25th July 2022
“And what should they know of England who only England know?” was a question once posed by an imperialist poet.
One of the problems of commentary is insularity: you comment about what is familiar, with nods to things which are – you think – recognisable.
And so it is with law and policy commentary, even when (like this blog) one strives not to be Anglocentric and seeks to pay as much attention to (say) Edinburgh and Dublin and Washington and Brussels as to London and Birmingham.
In particular, one thing commentators seem to do is emphasise endogenous explanations – for example, about what the example of Boris Johnson tells us about the historic weaknesses of the United Kingdom polity and constitution – with a sideways glance at the United States
But Johnson is also a local manifestation of something happening in many countries.
Johnson is not the only one.
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In a fascinating and insightful new book The Revenge of Power, Moisés Naím – a former Venezuela trade minister and editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy posits the 3Ps:
“3P autocrats are political leaders who reach power through a reasonably democratic election and then set out to dismantle the checks on executive power through populism, polarization, and post-truth.”
In his preface he mentions a list of applicable politicians – and although Johnson is discussed in the book, he does not even make this primary list:
“We have in mind here Donald Trump, of course, but also Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, India’s Narendra Modi, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and many others.”
In turn, the 3Ps are defined and illustrated:
“Populism may be the most persistently discussed of the three Ps and the most often misunderstood. Because it ends with “-ism,” it is often mistaken for an ideology, a counterpart to socialism and liberalism in the competition for a coherent governing philosophy. It is no such thing. Instead, populism is best understood as a strategy for gaining and wielding power.”
“Polarization eliminates the possibility of a middle ground, pushing every single person and organization to take sides.”
“In their current approach to post-truth, leaders go far beyond fibbing and deny the existence of a verifiable independent reality. Post-truth is not chiefly about getting lies accepted as truths but about muddying the waters to the point where it is difficult to discern the difference between truth and falsehood in the first place.”
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Of course, elements of all three are not new.
And we can self-indulge in a parlour game of “well, actually, there is this antecedent”.
Yet, the combination is a current phenomenon, made more potent by technological and political changes, such as the decline of parties and of traditional news media.
And it seems to be something liberals and progressives – and even conservative constitutionalists – are finding difficult to combat, or even comprehend.
And even though the Boris Johnsons and the Donald Trumps may personally leave office one way or another, the frames of mind with which they are associated are likely to linger.
The problem may therefore ultimately not be about the peculiarities of uncodified British constitution or its codified American counterpart.
The 3Ps were (are) going to be a problem whatever our constitutional arrangements.
It is not the fault of us not having a codified constitution any more than it is the fault of the Americans having a codified constitution that privileges illiberal and low-population states.
The problem is not (ultimately) constitutional or legal, but political.
It is about our sense as a polity: about what is acceptable in our political leaders, about what we value as checks and balances, and about how we believe political decisions should be made.
And because it is a political problem then it needs a political solution.
No constitution-mongering, by itself, will offer an easy way out.
The cases for liberalism and progressivism – and indeed constitutionalist conservatism – all need to be made afresh and in new ways.
Even seeking to place fundamental rights beyond the reach of 3Ps politicians will not be enough, as these politicians and their political and media supporters will simply politicise and discredit and trash the rights instruments, rather than respect them.
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It was never going to be inevitable that the world would become more liberal and progressive, and enlightened and tolerant – despite the triumphalism of some liberals and progressives in the heady halcyon (ahem) days of Clinton, Blair, Obama and the EU constitutional treaty.
That said, it is also not inevitable that the 3Ps politicians will win – their triumphalism may, in turn, also be ill-based.
So it is still all to fight for.
But.
In this contest, we should not think these are just local problems for local people.
The 3Ps politicians are part of a worldwide trend, and so we need to be aware of what works and does not work elsewhere – and not just in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Where has the case for constitutionalism – codified or not – been made successfully?
Where have people been made to care that their politicians are lying?
Where have voters and politicians valued checks and balances that may go against their partisan and personal advantages?
