The Rise and Fall of Anti-Democracy

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point

Did you know that the right to vote is not enshrined in the U.S. Constitution? Like me, you probably assumed it was protected in Article V, the Equal Suffrage Clause. Not so; like many components of democracy, it was never written down, a compromise necessary to push the Constitution through the feuding factions which wrote it in 1787. America has dribbled suffrage slowly to increasing numbers of citizens, but the franchise is nowhere formally guaranteed.

This is just one example of what Harvard University political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt call “anti-democratic institutions” baked into the American political system. The Constitutional Convention delegates in Philadelphia, versed in the historic abuses of ancient Greece, feared “the tyranny of the majority,” by which populations could turn against fellow citizens or the state. Ancient democracies were vulnerable to demagoguery, paranoia, and political whimsy. The Framers didn’t want that in their new government.

Levitsky and Ziblatt address several recent bugbears which have plagued the American republic recently. Gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and the historical malapportionment of the Senate are obvious choices. American and British readers may less readily recognize others: the winner-take-all electoral system, for instance, that concentrates power in candidates who carry razor-thin majorities and discourages third-party voting. Most other democracies have a proportional representation system, but not America, still governed by an 18^th-century Constitution written hastily.

These anti-democratic practices have histories. Small Northern states like Delaware and New Jersey feared dominion by populous states further south in 1787, while slaveholding Southern states like Virginia and Georgia feared having their economic advantages stolen by energized minorities. Institutions like the Senate and the Electoral College, and practices like redistricting and the filibuster, were by generations now dead, to protect themselves from changes in economics and population. Then the population and economy changed anyway.

Most anti-democratic institutions aren’t uniquely American. Levitsky and Ziblatt find other early semi-democratic societies which checked the people’s will. Even demagogic attempts to overthrow the government aren’t uniquely American; France in 1934 looms large in their historical comparison. These scholars specialize in tracking diverse bodies politic, and they don’t have to look deeply to find evidence that “free” societies, in their founding, often distrust the people. Laws are written to restrain, not empower, the masses.

Steven Levitsky (left) and Daniel Ziblatt (via Harvard University)

Our authors identify the difference between small-d democratic parties, and anti-democratic parties. The differences they identify include, but aren’t limited to, a willingness to abjure violence, and a willingness to cut off the violent wing of their own party. It isn’t enough to speak the verbal traditions of democracy; for Levitsky and Ziblatt, the difference between democratic and anti-democratic parties lies in their actions. They closely parse the actions of American and international anti-democratic parties.

America’s Republican Party has, historically, been a pro-democracy party. Bipartisan majorities swept voting rights legislation into law, and even paleoconservatives like Strom Thurmond and Mitch McConnell worked to expand democracy. But anti-democratic factions infiltrated the party. Rather than ostracize them, Republicans welcome these insurgents, and write legislation catering to them. American politics compounds this trend by treating the Constitution as sacred, and the Framers as prophets. (See also Mary Anne Franks for America’s “state religion.”)

Levitsky and Ziblatt also cover what actions other democratic societies have undertaken to reverse the anti-democratic trend. Most other democratic societies have taken steps to broaden the franchise. Most societies with bicameral legislatures have disestablished the upper house, like France and Germany, or reduced its power severely, like Britain. Norway, which modeled its constitution on America’s, has amended its constitution over 200 times since 1814; America, in that time, has ratified fourteen amendments, and none since 1992.

Anti-democratic slide isn’t inevitable. Other societies have faced constitutional crises as catastrophic as America faces today. (These authors don’t mince words: the Trumpist faction is, at the very least, a threat to democracy.) Some societies salvage democracy only after collapsing into totalitarianism; the authors mention both Vichy France, and Thailand, which continues suffering periodic coups d’état. Other societies, like Britain, Argentina, and Australia, have become more democratic simply because it’s the right thing to do.

Preventing collapse means doing something, though, not just expecting state institutions to protect themselves. It means we who support democracy must become as energetic as those who oppose it, and must participate before catastrophes happen. Levitsky and Ziblatt agree that American society has become more democratic over time, and can continue doing so, but only if motivated citizens make it happen. Democracy isn’t a spectator sport. It will wither as we watch from the sidelines.