Lessons from the global electorate
By Gregory Fossedal
Copyright © United Press International
October 2, 2004
HANOVER, N.H. -- It's been called the year of the ballot. More than 2.5 billion voters go to the polls around the world this year to select national legislative or executive leadership, or both.
India, Spain, Indonesia, Russia, Canada, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Iran, Taiwan, and the Phillipines, to name some of the more strategic examples, have already voted -- with the United States, Australia, the Ukraine, Ghana, and Afghanistan to come.
All politics is local -- not
Even if all politics is local, as the saying goes, there may be analogies and lessons for political analysts in the United States and elsewhere from this wide variety of countries. And politics, with apologies to Tip O'Neill, is decidely not all local. Indeed, as democracy continues its surge into the 21st Century, all politics, increasingly, is becoming global.
Is there such a thing as the global electorate? Tenatively, yes -- especially in light of a related development, the rise of a global middle class.
In partisan terms, one saw a center-right surge in the 1980s, following the election of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and a center-left drift in Western Europe, Asia, and the U.S. in the 1990s. The spread of democracy itself seems to follow a regional pattern -- Europe in the 1940s, developing Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, Latin America in the 1980s, and Africa in the 1990s.
 Oft quoted, arguably wrong: Tip O'Neill, one of the great congressional leaders, believed to be the author of the aphorism, "all politics is local." The late Speaker of the House is seen here campaigning for Mike Dukakis in 1988. |
All of which suggests the utility of reviewing what might be called the year's early election results -- even as America enters the final weeks of campaign 2004.
1. Incumbentocracy
Compared to previous cycles, there's no visible incumbent or anti-incumbent trend. (Incumbents usually win, especially so in presidential systems, less so in parliamentary ones.)
President Bush can take hope from the fact that a number of incumbents regarded as relatively weak, or caught in close races, won in Taiwan, Venezuela (recall referendum), and the Philippines, while strong leaders and inbumbent parties with a growing economy won easily in Russia and South Africa.
John Kerry may prefer to think about incumbent defeats in Spain, Indonesia, and India. The first two had modest, and India enjoyed surging, economic growth -- yet the parties that were in, are now out. In India, despite an overall boom, the relatively poor performance of some of the country's "battleground states" allowed the Congress party to take back the government. Social issues, including incumbent party attacks on Sonia Gandhi that were seen as unduly harsh, also played a role.
2. Terrorism
In countries that suffered significant terrorist attacks since 9/11 -- Spain, Indonesia -- incumbents lost. But the Spanish government may have suffered as much from its efforts to mislead the public about the nature of the train attacks as from the attack itself. And in Indonesia, Ms. Megawati was replaced by a former military leader, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. (Security was not a major campaign issue either way.)
In the Philippines, Gloria Arroyo won re-election, thanks in part to her tough attitude towards both Islamic rebels and a number of former Filipino generals and political kingpins. Hers is a notable case of a strong Bush ally winning re-election. Almost no such ally (Blair in Britain, and leaders in Greece, Italy, and Australia) appears to have benefited from the association, and most are markedly weaker.
The global electorate does seem to prefer a tough stand against terror. It prefers such toughness be applied at home, however -- not to adventures abroad. Ms. Arroyo recently pulled the Philippines out of Iraq; Spain pulled out after its election, as Poland appears to be doing.
In Taiwan, on the other hand, Chen Shui-bian, a nationalistic leader who has pushed gently for independence -- in the face of growing threats and a rising missle buildup from the mainland -- won a narrow win early this year, and may expand his strength in parliament this December.
Of course, analogies from any of this to the U.S. equation can only be rough, given that Iraq was and is primarily a U.S. initiative. The global electorate's reticence, particularly when it goes into the voting booth, is partly based on the facts there, partly based on reservations about America. Results from Australia in the coming days -- where John Howard's party, one of Mr. Bush's strongest allies in Iraq, is up for re-election -- will be revealing.
