Democracy
We do not need Fiscal Rules to rool ok?
I agree with Wayne Godley – almost 19 years ago. And in 2024 so does NEF about the European ones: When we know that money is a man made commodity that governments create in order to get stuff done, it is desperately sad that we have allowed finance and their bankers – both commercial and... Read more
Stephanie Kelton on the economy
This YouTube video by the Belgian economist, Joeri Schasfoort, which was conducted in February 2024 at the Warwick Economic Summit held at Warwick University, is really excellent. It forms part of of a series of discussions labelled Money & Macro Talks. He correctly calls the episode with Stephanie Kelton an in-depth discussion. The interview technique... Read more
The Neoliberal West is doomed – by its bankers
This is a good thread from Stephanie Kelton of Modern Money fame where she indicates how China understands money and uses it appropriately on the state’s behalf. Drawing on an old Bloomberg article, she says: “[O]ld-fashioned financial thinking [says] that the government should aim to balance its budget, but in reality China is already transitioning... Read more
Mr Cummings is, in this instance, correct
He is quoted in this interesting article in the New Yorker, which outlines the long-term effects of austerity which are still, as we know, playing out. The article continues: By contrast, Cummings sees the two cautious, hedging leaders in charge of Britain’s main political parties—and the relief among some centrists that the candidates are not... Read more
Today’s capitalism means that psychopaths rule
I’m increasingly of the view that this is correct – and that is why I really thought that this was no more than the truth: All of this quote is, it seems to me, spot on from this American game programmer… A major problem is that the Lionel Robbins idea of economics which is seen... Read more
The ‘cost’ of chaos…
…is certainly not financial… This Labour created campaigning website is deeply unimpressive. Using it would make campaigning for Labour more difficult. Labour are following the Thatcher lie that government has no money – it’s all taxpayers money.Well if it’s taxpayers’ money why on earth has the government got it? The 2008 financial crisis and Covid... Read more
‘Trump’s Second Presidential Run and the Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse Have a Lot In Common’
Many of us will have seen the horrifying footage of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore harbour last week, after a huge container ship, the Dali, rammed into one of its supporting pillars, apparently after losing power on board.
One of the most shocking aspects of the disaster, in which six construction workers lost their lives, was how quickly most of the bridge fell, even though only one element of the structure suffered a direct impact. It was a reminder that even the sturdiest-looking construction has its weak points.
The disaster was a perfect metaphor for the kind of crisis we may be facing in Europe if Donald Trump is re-elected as US President in November.
He is the large container ship threatening to ram into the foundation of European security established after the Second World War – the NATO alliance. Trump was reportedly only narrowly dissuaded from pulling out of NATO during his first term in office. During the current presidential campaign, he has again hinted at his unhappiness with the organisation – and raised doubts about whether he would be willing to come to the defence of those members who, in his view, do not contribute enough to its funding.
President Donald Trump with Vladimir Putin at the 2019 G20 Japan Summit. Photo: Shealah Craighead/UPI
Recognising the danger a second Trump presidency may present to NATO, the usually divided US Congress came together in late 2023 to pass legislation preventing any president from withdrawing the United States from NATO without the approval of the Senate or an Act of Congress.
But the damage may already have been done.
Trump does not actually need to withdraw the US from NATO to cause it fundamental harm. Through his words alone, he has already weakened the alliance by undermining its very cornerstone – the notion that an attack on one is an attack on all – represented by the Article V commitment that all members will come to the aid of any country which is under attack.
NATO, which depends on the US for most of its funding and the vast majority of its military capability, is nothing without US leadership.
Perhaps Trump does not mean it in practice. Perhaps, faced with a real invasion of a NATO member, Trump will command the US military into action. But perhaps not.
In this uncertain environment, Vladimir Putin might be tempted to test the limits, not just by doubling-down on his aggression against Ukraine and neighbouring states such as Georgia and Moldova, but even by moving against a vulnerable NATO member such as one of the Baltic countries. Would Trump come to the aid of Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia? I’d like to believe so, especially since NATO has deliberately stationed multinational forces in each country, as well as Poland, to act as a tripwire. But I am no longer so sure – and it is precisely this element of doubt which creates risk.
