The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is a branch of The Economist Group, publishers of The Economist magazine. The EIU annually classifies countries into four categories: (1) full democracies, (2) flawed democracies, (3) hybrid regimes (governments containing both democratic and authoritarian elements), and (4) authoritarian regimes (2017, 64). While â49.3% of the worldâs population lives in a democracy âof some sort,â only 4.5% live in a âfull democracyâ â (Karlis 2018). In the Democracy Index for 2017, The Data Team for The Economist reported that âmore than half the countries in the latest update of a democratic-health index saw their scores declineâ (The Economist, 31 January 2018). The EIU 2016 Democracy Index had downgraded the US from a full to a flawed democracy. The 2017 Democracy Index continued with that designation, giving it the same score (7.98 out of 10.0) as Italy and placing it with France (7.80), Poland (6.67), and Hungary (6.64) among other countries. Germany (8.61) and the UK (8.53) are the only two full democracies discussed in this book.
The EIU defines full democracies as
Countries in which not only basic political freedoms and civil liberties are respected but which also tend to be underpinned by a political culture conducive to the flourishing of democracy. The functioning of government is satisfactory. Media are independent and diverse. There is an effective system of checks and balances. The judiciary is independent and judicial decisions are enforced. There are only limited problems in the functioning of democracies. (EIU 2017)
Flawed democracies
also have free and fair elections and, even if there are problems (such as infringements on media freedom), basic civil liberties are respected. However, there are significant weaknesses in other aspects of democracy, including problems in governance, an underdeveloped political culture and low levels of political participation. (EIU 2017)
The term âdemocracyâ is itself complicated by definitional problems.1 Consider the case of the US. Founded as a republic in 1783, with a constitution that assured basic human rights, one might argue that it developed into a full-fledged democracy only in 1920, when a constitutional amendment granted women the right to vote. Others might disagree, dating true democracy to 1965 when the new Voting Act freed African Americans from voting impediments. Still others might point out that basic human rights, though constitutionally guaranteed, remain contested to the present day. The EIU report states that the election of Donald Trump is not the necessary cause of this demotion to a flawed democracy, but that the lack of trust in the political structures of the US, and a lack of participation in the political process helped to create the conditions for the election of Trump (EIU 2017, 3).
European democracy is similarly complicated. Consider the case of the Netherlands. On 26 July 1581, it formed the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands as it asserted independence from Spain. Then, in 1848, it became a parliamentary democracy, while retaining its monarchy. Nevertheless, if one uses the criterion of universal suffrage, the Netherlands did not become a âtrueâ democracy until 1919, when it gave women the right to vote. Then, under Nazi occupation, it was victim of the Nazi dictatorship before reverting to a full democracy at warâs end. It currently holds 11th place in The Economistâs ranking as a âFull Democracyâ (Economist Intelligence Unit 2017, 22).
This Volume
This group of anthropologists working in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Hungary addresses cycles of support for nationalisms and populisms old and new, drawing on their own recent fieldwork and historical research. Attitudes toward the European Union (EU), economic nationalism , immigration and the acceptance of refugees, deindustrialization, and globalization are among the themes discussed in this volume. Six questions are addressed: (1) What motivates such support? (2) Is this support something new, or is a cyclical process at work? (3) If cyclical, can existing or new theoretical explanations be derived from the process? (4) Are these movements and their supporters increasingly becoming a threat to democracy? (5) Have effective countermeasures minimized such a threat? (6) How can the movements in Europe inform us about similar movements in the US?
