I am increasingly convinced that comparative politics (including especially me) has fundamentally misunderstood contemporary democratic backsliding. We are attending to elections and the rule of law, when the politics is more fundamental, about a vision for the state and society within it 1/x - ThreadSky

tompepinsky.com • 165 days ago

I am increasingly convinced that comparative politics (including especially me) has fundamentally misunderstood contemporary democratic backsliding. We are attending to elections and the rule of law, when the politics is more fundamental, about a vision for the state and society within it 1/x

Comments

lmorgenbesser.bsky.social•165 days ago

A few of the “lost works” on democratic backsliding anaylsed it this way Tom. The field just forgot it (or never read it)

https://61eb8c0a-6652-49a6-902e-3063f76b517e.filesusr.com/ugd/ca20d0_62e57316ef5741e7b510b44de9ee31b0.pdf

tompepinsky.com•165 days ago

If you need me, you can find me buried in Stepan’s discussion of organic-statism

timfrye.bsky.social•165 days ago

By the way, Al really liked this work and thought that it was much underappreciated. Will go back to it too.

bdtaylor-su.bsky.social•165 days ago

Sign of the times - at first I read that as "artificial intelligence" and couldn't figure out what you meant. Took me a second to get to "Al [Stepan] really liked this work"

tibbetts.bsky.social•165 days ago

Same, and I was like “ooh, which AI tool is doing good book recommendations?!”

heliocentric.bsky.social•165 days ago

Serif fonts ain’t getting the love and respect they deserve these days.

jayulfelder.bsky.social•165 days ago

Folks on the (actual, not Democratic Party) left have been screaming this point at the top of their lungs all year, if not the past 8 years, if not forever. And, mostly, they've gotten ignored, or patronizingly dismissed, or even verbally bullied for it.

jayulfelder.bsky.social•165 days ago

I think American political scientists badly underestimate how much of what we study and consider canonical reflects the prevailing political culture we inhabit, and this is a place where that parochial view has really hurt us.

tompepinsky.com•165 days ago

recently written sentence which may be of interest

thefool37.bsky.social•165 days ago

Does not come up in a Google search. What is that from?

wndlb.bsky.social•164 days ago

For you all: you need to get out more, like this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/13/business/rumble-trump-bongino-kirk.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

darinself.com•165 days ago

This reminds me of a critiques I got saying "illiberalism" isn't a real thing

dhnexon.bsky.social•165 days ago

Coming soon to Foreign Affairs, but with a lot of analytical material cut.

dhnexon.bsky.social•165 days ago

The common theme is legal-rationality and that’s why the neo-patrimonialism argument is important.

cakeandconflict.bsky.social•165 days ago

Please excuse my ignorance but have you published an "uncut" version elsewhere?

metasilk.bsky.social•165 days ago

For those of us who have trouble reading words on images like this, could you provide alt- text next time? Thanks.

juanjimenez.bsky.social•165 days ago

The common use of the democracy /non democracy distinction as the distinction (as if how close to current representative democratic institutions is the only politically relevant distinction) is noteworthy to me. Political science is too normative for my sociologists tastes.

tahoeboulder.bsky.social•165 days ago

Yes, my social scientist brain and training is loving this thread.

janetdonavan.bsky.social•165 days ago

As Americanist who dabbles in theory, it seems part of it is about truth. People reject science bc they feel it failed in Covid, reject economics bc the data doesn’t match their experiences, reject political equality bc they don’t feel equal. And so they reject politicians who refer to those things

ivynyx.bsky.social•165 days ago

This sucks because it's disinformation and co-opting.

Science was overridden when it came to covid - vaccines and masks were hugely effective, but made optional! All half-measures instead of adherence to science.

Economists can explain what's going on, but they're ignored in favor of tax cuts, etc

ivynyx.bsky.social•165 days ago

This is a particular hobby-horse of mine, because I earned an economics degree, and people misuse economic terms to criminal extents!

