Public ideas
An age of disruption
Remember Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 forecast about the end of history, that the 21st century would be one where more and more countries would settle on liberal democracy as a form of government?
It hasn’t exactly turned out that way. Writing on Open Forum, Michael Wesley states:
I would challenge anyone to nominate another historical period when the disruptions to our basic social institutions of predictability and social solidarity have been eroded as they have in the past 25 years.
His short essay – The age of disruption – is a historical account of disruption, with the Enlightenment as the manifestation of “a counterculture of disruption”. He lists six “vectors of disruption” which societies in “western” countries and in many others have generally regarded as positive.
But he is not so sure about three current disruptions – transgressive politics (think Trumpian politics), the internet as a platform hosting a massive amount of information “separate from any form of authoritative verification or quality control”, and climate change – an unfolding disaster with which our institutions of multilateral cooperation have been unable to deal.
Strangers in their own land
Why did the poorest Americans vote for Trump, whose policies are further enriching billionaires and driving the most disadvantaged into deeper poverty? We may ask the same question in Australia, where the National and Liberal parties have firm footholds in some of the most disadvantaged electorates.
Arlie Russell Hothschild’s 2016 book Strangers in their own land: anger and mourning on the American right, an observation of the political attitudes of working-class “white” men in Appalachia – Trump heartland – describes their economic circumstances, their beliefs, and their search for a way they can re-establish a sense of pride.
Dennis Altman has a review of her book in The Conversation: The left-behind men who crave pride, battle shame – and voted for Trump. We may have missed its messages in 2016, but they are even more relevant now.
The Lagos paradox – why people turn against successful governments
There was a time when incumbency was a political asset (think of the Coalition in office from 1949 to 1972, or of the Hawke-Keating government winning five successive elections). Those days are gone, and around the democratic world governments are finding it harder and harder to get re-elected.
There is no single explanation. The idea that there has been a worldwide swing to the populist right is too simple and is contradicted by instances where swings have been in the opposite direction.
Writing in The Atlantic – Everyone thinks their government has failed – Moisés Naím suggests one reason and it has to do with people’s expectations. One may believe that when governments succeed in improving people’s conditions their support will rise, but he suggests that when people experience improvements resulting from good public policy, their expectations run ahead of governments’ capacity to deliver.
As an example he describes the experience of Richard Lagos, President of Chile from 2000 to 2006. The Lagos government suffered some of the strongest negative swings in neighbourhoods where there had been the best outcomes in lifting people out of poverty. Hence his term “the Lagos paradox”.
Social media has played its part in this development. Opposition parties can use it to raise expectations above governments’ capacity to deliver, generating discontent when governments fail to meet those fabricated standards.