[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are this has aroused your interest This Reader is about how democracy is being hollowed out and how the masses are being duped. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
–I am talking about tailor-made democracies where employers exercise control and do as they please in a country that belongs to them, taking with them employees who depend on these employers’ generosity.
Viktor Orbán, Nayib Bukele, Javier Milei, Jair Bolsonaro and Daniel Ortega, among many others, show(ed) that democracy can be hollowed out without figuratively breaking it (Louis Casado)
—It is like with termites: Termites do not bring the house down; they eat away at it. They work beam by beam, from the inside, silently, with precision, until one day the building collapses on its own and no one remembers exactly when it started to creak.
1. This is what has been happening to democratic institutions in various corners of the globe: Not the classic coup d’état, not the general on the balcony, not the tank in front of the palace. It is the pen, the decree, the self-proclaimed state of emergency… And behind every signature, the same promise: “We have come to save what they destroyed.” Destruction sets the stage for false salvation. (Mauricio Vargas)
2. When deliberation ceases to exist, the new order is already in place. And when the argument used to explain a measure does not match the actual structure of the problem, it ceases to be an explanation: It becomes deconstruction —and it is not illegal! But neither is it irrelevant. Although we are not dealing with illegality, what is happening is not a series of coincidences; it is networks of elites operating directly on public decisions –and, in parallel, overtaking the state. These are not isolated episodes: they are consistent and premeditated operations.
3. And in the meantime, the narrative continues to operate. It is not necessarily a matter of ‘effective control’: Rather, it is the execution of a staged scenario of control. First, a crisis is installed (fabricated?); then control is announced and implemented; afterwards, measures are executed draconianly –even though the starting point was, in no way, real. (M. Vargas)
4. Put another way, democracy has been threatened by transforming what was once a global benign model into a hell tale. A void was created and alternative malign systems are gaining ground –systems that promise order, efficiency, and growth without the messiness of liberal pluralism. The danger is not just that authoritarian regimes gain appeal, but that their contention of ‘in-the-name-of-democracy’ inadvertently become their strongest argument. But prosperity has never been evenly shared in these regimes, and the adherence to globalization has widened the gap.
5. There is no support for those left behind, while elites thrive. It is economic-hardship-colliding-with-rapid-cultural-shifts and institutions-failing-to-respond that explains populists stepping-in promising to protect the people from ‘a failed democratic system’. (There is nothing inevitable about this leading to democratic decay though). In today’s digital age, outrage spreads faster than compromise. Autocratic rulers increasingly choose excommunication over conversation; being skeptics of democracy, they claim they no longer need theories. And when liberal leaders struggle to explain how it is globalism that benefits ordinary people, nationalism wins the narrative. (Ramesh Jaura)
Why there is a total incompatibility between neoliberalism and democracy
6. Neoliberalism, in fact dismantles all democratic instruments that constitute an obstacle to the advancement of market liberalization. The deregulation of economic activity, or rather, its ‘re-regulation’ aims to transform the state into yet another instrument of accumulation. Social policies are reduced to a minimum through the transformation of public goods into businesses, particularly in healthcare, education, the pension system and scientific research. (Boaventura de Sousa y Santos)
7. Neoliberal Northern societies are not led by individuals. Rather, they are shaped by structural forces that reward the super rich making it look like democracies operate and are run by laws of nature –though there is nothing natural about them. The nearer to power a politician or official gets, the more their behavior has to align with the structural interests of the billionaire class. Or put another way, the only route to power for any individual in our societies is by subordinating their personal beliefs and values to the interests of the capitalist class. (Jonathan Cook) […Just look at what is happening with the midterm elections in the US in 2026 where money is buying votes].
