Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915349
Phillip Ayoub, Kristina Stoeckl
Abstract: This essay explores the troubling global pattern of illiberal governments weaponizing the issue of LGBTIQ rights. We argue that the fluidity of sexual orientation and gender identity makes LGBTIQ people susceptible targets for antidemocratic forces, allowing autocratic and illiberal regimes to contrast these identities with the perceived stability of tradition, national sovereignty, and conventional notions of "nature." Political homo- and transphobia are used by illiberal governments as tools to mobilize constituencies by framing LGBTIQ rights as incompatible with traditional values. Based on interviews and observations of participants at international forums, we also chart the global movement opposing LGBTIQ rights and explain how it undermines liberal democracy and threatens human-rights egalitarianism, weakens international institutions, and weaponizes democratic pluralism in divisive culture wars. The essay calls for a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between illiberalism, homo- and transphobia, and the challenge posed to the foundational values of liberal democracies. We also offer ideas for how actors in liberal democracies can respond to and defend LGBTIQ rights effectively.
{"title":"The Global Resistance to LGBTIQ Rights","authors":"Phillip Ayoub, Kristina Stoeckl","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915349","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This essay explores the troubling global pattern of illiberal governments weaponizing the issue of LGBTIQ rights. We argue that the fluidity of sexual orientation and gender identity makes LGBTIQ people susceptible targets for antidemocratic forces, allowing autocratic and illiberal regimes to contrast these identities with the perceived stability of tradition, national sovereignty, and conventional notions of \"nature.\" Political homo- and transphobia are used by illiberal governments as tools to mobilize constituencies by framing LGBTIQ rights as incompatible with traditional values. Based on interviews and observations of participants at international forums, we also chart the global movement opposing LGBTIQ rights and explain how it undermines liberal democracy and threatens human-rights egalitarianism, weakens international institutions, and weaponizes democratic pluralism in divisive culture wars. The essay calls for a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between illiberalism, homo- and transphobia, and the challenge posed to the foundational values of liberal democracies. We also offer ideas for how actors in liberal democracies can respond to and defend LGBTIQ rights effectively.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":"11 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139126389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915354
Omar G Encarnación
Abstract: A central paradox in the relationship between separatism and democracy is that while democracy provides a fertile environment for separatism—often by means of democracy's own institutions, mechanisms, and policies—democratic states are also well equipped to thwart and defeat separatist movements. The same pluralistic flexibility that allows pro-independence movements to blossom provides the tools to subvert and even crush separatist aspirations. Whether stonewalled by constitutional constraints, locked into systems of regional autonomy, undercut by counter-separatist movements, or cowed by the economic consequences of going it alone, separatist movements in democratic states are likely to turn quixotic. Catalonia and Scotland—two regions that only a few years ago seemed to be on the cusp of realizing longtime dreams of independence—prominently display the paradoxical politics inherent in separatism in democratic systems.
{"title":"Why Separatism Is No Match for Democracy","authors":"Omar G Encarnación","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915354","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: A central paradox in the relationship between separatism and democracy is that while democracy provides a fertile environment for separatism—often by means of democracy's own institutions, mechanisms, and policies—democratic states are also well equipped to thwart and defeat separatist movements. The same pluralistic flexibility that allows pro-independence movements to blossom provides the tools to subvert and even crush separatist aspirations. Whether stonewalled by constitutional constraints, locked into systems of regional autonomy, undercut by counter-separatist movements, or cowed by the economic consequences of going it alone, separatist movements in democratic states are likely to turn quixotic. Catalonia and Scotland—two regions that only a few years ago seemed to be on the cusp of realizing longtime dreams of independence—prominently display the paradoxical politics inherent in separatism in democratic systems.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":"58 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139126913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2024.a915345
Ashutosh Varshney, Connor Staggs
Abstract: This essay draws a parallel between the political and social dynamics of Hindu nationalism in India under Narendra Modi and the policies of racial segregation of the Jim Crow era in the United States (from approximately 1880 to 1965). As with the marginalization of black Americans based on race during Jim Crow, Hindu nationalism aims to marginalize Muslim Indians based on religion. Methods similar to those used in the Jim Crow South—including exclusionary laws, segregation, and vigilante violence—are now being deployed in India to subdue Muslims. Such actions go against the principles of equality established by India's 1950 Constitution. As in the Jim Crow South, the judiciary in India has proven slow to play its assigned role as guarantor of liberal constitutionalism. Friends of liberal, constitutional democracy will be wise not to count on judges to salvage the situation. In the end, only the voters can decide to stop Hindu nationalism, or else underwrite its final advance.