Perhaps an even stronger metaphor arising from the bridge disaster concerns the vulnerability of Western democracies to critical collapse. Speaking about why the bridge fell down, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that “a bridge like this one, completed in the 1970s, was simply not made to withstand a direct impact on a critical support pier from a vessel that weighs about 200 million pounds – orders of magnitude bigger than cargo ships that were in service in that region at the time that the bridge was first built”.
By the same token, most Western democratic systems were designed in a different era and may not forever be able to withstand today’s assaults upon them – whether by hostile foreign actors seeking to sow chaos through spreading misinformation or buying influence through corrupt means, or by homegrown populist leaders, stoking up divisive cultural wars, or undermining vital institutions, such as an independent judiciary, strong media, and neutral civil service, for their own nefarious ends.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in 2021. Photo: Jeffrey Kahan/Alamy
Ultimately, democracy, like the NATO alliance, relies upon trust – in NATO’s case, that every member will uphold its commitment to come to each other’s rescue in their moment of need; in democracy’s case, that leaders will not exploit loopholes in their systems, but always act with integrity, and adhere not just to the letter of the law, but its spirit also.
Public trust is eroded, and our entire democratic system weakened, when any one party or faction starts to chip away at those unwritten norms and values.
Engineers are already discussing how to rebuild the Francis Scott Key bridge so that if one part of it ever again suffers major damage, it will not trigger the collapse of its entire span. They call this “building redundancy” – the practice of adding back-up systems or components to ensure that a system or structure can continue to operate in the event of a failure. This will also include installing stronger barriers around each pillar to buffer ships (called 'dolphins’) away from ramming into them in the first place.
We need to do the same both for NATO and our democracies.
NATO needs to build more redundancy into its system, with every member state increasing their own military capabilities and military contributions to the alliance so that it is not so dependent on America.
Western democracies need to build redundancy by building more guardrails into their systems, including through tightening their financial controls, making stronger efforts to combat disinformation and the misuse of artificial intelligence, protecting free speech and civic activism, and shoring up the independence of the media, judiciary, and civil service.
In the UK’s case, we also need to install our own version of dolphins – by adopting a written constitution, with much stronger guidelines on ethical behaviour in office, and stronger penalties for transgressions, as a way to deter such violations in the first place.
Alexandra Hall writes an exclusive column, 'An Englishwoman Abroad’, for the monthly Byline Times print edition. Subscribe now
The Coalitions Presidents Make: Presidential Power and its Limits in Democratic Indonesia – review
Marcus Mietzner‘s The Coalitions Presidents Make examines Indonesia’s political transition, focusing on power-sharing arrangements and their impact on democratic reforms post-2004. Drawing on extensive qualitative data, Mietzner both sheds light on Indonesia’s particular case and reflects more broadly on coalition politics in emerging democracies, writes Yen Nie Yong. This post was originally published on the LSE Southeast Asia Blog.
The Coalitions Presidents Make is a welcome contribution to the analysis of the processes of political change in the emerging economies of East Asia and Southeast Asia, especially in light of Indonesia’s recent parliamentary and presidential elections.
Post-Suharto Indonesia is often portrayed as an era that ushered in the birth of a new presidential democracy in the country. However, the transition from a decades-old strongman regime – specifically one that bookmarks the turbulent period of postcolonial social and economic development and Suharto’s fall – was messy and remains incomplete. It is from this incompleteness that Mietzner began his comprehensive study on the coalition presidentialism of Indonesia from the year 2004 to its current state.
Mietzner utilis[es] data from over 100 qualitative interviews with not only the former and current presidents of Indonesia, but also various actors who are directly and indirectly involved in the process of coalition-building.
