How do you know if your politics are behind the times?

[Sheilbh]

One potential explanation for the relative failures of left reaction is that globally it lacks sponsors at the state and oligarch-clique level, and therefore is underserved in terms of intellectual and cultural support.

Yeah perhaps - although Macron's project succeeded.

I'd add that I think a lot of liberal opinion took an epistemic turn and the money followed. The problem was not politics and the solution was not a politcal project. Instead it was a question of information, so what mattered was correcting the bad information. People had been duped, or lied to, or fooled.

So a lot of time and money was spent setting up an anti-disinformation industry which was. There was the Commission on Information Disorder (commissioners included a former R&D head of Google, Facebook's CISO and other luminaries, Prince Harry). There were hundreds of millions if not billions going into think tanks and foundations to look into it (and create very well-paid NGO jobs for guilty rich people). So there was the Project for Good Information founded by a Democratic consultant and funded by Steven Spielberg, plus some VC money and backing by the founder of LinkedIn. People from Obama's sphere would advise the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (Zuckerberg's version of the Gates Foundation).

And - astonishingly - with all of this money and attention on bad information, the solution turned out to be good information and throttling which could best be delivered by exactly the same platforms responsible for the bad stuff So again many millions could be directed towards the right sort of person (Nick Clegg joining Meta etc) and legislative initiatives like the European Digital package or the UK Online Safety Act regulates the platforms more but also embeds them more: they have a duty of care, they have to be responsible with information so make judgement calls on what to censor and, when so directed by public authorities, restrict it.

The only upside is that the Us seems to have thankfully swerved from this path because I dread to think what a Trump administration would be doing with the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Government Board.

I think if just a fraction of that money went into supporting political activism or actual journalism it would have done vastly more good. It would not, however, have created a job for Rupert Murdoch's estranged daughter-in-law and might have challenged the reason those millions and billions where there in the first place.

More kindly, I think this protected people from confronting the trauma of defeat. But I think it also reinforced the problem. It averted the gaze from decaying institutions haemorrhaging trust and democratic irruptions. Instead it was just persuasion on social media - the cause and effect and solution all just so happened to run through the biggest businesses in the world right now. Less kindly, that's anice clean explanation, with an easy solution - and a great example of the power of buying advertising from one of those platform's adtech businesses (I believe still 99% of Meta's revenue).

Edit: And just to be clear I don't think any of that was really deliberate by anyone. I think it was very sincere but we are going to be sincerely swayed by things that don't cause us mental pain and/or are in our interests.

[Razgovory]

Oooh!  I read the same book as Shelf.  When the Clock Broke.

Yes! What did you think?

I enjoyed it but, as I say, still mulling on/not totally convinced by some of the argument.

It was okay.  I was just a little kid during the period discussed, so I don't remember much about it.  I remember Ross Perot but that was about it.  I didn't know that economic situation was so dire during the late 80's-early 90's.

EDIT:  I think the stuff about the right fighting the professional-managerial class is probably what is driving a great deal of Trumpism.

[crazy canuck]

Oooh!  I read the same book as Shelf.  When the Clock Broke.

Yes! What did you think?

I enjoyed it but, as I say, still mulling on/not totally convinced by some of the argument.

It was okay.  I was just a little kid during the period discussed, so I don't remember much about it.  I remember Ross Perot but that was about it.  I didn't know that economic situation was so dire during the late 80's-early 90's.

EDIT:  I think the stuff about the right fighting the professional-managerial class is probably what is driving a great deal of Trumpism.

My first attempt at investing in the stock market was 1987.  My timing was not great.

[The Minsky Moment]

The constituent elements of American conservatism are the historical constituent elements of the Republican Party:
1. Upwardly mobile pro-market capitalism: the Federalist wing of Whiggery.
2. Isolationist nativism: the Know Nothings
3. The Paranoid Strain: the anti-Masonic wing of whiggery.