{"title":"Hindu Nationalism and the New Jim Crow","authors":"Ashutosh Varshney, Connor Staggs","doi":"10.1353/jod.2024.a915345","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2024.a915345","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This essay draws a parallel between the political and social dynamics of Hindu nationalism in India under Narendra Modi and the policies of racial segregation of the Jim Crow era in the United States (from approximately 1880 to 1965). As with the marginalization of black Americans based on race during Jim Crow, Hindu nationalism aims to marginalize Muslim Indians based on religion. Methods similar to those used in the Jim Crow South—including exclusionary laws, segregation, and vigilante violence—are now being deployed in India to subdue Muslims. Such actions go against the principles of equality established by India's 1950 Constitution. As in the Jim Crow South, the judiciary in India has proven slow to play its assigned role as guarantor of liberal constitutionalism. Friends of liberal, constitutional democracy will be wise not to count on judges to salvage the situation. In the end, only the voters can decide to stop Hindu nationalism, or else underwrite its final advance.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":"16 13","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139129224","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2023.a907684
Steven Levitsky, Lucan A. Way
Abstract: Against widespread perceptions, the authors argue that democracy has proven remarkably resilient in the twenty-first century. Fears of a "reverse wave" or a global "authoritarian resurgence" have yet to be borne out. The vast majority of "third wave" democracies—those that adopted democratic institutions between 1975 and 2000—have long outlived the favorable global conditions that enabled their creation. The authors attribute the resilience of third-wave democracies after the demise of the liberal West's post–Cold War hegemony to economic development and urbanization, and also to the difficulty of consolidating and sustaining an emergent authoritarian regime under competitive political conditions.
{"title":"Democracy's Surprising Resilience","authors":"Steven Levitsky, Lucan A. Way","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907684","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907684","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Against widespread perceptions, the authors argue that democracy has proven remarkably resilient in the twenty-first century. Fears of a \"reverse wave\" or a global \"authoritarian resurgence\" have yet to be borne out. The vast majority of \"third wave\" democracies—those that adopted democratic institutions between 1975 and 2000—have long outlived the favorable global conditions that enabled their creation. The authors attribute the resilience of third-wave democracies after the demise of the liberal West's post–Cold War hegemony to economic development and urbanization, and also to the difficulty of consolidating and sustaining an emergent authoritarian regime under competitive political conditions.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":"91 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2023.a907690
Charles Davidson, Ben Judah
Abstract: The expansion and sheer enormity of the financial-secrecy system is undermining democracy to an alarming extent. This system has distorted capitalism and its elites' relationship to taxation and the public realm to such an extent that powerful vested interests are now attached to a financial system that a) conceals kleptocracy, crime, and foreign interference, and b) exacerbates inequality to a degree unrecognized precisely because of the system's secrecy. The state of the public realm shows that capitalism with a secrecy system has become increasingly hard for a democratic polity to hold accountable. Understanding the architecture of the financial-secrecy system, one can identify how to conduct its deconstruction.