The chapters are written with an eye to understanding how these movements can help the reader understand the rightward move in the US. The book therefore offers a unique perspective on the rise of populist movements in Europe and the US. For instance, in the case of France, ideas drawn from French intellectuals and nationalist and populist groups have contributed to policy formation in the US. In Germany, pre-World War II history has generally limited extreme right successes, and the parliamentary structure has allowed the surprising success of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to be ineffective at the national level. In the cases of Hungary and Poland, authoritarian leaders have received the admiration of political leaders and congressional members in the US. In the UK and Italy and elsewhere in Hungary and Poland, disgruntled voters are suspicious of an increasingly bureaucratic European Union and a globalizing economy that appears to strip citizens of autonomy and sovereignty. American voters have expressed similar distrust and unease. The authors make the case that in-depth and on-the-ground ethnographic fieldwork brings to the fore the lived experience of the people represented in this text, and helps us understand the commonalities, as well as differences, in these movements.
The support for populist movements has occurred even in well-established, formerly stable democracies. These movements are nothing new, and the source of these movements can in some cases, such as France, be found in royalist and anti-immigrant movements such as Action Française; others, such as Germany (Hermand 1992), trace their origins to sixteenth-century notions of a âTeutonicâ race. In contemporary Europe, we briefly discuss those elements of fascist movements throughout Europe and the US in the early decades of the twentieth century that have been carried forward to current right-wing extremist parties and groups in Europe and the US. We then outline the contributions of each chapter to the overall argument concerning the importance of understanding the cyclical nature of political movements, of structural elements that facilitate such movements, and the emotions that promote and sustain the energy of these movements both in Europe and in the US.
Our volume carries this discussion past the Brexit vote in 2016, and includes observations of strengthening nationalism and populist movements across Europe since the 2016â2017 elections in the US and in Europe. The book is the result of a session organized for the 2017 American Anthropological Association meeting in Washington, DC. The chosen theme for the meeting was âAnthropology Matters.â Drawn by a desire to use our own ethnographic skills to make sense of the 2016 elections in the US and the seemingly similar political movements in Europe, Patricia Heck and Katherine Donahue put out a call for papers for a session titled âCycles of Hatred and Rage: What Right-Wing Extremists in Europe and Their Parties Tell Us About the US.â All of the contributors to that session are represented here. Marysia H. Galbraith presented on her work on the Independence Day celebration in Poland, Patricia Heck on right-wing movements in Germany, Sinan Celiksu on the Northern League in Italy, Katherine Donahue on the creation of a party that broke away from the National Front in France, and Ana Carolina Balthazar on the Brexit movement in England. Roberto GonzĂĄlez and LĂĄszlĂł KĂźrti were the discussants. LĂĄszlĂł KĂźrti has now contributed a chapter on the dance-house movement in Hungary, and Thomas Wilson has provided a chapter on the reception of the Brexit movement in Northern Ireland. Roberto GonzĂĄlez has written the conclusion.
It must be noted that political developments in Europe and the US are fast moving and seemingly ever changing. Perhaps that has always been so, but the mid-term elections in the US in November 2018 and the European Parliamentary elections in May 2019 have and will create new alliances and political rearrangements. Our ethnographic research represents events on the ground and the lived experiences of people in Europe and in the US up until the fall of 2018. That said, the depth of research and the length of time that several contributors have spent in the field, in some cases close to 40 years of work, create a deep understanding of the transitions that occur in the lives of informants. Journalists do not have the opportunity to do such in-depth work, and political scientists tend to take a broader view of overall trends and cycles in political movements. The lives of individuals are often merged into an aggregate of movements. Ethnographic research brings to the fore the voices of people who are living through current events. An understanding of history coupled with the more current experiences of people brings to light the wide variety of reactions to current events.
Each of the countries represented here has its own unique history. The seeming common bond of membership in the European Union has produced strikingly different sentiments in its nation states. Populist movements in Poland and Hungary perceive the EU differently from the point of view taken by, for instance, movements in the UK and in France. Immigration and the desire to control and even stop it have been a theme common to these countries, but both the UK with its Brexit vote, and Les Patriotes, a new party that broke away from the French National Front, now Rassemblement National , have been clear in a desire to leave the European Union. Not so in Hungary and Poland where membership in the EU is perceived...