We know how to stimulate the economy, how direct cash infusion to poor people works, how taxation creates more equality, etc. Economists are ignored!

shandlin.bsky.social•165 days ago

Great thread.

I would add that political coalitions behind backsliding are usually diverse, with individuals and groups possessing many different kinds of motivations for moving off the liberal democratic status quo. Its like a Rorschach test, and political scientists want to see certain things.

profjslewis.bsky.social•165 days ago

YES! I agree - a focus on the institutions and readily observable aspects of democracies has overlooked comparative democratic norms and how they have changed.

I also think one of the challenges we have is one of imagination: we think others see the world how we do. Most do not.

saultobias.bsky.social•164 days ago

Great thread. Something I think about is the different relation of elites and non-elites to backsliding. There are high-information elites with a range of personal or ideological interests in undermining democratic norms and institutions (Applebaum's Twilight of Democracy is good on this)...1/3

saultobias.bsky.social•164 days ago

And there are lower information non-elites who may not think democracy is threatened, because taken for granted, or may mispercieve where threats come from. Exit polls shows most Americans saw democracy as threatened, but that view was equally shared by Trump voters. 2/3

saultobias.bsky.social•164 days ago

So maybe it's partly about anti-democratic elites exploiting the authoritarian tendencies of some voters (see Karen Stenner on this) and manipulating the democratic commitments of others. 3/3

snedzamd.bsky.social•165 days ago

I recall that a wise sociology professor taught us that politics is about the relationships in a “polis” or community. It is not just about a system of governance.

cityatlas.bsky.social•165 days ago

📌

cityatlas.bsky.social•165 days ago

What if it's explained repeatedly, but the people to whom it's explained to prefer not to listen, and/or are powerless to act within conventional bounds?
From 2008:
https://www.npr.org/2008/09/25/95013900/wall-st-moral-rot-spreading-to-politics-main-st

cityatlas.bsky.social•165 days ago

From 400 BC or so
https://bsky.app/profile/cityatlas.bsky.social/post/3l7dqiz5bbf2g

welshrarebit.bsky.social•165 days ago

Look at the role of the churches maybe (?). Many MAGA thought leaders are Catholic, and there’s an ancient tradition of Catholic anti-liberalism. But the convergence between Catholics and Evangelicals is pretty extraordinary.

edgarallandoh.bsky.social•165 days ago

rebekahtromble.bsky.social•164 days ago

📌

sameyler.bsky.social•164 days ago

Great thread Tom!

drtoddlandman.bsky.social•164 days ago

For me, democratic institutions are an inconvenient constraint on those who want to govern through charismatic leadership. If institutions do not impede this kind of governance, they are retained. If they do impede, then they are targets to be dismantled.

saultobias.bsky.social•164 days ago

Time to revisit our Weber.

drtoddlandman.bsky.social•164 days ago

Indeed...the clash between charismatic and legal-rational authority :-)

altiam.bsky.social•164 days ago

Rethinking democracy's core—vision is key!

tompepinsky.com•165 days ago

It's hard to see because the backsliders' ideologies of state and society are a mess, often self-contradictory and superficial. But, at root, they simply do not agree that the law is a mechanism to establish common rights and obligations for all citizens under representative government 2/x

gm0rk.bsky.social•165 days ago

bagatsen.bsky.social•165 days ago

And here's the original comment for citation purposes, because social science.

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

bagatsen.bsky.social•165 days ago

NB: The comment is from Frank Wilhoit the composer, not Frank Wilhoit the political scientist.

tahoeboulder.bsky.social•165 days ago

A whole big component of my social policy class this semester was about beliefs/values about the social contract.

tompepinsky.com•165 days ago

If you truly believe that humans are not borne equal, then you would not construct a state that guarantees that. If you truly believe that nations have essences and spirits, then any state structure that inhibits their expression must be torn down 3/x

sumitapahwa.bsky.social•164 days ago

One thing we do know from CP, though, is that the state and political orders we have were founded through contingent processes of political struggle, rather than as expressions of norms - they may survive because they socialize us in certain values, or serve enough ppl well, but that's post facto.

