Democracy is historically considered the most important governance
system that provided an important place for human rights and political and
social freedoms. Despite many of its imperfections, experts and regimes'
reservations around it, as it is not the best governance system, it settles the
least bad one so far and the most competent of providing accountability for
officials and political participation. Indeed, it embodies an important barrier
to authoritarian regimes that defend human rights and freedoms.
Democracy has been strengthened in the world throughout the past century and the beginning of the current century, to include many countries of the not free world. But in recent years, democracy has witnessed a real siege by the authoritarian regimes and has been under siege supported by global authoritarian regimes (in the forefront: Russia and China), next to traditional dictatorships spread in several regions. This scene has led to a setback in the progression of democracy in several countries: whether in terms of the democratic performance of many governments, the emergence of authoritarian or popular tendencies, and even the return to previous stages before democracy.
This trend takes a part of the responsibility for the failure of the
Arab democratic wave, and it has pushed some countries in the region to a worse
authoritarian statue before Arab Spring. This Authoritarian spectacle has been
under dual support from Russia and the most authoritarian monarchies in the
Arab world.
Although the Arab protest movements targeted authoritarian military
republic regimes, those opposing the traditional authoritarian monarchies, with
the explosion of Arab protest, all parties: republican military regimes,
traditional monarchies, and Arab peoples, realized that the success of a state
of protest would mean the transfer of experience to other Arab countries,
within the theory of the domino effect.
Therefore, the efforts of the authoritarian regimes in the Arab world
have concurred to opposing the nascent democracy (in what could be likened to the
association of dictatorships). For that, democracy has just be besieged in
Tunisia, which does not constitute a generalized model on its own. That has
been ongoing in exchange for supporting a more authoritarian regime in Egypt,
which is an important engine for change in the region, a continuation of Bashar
al-Assad's dictatorship, the spread of military chaos in Yemen and Libya, as
well as the ongoing chaos in Iraq and Lebanon were supported.
The stumbling of democracy in the Arab world will inevitably affect its
global course. When one of the most politically closed regions of the world
moves towards democracy, the global democracy trend will be strengthened, as
well as the strengthening of authoritarianism in it will reinforce the opposite
tide, supported by Russia and China. If we put these results in the context of
international relations, we will see that these results are in service of the
authoritarian camp, enhance its global presence, and raise its level of
competitiveness with the United States and its democratic camp.
The Corona epidemic and severe government measures in many countries of
the world, including restricting movement, imposing customary laws, and
reaching political investments in favor of authoritarian regimes, all these
events have contributed to strengthening the position of authoritarian states
at the governmental level and at popular currents that found authoritarian
regimes are better able to handle with a pandemic. It is a distorted belief,
resulting from the lack of transparency of these regimes in announcing the
epidemic level, its damages, and the mechanisms for handling it. It is not the
authoritarians' success in confronting the epidemic as opposed to the
democracies' failure.
Authoritarian regimes are faster when making decisions and managing
state affairs, more able to respond to challenges, but less responsible for
their decisions, and can not be held any responsibility for their failure,
unlike democracies that take subsequent responsibility for their decisions.
The failure of democracy in many regions has many causes, but the new
changes have been added to the traditional causes: poverty, corruption, and
political and ideological conflicts, which push people to prefer
authoritarianism or provide a power vacuum that allows authoritarian powers to
fill it.
Here, I think that what is happening in the United States now, through
the Proud Boys movement, poses a threat to the most ancient global democracies,
as this movement represents an escalation of the populist stream with authoritarian
tendencies (populism is in one form or another a coup against democracy from
within). It is expected that this movement will interact, in the coming term,
structurally -within- and relational -with its surroundings-, and will have an
important impact on strengthening the camp of authoritarianism globally, if it
could manage any achievement in the United States, regardless of the form of
this achievement.
In the first place, it is the responsibility of the major democracies, in what may be called the solidarity of democracies, to prevent the rise of these populist currents -which are on the rise in Europe as well- on the one hand. And in strengthening the social movements driving towards global democratization, within an international conflict between two camps.
This means that the United States should take essential responsibility
in disappointing the Arab democratization and strengthening its relations with
Arab authoritarian and dictatorships, instead of taking an opposite approach,
which the new American administration is supposed to work on inside the United
States, and abroad.
ABD ALQADER NANAA (Ph.D. of Political Science)