The history of conservative politics in America is the history of the competition, rise and fall of these elements. In the Gilded Edge the neo-federalists were in the forefront; after WW1, isolationism reigned.  After WW2, the neo-federalists came back as the war discredited the isolationists and the exigencies of the Cold War made that sort of politics undesirable.  The Paranoid Strain has rarely been dominant, but it always crops up and sometimes seizes the agenda, from the First Red Scare of 1919-20 to McCarthyism and the John Birchers of the 50s.

The end of the Cold War was the triumph of the neo-federalists, but also the means of their downfall.  The alliance of state and cultural power under the ideological banner of the open society was no longer necessary to sustain national security.   The twin blows of the dotcom meltdown and the 08 financial crisis demolished the Reaganite utopian narrative of progress through free market capitalism; the Second Iraq war and the GWOT discredited the global interventionists. Trumpism has rallied the forces of the nativists and conspiracy theorists and chastened the neo-federalists.  The latter are still there of course, pushing their tax cuts and doing their best to Trump whisper down the tariffs.  But they are in their nadir now.

That's where we are now but politics and culture are always in motion, reactions give rise to new actions and new reactions, the cycle keeps turning. The question is not whether it will turn over again but when.

And yes I realize that the question goes beyond the parochial confines of US politics.  But dynamics in other nations differ in certain respects and others can address those.

[grumbler]

I realized that my politics were behind the times when Sulla marched on Rome and only the Marius faction opposed him.

[HVC]

I realized that my politics were behind the times when Sulla marched on Rome and only the Marius faction opposed him.

You should have learned your lesson from the fall of Neferirkare

[grumbler]

I realized that my politics were behind the times when Sulla marched on Rome and only the Marius faction opposed him.

You should have learned your lesson from the fall of Neferirkare

Nah, I voted for Meryibtawy. MEGA!

[HVC]

I realized that my politics were behind the times when Sulla marched on Rome and only the Marius faction opposed him.

You should have learned your lesson from the fall of Neferirkare

Nah, I voted for Meryibtawy. MEGA!

I've been listening to an Egyptian history podcast. Who says podcasts don't off value in your daily life.

[Sheilbh]

But on the actual question I think probably around 2010-15. Until then I was very much New Labour, Blairite, Third Way.

On a sort of purely policy level, I think austerity and the Eurozone crisis were a particular watershed. Politically, for me it was the independence campaign in Scotland (which prefigures so much of the Brexit fight and subsequent divides at a UK level) and in particular being in Scotland a few times in 2014 and getting it at an emotional level. I grew up in Scotland but left when I was 15-16 and have not lived their since - I almost went back for university and would probably have stayed in Glasgow or Edinburgh and I remember thinking that if I had I probably would have been a big Yes campaigner, SNP member etc. I also had a slightly similar experience with the Labour leadership race in 2015 - and that was very much a "no the children are wrong" moment for me. I still have my criticisms of Corbyn but I think I got the analysis wrong. (Edit: One particular point on this, because I got into fights with people over this, I think that was the trauma for me where I just couldn't understand and found it enraging. Because to me it was so blatantly obvious that Corbyn couldn't win an election so we were doomed to at least another 8 years of Tory government. I also remember discovering how unstable a foundation "this won't work" is when he then did far better than expected in 2017 and realised I needed to be better able to understand and criticise the thing itself, not just possible, predictable electoral consequences - especially in a less predictable time.)

And that was what kept happening - I just kept on looking at things and not finding the analysis or tools to understand, oppose or support them from that New Labour/Third Way era. For me it just stopped fitting. It was like putting tracing paper over an image and discovering it had changed. And I have turned left since then (I know people disagree on that ) which I've found usefully grounded. I've no doubt I'm still getting the analysis wrong and don't have the tools to understand, oppose or support anything but it does feel like it fits/is more accurately describing what I'm able to see happening.

[Syt]

Myself, I'm struggling to square a particular circle - modern societies have become very complex, so governing them, legislating them, and adjudicating them has become likewise extremely complex between tax codes, technical standards, etc.

So it makes sense to delegate this specialist work to a dedicated political class that understand the issues and processes and enact the citizens' desires while taking into account the greater whole and also balance against protections of the minorities.

However, such a class can quickly become prone to be seen as detached and not listening to the people and struggling to explain laws and politics in a way that the general populace understand. And it's not helped by money and lobbyists playing a large role in the actual policy making and governance.

In short, getting competent politicians into office who work towards the greater good while protecting the rights of the opppsotion and minorities and communicate their actions well while being insulated from outsized outside influences from small interest groups. And that seems impossible these days. (And in the past there seemed to be at least an attempt by politicians to conform to such an image ... or, at a minimum, project such an image.)

[crazy canuck]

Myself, I'm struggling to square a particular circle - modern societies have become very complex, so governing them, legislating them, and adjudicating them has become likewise extremely complex between tax codes, technical standards, etc.

So it makes sense to delegate this specialist work to a dedicated political class that understand the issues and processes and enact the citizens' desires while taking into account the greater whole and also balance against protections of the minorities.

However, such a class can quickly become prone to be seen as detached and not listening to the people and struggling to explain laws and politics in a way that the general populace understand. And it's not helped by money and lobbyists playing a large role in the actual policy making and governance.

In short, getting competent politicians into office who work towards the greater good while protecting the rights of the opppsotion and minorities and communicate their actions well while being insulated from outsized outside influences from small interest groups. And that seems impossible these days. (And in the past there seemed to be at least an attempt by politicians to conform to such an image ... or, at a minimum, project such an image.)

No, it does not make sense to delegate specialist work to a political class.  That is exactly what is happening in the US now, with disastrous consequences.

The model has been to give specialist tasks to specialists.  That is why we have specialists employed in our regulators and administrative tribunals.

Politicians make the high level policy decisions and the specialists get into the details of how to implement the policy directive.

That system of governance is being shredded.

[Syt]

Sorry, that's what I meant, but I expressed it badly. I should have distinguished between bureaucrats and politicians.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah sorry to slightly pile on Syt, but I also basically totally disagree

Myself, I'm struggling to square a particular circle - modern societies have become very complex, so governing them, legislating them, and adjudicating them has become likewise extremely complex between tax codes, technical standards, etc.

So it makes sense to delegate this specialist work to a dedicated political class that understand the issues and processes and enact the citizens' desires while taking into account the greater whole and also balance against protections of the minorities.

However, such a class can quickly become prone to be seen as detached and not listening to the people and struggling to explain laws and politics in a way that the general populace understand. And it's not helped by money and lobbyists playing a large role in the actual policy making and governance.

On this point I'll quote a bit of the Peter Mair article from 2006 (expanded in his book) because I think he identifies this as precisely the problem that was happening in our democracies (which I agree with). His basic argument is that there is a mutual withdrawal from politics by elites and the public who both share an "anti-political sentiment". The popular indifference bit was fairly widely discussed at that point, his argument was that there was also an elite withdrawal from popular sovereignty:

By the late 1990s, however, popular indifference was being compounded by a new rhetoric from the politicians themselves. A salient case was Tony Blair, who claimed during his first term as Prime Minister that 'I was never really in politics . . . I don't feel myself a politician even now'.footnote3 For Blair, the role of 'progressive' politics was not to provide solutions from above, by exercising the 'directive hand' of government, but to bring together 'dynamic markets' and strong communities so as 'to offer synergy and opportunity'.footnote4 In Blair's ideal world, politics would eventually become redundant. As one of his close cabinet colleagues was later to remark, 'depoliticizing of key decision-making is a vital element in bringing power closer to the people'.footnote5 At one level, this was a simple populist strategy—employing the rhetoric of 'the people' in order to suggest that there had been a radical break with past styles of government. At another, however, it gelled perfectly with the tenets of what were then seen as newly emerging schools of 'governance'—and with the idea that 'society is now sufficiently well organized through self-organizing networks that any attempts on the part of government to intervene will be ineffective and perhaps counterproductive'.footnote6 In this perspective, government no longer seeks to wield power or even exercise authority. Its relevance declines, while that of non-governmental institutions and practices increases. In Ulrich Beck's terms, the dynamic moves from Politics, with a capital 'P', to politics with a lower-case one, or to what he has called 'subpolitics'.footnote7