tompepinsky.com•164 days ago

Hence my description of undergrad "Intro to Compararive Politics," which I teach this spring, as The World's Civics Class

sumitapahwa.bsky.social•164 days ago

I'm also going back more to political anthro - Ted Llewellen, Joan Vincent etc.

energetic-nova.bsky.social•165 days ago

I dont think i was born equal. There is no guarantee and i learned that over time. I dont think its possible to get. And i would have settled for just being cared for in absence of equality.

energetic-nova.bsky.social•165 days ago

I have questioned a lot of people. I dont know what a comparativist is. And of the theory stuff i read, i never felt considered.

tompepinsky.com•165 days ago

Comparativists like me need to read more social theory. What sorts of political forces ARE these? The value of elections and laws is derived from some theory of the state and society. The backsliders' theories aren't liberal democratic ones -- but what they represent is the open question 4/4

stevenpmillies.com•165 days ago

You've captured the book I've set about to writing as a political theorist since Nov 5.

wndlb.bsky.social•164 days ago

Or you could just listen to more right wing talk radio/podcasts. I heard Uncle Rushbo call for a period of extraconstitutional rule in like 2014, to set things right after Obama's "transformation."

noncynic.bsky.social•165 days ago

"If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power. "

- Dwight D. Eisenhower, July 12, 1945

mzlopate.bsky.social•165 days ago

"right" and "moral" are politically contested terms. I'm sure the majority of all political parties believe their cause is right and moral.

nathrach.bsky.social•165 days ago

Sure

Not an argument for rejecting the concepts of right and moral.

It is an argument for proper examination of what one believes is right and moral.

tahoeboulder.bsky.social•165 days ago

This is all important. And I agree about reading more social theory (says the social scientist). Politicians can't make people care about the same policy issues when there fundamental value differences in people's lives.

sanjayruparelia.bsky.social•164 days ago

Interesting reflection, Tom. The wide focus on ethnonationalism, reshaping state and society, partly answers your question? But worth probing more - and always reading more widely, I agree. The recent turn against backsliding as a phenom, on grounds that power changes hands, seems to miss all this.

thefool37.bsky.social•165 days ago

I must be missing the point. Isn't the answer a pretty straightforward one that the backsliders' theories are regime theories of autocracy AKA authoritarianism, which are illiberal and anti-democratic? At least to the extent their thought is coherent at all?

holgerkiik.bsky.social•165 days ago

"The value of elections and laws is derived from some theory of the state and society." nails it
My similar take in philosophical jargon is that its about political epistemology assuming strong political truths and pol. ontology excluding some from consideration.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2474736X.2024.2385475

holgerkiik.bsky.social•165 days ago

Thus if there's uncontroversial political truth, then institutions, checks and balances etc. become tools or obstacles.
View shared by populists wishing to "give power back to the *true people" and elitists wishing to "let the educated decide what is best", and I contend both are anti-democratic.

profterrig.bsky.social•165 days ago

YES! We need more theory in general. I’m actually planning to do a workshop between comparativists and political theorists to look at broad issues of racism and its intersections with immigration and indigeneity. We need to inject more grand theory into our understanding of political outcomes.

tompepinsky.com•165 days ago

This is great. I am keenly interested in these issues fwiw, and how to think about ethnicity and nativity in contexts that are essentially and fundamentally diasporic (ie. the Malay world)

jacobtlevy.bsky.social•165 days ago

I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

https://www.mcgill.ca/rgcs/ptps

profjslewis.bsky.social•165 days ago

It's funny: every other year, at the end of my "Death of Democracy" course, I teach Brennan's "Against Democracy" and have students write commentary on it.

I just realized that you are a back-jacket blurber for the book!

