Illiberal Democracy
"Just because a state is not liberal, it can still be a democracy. And in fact we also had to and did state that societies that are built on the state organisation principle of liberal democracy will probably be incapable of maintaining their global competitiveness in the upcoming decades and will instead probably be scaled down unless they are capable of changing themselves significantly."
Illiberal Democracy (also known as Majoritarian Authoritarianism) is an 
authoritarian ideology which calls for an elected government which lacks the fundamental characteristics of a 
liberal democracy.
Beliefs
Advocates of illiberal democracy agree with liberal democrats that elected representatives should rule. However, they favor (in almost all cases) a 
dominant party system or 
one-party state. They also support 
heavy centralization, which limits the amount of power actually shared with commoners. Illiberal democracies also tend to:
- Limit or abolish pluralism, as the ruling party sees itself as the most fit to rule and they attempt to exclude others from challenging their authority.
- Disregard
constitutional limits (e.g., checks and balances) and the rule of law, often in favor of 
perceived pragmatism or to fulfill 
self-serving ends. - Rig elections or manipulate their results so the ruling party has enough votes to stay in power.
- Have (in many cases) an
autocratic executive authority who enjoys dictatorial powers, even if term limits are in place or they can be voted out of office.[4]
Typically illiberal democracies embrace—either as a smokescreen, a genuine belief authoritarian solutions are necessary, or somewhere in between—
populism or 
nationalism to justify their power.
Variants
Competitive Authoritarianism
Competitive Authoritarianism is a type of 
illiberal democracy in which liberal-democratic institutions remain the source of political power. The ruling party in a Competitive Authoritarian regime, however, wields an unfair advantage in elections by abusing government institutions, limiting 
media coverage of opposition parties, persecuting those deemed too dangerous to state interests, and in rare cases electoral results are manipulated.[5] But the ruling party still allows opposition parties within the 
Overton window to compete with them for power, allowing minimal pluralism. Such regimes are often backed by powerful 
state bureaucracies, as is the case in 
Singapore and 
Japan.
Authoritarian Liberal Democracy
Authoritarian Liberal Democracy describes a hybrid regime combining elements from Liberal Democracy and Authoritarianism. AuthLibDem governments entail power being concentrated in the hands of unaccountable officials—typically unelected bureaucrats and 
elected representatives who benefit from increased political apathy alike—which leads to a reduction in civil liberties. Local administrations, which tend to be the most truly democratic in the sense of high activity among citizens, end up being subservient to a highly centralized government, increasing political apathy. Liberal institutions which are supposed to be impartial actors (e.g., 
courts) end up serving 
partisan goals and their associated 
special interest groups. AuthLibDem governments also empower 
federal law enforcement agencies and routinely violate 
civil or 
constitutional rights (e.g., the Espionage Act and the Patriot Act, under 
American Presidents 
Woodrow Wilson and 
George H.W. Bush, respectively). It can be argued AuthLibDem regimes combine technocratic and electocratic elements.
Illiberal Direct Democracy
Illiberal Direct Democracy blends elements of Illiberal Democracy with 
Direct Majoritarianism. While illiberal democracies tend to have 
representative governments, illiberal direct democracies give power directly to the citizens. However, an illiberal direct democracy will be highly centralized and there are few if any constitutional limits on the power the majority of citizens—as well as political officials often appointed through sortition—can exercise. As such, illiberal direct democracies reject the rule of law. In addition, the will of the minority is typically disregarded, making it non-pluralist. In many cases, a single party introduces direct majoritarianism as a way to rush their political agendas.
The best examples of illiberal direct democracy include 
Libya under 
Mummar Gaddafi and 
Revolutionary France under the 
Jacobins. More recently, 
Viktor Orbán has blended illiberal democracy with elements of 
semi-direct democracy, regularly holding referendums.
Electocracy
Electocracy is a mild form of illiberal democracy. Representatives are democratically elected in free and fair elections, but due to a variety of factors, namely centralization, the average person has minimal or no say in daily politics as the government does not its power. This results in a situation where elected representatives have little accountability, capable of doing whatever they wish outside of election cycles. 
Thailand under 
Thaksin before the 2006 military coup was an electocracy. 
Iraq today is considered an electocracy as well.
Totalitarian Democracy
Totalitarian Democracy is an extreme form of illiberal democracy that entails a democratically elected leadership and active political engagement among the masses, but the government exhibits 
totalitarian tendencies. A totalitarian democracy is typically a one-party state where leaders exercise dictatorial powers: Attempting to control every aspect of public life through propaganda and forcing everyone to comply with their ideological agenda. The term was coined by J. L. Talmon to describe Revolutionary France under 
Maximilien Robespierre. While he led a surface-level democracy, he attempted to control every aspect of French life through state-sponsored terror, political persecution, and censorship. Talmon controversially argues 
Rousseau's "general will" justifies such a style of government. It has a lot of overlap with electocracy due to the heavy centralization and lack of accountability, but they go to extreme ends to mold society in their image from the top-down.