Anti-political sentiments were also becoming more evident in the policy-making literature of the late 1990s. In 1997, an influential article appeared in Foreign Affairs expressing the concern that government in the us was becoming 'too political'. Its author, Alan Blinder, a leading economist and deputy head of the Federal Reserve, suggested extending the model of independent Central Banks to other key policy areas, so that decisions on health, the welfare state and so on would be taken by non-partisan experts.footnote8 The role of politicians in policy-making would be confined to those areas in which the judgement of experts would not suffice to legitimize outcomes. Similar arguments were emerging in the European context. In 1996, for example, Giandomenico Majone argued that the role of expert decision-making in the policy-making process was superior to that of political decision-making in that it could take better account of long-term interests. Politicians, by definition, worked only in the short-term; to allow decisions to be dominated by considerations of the electoral cycle was to risk less optimal outcomes: 'the segmentation of the democratic process into relatively short time periods has serious negative consequences when the problems faced by society require long-term solutions'. The solution, once again, was to delegate powers to what Majone defined as non-majoritarian institutions, 'which, by design, are not directly accountable to voters or to their elected representatives'.footnote9 Experts were better able to deal with the technical complexities of modern law-making, which often confused elected politicians. As traditional forms of state control were replaced by more complex regulatory frameworks, specialist knowledge was likely to prove more effective than political judgement.footnote10 Here too, then, politics was becoming devalued.

By the late 1990s, in short, it seemed that neither citizens nor policy-makers placed much value on the role of political or partisan decision-making. But while the evidence pointed to a widespread indifference to politics and politicians, it was less clear that it indicated indifference towards democracy as such. Indeed, if one looked at the debates about constitutional reform during the late 1990s, as well as at the more theoretical literature, the impression was of a large and burgeoning interest in democracy, with more attention being paid to how democratic systems worked, and to what they meant in reality, than probably at any stage in the previous twenty or thirty years. Far from being treated with indifference, democracy had become a research priority within both empirical political science and political theory. The catalogues of academic publishers brimmed with new titles on the subject. Oxford University Press, for example, posted as the lead publication in the 2002 political theory catalogue Robert Goodin's Reflective Democracy, closely followed by Iris Young's Inclusion and Democracy, John Dryzek's Deliberative Democracy and Beyond, and Henry Richardson's Democratic Autonomy. Democracy was also becoming more of an issue on the daily political agenda: debates on institutional reform took shape in many Western polities; emphases on 'participatory governance' began to emanate from the World Bank and other international organizations. Discussions of the reform of the European Union polity achieved a degree of salience that would have been almost unimaginable ten years before. By the end of the 1990s, democracy—whether associative, deliberative or reflective; global, transnational or inclusive; electoral, illiberal or even just Christian—had become a hot topic.

Beyond mass participation?

Which leads to a puzzle: as we shall see, there is now quite consistent evidence of popular indifference to conventional politics and, more arguably, to democracy; and yet, at an intellectual level, and sometimes at the level of practical institutional reforms, there has been a distinct renewal of interest in democracy (if not necessarily in politics as such). How do we square these developments?

