needs like esteem, self-actualization, and self-transcendence.
The form of government at a given time is defined by the distribution of power at that time. Power is determined by wealth, skills, and influence.
For example, if one individual has a disproportionate amount of force, wealth, skills, and influence, they are going to have a disproportionate influence on the government. The extent to which the government is autocratic, plutocratic, meritocratic, or democratic, depends on these effects of force, wealth, skills, and influence, respectively.
Democracy 1.0 — The Ancient World
There are examples of democracy (“A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives”) in various parts of the ancient world — from ancient Greece, to India — though in most cases “the eligible members of a state” was a restricted subset of the population — usually male and wealthy.
However, in almost all cases, four factors seemed to cause the emergence of democracy, or the “evolution” of government into democracy.
- Development: The “eligible members of a state” had their basic physiological, safety, and social needs satisfied, and hence they wanted to satisfy esteem, and self-actualization. This was in turn caused by prosperity, and technological developments.
- Equity: At least some group in the population had sufficient freedom to demand democracy, and hence they would have had some equity of power, relative to those with the most power.
- Enlightenment: The enlightened belief that all “eligible members of a state” were indeed eligible would have been more radical that it sounds, particularly since most of the early democracies evolved from autocracies with beliefs in the divine rights of kings and chiefs.
- Identity: The “nations” that adopted democracy had a strong national identity. Especially, relative to other nations. The citizenry felt a strong need to be part of the nation, and defend its nationhood.
Democracy 2.0 — The Second Wave
This emergence in the ancient world was again replicated in post-industrial-revolution Western-Europe, and then gradually spread to the rest of the world.
All the early examples in the “second wave” of democracy (like the first wave in the ancient world) emerged out of development, equity and enlightened beliefs and a sense of identity. Like the city states in ancient Greece and India, the second wave democracies had smaller populations, adopted democracy in small evolutionary and partial steps. The choice of democracy also tended to be more pragmatic than ideological.
All this changed with US independence.
While the causal factors in the US were like earlier examples (development, equity, enlightenment, and identity), the ideological aspect of democracy was given precedence over the pragmatic aspect. For the first time, the “what is right” aspect took precedence over the “what works” aspect.
Along with this ideological view of democracy, opinion on causality also began to reverse. While before democracy was an emergent property of development, equity and enlightened beliefs and a sense of identity, a new class of intellectual began to forward the idea that a democratic government will cause development, equity and enlightened beliefs and a sense of identity.
Democracy 3.0 — The Modern World
The success of the US and the west in the 20th century (particularly their cold war victory over communism), hugely increased the “brand value” of democracy. In fact, all the countries of the world but six (Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Brunei, Fiji, and the Vatican) officially claim to being democratic de jure.
“Democracy’s de jure status in the world as of 2018; only Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Brunei, Fiji, and the Vatican officially admit being undemocratic”
The reality is a bit different. According to the Economist’s “Democracy Index” [5], only nineteen of the 167 countries surveyed are rated “Fully Democracy” (or score 8.0 or above on the index).
The US (7.98), Japan (7.88), India (7.23), and Sri Lanka (6.48) are all rated “Flawed Democracy” (6.0 to 8.0).
Democracy’s de facto status in the world as of 2017, according to Democracy Index by The Economist
The ten most democratic countries (in order, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Finland, and Switzerland) have several striking characteristics:
- While they obviously claim to be democratic, and in every respect are, they are not “ideologically” democratic. Their most important reason for being democratic is “because it works,” not “because it is right.” This difference is obvious from their relationships with non-democratic countries — whom they do not “look down” upon. Note, this last point does not mean that these countries do not condemn human rights violations, terrorism etc., by non-democratic regimes. It is just that they do not hold a causal connection between these negatives, and a lack of democracy.
- They are small countries with high levels of development and strong national identities, where equity is easier to implement.
- Historically, they became more democratic as they become more developed, equitable, and enlightened, as opposed to the other way around.
In contrast, many of the worst democracies have had democracy imposed on them — sometimes by force. In such places democracy is unstable, and certainly not in equilibrium.
Democracy 4.0 — Post Democracy
Our current decade is further proof of the causal direction of development, equity and enlightened beliefs and a sense of identity, and democracy. Many countries that self-describe as “strong democracies” are battling authoritarian forces.
It is difficult to ignore the following:
- Falling development. While the US and Europe continue to develop economically, there are significant sections of the population (e.g., Less educated white men in the US, and the youth in southern Europe) are seeing a significant decline in their quality of life.
- Falling equity. As Thomas Piketty pointed out huge increases in inequality are rampant across the world, especially in the said faltering democracies
- Falling enlightenment: The internet is breaking the monopoly of a few “enlightenment” ideas, including the idea that “democracy is right.” The distribution machines of Google, Facebook and Twitter mean that current ideas (both good and bad) proliferate (literally) at light speed. The filter bubbles and echo chambers created by “personalization” and “optimization” mean that discussion and deliberation is minimal, instead replaced by reinforcement of a narrow set of memes.
- Falling Identity: All but the smallest democracies had weak national identities. “Credal” identities like that in the US have always been fragile, and can easily breakdown. The strong “race” based identities in England, Germany and France are breaking down with immigration. These countries are struggling to replace their former identities with more “Credal” multicultural identities.
All these points to a weakening in the “causes” of democracy. It also highlights the fallacy of ignoring the fact that democracy is more a complex, emergent effect, than a simple cause.