The focus-on-the-homeland preference of voters should be good for Senator Kerry. The fact of no terror attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11, of course, is a plus for Mr. Bush.
(Paradoxically -- or maybe not, as one reads the headlines from Iraq, goes through an airport, or watches for the latest red-orange-blue alert -- Americans do not actually feel much safer today than they did in October of 2001. The challenge for Mr. Kerry is to get U.S. voters to make a connection, as voters in some countries did, between their unease, on the one hand, and the policies of the incumbent administration on the other.)
3. Social, religious issues
India and Taiwan have a number of social, racial, and religious tensions. When the incumbent party tried to play on these in India, Ms. Gandhi's Congress Party was the beneficiary. The same happened when Mr. Chen's opponents on Taiwan attempted to exploit the divisions between island natives and the Mainland diaspora that formed Taiwan's ruling party for many years.
This caveat about over-the-top rhetoric does not mean, however, that voters shy away from all efforts to set social and cultural limits on the policy level. Going back to 2001, voters in a number of countries chose explicitly religous parties despite fears that fundamentalist governments (Christian in the West, Islamic in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia) would rule with an iron hand.
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Global election |
As in the war on terror, perhaps, voters do not want rash efforts or radical rhetoric. Neither, however, are they entirely comfortable -- particularly outside of Western Europe -- with the secularization of society.
4. The economy, stupid
Traditionally, in the world at large and the U.S., pocketbook issues determine the fate of incumbent parties. In 2004, that link has been broken both ways. Economic growth is supposed to re-elect incumbents, but it failed to do so in Spain, Indonesia, and especially India.
It may well be that issues of security, and social-cultural values, have taken more prominence. But it is probably also true that around the world, left- and right- parties are not as far apart as they were 20 years ago. In India, the difference between Congress and the BJP amounted to a few percentage points in tax rates, or a difference in pace, but not direction, for further privatizations.
With growth seeming solid no matter which party won, voters in India were able to choose a "compassionate capitalism," if you will -- much as they felt safe choosing George Bush over Al Gore in 2000 at a time of economic boom. The global electorate seems inclined to ratify its own general preference of some check by social democrats on raw capitalism -- provided, of course, that growth doesn't suffer too much.
5. Post-election grousing
Grousing about election results themselves became a growth industry after the razor-close U.S. election of 2000, and threatens to raise its head again in America in 2004.
Yet post-election efforts to discredit the tallies has produced no major results in Russia, Kazakhastan, Taiwan, or Venezuela. The latter two are especially telling as the race it Taiwan was razor-close, and in Venezuela, the tone of politics is bitter, zero sum. The former two, Russia and Kazakhstan, attracted much post-election criticism internationally, but no serious person thinks that any errors or even outright cheating provided the margin of victory.
Admittedly, this analysis has a tautological element. How do we know voters are not being or feeling disenfranchised, as opposed to just grousing after a loss, when the election results themselves are a disputed thing?
One cannot be sure. Yet from public response to election results, and the lack of any truly widespread unrest even in close (Taiwan) or bitter (Venezuela) races, it would seem the danger of a 2000-style crisis repeating itself is small. As in the U.S. in 2000, post-election wrangling may generate headlines and raise angst, but wears thin quickly with the voters.
Voters around the world love to complain themselves -- particularly about the weak choices they are offered by the major parties, negative campaigning, and the frenzied focus on horse-race aspects by the press that robs much coverage of any substantive, issue-based content. In these matters, the electorate is truly achieving a globalized consciousness.
The remedy, of course, is also the same -- and available to every citizen in every true democracy. Read your newspapers and wire services; maybe even the party platforms. Watch the debates. Then get to the polls, and if you can't always do that, hurry up and obtain your absentee ballot now. Politicians will, if they're smart, be listening. All over the world.
Gregory Fossedal is a senior fellow at the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution and the author of "Direct Democracy in Switzerland" and "The Democratic Imperative." His opinions are entirely his own and not necessarily those of UPI or AdTI.