As the scorching summer of 2022 ends in the northern hemisphere, the world is more aflame with man-made fires of trouble everywhere.
Three important regions are at the forefront of the news: The Russia-Ukraine war, mass protests in Iran, and political-economic turmoil in China.
There is a common thread running across these three different countries, they all pose themselves as coherent alternatives and challengers to the fractious and decadent Western liberal democracy, especially exemplified and led by the US.
However, no sober-thinking observer is looking at these countries at this moment and thinking that they are holding up as worthy models for arranging the society and politics of a nation.
Russia
In the last 10 years, Russia has been the main state-led critic and saboteur of liberal democracy in the world. Not only has Russia been indefatigably trying to undermine electoral democracies in the West through disinformation campaigns but it also has been posing itself as the godfather and inspiration for Western ethno-nationalist, conservative politics.
Putin’s Russia claims to be the heir to the traditional Tsarist Russia, the paternalistic, communitarian Russia of Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn that is a great contrast to the individualistic, materialist West.
However, the Ukraine War has finally revealed Russia to the world as an utterly corrupt, dysfunctional country -- a petro-state with nukes.
Iran
Ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has presented itself as the vanguard of Islamic-theocratic state in the world. Not only has Iran made opposing “American imperialism” the national mission but also has declared the clergy-led theocratic model, the Velayat-e faqih -- guardianship of the Islamic jurist -- the superior political system to liberal democracies of the world.
Iran, like Russia, has also devoted significant state resources to support international media explicitly for discrediting Western liberal democracies. However, the world has witnessed that the theocratic state only continues in power by repression of the general people and increasingly bloody put-downs of popular movements for freedom.
Just like in Russia, an ever-increasing number of young, educated Iranians are desperate to leave their country.
China
China has become the most formidable challenger to US economic and security leadership since the US became the world’s leading economic power in the late 19th century.
Fast-growing China was en route to overtaking the US in real GDP terms by 2030. Chinese leadership openly talks about bringing an end to the US-led liberal world order and ushering in a world order of nation-states under the guidance of China.
However, several things have happened in the last few years that have significantly dampened Chinese prospects.
China’s disastrous Covid-response policy has greatly stifled the economy, more than anywhere else.
The huge real-estate bust has revealed that much of China’s touted economic growth was based on building cities for no one and roads and bridges to nowhere.
The trillion dollars plus Belt and Road initiative has shown to be a global boondoggle of debt indenture.
Now the Chinese economy has slowed considerably and demographic decline is firmly on the way. Many analysts now believe China is not going to catch up with the US at all.
In the years ahead, Chinese money and the Chinese rich are planning to move to more promising shores in even greater numbers.
It can be plausibly argued that the great problems plaguing all these countries have arisen mainly because of a lack of democratic checks and balances at the very highest levels of leadership.
Authoritarian failure in Russia and Iran is plain to all but China too has developed the same fundamentals. Since 2014-15, when China ditched the party oligopoly and mandated leadership turnover that served the country so well since Deng Xiaoping’s 1979 reforms, national leadership in China has been highly concentrated in one person, with all the arbitrariness that entails.
It looks like the one nation, one people, one leader formula is going to be no more successful in China than it has been anywhere else.
Contrast
We can contrast leadership and policy failure in these authoritarian countries with Britain, another country that is experiencing a leadership fiasco and facing economic calamity.
However, facing a huge public backlash and prospect of electoral calamity down the road, the new government of Liz Truss has quickly rolled back the very unpopular budgetary measures.
This is democracy in action, leadership failures are usually checked and if not, leaders get replaced by the people or institutions.
When democracies take more enduring, potentially calamitous turns, like Brexit, they generally reflect the will of the people, not the arbitrariness of a leader.
We can be sure that if the fallout from Brexit turns out as bad as the analysts are fearing, Britain will democratically course-correct down the road without fanfare.
In today’s complex and fast-changing world, countries with complex and changeable political institutions usually fare much better in the longer term.
Democracy
Democracies are transparent -- politically, informationally, and societally. This transparency makes the divisions and tensions within politics and society open to all, creating an impression of a polity drowning in disputes.
However, democratic mechanisms of change and reconciliation can keep the body of the state rejuvenated and running.
Authoritarian states are opaque. While they can present a façade of rude health to the world, problems in their body politic fester in the dark and become cancerous.
In the history of the modern world, democracies have always bested their authoritarian challengers in long races of rivalry.
Shafiqur Rahman is a political scientist.
