Building an “Alliance of Democracies” Covers up Huge Public Governance Crises

December 19, 2022

About the author:

 

The United States seeks to build an “alliance of democratic countries” with Europe, Japan, Australia, and other countries to oppose what it designates as “authoritarian countries” represented by China, Russia, and some others. However, the alliance of “democracies” have been rocked by a series of public governance crises.

 

In recent years, the rampant partisan politics of Western “democracies,” such as the United States and Europe, has manifested in a balance-of-power stalemate within the parliament and between executive powers. In some cases, the various departments under executive power have engaged in fierce disputes within coalition governments. This causes poor efficiencies and poor effectiveness in government work. The leaders of elected parties are often not experts in public governance and this has caused the “democracies” to demonstrate considerable incompetence in organizing the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The members of the so-called democratic alliance ranked very poorly in terms of population infection and mortality rates. The recent resignation of the Prime Minister of the UK, Liz Truss, is another example of how partisan politics can harm public governance. The UK government’s constant flipping of public policy proves that its top administrative decision-makers were at best “amateurs” and prone to making simple yet costly governance mistakes.

 

The construction of an “alliance of democracies,” which artificially pits “democratic countries” against “authoritarian countries,” is little more than a geopolitical strategy with diplomatic tools. Historically, diplomacy has been able to transcend political systems. For example, during the American Revolutionary War, it was monarchical France that supported the United States and helped assure the American militia’s victory over the British army. However, when a republican revolution overthrew the French monarchy, the relationship between France and the United States deteriorated rapidly with both sides condemning each other. In theory, the French political regime shared similarities with the American republic; should they not have established an “alliance of democracies”? However, the newly established French republic faced a financial crisis, and sought repayment of loans made to American forces during the Revolutionary War. The new US government rejected the French, claiming the loans were made by monarchical France and nothing was owed to republican France. Enraged by such duplicity, France detained American merchant ships, causing the United States to consider sending its navy to attack France.

 

Throughout history, countries with different political systems have learned from each other. In the 19^th century, when many European countries established their representative systems of government, national governance was disorganized and inefficient. Parties that won parliamentary majorities formed the government and rewarded those who had contributed to their victory by appointing them to public office – the gravy train. Parliamentarians were often solely reliant on their oratory skills and without experience in public governance. After assuming office, officials would seek a quick return on their election “investment,” and ignore public governance improvements. As a result, the representative system of the European countries and the U.S. became known as the “Spoils System.” 

 

In the later half of the 19^th century, the Americans and Europeans began to realize that China’s professional civil service system could provide stable statecraft. Thus, they introduced the professional civil service system into Europe. Starting in the United Kingdom, the system was quickly imitated by both France and Germany. The United States introduced the system at the end of their Civil War. It was only after the introduction of the Chinese-inspired professional civil service system that public governance in Western countries began to improve and stabilize. 

 

In China, the period of reform and opening up saw the abandonment of the dogmatic practice of “preferring socialist grasses rather than capitalist seedlings” to introduce and learn from the experience of public governance in Western capitalist countries, especially in relation to macroeconomic control. Only after China had assimilated the macro-adjustment mechanisms from Europe and the U.S., did it make significant progress in improving the efficiency of public governance under market economy conditions.

 

Democracy can be understood as a decision-making or procedural mechanism, in which “the minority obeys the majority.” But is the majority decision always right? Moreover, such a procedure does not guarantee governance competency of elected leaders. The intrinsic problem is that a majority of voters can easily elect incompetent candidates into power. While democratic countries regard “free elections” as the foundational criterion, voters retain no ability to supervise the decision-making of incumbent politicians, thus, forming a “dictatorship of democracy” that French political scientist Tocqueville observed in American “democracy.” Tocqueville realized that the main cause of US governance ineffectiveness was that after an election, when all power was handed to an elected elite, voters became content with being “sheep” until the next election. 

 

China’s emphasis on “full process democracy” reminds democratic alliance proponents that the negative consequences of the 19^th century’s democratic procedure, which only focused on preconditions, will lead to poor governance and must be avoided. The great irony of an “alliance of democracies” was seen during the COVID pandemic crisis. Surveys conducted by American pollsters showed that the popular support rate of leaders in countries claiming to be democratic dropped to 30-40%, while the support rate of Chinese people for their leaders was over 90%.

 

In fact, the world has no pure “democratic country.” Each country has evolved a mixed political system, in which democratic decision-making is limited. Many legacy systems are clearly incompatible with the so-called “democracy” espoused by the democratic alliance countries. For example, the president of the United States has the power to pardon crimes, which is an inherited prerogative from European monarchies. Observers of political systems in Western countries can point to many institutional provisions that completely violate the principle of “democracy.”

 

The building of an “alliance of democracies” by Western countries is accompanied by growing policy extremes. While liberal “democracies” call themselves “market economies,” they have also treated government regulation of business as normal and subjugated trade to achieve their geopolitical goals, regardless of market rules. A number of “democratic” governments have threatened to not provide government guarantees for the overseas investments of private companies if they fail to invest in accordance with policy guidelines. In the face of these extremist government policies, many companies and individuals dare not speak out for fear of Western media’s “politically correct” narratives and public condemnation. Such situations highlight Tocqueville’s “tyranny of the majority” in Western democracies.

 

In the final analysis, the creation of an “alliance of democracies” not only obscures the institutional weaknesses of the so-called liberal democracies, but magnifies their hypocrisy. As such, the alliance of democracies is slipping further down the road of public governance failure that leads to a vicious circle of worsening economic, fiscal, and social crises, increased violence, ethnic divisions, and partisan confrontation, which may ultimately divide and destroy the legacy of liberal democracies that constitute the members of the U.S.-led “democratic alliance.”

 

 

 

Please note: The above contents only represent the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of Taihe Institute.

 

This article is from the November issue of TI Observer (TIO), which is a monthly publication devoted to bringing China and the rest of the world closer together by facilitating mutual understanding and promoting exchanges of views. If you are interested in knowing more about the October issue, please click here:

http://www.taiheinstitute.org/Content/2022/11-30/1912145654.html

 

——————————————

ON TIMES WE FOCUS.

Should you have any questions, please contact us at public@taiheglobal.org