It is getting more popular by the day to ask the question of which polity is better, democracy or dictatorship (or as this opinion piece in New York Times put it, strongmen regimes). This distinction matters because as the author points out, many strongmen rise to power through democratic election. It is only accurate to call these authoritarian leaders strongmen rather than exactly dictators in the sense we call Stalin or Mao Zedong, when there was no election.
Election Vs. Democracy
Another issue of clarification is not reducing democracy to universal suffrage. According to this website, by the 1950s two-thirds of countries adopted universal suffrage. Yet when you look at the list of countries or territories by dates of universal suffrage, it is clear that not all of them, perhaps not even half of them, quality for true democracy.
Democracy, or more accurately common elections, has never been so popular in the world, especially after the collapse of former Soviet Union. China and North Korea are notable exceptions. On a side note, it is likely that in private, the Russians would laugh at China for not having installed universal suffrage like they did, despite their strong ties of today. Xi, Jinping of China recently declared a Confidence doctrine calling for Communist Party members, government officials, and the Chinese people to be confident in their chosen path, political system, guiding theories and culture. This doctrine is unlikely to travel far outside the country — unless China joins the global “voting club.” China has never had democracy in its thousands of years history, and the majority of Chinese are just happy to have a charisma leader like Xi, little else is desired.
Growing under the rein of Mao, Xi also tries to restore some of the ideology, policies and strategies of Mao Zedong era. This may have placed China in a more difficult or vulnerable spot on the international stage, as people in the world have used to the imagine of opening and reform since Deng, Xiaoping. Internationally China is arguably weaker, not stronger even though Chinese economy has been bigger.
Bringing Citizens to the Democracy Game
The way I look at it, elections are episodes while democracy is a long and ongoing drama or game. No election will last more than one year, while democracy covers the entire process before, during and after election. Elections can send strongmen to power, but that is not necessarily the failure of democracy. In fact, given the campaign process democracy is arguably more likely to bring strongmen than otherwise (the only counter-force is competition, where competitors tend to put each other in check during campaign). The real power of democracy is to put strongmen in check and to keep the game going, taking strongmen along. We focus on the quality of citizenship rather than quality of statesmen, because it is frequently the former that explains the rise and fall of the latter. Donald Trump is a perfect example here. If it were not a strong citizens, Trump would have been another strongman, perhaps even more so than Netanyahu in Israel.
Asking Different Questions
If you are thinking only about institutions, you will not stop asking the “pick one out of two” questions, such as “What is better, democracy or dictatorship?” much like the Hamlet question of “To be, or not to be?” The basic question can renew itself over time, like we see it now during this pandemic, taking the form of “What is better for protecting people from outbreak, democracy or dictatorship?” This question is attractive because it is simple to ask, with just two choices, and yet is politically, ideologically and historically loaded. They are sugar coated high dosage pills that are easy to swallow.
If you want to think outside the box and to go above and beyond what is superficial and obvious, you should ask a different question: Why would some countries produce strongmen like Putin, Xi, Erdogan and Netanyahu but not others? But this is not the best question because as I said earlier, election can and will send some strongmen to power. A better question is “How would functional democracy make real difference in dealing with strongmen and with crises?” My answer, as I said before, is in the power of citizens.
Democracy Does Not Work Like Vaccine
Just when the CIA blamed China for under-reporting the coronavirus cases, the news came out that the US death toll is severely understated. Just when UK think tank seeks global suit against China for covering up the outbreak, it is reported that the US hijacked face masks from China to France. Just when the US media is full of cover up stories from China, the White House was reportedly doing its own cover up by ordering federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified information. US military also moved to kill the messenger by firing the Captain Brett Crozier, the whistle blower for the safety of his fellow sailors on the USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT, the aircraft carrier, during the outbreak of coronavirus.
It is fair to say that neither democracy nor strongmen regime is perfect and there are pros and cons for both. Democracy does not work like a vaccine that after you had it, you are automatically immune to errors, troubles or problems. Instead, it works more like a whip to push everyone in the game to do better.
Is Polity The Right Unit of Analysis?
If that is the case, it may mean that polity is too big a unit of analysis. Instead, we may want to go down to micro units, or smaller entities of firms, organizations, agencies and individuals. We may also be better off by looking at individual decisions within autocratic and democracy polity. Within a democracy we may see decisions that are autocratic, just like within an autocratic we may see democratic decisions. This is not saying that polity does not matter, but rather that using smaller entities as the unit of analysis helps disentangle some of the subtleties in polity. For one thing, with macro units of analysis there are too many agents involved and they may cancel each other out in effect, making it hard to detect differences.
Read the excellent investigation “Denial and dysfunction plagued US government as coronavirus raged” by Washington Post, and you will understand how poor judgments and disastrous decisions can pile up and reinforce each other both within and across entities. The lesson here is that like I said above, democracy does not automatically bring efficiency and right decisions. In fact, because more decision makers or stake holders are generally involved in a democracy, short term efficiency is never its strength compared to autocracy. But from the story details, democracy is just as vulnerable to personal preference of those in the leadership position as in an autocracy. So what IS democracy better at?
In my opinion, the quality of democracy depends on the quality of citizens. American democracy is functioning and stable because people are loud there with strong and contested preferences, like my other blog discussed. When agents or citizens compete based on their diverse preferences, it is more likely for strongmen to listen rather than to dictate. They do that because all statesmen have one vulnerability of getting voted and re-voted. Dysfunctional democracy tends to have weak, quiet and obedient citizens. They may participate in votes and may even vote honestly. Beyond that however they do little else, when before and after election is the crucial time for the quality of democracy.