There are two possibilities. The first is that they are in fact related, and that the growing intellectual and institutional interest in democracy, its meanings and its renewal, is in part a response aimed at combating the expanding scale of popular indifference. Making democracy relevant, in other words, comes on to the agenda at the time when it otherwise risks becoming irrelevant. But while the timing suggests that this may be the case, the actual content of the discussion points to a different story. For, far from seeking to encourage greater participation, or trying to make democracy more meaningful for the ordinary citizen, many of the contributions on institutional reforms or democratic theory seem to concur in favouring options that actually discourage mass engagement. This can be seen in the emphasis on stake-holder involvement rather than electoral participation that is found in both 'associative democracy' and 'participatory governance', and in the emphasis on the sort of exclusive debate that is to be found in 'deliberative' and 'reflective' democracy. In neither case is there real scope afforded to conventional modalities of mass democracy. The new stress on 'output-oriented legitimacy' in discussions of the European Union polity, and the related idea that democracy in the EU requires 'solutions that are "beyond the state" and, perhaps, also beyond the conventions of Western-style representative liberal democracy', are equally geared away from mass involvement.footnote11 In other words, while there may be concern with the problem of popular indifference, making democracy more mass-user friendly does not seem to be the favoured answer. For Philip Pettit, for example, who discusses the issue of democratic renewal in the context of deliberation and depoliticization, the issue comes on to the agenda because 'democracy is too important to be left to the politicians, or even to the people voting in referendums.' For Fareed Zakaria, in his more popular account, renewal is necessary because 'what we need in politics today is not more democracy but less.'footnote12

Hence the second possibility: the renewal of intellectual and institutional interest in democracy is not intended to open up or reinvigorate the practice as such, but rather to redefine democracy in such a way that does not require any substantial emphasis on popular sovereignty, so that it can cope more easily with the decline of popular involvement. At the extreme, it is an attempt to redefine democracy in the absence of the demos. Part of this process of redefinition lies in highlighting the distinction between what has been called 'constitutional democracy' and what we might call 'popular democracy', a division that overlaps with and echoes Robert Dahl's earlier distinction between 'Madisonian democracy' and 'populistic democracy'.footnote13 The constitutional component emphasizes the need for checks and balances across institutions, and entails government for the people; the popular component emphasizes the role of the ordinary citizen and mass participation, and entails government by the people; the two elements co-exist and complement one another within a 'unified' sense of democracy. Today, however, we see them being disaggregated and then contrasted, both in theory and practice. Hence the recent emergence of notions of 'illiberal' or 'electoral' democracy, and the attempt to distinguish those democracies that combine free elections—popular democracy—with restrictions on rights and the potential abuse of executive power.footnote14 As many studies of 'Third Wave' democracies in particular seem to indicate, popular and constitutional elements are no longer necessarily bound together.

Not only is there a growing conceptual distinction between the two components, but also a widening disparity in practice—one in which the popular element is downgraded with respect to the constitutional. For Zakaria, for example, it is the presence of the constitutional rather than the popular component that is essential for the survival and well-being of democracy. As he puts it: 'For much of modern history, what characterized governments in Europe and North America, and differentiated them from those around the world, was not democracy but constitutional liberalism. The "Western model" is best symbolized not by the mass plebiscite but the impartial judge.'footnote15 In this view it is not elections as such that make for democracy, but rather the courts, in combination with other modes of non-electoral participation. With respect to the developing countries, as much of the 'good governance' literature implies, the formula is very clear: ngos + judges = democracy. That is, while an emphasis on 'civil society' is acceptable, and while a reliance on legal procedures is essential, elections as such need not be.footnote16

A similar reasoning can be seen in many of the debates around constitutional reform, where democracy is again often redefined in ways that downgrade the importance of the popular pillar. As Michelle Everson has noted in her discussion of Majone's work, for example,

non-majoritarian thought . . . forcefully claims that its isolation of market governance from political forces serves the goal of democracy by safeguarding the democratically set goals of the polity from the predatory inclinations of a transitory political elite.footnote17