BTW, students used to disagree strongly. Now, it's much more mixed.

jnovkov.bsky.social•165 days ago

Attending to cultural forces and rhetoric helps, I think. As does recognizing that constitutions, although built as prospective documents, necessarily respond to the crises of the immediate past.

jnovkov.bsky.social•165 days ago

They are thus not well tooled to address situations when rule of law runs out and policymakers are willing to violate norms.

juliaazari.bsky.social•165 days ago

it's interesting to see this introspection from a comparative perspective since Americanists did some of this 8 years ago (effect unclear). this was my diagnosis at the time: "The regularity of what we observe can conceal the volatility of what we do not observe."
https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-of-faction/2016/11/18/13667618/politics-of-shock

filipecampante.bsky.social•164 days ago

I love the idea of “the volatility of what we do not observe”. A lot of the volatility is happening off the equilibrium path, so to speak, as scenarios that were once unthinkable enter the realm of the possible.

filipecampante.bsky.social•164 days ago

There is less volatility in what we observe, but that’s bc people respond to the off-the-equilibrium threats in ways that reduce that volatility. Why would the Trump administration revoke any broadcast licenses (such as they are), if ABC is already settling an absurd lawsuit?

johngordon.bsky.social•165 days ago

2016: “The causes of last week’s election result are likely not very profound: incumbency, partisanship, and an electorate with some reservations about the Democratic candidate”

Do you still think that?

juliaazari.bsky.social•165 days ago

yes, and i think that of 2024 too. unprofound causes. profound consequences.

juliaazari.bsky.social•165 days ago

(with a heavy side dose of, "look at me, I am literary" - well, I am who i am ;)). a lot of Americanists jumped on the bandwagon of "must read more comparative." not a bad thing but a lot of comparative frameworks at the time stressed institutions, an approach that I think is not sufficiently...

juliaazari.bsky.social•165 days ago

attentive to the US race context. which seems central to a more general phenomenon: how does power work in a society, how do people perceive it to work, and who gets to exploit the difference in those things?

purekimminess.bsky.social•164 days ago

A lot of junior comparativists are not heavy institutionalists. We use social theory a lot, we care less about ascribing to static frameworks. Rather, we care about the messiness of the landscape,how backsliding hides in a multitude of areas, &together offer a way to measure and evaluate backsliding

abovoadmala.bsky.social•165 days ago

It's not social theory but "the global patrimonial wave" is a great article about what sort of political forces are at work

abovoadmala.bsky.social•165 days ago

And outside of academia, John Ganz has nice formulations influenced by Adorno about how the model is effectively organized crime ("gangster gemeinschaft") - popularly viable because it provides some belonging while leaving cynicism intact

abovoadmala.bsky.social•165 days ago

Ganz also pays a lot of respect to Arendt and I am probably overdue to reread the parts about racism, anti-semitism, nationalism and the mob in Origins (so most of it)

masonrichey.bsky.social•165 days ago

This is Politics is Downstream of Culture 101

saragoodman.bsky.social•164 days ago

I feel like this is a very central pillar in citizenship studies. If you’re asking “who gets citizenship?” And “what rights convey with status?” you’re going to see very different answers based on social theory. Social rights (Marshall) or equitable access is not the end goal for all societies.

tompepinsky.com•164 days ago

Totally. These are the sorts of obvious questions that emerge when turn from the regime question to the state-society question. Lots to draw on here from literatures that have been thinking about that question for literally a century.

saragoodman.bsky.social•164 days ago

Yay! I did a thing correctly.

*brushes shoulder, cocky as shit*

lucastosborne.bsky.social•165 days ago

📌

trainingporpoises.bsky.social•164 days ago

📌

trainingporpoises.bsky.social•164 days ago

Unroll @skyview.social

jlynch13.bsky.social•164 days ago

Because I’m a Europeanist, I still find a lot of value in looking at the current moment through the lens of roughly 1848-1919. What were the ideological and political options on the table? 1/x

jlynch13.bsky.social•164 days ago

Organicism (both conservative and Christian Democratic takes), individualist liberalism, Marxism, social democracy. 2/x

jlynch13.bsky.social•164 days ago

They offered a range of ideas about the relationship between state and society, nation and society, and whether “society” was actually a thing. 3/x

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply