Surya Deva¹

Worrying signs

Asia is home to about 60% of the world population. Both the largest democracy (India) and the largest non-democracy (China) of the world happen to be in Asia. Merely because of these two reasons, Asia is critical to the future of democracy globally.

It is paradoxical that the constitutions of both India² and China³ make an express reference to their ‘people’ as the source of political power. However, the how much real say the people in India and China, or Asia generally, are having in governance of their respective countries remains suspect.⁴ This is evident from the very fact of mass protests across Asia in recent years – from Turkey to India, Thailand, Nepal, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, South Korea, Hong Kong, and more recently Myanmar⁵. People have been forced to protest – often for long and despite fears of reprisals – because democratic channels to raise grievances and address legitimate concerns either do not exist or have become dysfunctional.

Moreover, most Asian countries fall into the Freedom House’s ‘not free’ or ‘partly free’ categories⁶. And as highlighted by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2020, democracy had a bad year in 2020 globally, with only about 50% of the world population living in some sort of democracy (most of them are part of ‘flawed’ democracies).⁷

Among other reasons, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed significant challenges to democracies all over the world. Asia is no exception. On the one hand, the pandemic has allowed countries like China to claim superiority of its governance model in controlling the pandemic and saving lives and export the model to other countries⁸, even if that entails ignoring many human rights. On the other hand, many other democratic countries have shown traits of authoritarianism during the COVID-19 crisis, especially because people have not been able to protest against repressive measures due to social distancing rules.

Reasons for democratic decay⁹

There are several reasons for the current dire state of democracies in Asia¹⁰. First, the capture of democracy by a stakeholder with vested interests – whether it is a political party, family dynasty, a dominant religious group, the business sector, or military – poses a serious problem. Such a capture means that even a democratically elected government is not governing for the entire society, but primarily serving interests of a certain percentage of people or sections of society. The disenchantment of such left-out groups in sharing benefits of democracy provides a fertile ground for the rise of populism, which again undercuts the true spirit of democracy.

The second reason for decay of democracies in Asia is the culture of personification. Worshipping political leaders and/or accepting their policies or ideas uncritically undermines the capability of people to remain rational and vigilant custodians of democracy¹¹. Public voting in periodic elections is a necessary but insufficient condition to sustain democracies, especially fragile ones. Rather, vibrant democracies require regular active engagement of people.

Third, presence of robust political parties is a prerequisite for a vibrant democracy. However, political parties, including in many Asian countries, ‘appear to be in crisis’¹². Parties suffer from internal democratic deficits, sell myopic or populist agendas, practice exclusionary politics, or take unprincipled or opportunistic political stands. Another related problem is that a political party winning an election may only pursue its political manifesto while governing, rather than adopting a holistic approach and taking along the whole nation forward.

Fourth, it has become difficult if not impossible for common people to participate fully in democratic processes. For example, as contesting elections requires significant financial resources (and also muscle power in some cases), the system either favours people with power or opens the door for political corruption. Non-transparent corporate donations to political parties and the resultant state-business nexus is a case in point for the latter.¹³

The fifth reason for democratic decay is that most of the available means of accountability of democratically elected leaders are not functioning. The checks and balances between the executive and the legislature are often not working. Failure of internal accountability mechanisms is exacerbated by the failure of external mechanisms to hold governments accountable. Non-independent judiciary, partisan media, shrinking civic space, weak ‘fourth branch’ institutions, and timid academic community illustrate such failure.

Sixth, the seeming failure of democracies to respond effectively to major governance challenges – from poverty to inequality, discrimination, and climate change – raises questions about the effectiveness of democracy as a system of governance. In such a scenario, people are more tempted to buy in to authoritarian models of governance which embody concentration of power, opaque decision making, institutionalised government propaganda, and total allegiance to political leaders.

Reversing democratic decay in Asia

Several steps could be taken to reverse the ongoing decay of democracies in Asia.

Accessibility and inclusivity: democratic processes, including elections at all levels, should be made more accessible to all people. For example, a basic financial support for all candidates with a limit on maximum overall expenditure may create a level playing field for all people interested in contesting elections. Candidates should be prohibited from relying on divisive policies or promises to seek votes. Moreover, parties should be required to keep diversity (of gender, race, religion, language etc.) in mind in nominating candidates.

Regular active people engagement: vibrant democracies require regular and active engagement of people in politics beyond participation in periodic elections. People should abandon being passive beneficiaries: they need to claim back their role in democracy and build social movements bottom up to not only inform the political agenda but also operate as a bulwark of accountability.

Competitive cooperation among political parties: political parties (with internal democracy) should compete during periodic elections. However, they should also engage in constructive cooperation post-election and try to develop consensus on issues of importance for the country and/or world.

Change with continuity: democracies entail change in governments through periodic elections. These changes should not, however, disrupt actions to achieve common goals agreed at the national level: protecting human rights (including of minorities), preserving civic space, safeguarding judicial independence and free media, enhancing transparency in governance, and pursuing sustainable development to name a few.

Transparency and accountability: greater transparency is required about how political parties operate, receive donations, and engage businesses. The right to information laws should apply to businesses as well, and all available mechanisms of political accountability should be strengthened.

Peer learning and solidarity: Sharing of good practices among various constituents of democracies in Asia as to what works should be helpful. International solidarity and support for democracy is also needed. If authoritarian regimes support each other, why should not democracies do the same?

Managing expectations: democracies of course need to deliver and should be judged on delivering outcomes. However, democracies should also be seen as an end in themselves because they embody core values such as personal autonomy and the freedom to develop or disagree. People should also recognise the cost of building consensus and dissent in democracies and the consequent trade-offs.

In short, to remain competitive with the available alternatives (e.g., communist party-led regimes or military-controlled governments), democracy as a system of governance should refine and reform itself. Asia will be critical for such a democratic resilience project, because it ‘provides both major examples of democratic regression and failure as well as inspiring stories of democratic resilience and revival’¹⁴. Inparticular, what trajectory China takes¹⁵ will have a bearing on this issue, beyond its borders.