For, to adapt the poet:
“And what should they know of Johnsonism and Trumpism who only Johnson and Trump know?”
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The problem may therefore not ultimately be about the peculiarities of uncodified British constitution or its codified American counterpart.
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The problem may therefore not ultimately be about the peculiarities of the uncodified British constitution or its codified American counterpart.
Sorry, one more
Yet, the combination is a current phenomenon, made more potent by technological and political changes, such the decline of parties and of traditional news media.
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Yet, the combination is a current phenomenon, made more potent by technological and political changes, such as the decline of political parties and of traditional news media.
Definitely need the “as”, I think adding “political” before “parties” is helpful, since during de Pfeffel’s time in Downing street parties in general do not seem to be declining :-)
One of the key differences to previous descents into the murky waters of self-deception is the advent of social media. Many people now see less balanced content than they did in the past; what they now see is carefully “curated” for their prejudices.
More and more often, individuals give social media as the source of some ludicrous proposition. A rich hunting ground for any sect, such as the Conservative party, offering simple solutions to complex problems.
It may be worth mentioning that the author is not just well informed and astute, he also writes very well, so the book is a pleasure to read.
It is not clear in the UK that a mere change of one person for another necessarily will change the nature of power,
It’s clear that it will not…
> Where has the case for constitutionalism – codified or not – been made successfully?
Scotland, possibly? Sturgeon’s approach to Indyref2 seems to be that she needs permission either from Parliament or the Supreme Court. OTOH separation of powers doesn’t seem to be important to Sturgeon.
Germany appears pretty closely wedded to a constitution, and 3Ps politicians don’t seem to get very far. That might be because it was the home of the most notorious 3Ps politician in history.
Um, Somaliland, maybe? The lack of international recognition seems to help!
France seems to like constitutions – they’ve had a few. But then Le Pen…
Your question is a real headscratcher. Most governments seem to treat the constitution either as something to be got rid of, like used toilet-paper; or as a practical obstacle to effective government, something to be worked around.
Some apex mammals seem to behave as if there is a constitution they respect: wolves, gorrillas. Humans, maybe not so much.
I’d go even further: the problem is not constitutional or legal, or even political, but social.
Mobilising a majoritarian “people” against the “other” – inventing an out-group, if necessary, whether that is elites, or foreigners, or nazis, or simply people with a different religion or ideological view (Muslims, say; or “woke snowflakes”).
Using that majority – and sometimes just a perceived majority, nor actually more than 50% – to seize the power of the state and override protections of minorities. Independent courts and judges, independent media, professionals such as lawyers or doctors or teachers – anyone who is not with us is against us, and an “enemy of the people”.
And that is without considering authoritarian regimes, such as Russia or China, that get to a similar illiberal place by a different route.
We already have conflict in Ukraine, and climate change is only going to increase the pressure on limited resources. Looking ahead, as someone once said, like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood.
I don’t know what the answer is, but it has to include an attractive vision of people living in peace, freedom and prosperity. How do we get there?
Andrew, thank you… You have joined some dots for me in a way I had not seen before.
What I took away from your comment is that the emergence of autocrats and autocracies is facilitated and/or accelerate by a widening wealth gap in a society – something which can quickly become a vicious circle.
We start with corruption, where a few relatively wealth individuals bribe their elected representatives to write tax laws that favour the wealthiest at the expense of the middle and low income households.
Ultra-wealthy see a massive rise in their net worth thanks to the tax laws… A vast swath of a nation, by contrast, falls below the poverty line.
The autocrat pops up – just as Trump did – and instead of admitting the societal imbalance and correcting it, they pick on a defenceless group of victims (Jews, Mexicans, Muslims, Refugees) and attack.
One thing that Trump was *absolutely brilliant* at doing was convincing his followers that all the bad things that had happened to them was as a result of these minority groups (showered with handouts by Democrats of course), thus stoking the fires of intolerance and hatred.