This monograph is aimed at readers familiar with the literature of coalition presidentialism within the field of Political Science and Indonesian Studies. However, as a researcher who primarily focuses on Malaysian companies in the postcolonial era, I found this book to be a page-turner, largely due to Mietzner’s adept narrative-building skills throughout the book. This is hardly surprising, as Mietzner offers details gleaned from more than two decades of observing the country’s democratic transition from a close-up view. Mietzner’s approach is also ethnographic, by utilising data from over 100 qualitative interviews with not only the former and current presidents of Indonesia, but also various actors who are directly and indirectly involved in the process of coalition-building. The amount of qualitative data accumulated is commendable, as access to the presidents’ inner circle generally requires years of effort in relationship-building, as well as the researcher’s discernment in knowing the difference between the true internal workings and smokescreens of Indonesia’s politics.
How have Indonesia’s presidents post-2004 managed to survive the perils of presidentialism, and what is the price for it?
Mietzner’s key research questions are fascinating – how have Indonesia’s presidents post-2004 managed to survive the perils of presidentialism, and what is the price for it? Indonesia, he argues, achieved more success in transitioning from an unstable presidential regime in the early post-Suharto period into a democracy that is among the world’s most resilient. This is mainly because of the informal coalitions with non-party actors who enjoy or covet political privileges such as the military, the police, oligarchs and religious groups. These actors require as much courting and co-opting as political parties and legislators, a key finding which current studies have ignored or downplayed. In each chapter, Mietzner explains the collective power of a political actor, and utilises a case study to link the phenomenon with his analysis, which I found to be compelling and clear. The locked-in stability created by the broad coalitions under Yudhoyono’s and Widodo’s presidency, nevertheless, had dire consequences in terms of stagnating reforms and democratic decline. Mietzner argues that Indonesia is a prime example of this phenomenon and ought to be a valuable lesson to be studied by those interested in presidential democracies globally.
Through reading this book, my impression is that the power-sharing arrangements between the president and his diverse coalition partners are akin to a prisoner’s dilemma. Mietzner argues that the incumbent president and his predecessor opted for this particular kind of accommodation because of perceived and imagined fears of what might happen to them if they were to choose the path of taking down these coalition partners. The coalition partners also appear to have taken a similarly defensive stance, thus perpetuating existing political arrangements among the actors at the expense of democratic reforms. This, Mietzner explains, is grounded in history, as both sides remain committed to upholding the image of the Indonesian presidency as the key provider of political stability. Many of the politicians and coalition partners lived through the Suharto years and learned how to “do politics” during that era, thus internalizing the appeal of working with presidents in power rather than working to overthrow them.
One element which Mietzner could have expanded upon in the book is how […] historical pathways have impacted on the current accommodation style between the president and non-party actors.
One element which Mietzner could have expanded upon in the book is how these historical pathways have impacted on the current accommodation style between the president and non-party actors. The relationship between the president and the oligarchs is particularly instructive in this regard, as Mietzner shows that in post-2004 coalitions, the oligarchs’ participation in coalition politics became “more direct, formal and institutionalized” (194). What happened during the transition years post-1998 that had enabled the oligarchs such access which was not available to them before? This context can help clarify if the pre-1998 accommodation between the president and capitalists were thoroughly dismantled, and if so, led to expansion of coalitions to other non-party actors after 2004. As history has shown, past strongman leaders in Asia (especially those who fought against colonialism) do not fade easily. The nostalgia for Suharto’s rule was also highlighted by the media during the 2014 presidential elections, elucidating how historical baggage constrains presidents from embarking on meaningful political reforms in this country.
The Indonesian case is an ideal one to expand conceptual boundaries in comparative studies of coalition presidentialism.
Does the specific context of Indonesia’s coalition presidentialism make this case an outlier and thus inapplicable to other democracies? Mietzner emphasises that the Indonesian case is an ideal one to expand conceptual boundaries in comparative studies of coalition presidentialism. As the bulwark of democracy in Southeast Asia, perhaps Indonesia may offer valuable insights beyond coalition presidentialism. As a novice reader on the conceptual theories of coalition presidentialism, I am also curious about whether this can also be relevant to other democracies in Southeast Asia, especially in the context of their shared postcoloniality. After all, the multiplicity of non-party actors in Indonesia’s context should also be situated in the diverse cultural identities of these actors and the postcolonial unsettledness of the nation’s identity. In his proclamation of Independence in 1945, Sukarno had famously used the acronym “d.l.l., or etc. in the Bahasa, which author and former journalist Elizabeth Pisani highlighted in her book Indonesia Etc: Exploring the Improbable Nation.
In Mietzner’s concluding chapter, he writes, “the more pressing challenge is to explore how coalitional presidentialism can work without sucking the oxygen out of democratic societies (245).” This is a conspicuous issue confronting not only Indonesia, but also its neighbouring democracies in the region. The revolving door of party and non-party actors in Indonesia highlights the precarious nature of the development of civil society in Southeast Asia. One can also see the parallels drawn in Malaysia’s coalition party politics, its longstanding stability, and the inclusion and exclusion of civic groups that have undermined the nation’s political progress for decades.
In this sense, Mietzner’s analysis of Indonesia’s coalition presidentialism is highly relevant for future research, as it presses upon researchers the important message to continue to investigate the undercurrents of other young, evolving and often fragile democracies in recent years.
Note: This book review is published by the LSE Southeast Asia blog and LSE Review of Books blog as part of a collaborative series focusing on timely and important social science books from and about Southeast Asia.
The review gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image: Joko Widodo, the President of Indonesia
Image credit: Ardikta on Shutterstock.
Graham cuts Community section out of top Unite representation
Rule change pushed by general secretary means members of Unite’s groundbreaking section for unemployed people and voluntary section can no longer sit on ‘highest committees’
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has been heavily criticised for her bizarre letter to all the union’s staff last month, attempting to undermine a number of criticisms that have been levelled at her and her management of the union. The letter was described by union insiders as ‘unhinged’ and a ‘rant’ – and it backfired heavily.
As Skwawkbox has already covered, Graham told recipients that the union under her will always prioritise jobs in the weapons industry above the fight to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Her letter also claimed that an unfavourable interim financial report had been faked wholesale and that the forger had gone to the extent of copying the font and layout of actual reports to fool members. The union did not respond to an enquiry whether it stood by the claim despite the screenshots of the report appearing to show that it was found on the union’s official ‘Sharepoint’ network. The letter also claimed the union’s financial value was ‘pushing up towards half a billion pounds’ – but insiders say that the value was already around half a billion when she took over two and a half years ago.
Graham also used the letter to attack the membership figures published by the union’s previous management – compared to which she has been accused of losing members – as ‘phony’. Yet insiders also say that the person responsible for compiling and reporting those figures to the management in those days was… Sharon Graham, then Unite’s head of organising.
And the letter also flags a major attack by the union’s management on Unite’s unique ‘Community’ section, the first attempt to bring in unemployed people, disabled people, voluntary and other unwaged workers into the union movement.
Unite Community, around 20,000 strong, has played a vital role in the union’s industrial actions, as members have often had the flexibility to be able to support striking workers by participating in pickets that many others could not get to. Unite Community members have also tended to be among the most politicised and radical – a tendency that puts them at odds with a general secretary who insists that Unite should not be ‘political’ and who has been accused of ever-increasing cosiness with ‘red Tory’ Keir Starmer.
And members have long feared that Ms Graham does not want the section as part of the ‘workplace only’ union she said she was going to create. She reportedly denied this during her election campaign and shortly after – but a section of her letter to organisers, staff and officers contained news of a major attack on the status of Unite Community within the union and the opportunity for its members to have a meaningful voice in Unite’s decisions.
Graham wrote:
Following the Rules Conference, only people who are elected representatives of workers from within a workplace(s) will be eligible to sit on our highest committees. This will ensure that decisions being taken are decisions that workplace representatives want the Union to take. This will be communicated in the coming weeks.
At a stroke, Unite Community members have been ruled out of standing for senior positions in Unite, depriving them – and the millions they represent – of a real say in Unite’s decisions and policies.
Sharon Graham seemed to be trying to put out fires through her bizarre and self-justifying letter. But she seems instead to have stoked them higher and lit new ones.
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Where is growth – never mind productivity?
This seems to be Labour’s mantra. Yet in fact, for us on the planet, growth is likely to be a death sentence. So that bodes ill unless and until you consider that economic activity comes from innovation that actually uses less resources – but is that ‘growth’? I’m genuinely unsure but I do find it... Read more