Kurlantzick’s distaste for nouveau riche

democracy
Author: Ryan Manuel September 27th, 2008
Some friends of mine at grad school have a great saying: “using the word
normative does not automatically improve your argument”.
Having read Josh Kurlantzick’s latest piece, I am tempted to change that to
“using the words ‘middle class’ does not automatically improve your argument”.
Kurlantzick argues that “in country after country, democratic reforms are in
retreat. The surprising culprit: the middle class”. A prime example, he argues, is
Thailand, which was once the poster child for a successful switch to democracy
until the rise of Thaksin Sinawatra.
To quote Kurlantzick’s thesis:
In 2000, Thailand’s middle class faced a problem it might not have anticipated –
a politician who actually canvassed the poor for votes. Thaksin Shinawatra, a
billionaire telecommunications tycoon turned pol, traveled the rural hinterlands,
spewing populist promises unlike anything the country had ever seen: cheap,
government-backed healthcare, loans to every village, and many more. When I
traveled with Thaksin on the campaign trail, villagers welcomed him like a kind of
god, gathering in packs to listen and try to touch him. And the rural poor, who
make up the majority of the country, voted.
His next point, that the countries often lack institutions strong enough to
constrain the power of the leaders, is a valid one. But his conclusion seems
somewhat bizarre:
in many of these weak democracies, members of the middle class place their
hopes in the very men they once deplored, realizing they trust the army officers,
who tend to come from the same elite backgrounds, more than they trust the
newly empowered poor.
Now, the last time I checked, the middle class didn’t come from the “same elite
backgrounds”. Indeed, if we look at some recent research from the MIT, a ‘middle
class’ person is defined as someone who is holding down a steady job. To quote
Duflo, the characteristics of a middle class citizen are:
a salaried job with steady paychecks provides enough stability to encourage
people to start investing for the future. They spend more on healthcare, which
enables them to keep working. They keep their children in school, helping the
children land middle-class jobs later on.
These are not the urban elite that, Kurlantzick argues, flock to similarly elite
military institutions when they don’t like the cut of the democratically elected
leaders’ jib.
This gets us to the crux of the problem with Kurlantzick’s argument: it has
nothing to do with the middle class. Instead, what seems to drive it is a dislike for
the fact that the leaders of these nascent democracies often have a populist
bent. Kurlantzick then isn’t doubting the efficacy of democracy in delivering
benefits to poorer voters. Rather, like a lord of the manor forced to mix with the
hoi polloi, he is turning his nose up and sniffing at the nouveau riche elements of
democracy that are emerging. His distaste for the Thaksins of the world is based
on a premise that countries don’t just need democracy, they need democracy led
by certain types of people.
Buying this line of argument is risky. It is right to condemn the attacking of
institutions, the co-option of free media and difficulty in instituting rule of law in a
democratic state. But democracy itself should not be trashed simply because we
think its new leaders aren’t simply the servants of an imaginary “middle class”.

Democracy on the wane

In country after country, democratic reforms
are in retreat. The surprising culprit: the middle
class
By Joshua Kurlantzick | September 14, 2008
IN THE STREETS of Bangkok, mobs of middle class Thais who would normally hit
the city's massive shopping malls have been hitting the pavement instead. For
days, hundreds of thousands of protesters have massed in the streets,
demanding the resignation of the prime minister, shutting down airports with
their protests, and even laying siege to the main government building. As they
camped out in the structure, wearing yellow shirts and bandanas, the color of the
Thai monarchy, they left the regal buildings looking more like Woodstock, circa
1968.
The antigovernment demonstrators, calling themselves the People's Alliance for
Democracy, were lashing out at the prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, who they
claimed was a tyrant who'd violated a range of laws. In truth, however, they were
not battling for democracy - they wanted Samak, who was democratically
elected, to step down. In addition, they hated him because he was allied with
former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whom they accused of massive graft
and human rights abuses. Eventually, they got their wish: Last week, the prime
minister resigned after losing a controversial court decision.
In the streets, the seas of yellow openly wept with joy. The democrat was
deposed.
After being hailed as a democratic success story in the 1990s, Thailand has only
gone backward. Rather than settling problems through compromise, Bangkok
residents repeatedly take to the streets when things don't go their way. Instead
of pushing for freedom, much of the Thai media and civil society has gone mute,
or simply battles against elected governments. With so many crises, the Thai
military now either steps in, as it did in 2006, or hovers in the wings, threatening
to intervene.