If you want to stop autocrats emerging, then, don’t allow your society to become so imbalanced by corruption and greed. When the gulf between the wealthy and the poorest in society widens, it won’t be a case of “Here be Dragons!” But “Here be despots!” Which is worse.
Much worse.
It reads, very true in my opinion and provides the perfect rejoinder to most of the mindless and intellectually vacuous coverage of British politics served up on a daily basis by the BBC et al.
It seems to me the problem is actually constitutional. It needs a strong enforcer of the constitution who is outside the political arena.
We have the speaker -I’m sure Bercow would have done the job but the current one is useless and the Queen who is likewise.
We need a President – even just a ‘Parliamentary President’ who is tasked by the constitution of spotting illegalities/ or failures to comply with (say) the ministerial code and then is obliged to refer the matter to the courts law to gain a ruling and thereby to enforce compliance or exclude from Parliament.
In short we urgently need more checks on our Executive which is also a member of the Legislature and also sits in, ultimately, the Highest Court in the land.
That power needs distributing.
The Republicans in the USA have had a 50 years campaign to capture the Supreme Court so they can repeal laws they don’t like. What’s to stop the next gang of 3Ps demagogues from capturing the Parliamentary President or the Highest Court in the Land?
Nothing, so far – but it does give us 50 years to answer that question…
An associated problem for which I have no solution is that persistently saying politicians, a fortiori ‘all politicians’, are cynical, power seeking liars, attracts villains to politics while discouraging the honest from taking part in politics.
HELP!
It has not been much mentioned in the UK Press but Tunisia is in the process of holding a Referendum upon a completely new Constitution drafted by its new Leader.
It’s’ vociferous opponents claim it opens the door to totalitarism !
Voter participation appears low.
Is it too late to advocate direct democracy à la suisse?
Truly interesting question. I would suggest Porto Alegre in Brazil. It’s not a country but a city that instigated participatory budgeting for its city government.
From https://www.local.gov.uk/case-studies/case-study-porto-alegre-brazil
“The process is broadly considered an enormous success. Women, ethnic minorities, low income and low education participants were overrepresented when compared with the city’s population and consequently funding shifted to the poorest parts of the city where it was most needed. It brought those usually excluded from the political process into the heart of decision making, significantly increasing the power and influence of civil society and improving local people’s lives through the more effective allocation of resources.”
The implication is that devolved governance can be a powerful force for encouraging responsible local participation. Purely representative government delegates power too completely giving too much autonomy to professional politicians. Local accountability gets lost. Especially when national government controls and squeezes funding for local government as in the UK as the Conservatives have done.
In response to the question
“ Where has the case for constitutionalism – codified or not – been made successfully?”
I can only think of perhaps some of the Nordic countries and maybe Switzerland.
But did you have anywhere in mind? It would be interesting to see examples that we might strive to learn from and emulate.
The problem is that countries where a codified constitution works by and large tend to stay out of the news, but there are plenty of them. Germany has been mentioned. Ireland works. It’s even had a good go at the corruption that used to plague local government. Places like Belgium and Italy continue to function fairly well in spite of serious political problems. Canada, Australia and New Zealand all get along and ride political storms. Japan has been a good example. Even South Korea, Taiwan, Portugal and Spain seem to manage in spite of coming out of dictatorship since the early post WW2 decades.
This is astute. I had always thought, both as an idealistic “intellectual” leftie late-teenager in the midst of the Thatcher-Reagan era, and as a less feisty small-“L” liberal centre-leftie in the heady days you mention, that History was indeed a one way street, a ratchet moving inexorably towards a better, more democratic and more egalitarian future.
That was all in the days before our own local exposure to the 3Ps of course. And before the paradoxically enabling advent of social media. Who’d have guessed that near universal access to the thoughts and writings of the greatest minds of all time would lead not to an informed and (auto-)educated electorate, but rather to an over-excited, politicised mob of no particular values and for whom “ideology” is no more than the next three-word sound-bite dreamt up by a press office or marketing consultant?
