In just one week, three former presidents have been sentenced over corruption and bribery charges in three different parts of the world. Although there is a growing trend of illiberalism and authoritarianism, these cases show that new dynamics are in place in contemporary politics.
We have written before that there is a growing trend of illiberal politics and rising authoritarianism across the world. The recent political successes of Orbán, Putin, Erdogan, Xi, Modi and Trump bear witness to this trend. However, the simultaneous conviction of former presidents in three continents (South Africa, South Korea and Brazil) also show that there are grounds for optimism, although the dynamics in these countries show that political upheaval and confrontation might increase. South Korea, South Africa and Brazil are all free but young democracies, and have fairly established middle classes. Modernization theory, a brand of political sciences, describes that at low levels of socioeconomic development, economic growth prevails over the right of political voice and democratic rights: food before speech. However, when economies develop, when the basic level of subsistence has been secured, socioeconomic development and free commerce create the conditions for democratization, with citizens demanding accountable governors and responsible polity. High levels of economic development will sustain democracy as citizens whose wealth is based on free commerce and enterprise – instead of traditional authority or bureaucracy – have emerged that fare well by democratic and open societies. And indeed, we find a significant, positive relation between the level of democracy and GDP per capita and a country’s degree of freedom and GDP per capita between countries, looking at 2017 in the World Bank, Economist Democracy Index and Freedom in the World 2018 report. But establishing a formal democracy is not enough to make it sustainable, especially with emerging middle classes at moderate levels of socioeconomic development. In the transition from a middle-income to a high-income country, middle class citizens can become supportive of more illiberal or authoritarian types of polities. First of all, democracy should be backed by strong institutions to guarantee that the benefits of free economies and societies are protected and anchored in an institutional framework, and governments can be held accountable. Young democracies with a strong rule of law, like South Korea and Estonia, therefore do much compared to their democratic peers without it (like India or the Philippines). Furthermore, democratic practices and institutions should also correspond with society’s socio-cultural values. Most resilient democracies in the world put more emphasis on self-expression values compared to survival values, and prefer secular-rational values to traditional values. Therefore, young democracies are relatively strong in Latin America, given their levels of socioeconomic development, as they highly value self-expression. Furthermore, inequality can erode the middle class’ support of democracy. It is not the absolute level of GDP that matters, but the relative standards: how much you earn relative to high-society or future expectations about income and income security. That is why unequal societies with a crumbling middle class, like South Africa and the U.S., in contrast to, for example, Scandinavian countries, are more prone to illiberal democrats, who try to undermine democracy with its own instruments. However, social media gives the middle classes the power to raise their voice, and claim accountability of their representatives, as was the case in South Africa.
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