In this case the opposition is unequivocal: in one corner, the goals of the polity, objectively defined; in the other, the claims of a transitory—because elected—and hence predatory elite. The one is sustained by the networks of good governance, the other by the crude power and ambition of electoral politics. Similarly, a recent review of new modes of delegation underlines the growing importance of 'procedural legitimacy', which 'relies on a process of decision making by NMIs [non-majoritarian institutions] being better than the insular, often secret, deliberations of cabinets and executives.' Here the benefits of transparency, legality and the provision of access to stakeholders are held up against the limits and distortions induced by partisan politics, and are seen to lead to a process which can offer 'a fair and democratic substitute for electoral accountability.' footnote18

I think this trend and model worked as long as elites were trusted and the decisions taken in the depoliticised space didn't really impact people's everyday lives. I think neither of those conditions hold any longer.

In short, getting competent politicians into office who work towards the greater good while protecting the rights of the opppsotion and minorities and communicate their actions well while being insulated from outsized outside influences from small interest groups. And that seems impossible these days. (And in the past there seemed to be at least an attempt by politicians to conform to such an image ... or, at a minimum, project such an image.)

Again I slightly disagree with this because I think this is part of the problem we have faced.

Historically political parties represented, were formed by and advanced the interests of specific constituencies. Broadly speaking the parties of the left represented the interests of labour, of working people (often, actually just working men). That was their electoral basis, it was also the nature of the people who were in the party apparatus including as MPs and it shaped their agenda. Conservatives and liberals represented in different ways different bits of capital and the middle class.

Obviously there were always both on both sides but those divides broadly held and I think they were important because what they recognised was that different groups in society have different interests. There is not one "greater good". At a base level, if I want a bigger state, there will be taxes to pay for it, if I want to cut taxes, public services will be cut too (I think a not insignificant part of what has unhinged our politics, particularly in the US, is a decade of zero interest and QE). There may well be arguments on either of those sides that they are right or that they are going to produce wider public goods but fundamentally there is a clash of interests.

Democracy to my mind is a way of mediating those clashes of different groups having different interests in a way that is legitimate (because we collectively vote and the group(s) with a majority can pass their agenda until the next election), without domination by one interest group or other (because it relies on the consent of the governed) and without it becoming a civil war.

I think - Mair discusses this in the book but not the article - around the 90s parties in Europe start to shift away from that clear class and identity basis of being for and of specific constituencies. They talk instead about the general good, the entire country - Brown is accountable to "the country" not fractional interests. I think that introduces the language that populists (and technocrats can seize on) in that it becomes a competition not between interests within a polity but for everyone. Cakeism abounds, trade-offs are ignored and what matter is who can speak for everyone, for the "people". When the politicians of the mainstream are effective, they might be able to manage it but, I think, that has fallen apart.

Having said all that I think there is a challenge around the popular withdrawal. This is like the rest of the "neo-liberal" order for want of a better word. Part of the reason the parties made that shift is the long impact of the sixties - I think people were more individual. The liberal bit is really true. People's identities (including class and politics) were their own to choose rather than be constrained in the structures of "party democracy" - this goes hand in hand with our consumerism. And, in fact, that becomes how most people experience democracy it is something we consume: we observe, we watch, we're sold to and, if convinced, we vote. I believe one of the latest versions of democracy political scientists are thinking about is "audience democracy" (in that context I think you have to think of Trump - but also, say, Berlusconi or Beppe Grillo or Boris Johnson all honed on mass media).

But that individualism was, broadly, a good thing even if it is socially disintegrative or allows for free-floating communities (like Languish or more threateningly whatever Peter Thiel is planning). I'm not sure that is capable of being unwound, that it'd be desirable to do or that it's caused by the elite withdrawal. It may be impossible to put that genie back in the bottle and we might just be entering the era of "audience democracy". I think of this alongside the idea of the "attention economy" and, perhaps, it is simply a question of putting up the best showman/woman.