By: Jonathan Kay

The striking difference between democracy—although it acts as a minus malum—and various other political systems, is public participation. In procedural, electoral, and ideational settings, citizen participation is necessary. Therefore, the process is also relatively transparent and free from any sort of corruption, collusion, or nepotism frills. Democracy requires a large audience of people—making it distinct from top-down systems.

The demos, or the general public without distinction or exclusion, must be actively engaged, as public participation is the cornerstone of implementing true democracy. However, with the regression caused by private interests, the meaning of public interest becomes corrupted. The consequence is the erosion of the framework and thinking of participatory democracy. As Machiavelli stated in Discourses, the people or citizens must be directly involved in the body politic to guarantee their interests through institutional arrangements where they discuss and make decisions.

However, the extreme phenomena of justifying all means to accommodate the livelihood of dynastic politics in the contemporaries lead to a concentration of power resulting in monolithic politics, bringing us to collective anxiety regarding the placement of the res publica system, a foundation for multiple countries. The implications of state thematic elections require state administrators to put aside personal interests, also known as res privata, because anything related to private affairs in the political system threatens public interest. In short, the corruptive tendency of actors abusing public interest for their private interests can cause the quality of democracy to decline significantly.

Democracy also poses a practice of meritocracy. Michael Young defines the concept of meritocracy as a competitive forum that accepts inequality of income, welfare, and social position by considering talent, achievement, competence, motivation and effort. In short, meritocracy refers to a system that provides broad, egalitarian, and equal opportunities. This system rejects all forms of patronage, nepotism, corruption and incompetence when entering the realm of public and civil service. Within the framework of classical political thought, two terms regarding the civic element in politics always come to the fore. These two things are isonomia and isegoria. The first refers to the rights of every citizen involved in the political process, while the second is proactive in speaking out about important state issues.

When placed in cases Indonesia, the Philippines, Gabon, etc, it poses a threat to the democratic spirit because of the concentration of power in today’s government system. Disruption of democratisation is taking place, because the ruler’s actions in accruing power in his hands reduce or cancel the principle of equality. The dynasty was built due to the ‘approval’ of the previous ruler to advance a candidate for leader, of course, using privileges such as changing constitutional rules and lobbying. Opportunities that should be open to everyone are changed to those few who have a precedent for leadership.

The implications of this unilateral action could endanger the existence of democracy. In a broad sense, dynasties follow a monarchical mindset. The rulers perpetuate personal interests and trample the merit principle and constitutional law just to be in power. No doubt, all of this can lead to kakistocracy – a situation where the government is led by an incompetent ruler. When the meritocracy system is ‘cut’, competence, regulations, and public interest are no longer taken into account. These countries have had enough of the bitter experience of this system for decades.

From various data and statistics, we can conclude that today, the tendency of several countries towards dynastic politics is accompanied by the egoism of power. Concerning post-authoritarian democracy, the problem of breaking through the rules of the game for personal interests is a barrier to democracy according to Thomas Meyer. For Meyer, ongoing democratization requires rejecting more particular personal interests or res privata because they conflict with constitutive principles. He departed from John Rawls’ thesis which stated that the common good must emphasize the principle of self-respect and be the most important aspect for the continuity of community life. In other words, equality in terms of citizenship, such as supporting universal basic rights (civil, political, social, economic and cultural) must always be taken into account.

As a closing and conclusion, the shift in today’s political discourse within a democratic framework is felt. In the form of cronyism, there are strong tendencies that can undermine the process of democratization. At the same time, this situation is caused directly by or by the absence of a democratic mechanism that is controlled through legal mechanisms, where people can voice their own aspirations, and where the importance is placed in the public interest being elevated in the agenda of power. These particular symptoms align with the main argument of Fareed Zakaria’s Rise of Illiberal Democracy. He depicts a condition where illiberal democratic countries  cultivate legitimacy and power in democratic ways leading to a phantomized liberalist democracy. The consequences are rather clear because, aside from discrediting the values of accountability, it betrays the demos.

References

 Robertus Robet, Republikanisme Dan Keindonesiaan (Marjin Kiri, 2007)

McCormick, J. P. (n.d.). Republicanism and Democracy. Machiavellian Democracy, 141–169. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511975325.008

Robertus Robet, Republikanisme Dan Keindonesiaan (Marjin Kiri, 2007)

Young, M. (2008). The rise of the meritocracy (11th ed.). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

Poocharoen, O., & Brillantes, A. (2013). Meritocracy in Asia Pacific. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 33(2), 140–163. doi:10.1177/0734371×13484829.

Nadia Urbinati. (2011). Republicanism: The Good Society, 20(2), 157. doi:10.5325/goodsociety.20.2.0157

Thomas Meyer and Lewis P. Hinchman, The Future of Social Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 2007).

Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Foreign Affairs, September 14, 2022, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/rise-illiberal-democracy.