Add to that the realisation that power, in this Not-So Brave New World is particularly avaliable to Pathocrats and wannabe Pathocrats (“Pathocracy | Psychology Today United Kingdom” https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/out-the-darkness/201907/pathocracy?ampl) and its hard not to think that my ratchet is broken (if it ever existed) and that we are on the slippery slope towards autocratic despotism.
Brace, brace, indeed.
Where has the case for constitutionalism – codified or not – been made successfully?
Well, on the positive side, post -war Germany was given a constitution which has largely proved successful by most metrics. Sadly, it was only imposed after that ultimate polarising populist, the one who weaponised post-truth, had caused the Second World War.
Some are saying we are already deep in another global conflict. If we are lucky enough to see an aftermath of this current war, the so-called Great Information War, we may need even more than the imposition of a decent constitution to secure a human future.
We live in self selecting silos where our news feeds need to tell us what we want to hear, or we mute them. The polarisation of every key issue forces those centre ground news feeds (BBC) to attempt a clumsy balance which generally irritates both sides. The genie is not heading back to the right bottle.
I believe the answer is that we should eschew the polarisation which serves to distract us, and to put resistance against the lies and abuses of power that characterise populist leaders above every other political consideration. We have recently done well on that front in England by tactical voting in by-elections which were critical in persuading Conservative MPs to ditch Johnson. Fortunately, neither of the two candidates to succeed him possess the same personal magnetism or facility of deceit, but we must continue to insist that the country’s constitutional conventions are respected, including the crucial one of there being no place in Government for Ministers who wilfully mislead Parliament.
Thanks David.
We are in what is referred to as ‘a fourth turning’ – see book entitled the same written by William Strauss and Neil Howe in 2001.
Unfortunately this type of political behaviour is a product of what has come before, indeed the last ‘fourth turning’ occurred between 1929-1945, and the belief is that we are midway through one ourselves, from 2008 until approximately 2030. If you consider the economic and political similarities of the two periods you will begin to notice them.
Anyway I’d reccomend the book to you (if you’ve not already read it!) , it’s an eye opener.
Thanks for the blog post!
“ populism is best understood as a strategy for gaining and wielding power.”
I have not read the book (thanks for the heads up!). If this sentence captures the author’s definition of populism I think it’s not useful in its vagueness/generality. I don’t think Johnson or Trump are populists, although they have popular appeal. Populism has typically relied on an economic quid pro quo (although an often short-lived one, until the economy tanks). I think this element has been, and is, crucial conceptually to distinguish among the various types of autocrats. In a sense Johnson and Trump are 2P autocrats.
I think that is a lot to build on just a brief excerpt from a well-argued and well-sourced book
Progress is the exchange of one problem for another.
We have slowed down on those advances that require energy and living space and the movers and shakers have looked around for the next ‘big thing’.
Technological advance has slowed but the dark arts have expanded wonderfully. Seen in that light Brexit looks a work of genius – just not the one advertised.
An excellent analysis, thank you. It seems an age since Stephen Pinker was telling us that everything was for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
The trouble with most of the solutions being offered is that they aren’t realistic, not least because those holding the levers of power aren’t going to let them happen.
I suspect that one of the main causes of what is happening is the apparent sheer hopelessness of the major problems we face – global heating, pandemics, the damage caused by Brexit, the war in Ukraine. And the corruption of those in power infects all those around them, including the Opposition. How can a decent man such as Keir Starmer foreswear the single market and renationalising the monopolistic private utilities?
I wish I knew what the solutions might be. All I can suggest is that supporters of liberal democracy continue to argue that it has given us many years of improving prosperity and wellbeing. Rebutting those who argue that we can’t afford to deal with global heating by pointing out the cost (in more ways than one) of not dealing with it, and being honest about the Brexit catastrophe would also help, as would advocating the necessity of international solutions to global problems.