Beliefs
There are five types of authoritarian democracies: Bonapartist, Fascist, Democratic Centralist, People's Democratic, and Machiavellian. The Bonapartians believe that when the authoritarian leader is elected he should have the confidence of the people and that the enlightened authority that is responsive to the needs and clamour of the people[6].
The Fascists on the other hand reject the conventional concept of democracy as in a majoritarian democracy that assumes equality of citizens and rather has it replaced by a corporatist representation of state-sanctioned corporate groups that would unite people into interest groups to address the state that would act in the interest of the general will of the nation and thus exercise an orderly form of popular rule.
Democratic Centralism is a practice in which political decisions reached by voting processes are binding upon all members of the political party. Although mainly associated with Leninism, wherein the party's political vanguard composed of professional revolutionaries practised democratic centralism to elect leaders and officers as well as to determine policy through free discussion, then decisively realised through united action, democratic centralism has also been practised by social democratic parties.
People's Democracy believes that a multiparty system can exist within a Marxism-Leninist government. It emerged from the Anti Fascist movements within ML circles. It was deemed needed by some to form a popular front against fascists and bourgeois reactionaries. This system was used mostly across Eastern Europe, but also in other countries like Nepal. It was also used by non-Marxist, yet still (nominally) socialist countries like Syria, with the National Progressive Front.
Machiavellians believe that representative democracy (a "commonwealth republic") is inherently oligarchic and for this reason embrace it. They believe such a government results in power being concentrated in the hands of a bureaucratic elite which utilizes democratic institutions to stay in power. They believe such a bureaucracy will manipulate and cater to the masses as well, meaning their interests are incidentally aligned with the common folk.
Personality and Behavior
- He speaks French, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese and Spanish.
- He is very cold and strict to others unless he's talking to apolitical where he is very energetic.
- He likes security more than his dad
Democracy. - He also claims to hate corruption in all its forms.
How to Draw
- Draw a ball,
- Draw an upside-down triangle, taking up the entire middle,
- Colour the triangle blue,
- Fill the space to the left of the triangle in red, and the space to the right in green,
- Draw a white square in the centre of the blue triangle,
- Add the eyes, and you're done!
| Color Name | HEX | RGB | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red | #FF0000 | 255, 0, 0 | |
| Green | #00DD00 | 0, 221, 0 | |
| Blue | #0000FF | 0, 0, 255 | |
| White | #FFFFFF | 255, 255, 255 | |
Further Information
Literature
- The Rise of Authoritarian Liberal Democracy by Peter Baofur
Wikipedia
- Totalitarian democracy
- Illiberal Democracy
- Guided Democracy
- Taishō Democracy
- Anocracy
- Hybrid regime
- Scottish Democratic Fascist Party
- Democratic Fascist Party
YouTube
- illiberal democracies explained by Kraut
Articles
Notes
References
- ↑ Refers to situations where the government is democratically elected, but true power is in the hands of a bureaucratic elite. This has been used to describe Singapore and Japan, as well as the United States.
- ↑ A situation where there is an elected elite that uses authoritarian means to hold power, but still competes for power with opposition - permitting a limited but unfair degree of pluralism. Singapore would be an example of this.
- ↑ The r/niceguys subreddit can remove posts through voting after a new bot, QualityVote, was introduced this is generally meant to make sure that not all dissenting views of the subreddit and/or the dynamics of dating in general end up on the subreddit as not all misogynistic views on dating are really r/niceguy material, nonetheless, dissenting views even from users who support the subreddit's cause (calling out nice guy behavior) that aren't inherently misogynistic end up getting posted and shamed anyways. Note that this is an anecdote from personal experience and this is subject to change.
- ↑ Rodrigo Duterte is an example of this. He was legitimately voted out of office, but while in charge he suspended the haebus corpus, killed thousands of people without a trial, and sought to enrich his political allies.
- ↑ "THE RISE OF COMPETITIVE AUTHORITARIANISM" pages 52-53
- ↑ Napoleon was elected as Emperor of the French by a tally exceeding 99%.[106] As with the Life Consulate two years earlier, this referendum produced heavy participation, bringing out almost 3.6 million voters to the polls. Source:Lyons, Martyn (1994). Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution. St. Martin's Press.
