Jamie PowFew political experts saw it coming. The events culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall made history in 1989. They were significant enough to help bring about a new world order, but yet subtle enough to come as a startling surprise. It is only with hindsight that we recognise 1989 as a symbolic turning point in global history. Here is how the Stanford political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, characterised that year:
What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.
Francis Fukuyama in The End of History and the Last Man (1992)
2016 is also likely to go down as something of a turning point. If 1989 was the year in which Western liberal democracy emerged as the final form of human government, this year has added more than a few footnotes. Here are three of them:
1. Liberal democracy lies in tension between freedom and control
Perhaps the most important principle of any democracy is that power is exercised in accordance with the will of the people. It gets much harder, if not impossible, for ‘the people’ of a particular territory to retain the power they once had against the backdrop of globalisation.
The very nature of globalisation brings the world closer together – politically, economically, and socially. It’s a process that has been accelerated by new technologies and new possibilities for migration and trade. National borders no longer have the meaning they once did.
This creates a fundamental tension: on the one hand between possessing control over decisions, and benefiting from a more open world on the other. The events of 1989 helped to accelerate globalisation; those of 2016 are likely to slow it down. It’s no accident that the Leave campaign chose ‘Take Back Control’ as its slogan, and it’s no accident that Donald Trump chose ‘America First’ (along with ‘Make America Great Again’) as his.
Both campaigns relied on a promise to restore simplicity in the face of complexity, to put the national interest first. The key question for them, and all of us, moving forward is this: does that world exist anymore?
2. Elections aren’t the only part of democracy
It’s tempting to reduce 2016 down to the results of two votes: the Brexit referendum in the UK and the US presidential election. There is no doubt; both were hugely consequential moments, and both were profound expressions of the democratic process.
Paradoxically, however, they may also be sharp rebukes of the electoral process itself. That is, part of the discontent that fuelled both outcomes was a disdain of politicians, the so-called ‘political establishment’ of representative democracy.
Perhaps, however, people have been so dissatisfied with politicians and their decisions because they generally fail to engage much with politics – and the complex nature of decision-making – between elections.
To the ‘losers’ of 2016, the world did not end on 24 June or 9 November. More urgently, nor did your place in a democratic system. Democracy is about far more than elections. It is a continuous process of articulating arguments. When you lose an argument, the answer isn’t to give up hope, it is either to change your mind or else come up with better, more persuasive, reasons.
3. There are plenty of reasons for optimism
There are plenty of injustices that blight our world, and many look unresolvable for the foreseeable future. But let’s not forget just some of the things made possible by liberal democracy over the last few decades.
Look no further than Northern Ireland itself. In 1989 alone there were 76 deaths related to the Troubles. The following year, it increased to 81. The year after that, it rose to 97. Political violence and paramilitaries still, of course, persist in Northern Ireland. Nobody could dispute that we are today in a vastly different place than we were 27 years ago, and for the better.
Humans being humans, we will always disagree. We have different priorities, different preferences, different outlooks. The important thing is that we can live with our differences and find a way of expressing our various preferences peacefully.
Today, the US is polarised, Europe’s future is uncertain, and Northern Ireland’s democratic institutions are regarded by many as laughable. Compared to the American Civil War, two world wars, and our own recent Troubles, our contemporary frustrations and uncertainties don’t seem so tragic.
Liberal democracy may be messy and it will often leave plenty of people frustrated with its outcomes. 2016 wasn’t 1989 in reverse, and there have been far more worthy contenders for annus horribilis – even in the modern era. But it should still serve as a wake-up call. Just as many authoritarian regimes were too complacent to foresee their own downfalls, liberal democracies should take nothing for granted. Whatever Fukuyama says, we don’t yet know the end of history.