The most obvious answer to your final questions is in post ’45 Germany where they learned the importance of political integrity the very hard way. So discussion to avert such an epoch changing crisis is clearly worthwhile. I have just a few diverse thoughts.
1. As exemplified by the current Tory leadership debate, politics has turned into catcalling, even if the protagonists do not believe in it. So those more interested in self first, pension, party, then country last can more easily elbow to the front. Pending the end of the deafening silence from Labour, have the LibDems set out their stall for a more liberal, progressive, enlightened, tolerant way forward? If so, I have not seen it in the main press. Who dares to stand up and declare for what they think is right, rather than just say what they think the voters want you to say? Has any politician the guts & integrity to define themselves by what they are, not by what they are not?
2. There is no apparent solution to the dire state of the British press, now polarized beyond the interest of most consumers. Could enough principled journalists from left & right be found to agree on the issue of a peer reviewed factsheets which could at the very least be a respected reference?
3. Most people (often, but not always a good thing) are not fascinated by these esoteric debates, many must be turned off by current politics and prefer to watch the women’s footie. The Brave New World comes to mind where not just the lower orders are controlled by titillation and bling. Rolex is for the first time ever working three shifts and cannot meet demand. Too many folk have confused prestige for respect.
4. And they have lost interest in voting, just as for EU elections, they see no direct result of their votes on issues which are often beyond their interest. This and the thinning of the centre shows we must change the non-proportional voting system that we now which no longer fits.
5. For corruption to be reduced there must be political will then a seriously funded and fanged SFO. Can we foresee a non-partisan oversight committee to balance payments of bonus and not just the current cost of malus for the SFO? With so much high end corruption how can the SFO be other than self-financing? Getting a job there for 5 years ought to be a first choice for those ending up in Goldman Sachs. It should carry the prestige of knights errant protecting the common interest. The principals who order SLAPPS should not be free of penalties when their sordid tactics fail. They should both see and feel that such tactics fail.
Sorry, no concluding solution.
Just been told off by my wife for sounding patronising about the ladies’ footy. That was certainly not the intent, quite the contrary; sorry if the note reads that way and best of luck to England tonight!
Can I please just check the attribution of the quotation at the beginning of the article? CLR James famously said this about cricket, but was he copying
someone else?
Yes, it is from Kipling
An exceedingly good quotation.
And Kipling was copying his mother Alice. (As he probably also did with the line “East is East…”.)
Here is the text: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_englishflag.htm
But do read the illuminating associated page on the background: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/readers-guide/rg_englishflag1.htm
And then as an antidote to the bombastic thoughts of the butcher’s apron fluttering gaily over the four corners of the map:
“All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!”
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_wethey.htm
Interesting that all the comments seem to consider only states, not supranational entities. The EU has presidents, an elected assembly, a (constitution), and yet 3P politicians seem to make no headway.
Is it just too dull for popularism to prosper?
The dismissal of the Santer Commission for corruption suggests a functioning system.
In many of the comments so far there has been much mention of the middle ground and its failure to maintain its appeal. The consequences of an internet which nudges people who have an inclination off centre in order to to turn that into a reinforced bias, and to let that become a blindly dogmatic posture, are indeed dire. So long as those promoting and profiting from this set-up continue to be beyond the jurisdiction of the homeland of its worst-affected victims it will continue to flourish and we shall all be the worse for it. An enforceable international treaty may help, but will almost certainly lack signatures from those governments who are doing nicely out of business as usual.
Meanwhile, in order to ensure that my strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure, I will have to avoid getting trapped in a silo by click-bait. If after I have opened up the latest talk by Beau of the Fifth Column my eye is caught and I listen to numerous news and comment items on MSNBC, must I also devote additional time to seeing what Fox “News” has to say? I fear I will run out of sick-bags.
I do believe that the extremes feed off each other (as they did in the 1930s) and I have friends who trend to both ends of the spectrum.
