Should-Read: Jacob Levy: The Sovereign Myth
Jacob Levy: The Sovereign Myth: “The sense of control that is often attributed to voters in the olden days was really a sense of satisfaction with outcomes… https://niskanencenter.org/blog/sovereign-myth/
…Long years of economic growth in the West, broadly shared in, and in excess of the expectations of people who had lived through wars and economic collapse, propelled this satisfaction. In retrospect, though, it’s easy to flatter ourselves that, if things went well, it’s because we made such good decisions. Things look rather different when expectations are suddenly, sharply disappointed, as in the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath…. The simple versions of the “economic anxiety” explanations for who supports such political movements have been widely debunked. But I think it is part of what makes fertile ground for such holist and fear-based political movements. The loss of the feeling of control can, moreover, go past economic questions; the demagogue can promise a restoration of control to the real people on social and cultural matters, too.
But in all these domains, the promise of control will be disappointed.
To the demagogue, the disappointment is a feature, not a bug. A perpetually frustrated and perpetually fearful populace is one that will continue to lend support to demagoguery. The policies adopted by an Erdogan or a Duterte are not meant to solve problems, but to keep the fear of them alive. Those of us hoping to see decent liberal democratic constitutionalism in the future have to proceed differently. Yes, there has to be hope for a better future; but hope is not the same as autarkic, nationalist, or democratic sovereign control…. We need to think of politics itself as a result of human action but not human design and decision, which even those who understand spontaneous and emergent orders in economics and society have been reluctant to do. It’s difficult to come to terms with. But however we are to manage the difficult psychological task of navigating currents that we didn’t decide into being, the first step will be understanding and admitting that we didn’t decide them.
I discuss some of these issues in greater depth in two recent academic pieces: Contra politanism, Against solidarity: Democracy without fraternity