Our Very Own Brexit - some comments
Sam Roggeveen’s Our Very Own Brexit is brief but ambitious. He begins by discussing the malaise of Western democracies – the term he adopts is “hollowing out” – where political parties and populations have disconnected from each other (unconsciously uncoupled perhaps) leaving the former the insular preserve of professionals lacking legitimacy and direction. The result is Trump and Brexit. He then identifies immigration as a potential equivalent issue to Brexit for a populist political movement in Australia and goes on to link this to the geopolitical tension that Australia currently faces in its security ties to America and its economic ties to China. He does not have a solution to this – except perhaps for heroic political leadership.
There’s a lot going on here and Roggeveen’s desire to link structural domestic issues to international concerns are to be commended because these kind of thoughtful discussions do not happen often enough. I want to begin where I agree with him and to identify where I think there are gaps in his account.
First of all, he is correct that political parties are no longer mass movements. While the parties still have the names that they adopted decades ago, they are fundamentally different beasts. Their professionalisation is well-established and the ensuing disconnection from their citizens is clear. He is also correct that the rapid cycling of Prime Ministers is a symptom of this malaise. I think he’s right that immigration is a clear potential populist flashpoint. N.B. As an immigrant myself, I am broadly in favour of immigration as a policy.
However, while politicians are held up for examination in Roggeveen’s account, the populace gets less attention. The brightlines of the 20th century struggle between labour and capital that shaped the Western political landscaped have grown faint but there is little discussion as to what has replaced them. UK political theorist David Runciman has identified a number of emerging yet neglected faultlines in Western society that are important here.
The first is education. The biggest predictor of a voter’s Brexit preference was whether they had a degree. In the space of 70 years, we have gone from a tiny fraction of the population going to university and getting a degree to nearly half. This split between the degreed and the non-degreed has cut across traditional party lines but educational attainment is linked to a set of attitudes. Nearly all politicians come from the degreed class. However the degreed are a minority in most (all?) polities.
The second is age. The old were overwhelmingly in favour of Brexit, the young overwhelmingly against. Western societies are aging. The average age in Indonesia is 28 years old. In Australia, it’s 37 (which is still sprightly compared to Japan’s 47). The old are now electorally powerful in ways they have not been previously and their interests and attitudes are different to the young.
Capital vs labour has not gone away – inequality in Australia bottomed out in the early 70s and has been growing since then – but it will be refracted through these other identities and interests. The rich pageant of minor Australian political parties that inflate senate ballot papers probably already contain parties for the young or the degreed (and vice versa). However I don’t think these faultlines will translate directly into political alignments. Instead astute political opportunists will find ways of mobilising these groups. While overall, Australian society may be getting more “liberal”, the social reality is lumpier than that.
So what to do? I don’t have any answers. Nicholas Gruen suggests deliberative democracy and citizen juries as a way of invigorating our democracy. I think these are worth a go but I am sceptical that they are enough. Runciman suggests extending the franchise to 6 year olds. US political philosopher Jason Brennan suggest introducing tests for voters (epistocracy). In short, no one really knows what to do.
All I know is that we cannot go back. Political parties are unlikely to return to their mass movement days. Institutional inertia means that they can continue for decades in their currently zombie state – going through the motions every three years. But they will face years of increasing uncertainty – decreasing primary vote shares, minor parties, hung parliaments. This is not an aberration. This is the new normal.
Perhaps the disturbing truth is that the public disinterest in politics has not been a bad thing – or rather, it a symptom of success. Australia is a moderately well-run country in the scheme of things. People turn their attention to other things. So a greater public interest in politics is more likely a sign of political and social failure than anything good.
If we are going to reform our polity, we must take advantage of the inevitable crises that will emerge. We cannot let them go to waste. Australia has avoided a recession for a generation. We’ll see what impact economic turbulence has on our polity (and our attitudes to immigration). We’ll need to try as many experiments as we can (which is why I still think citizen juries are worth a go)