When I talk to ultra-Brexity people or Trump fans, they always point to the other side and complain that they are lopping the genitals off children and burning down cities, “Don’t you want to stop them from lopping off children’s genitals?” Then I talk to the ultra-SJW people and they say we are descending into fascism and “why are you worried about a few people using the wrong toilet when we are facing the threat of fascism?
It’s very hard to be a centrist (or even a “normal” lefty, liberal or conservative) these days but I do think this is the only way that we will escape this mess. Maybe the answer is not in politics but in every day, “normal people” culture.
I wonder if you have seen that 1930s propaganda movie about an American dude who shows up at a Fascists rally in (IIRC) New York. The messages of the fascist speaker resonate with the ordinary people at the rally but Out Hero gently points out the contradictions and lies in the fascist’s message. I think this is the only solution to the assault from the two extremes. Can it work? I don’t know.
Two questions popped into my head on the basis of this interesting debate on the 3Ps phenomenon. To what extent is its current manifestation a belated product of the huge growth of inequalities of wealth and income since 1970? But why in that case has it resulted, by and large, in right-wing rather then left-wing populism? That seems counter-intuitive. At the same time, when it comes to the mechanisms that have produced this inequality, I think the role of politics or associated corruption is often overstated. To give an example from sport, in 1966 as the winning captain in the World Cup, Bobby Moore got the grand sum of 1,000 pounds. When he started as a pro, his wage was 12 pounds a week. According to Simon Kuper, Lionel Mesi’s annual salary in his final years at Barcelona FC was 100 million euros. This example could readily be replicated across a number of fields such as the arts, admittedly just for the very few. I would suggest that changes in how people are remunerated have fundamentally transformed the nature of the societies we live in, though it remains hard to get to grips with the political implications, though like the 3Ps these changes are global in their reach.
The book DAG mentions The Revenge of Power, which is excellent does deal extensively with left wing populism as well. Lots of examples from Latin America. They use the same techniques.
Fair point, but Moisés Naím’s list of primary cases that DAG quotes at the start of the blog comes overwhelmingly from right-wing examples. So the puzzle remains, especially outside of Latin America, where the picture is admittedly more mixed.
The research does indicate that autocratic personality types are found across the political spectrum so the probability is the three Ps may be too, the timing may vary.
The most stable and resilient states have plenty of independent civic institutions that are only loosely tied to the executive. The courts are an obvious one. The printed press should be another. The broadcast media another. The police should be as arms length from the executive as it is possible to be, with their main loyalty being to the courts. Devolved administrations are another. The latter both provide local resistance to the centre taking too much power, but also show other parts if the nation how things might be done differently. The main danger with our uncodified constitution is that it can be fiddled with almost at will. Previous bastions of independent thought, such as local government, have been reduced powerless husks because they had no agreed constitutional status and governments of all stripes have stripped away vast amounts of what they used to responsible for. It shouldn’t be so easy to do that. Such changes should at the very least only be possible if the majority in favour in the Commons reflects a majority of votes at the last election.
I won’t ramble on any more, but just mention corruption. A nation becomes extremely vulnerable to tyrants if it fails to deal with political corruption. That erodes all faith in normal political institutions.
I found my self pushing back against the post initially (mainly because of antecedents so it was extremely useful that the question of antecedents was countered early on in the piece).
Then Max Weber and China Miéville popped up to reconcile the ideas in the post for me.
Weber for the concept of the charismatic leader, and Miéville for The City and The City where “seeing and unseeing” is something that people in The City are trained to do.
Charismatic leaders do not have to been seen as charismatic to 100% of the population. The Trumps and Johnsons of this world do not have leadership in the way that I understand leadership. They have been seen as leaders by groups of people that are significant enough to get them into power. It does seem to me that Trump/Johnson only govern with their supporters in mind, not for a whole population.
The fact that Trump/Johnson is not seen as a leader by most of the population is not going to be a deterrent for those who are attracted to them. Indeed, this may be a useful feature as it identifies the out-group who must be defeated.
That is exactly the point Naim makes at length and very well in the book. Division and conflict is vital for the 3 P leader.