On the one side, we see the rise of “illiberal democracies” – governments that claim to represent the “real” people of the nation, but have little regard for individual rights or constitutional norms. The consequence, Mounk argues, is that liberal democracy is coming apart.
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Finally, immigration has increased since the mid-twentieth century, sparking racial and cultural anxiety in locations that have seen particularly rapid increases in diversity. Growth has been stagnant for the average worker for a generation, and people are anxious that their kids’ generation will make it financially. This in turn has expanded the reach of radical and fringe ideas and conspiracy theories. Social media has turned any individual into a broadcaster, and allowed people to hear only the news, facts, and opinions they want to hear. In the last generation, and in particular, in the last fifteen or so years, Mounk argues that all three assumptions have come under severe stress. In Europe, for example, the rise of democracy and the breaking of empires – like the polyglot Austro-Hungarian empire – were inextricably tied to nationalism. Eras of stable liberal democracies around the world, Mounk argues, have largely been characterized by relatively homogeneous populations. The final assumption was social homogeneity. We now swim in more dangerous waters, and we can no longer take the persistence of liberal democracy for granted. And in the few decades after the second world war specifically, growth combined with low levels of economic inequality meaning that the rising tide actually did lift all boats. Only since the dawn of the industrial revolution has growth skyrocketed, meaning that people could aspire to (and expect) higher living standards. For most of the history of the world, there was basically no economic growth. The second assumption was broadly-shared economic growth and relative economic equality. This meant that even diverse communities were part of a shared conversation based on shared facts.
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First, the citizenry had a relatively similar worldview because broadcast news, newspapers, radio, and the like were all one-to-many forms of communication in which gatekeepers ensured that news and information remained within the mainstream. The success and stability of liberal democracy, Mounk argues, was premised on three assumptions about social life. He reveals the water in which liberal democracy has been swimming unthinkingly all these years. Yascha Mounk’s extraordinary new book, The People versus Democracy, provides a clear, concise, persuasive, and insightful account of the conditions that made liberal democracy work – and how the breakdown in those conditions is the source of the current crisis of democracy around the world. But with so many people running from tweet-storm to tweet-storm, there has been comparatively less attention to what happened to the water – to the root causes of the global crisis of democracy. There’s been concern as specific constitutional and political norms break down. Over the last year or two, there’s been a lot of discussion about what drove Trump voters and Brexit voters to the polls.