<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Nick Buxton</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:nick@tni.org">nick@tni.org</a>></span><br>Date: Thu, May 24, 2018 at 12:43 AM<br>Subject: [Authoritarian-working-group] Centrists Are the Most Hostile to Democracy, Not Extremists<br>To: "<a href="mailto:authoritarian-working-group@lists.tni.org">authoritarian-working-group@lists.tni.org</a>" <<a href="mailto:authoritarian-working-group@lists.tni.org">authoritarian-working-group@lists.tni.org</a>><br><br><br>
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<p>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<a href="https://www.tni.org/en/publication/understanding-and-challenging-authoritarianism" target="_blank">
last year's TNI fellows meeting</a> that agreed that many of the
seeds to authoritarianism came precisely from the centrist liberal
democracies<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<h1 class="m_7224340474296306041story-heading m_7224340474296306041interactive-headline" style="white-space:normal;float:none;display:block">Centrists Are the Most Hostile<br>
to Democracy, Not Extremists</h1>
<div class="m_7224340474296306041story-meta-footer m_7224340474296306041interactive-meta-footer">
<div class="m_7224340474296306041interactive-byline">
<p class="m_7224340474296306041byline-dateline"> <span class="m_7224340474296306041byline m_7224340474296306041last-byline"> By <span class="m_7224340474296306041byline-author">DAVID ADLER</span> </span> <time class="m_7224340474296306041dateline" datetime="2018-05-23" content="2018-05-23">MAY 23, 2018</time>
</p>
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</div>
<div class="m_7224340474296306041g-graphic m_7224340474296306041g-graphic-freebird">
<div class="m_7224340474296306041g-item m_7224340474296306041g-image">
<div class="m_7224340474296306041g-item-image"> <br>
<div class="m_7224340474296306041g-asset-source"> <span class="m_7224340474296306041g-caption">A rally
last September in Berlin for Martin Schulz, the Social
Democrats’ candidate for German chancellor.</span> <span class="m_7224340474296306041g-credit">Maja Hitij/Getty Images</span> </div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="m_7224340474296306041g-item m_7224340474296306041g-text">
<p class="m_7224340474296306041g-body">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.</p>
</div>
<div class="m_7224340474296306041g-item m_7224340474296306041g-text">
<p class="m_7224340474296306041g-body">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.</p>
</div>
<div class="m_7224340474296306041g-item m_7224340474296306041g-text">
<p class="m_7224340474296306041g-body">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.</p>
</div>
<div class="m_7224340474296306041g-item m_7224340474296306041g-text">
<p class="m_7224340474296306041g-body">Is it true?</p>
</div>
<div class="m_7224340474296306041g-item m_7224340474296306041g-text">
<p class="m_7224340474296306041g-body">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.</p>
</div>
<div class="m_7224340474296306041g-item m_7224340474296306041g-text">
<p class="m_7224340474296306041g-body">I examined the data from the most recent<a href="http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp" target="_blank">
</a><a href="http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp" target="_blank">World
Values Survey</a> (2010 to 2014) and<a href="http://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/page/survey-2008.html" target="_blank">
</a><a href="http://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/page/survey-2008.html" target="_blank">European
Values Survey</a> (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, <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fOGwtRUF-y-98IcDs-3YYrtREl8GbaoH/view" target="_blank">can
be found here</a>.)</p>
<p class="m_7224340474296306041g-body"><br>
</p>
<p class="m_7224340474296306041g-body">Full article: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/23/opinion/international-world/centrists-democracy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/<wbr>interactive/2018/05/23/<wbr>opinion/international-world/<wbr>centrists-democracy.html?<wbr>action=click&module=Opinion&<wbr>pgtype=Homepage</a><br>
</p>
</div>
<br>
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<pre class="m_7224340474296306041moz-signature" cols="72">--
------------------------------<wbr>-----------------------
NICK BUXTON
Futures Lab/Communications/Online Learning
m: +1 530 902 3772
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skype: nickbuxton
w: <a class="m_7224340474296306041moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.tni.org" target="_blank">www.tni.org</a>
------------------------------<wbr>-----------------------
Read my latest book, The Secure and the Dispossessed (November 2015)
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<br></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: <a href="http://commonstransition.org" target="_blank">http://commonstransition.org</a> </div><div><br></div>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br><br><a href="http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation" target="_blank"></a>Updates: <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens</a><br><br>#82 on the (En)Rich list: <a href="http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/" target="_blank">http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/</a> <br></div></div></div></div>
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