The events unfolding in Thailand are part of a gathering global revolt against
democracy. In 2007, the number of countries with declining freedoms exceeded
those with advancing freedoms by nearly four to one, according to a recent
report by Freedom House, an organization that monitors global democracy
trends.
And the villains, surprisingly enough, are the same people who supposedly make
democracy possible: the middle class. Traditional theories of democratization,
such as those of Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, predict a story of middle
class heroics: As a country develops a true middle class, these urban, educated
citizens insist on more rights in order to protect their economic and social
interests. Eventually, as the size of the middle class grows, those demands
become so overwhelming that democracy is inevitable. But now, it appears, the
middle class in some nations has turned into an antidemocratic force. Young
democracy, with weak institutions, often brings to power, at first, elected leaders
who actually don't care that much about upholding democracy. As these
demagogues tear down the very reforms the middle classes built, those same
middle classes turn against the leaders, and then against the system itself,
bringing democracy to collapse.
This is a process now being repeated in Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin America,
regions that once seemed destined to become the third and fourth waves of
global democratization, following the original Western democracies and the
second wave in southern Europe and several other regions. The pattern has
become so noticeable - repeated in Venezuela, Russia, Bangladesh, and other
states - that one must even wonder about democracy's future itself.
...
For decades, Thailand was ruled by military regimes - the country had so many
coups that Thai friends told me they could no longer remember the number. But
by the late 1980s, the Thai middle class was growing wealthier and tired of
authoritarian rule and joined students in openly contesting its power. In the early
1990s, protesters came out in force in the streets of Bangkok, in the "cellphone
revolution" - thousands of businessmen in natty suits, housewives with pots of
curry for demonstrators, and students from Thailand's elite universities.
The military acquiesced, seemingly for good, and the country entered a period of
democratization. The middle class wrote a new, liberal constitution, which
enshrined a wide range of freedoms and provided new checks and balances to
prevent the return of authoritarian rule. Thais participated in free elections, while
a bonanza of new NGOs, mostly made up of younger urban middle class Thais,
sprung up to take advantage of the glasnost. Bangkok seemed in a state of
excitement; I was living there at the time, and my Thai friends were always
shuttling to meetings to hash out the new charter or write an opinion column.
Even foreigners seemed thrilled: I hosted a constant parade of young Americans
at my house who'd come to Bangkok to work for a myriad of new NGOs.
The 1990s were a good time in other nations as well. In Latin nations like Chile
and Argentina, the urban middle class battled decades of dictatorship, ultimately
prevailing in the 1990s. In South Korea, Indonesia, and Taiwan, urban middle
class students often led the protests that, ultimately, drew in broader
participation and helped bring down dictatorships. Once established in power,
these middle classes transformed the Asian nations, so that, in Indonesia, for
example, reformers quickly insisted upon laws that increased federalism,
devolving power in a society ruled for years by an opaque autocrat.
But what many theorists didn't count on was that middle class excitement could
turn sour. In 2000, Thailand's middle class faced a problem it might not have
anticipated - a politician who actually canvassed the poor for votes. Thaksin
Shinawatra, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon turned pol, traveled the
rural hinterlands, spewing populist promises unlike anything the country had
ever seen: cheap, government-backed healthcare, loans to every village, and
many more. When I traveled with Thaksin on the campaign trail, villagers
welcomed him like a kind of god, gathering in packs to listen and try to touch
him. And the rural poor, who make up the majority of the country, voted. In 2001,
and again in 2005, Thaksin swept elections, winning far greater control of
parliament than any previous prime minister.
But Thaksin then used his power to undermine the opposition parties, attack
media outlets he did not like, and even launch a "war on drugs" in which more
than 2,000 people were killed, including many innocents with political links.
"People just disappear every night - we never see them again. People here are
terrified just to go to sleep," said Hama, a community activist in southern
Thailand, where the killings and disappearances have hit hard. (Hama goes by
one name.)
Thaksin was only following a charted course in new democracies that can't yet
stand up to "elected dictators." In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez has employed a
similar strategy, using his elected power to increasingly muzzle opposition.
