Rather fascinating research highlighted in today's NYT. I
haven't studied it closely enough to understand its conclusions,
but it would seem though to support our discussions in
last year's TNI fellows meeting that agreed that many of the
seeds to authoritarianism came precisely from the centrist liberal
democracies
The warning signs are flashing red: Democracy is under threat. Across Europe and North America, candidates are more authoritarian, party systems are more volatile, and citizens are more hostile to the norms and institutions of liberal democracy.
These trends have prompted a major debate between those who view political discontent as economic, cultural or generational in origin. But all of these explanations share one basic assumption: The threat is coming from the political extremes.
On the right, ethno-nationalists and libertarians are accused of supporting fascist politics; on the left, campus radicals and the so-called antifa movement are accused of betraying liberal principles. Across the board, the assumption is that radical views go hand in hand with support for authoritarianism, while moderation suggests a more committed approach to the democratic process.
Is it true?
Maybe not. My research suggests that across Europe and North America, centrists are the least supportive of democracy, the least committed to its institutions and the most supportive of authoritarianism.
I examined the data from the most recent World Values Survey (2010 to 2014) and European Values Survey (2008), two of the most comprehensive studies of public opinion carried out in over 100 countries. The survey asks respondents to place themselves on a spectrum from far left to center to far right. I then plotted the proportion of each group’s support for key democratic institutions. (A copy of my working paper, with a more detailed analysis of the survey data, can be found here.)
-- ----------------------------------------------------- NICK BUXTON Futures Lab/Communications/Online Learning m: +1 530 902 3772 e: nick@tni.org twitter: @nickbuxton skype: nickbuxton w: www.tni.org ------------------------------ ----------------------- Read my latest book, The Secure and the Dispossessed (November 2015) www.climatesecurityagenda.org CONNECT WITH TNI - Sign up to TNI's e-newsletters: http://www.tni.org/subscribe - TNI on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ TransnationalInstitute - TNI on twitter: https://twitter.com/TNInstitute