8. On the other hand, such a democracy raises expectations among the working classes for a better life, but expectations cannot be realized without challenging the unequal distribution of social wealth –a distribution that the capitalist class imposes to maintain and consolidate its economic, social, and political position. This class does not hesitate to transform, through soft coups, decent democracies into truncated and authoritarian ones. In such coups, there is no violent rupture with democratic processes. Instead, the authoritarian components of these ‘democratic regimes’ are reinforced in order to achieve, at least in part, the same objectives that a dictatorial path would yield. Combining institutional manipulation with extra-institutional actions, whether violent or not, invariably involve gross violations of international HR law. (B. de Sousa y Santos)
Democracy itself is not the enemy; manipulating it is
9. For decades, the Northern political discourse has equated legitimacy with elections, ergo, numbers tallied in a single day (or week) and certified by institutions that, in turn, operate within systems shaped by the powers-that-be. The result is a troubling oversimplification: the legitimacy of democracy is procedural rather than moral. Democracy operates within a political economy deeply influenced by corporate financing, lobbying structures, and concentrated media ownership. The public is not merely informed; it is manipulated. The assumption is clear: democracy automatically sanctifies power –but electoral success does not neutralize repression or war crimes; it does not erase violations of international law… (Ramzy Baroud)
10. But democracy depends on protecting dissent as essential to its survival, and authoritarian regimes manipulate (or buy) elections, criminalize the opposition by rewriting language, colonizing consciousness through cultural institutions and social media, as well as normalizing election fraud and state violence. (Henry Giroux)
The antidote: A right called democracy
–Across the world, democratic institutions are under sustained pressure, and democracy monitors all the time warn us of a broader decline in democratic governance globally. People have a right to live under a democratic order, and no one has the power to take that right away. (Javier El Hage, Mriana Atala, Ezequiel Podjarny)
11. International courts of Human Rights (HR) must recognize democracy as an autonomous right before democratic erosion becomes irreparable. If one does not treat democracy itself as an independently protected legal interest, the law offers no clear standard for when democracy’s erosion becomes a violation. This gap enables autocrats to dismantle democratic life piece–by–piece until it is too late to reverse course. An autonomous right to democracy closes that gap. Recognizing democracy as an autonomous right will thus allow courts to respond to a democratic collapse as a legal wrong in its own right rather than only addressing it piecemeal through findings under other provisions. Democracy urgently needs legal protection!*
*: Democracy must be considered as a representative and participatory system grounded in the rule of law, institutional accountability and the effective political participation of the peoples. It must guarantee due process, freedom of expression, association, assembly, as well as political participation and do more than protect isolated freedoms. (Do not let this just be bla bla bla…).
12. Democracy is more than just bare majority rule; institutional checks and balances can offer additional layers of protection as an antidote. Important among these is robust judicial review by independent courts, particularly regarding constitutionally-protected rights. It is undeniable that in recent years, harsh populist governments around the world have been tarnishing the reputation of majoritarian democracy –and of the judiciary. But the best way forward still is a majority rule supported by fiercely independent judges. (Raymond Smith)
Bottom line
Democracy without social, economic and cultural rights protection does not equal real democracy (Aoife Nolan)
13. Neoliberalism and economic globalization have played a primary role in eroding the enjoyment of the social rights to social security, to health, to housing, to food and to work. Three principles embody ‘the neoliberal system of today’ (as much as yesterday’s), namely: a) Escalation of differentials in wealth and income (i.e., inequality); b) Abrogation of democratic control and representation (i.e., oligarchy); and c) Deregulation of as many economic transactions as is feasible. (P. Anderson)
14. The link between democratic sustainability and social rights enjoyment has become ever-more evident in the context of increasing populist success. A loss of faith in democracy on the part of young people in how democracy is working in their own countries is arguably unsurprising. Consider: Power levels over social security, over social assistance and over access to justice are experienced differently by young people as compared to older adults who need these tomorrow. For years, and deceptively, trust in the regulatory power of the market was held-up as the reason for not adopting more interventionist measures.
15. Economic, social and cultural rights are seeing a growing come-back across the world particularly on the enjoyment of what have historically been considered to be bread-and-butter issues, to name just one, labor rights: namely, the rights to organize and to bargain collectively, including the right to strike. Also, persons who are unemployed are less likely to vote and to have trust in national governments. In practice, right-wing populism entails repressed and politically controlled trade unions and collective bargaining. Populism, certainly that of the right-wing kind, therefore, not only threatens liberal (yet faulty) representative democracy, but directly threatens social rights in the labor field. (A. Nolan)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
#HumanRightsReaders
#HumanRights
#ClaudioSchuftan