(Chavez, though, recently overstepped by trying to pass a referendum to change
the constitution, which was defeated.) Across sub-Saharan Africa, from Nigeria to
Rwanda, many leaders, the first generation of democratically elected presidents,
also have turned out to be less than democrats. In Rwanda, president Paul
Kagame has amassed so much power that, in its most recent annual report on
the country, Human Rights Watch warned of a litany of abuses, including "harsh
official repression," disappearances, and unexplained political killings. In Nigeria,
supposed reformer Olusegun Obasanjo, elected after years of military coups,
used his time in his office to attempt to change the constitution to give him more
terms, and then to install a man in power loyal to him. So, too, in Central Asia,
where even Kyrgyzstan, once the region's democratic hope, has turned
increasingly authoritarian.
Most dangerously, in Russia, where weak democracy in the 1990s built few
checks and balances, Vladimir Putin has utilized a blend of populism and
nationalism to essentially install himself as an elected dictator. And unlike many
of these other nations, Russia can serve as an example - as a powerful, relatively
rich authoritarian state under Putin, it has funded NGOs across Central Asia, most
of which in theory are designed to promote democracy, but whose true function
is to help established rulers push back against democrats in those nations.
"Russia under Putin has put on the front burner the creation of Kremlin-sponsored
organizations, such as Nashi, that have the veneer of genuine NGOs but are
actually designed to obstruct open political discussion," says Chris Walker of
Freedom House.
In democracies still on unsure footing, weak institutions prove unable to hold
these elected tyrants back. In Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Rwanda, and many other
nations, the media eventually submitted. The Thai media, too, found it tough to
fight back against the rich and influential Thaksin. Newspaper after newspaper
submitted to threats, suits, or coercion from Thaksin's allies.
Or, if these opponents do not submit, the democratic autocrats turn to force. In
Cambodia, where long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen has used elections as a
winner-take-all proposition, essentially wiping out all opposition, the few powerful
opponents left are the noisy NGOs monitoring graft and human rights.
In these tough circumstances, the middle classes must decide how to face down
growing autocracy. With a leader in power they hate, or their confidence in
democracy undermined by the graft or tyranny of some of their own elected
leaders, members of the middle class sometimes turn against the very project
they shed sweat and blood for. In country after country, many in the middle class
have been surprised to discover that a vote could actually empower groups they
do not trust. And once the elected populists start pushing the middle class
around, it is natural to wonder whether maybe democracy wasn't such a great
idea.
Of course, in some cases elections bring to power populists who genuinely
respect democracy - or leaders who, despite their problems, don't actually spark
a middle class revolt, perhaps because they are also delivering staggering
economic growth, like Putin. But when these elected populists ignore the middle
class, tarnish democracy, and deliver little else, chaos breaks loose.
In Bangladesh, freer votes in the 1990s and early 2000s left the country in the
hands of two venal, populist leaders, Sheik Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia, both
of whom allegedly engaged in massive graft and relied on thuggish supporters to
beat their opponents, according to a range of human rights groups. Fed up with
the two women, many elites in Dhaka welcomed a military intervention two years
ago - at least initially.
Similarly, in Venezuela an urban middle class used to dominating politics has
long chafed at the rule of Hugo Chavez, and many Caracas elites threw their
support behind a short-lived coup in 2002. In Russia, many of the educated urban
dwellers deplore Putin, but his political strategy, and Russia's growth, have been
so successful that they have little influence, leaving the few remaining liberal
opposition parties to appear almost comical in their powerlessness.
Eventually, in many of these weak democracies, members of the middle class
place their hopes in the very men they once deplored, realizing they trust the
army officers, who tend to come from the same elite backgrounds, more than
they trust the newly empowered poor. In Bangladesh, Fiji, Pakistan, Mauritania,
Venezuela, and many other states, the military tries to step in, claiming that it
must intervene to restore "order," which usually means a return to old elite rule.
Often, the middle class throws garlands. In Thailand, literally - Bangkokians
tossed flowers at soldiers in the 2006 coup. And while in the early 1990s young
Bangkokians called friends on their cellphones to organize pro-democracy
protests, in 2006 they did just the opposite: The streets swarmed with young
Thais posing for smiling photos next to the men with guns.
Joshua Kurlantzick is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. He can be reached at jkurlantzick@ceip.org.