On Liberal Democracy, Authoritarian Populism, and Manic Kleptocracy

Despite notable efforts, faith in liberal democratic institutions spirals downward. In April of 2018, William Galston of Brookings wrote the following:

Liberal democracy faces multiple external challenges—from ethnonational autocracies, from regimes claiming to be based on God’s word rather than the will of the people, from the success of strong-handed meritocracy in places such as Singapore, and, not least, from the astonishing economic accomplishments of China’s market-Leninist system.

But there is also an internal challenge to liberal democracy—a challenge from populists who seek to drive a wedge between democracy and liberalism. Liberal norms and policies, they claim, weaken democracy and harm the people. Thus, liberal institutions that prevent the people from acting democratically in their own interest should be set aside.

Let us begin with the terminology that graces the title - liberal democracy, authoritarianism, and touch quickly on the nuances of ethnonationalism and populists. In easy to digest bullet format of course.

• Liberal Democracy - A form of government championing freedom and equity, defined by the rule of law, universal suffrage, and civil rights.
• Authoritarianism - A form of government in which a small group, even one person, wields power and limits individual liberties.
• Ethnonationalism - Pride and practice centered on holding the nation as the highest unit of the social world. In the ethno-version of nationalism, the nation-state is not defined by borders or government, but by heritage, ethnicity, or ancestry.
• Populists - A politician who strives to appeal to the ordinary people. We huddled masses, the plebs, the every day average person.

The Main Arguments and My Responses

Though an early scholar, I firmly believe that in the beginners mind there are many avenues to revisit and comment on William's ideas. At the core of the work, William is arguing that populism seeks to undermine and relegate the liberal elements of democracy to the side. Thus, an illiberal democracy rises from the tumult. This illiberal democracy, William's accurately conveys, is predicated on the realities and times the article was written.

Recall in 2016-2018, populism was on the rise around the world. The Tea Party and MAGA in the United States, the AfD in Germany, and similar movements across the EU and South America. Simply put, needed changes moved too slowly, or not at all. A wondrous past had been replaced by a corrupt present, and dystopian future. Action that did occur harmed the average person. A minority of powerful interests corrupted governments and nations. The people, the virtuous hard-working everyday citizen, suffered and placed the source of their suffering on the elites and the system they seemed now to control:

When populists distinguish between the "people" and the "elite," they depict each of these groups as homogeneous. The people have one set of interests and values, the elite has another, and these two sets are not only different but fundamentally opposed. The divisions are moral as well as empirical. Populism understands the elite as hopelessly corrupt, the people as uniformly virtuous-meaning that there is no reason why the people should not govern themselves and their society without institutional restraints.

In political science, elite actors are the movers and shakes in politics and social circles. The group can include a wide swatch of actors - businesses and their board, movie stars, political machines and dynasties. Largely, progressive populists and conservative populists were pointing to and deriding the same thing. Elites controlling the political system, generating increasingly intolerable economic disparity, and were a problem. First, from a progressive populist, Bernie Sanders in his December 10, 2010 speech on the Senate floor:

The rich get richer. The middle class shrinks. Not enough, not enough. The very rich seem to want more and more and more, and they are prepared to dismantle the existing political and social order in order to get it. So we have the economics and distribution of income and wealth as one thing, but then we must discuss politics.

What happened last year, as I think most Americans know, is the Supreme Court made a very strange decision. The Supreme Court decided that corporations are people and they have the right of free speech and the right without disclosure—all of this is through the Citizens United Supreme Court decision—to put as much money as they want into campaigns all over the country. In this last campaign, that is what we saw: Billionaires, in secret, pouring money into campaigns all over the country. Does that sound like democracy to anybody in America; that we have a handful of billionaires probably dividing up the country? I will put this amount in Virginia, California, wherever.

That is what they were able to do. The rich get richer, and they don't sit on this money. What they then do is use it to elect people who support them and to unelect people who oppose their agenda and they use their political power to get legislation passed which makes the wealthy even wealthier.

Other populists, this time on the far-right of the spectrum, present similar arguments. Donald Trumps 2016 speech accepting the Republican nomination carries similar economic disparity arguments:

What about our economy? Again, I will tell you the plain facts that have been edited out of your nightly news and your morning newspaper: Nearly 4 in 10 African-American children are living in poverty, while 58% of African-American youth are now not employed.

My message is that things have to change – and they have to change right now.

Every day I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the people all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned. I have visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. And they are forgotten. But they're not going to be forgotten long. These are people who work hard but no longer have a voice. I am your voice.

As does Marine le Pen:

Ladies and gentlemen, dear fellow many country men and women, both from metropolitan France as well as from overseas. If so many of you are here today it is because you have understood, especially in the light of recent events, that against the candidates, either left wing or right wing, but both guided by financial interests, I am the candidate of the people.

The common theme I find is not what William's argues, that democracy must be preserved and liberalism destroyed. No. Although populists of Bernie Sanders' ilk would argue liberal democracy is being supplanted by oligarchy and authoritarianism, the populists Trump (US), Le Pen and her replacement Bardella (France), Weidel (Germany), and Bolsonaro (Brazil) all argue that liberal democracy is the problem. The only problem. A course correction to a previous time is needed, but all recognize a return to some past glory is only a talking point. Something new is being forged.

After the defeats of figures like Trump and Bolsonaro, authoritarian populism appeared to be in decline. However, this period proved to be a strategic regrouping. Recent significant victories in countries such as the United States and Germany, alongside steady advancements in Argentina and Canada, indicate a renewed and aggressive assault. This offensive targets the fundamental understanding of "the people": their identity, their legal protections, and the principles of inclusion versus exclusion.

This movement aims to dismantle the foundational concept of a unified citizenry—as defined by constitutional contracts—and replace it with a divisive notion of "our people." Such a shift fundamentally undermines the structure of liberal democracy, threatening the very viability of this governmental model.

Wrapping Up: Manic Kleptocracy and an Unknown Outcome

What comes next is, unknown. We are presently in a state where neoliberalism, capitalism, socialism, war, wealth, and religion are contesting and aligning in an unrecognizable firestorm. I refer to this transition stage as a Manic Kleptocracy.

Manic Kleptocracy is a nebulous, reactive series of policy decisions and practices shaped by an ever-shifting field of people who use their insider knowledge not only to steal a nation's resources, but to direct it's power. An ever changing landscape with no real direction. Rudderless, restless, careening towards some end impossible to predict. Oligarchy. Aristocracy. Fascism. All possibilities, but none of them quite able to pin down and define what political scientists, media, and citizens were living. Authoritarian populists promise to do good for a people slighted by election losses and judicial defeat, abandoning democracy, liberal or otherwise, all together. Political elites and the new men joining them are trying to steer the ship through the monsoons and swells of this Manic Kleptocracy in three ways:

1. Protectionism - The political elites at the helm are upholding a limited democratic system, for now, to protect the ideologies of the authoritarian populists. Democracy itself may continue in a limited state, but is managed to ensure the regime and it's ideas are maintained.
2. Restricted Decision Making - Those included in the voting or decision making processes have influence, but that influence is purposefully restricted by a shifting definition of the people.
3. Limited Decision-Making - The people, the voting or influencing bloc, are restricted, limited by a nebulous and shifting set of criteria beyond the rule of law. In short, the people are constantly changing to ensure the decision making power of this bloc is limited or non-consequential.

Although William's was aiming in the right direction, that there is an internal challenge to liberal democracy—that challenge was not a wedge, but a wrecking ball.