{"title":"How Financial Secrecy Undermines Democracy","authors":"Charles Davidson, Ben Judah","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907690","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907690","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The expansion and sheer enormity of the financial-secrecy system is undermining democracy to an alarming extent. This system has distorted capitalism and its elites' relationship to taxation and the public realm to such an extent that powerful vested interests are now attached to a financial system that a) conceals kleptocracy, crime, and foreign interference, and b) exacerbates inequality to a degree unrecognized precisely because of the system's secrecy. The state of the public realm shows that capitalism with a secrecy system has become increasingly hard for a democratic polity to hold accountable. Understanding the architecture of the financial-secrecy system, one can identify how to conduct its deconstruction.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2023.a907696
Stephanie A. Bell, Anton Korinek
Abstract: As artificial-intelligence (AI) systems become more capable, their potential labor-market effects may aggravate inequality and by extension undermine democratic governance. Moreover, the interrelationship between democracy and inequality may trigger a feedback loop, whereby increases in inequality undermine democracy, which in turn lead to policies that further increase inequality, giving rise to multiplier effects. In the short term, policies to mitigate AI-induced inequality include steering the direction of advances in AI to enhance human-AI collaboration, strengthening worker power and agency, and adjusting tax codes to not incentivize automating human labor. In the longer term, these policies include distributing the surplus generated by AI and taking measures against the adverse effects of market concentration in the AI industry. Moreover, policies that protect and strengthen democratic processes may lead to virtuous multiplier effects by reducing inequality. We hope that with thoughtful governance societies can harness AI's benefits while ensuring broadly shared prosperity. However, policymakers must act swiftly given AI's rapid development.
{"title":"AI's Economic Peril","authors":"Stephanie A. Bell, Anton Korinek","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907696","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907696","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: As artificial-intelligence (AI) systems become more capable, their potential labor-market effects may aggravate inequality and by extension undermine democratic governance. Moreover, the interrelationship between democracy and inequality may trigger a feedback loop, whereby increases in inequality undermine democracy, which in turn lead to policies that further increase inequality, giving rise to multiplier effects. In the short term, policies to mitigate AI-induced inequality include steering the direction of advances in AI to enhance human-AI collaboration, strengthening worker power and agency, and adjusting tax codes to not incentivize automating human labor. In the longer term, these policies include distributing the surplus generated by AI and taking measures against the adverse effects of market concentration in the AI industry. Moreover, policies that protect and strengthen democratic processes may lead to virtuous multiplier effects by reducing inequality. We hope that with thoughtful governance societies can harness AI's benefits while ensuring broadly shared prosperity. However, policymakers must act swiftly given AI's rapid development.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2023.a907691
{"title":"Symposium: Artificial Intelligence and Democracy","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907691","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907691","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2023.a907693
Sarah Kreps, Doug Kriner
Abstract: The explosive rise of generative AI is already transforming journalism, finance, and medicine, but it could also have a disruptive influence on politics. For example, asking a chatbot how to navigate a complicated bureaucracy or to help draft a letter to an elected official could bolster civic engagement. However, that same technology—with its potential to produce disinformation and misinformation at scale—threatens to interfere with democratic representation, undermine democratic accountability, and corrode social and political trust. This essay analyzes the scope of the threat in each of these spheres and discusses potential guardrails for these misuses, including neural networks used to identify generated content, self-regulation by generative-AI platforms, and greater digital literacy on the part of the public and elites alike.
{"title":"How AI Threatens Democracy","authors":"Sarah Kreps, Doug Kriner","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907693","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The explosive rise of generative AI is already transforming journalism, finance, and medicine, but it could also have a disruptive influence on politics. For example, asking a chatbot how to navigate a complicated bureaucracy or to help draft a letter to an elected official could bolster civic engagement. However, that same technology—with its potential to produce disinformation and misinformation at scale—threatens to interfere with democratic representation, undermine democratic accountability, and corrode social and political trust. This essay analyzes the scope of the threat in each of these spheres and discusses potential guardrails for these misuses, including neural networks used to identify generated content, self-regulation by generative-AI platforms, and greater digital literacy on the part of the public and elites alike.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":"56 57 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2023.a907692
Yoshua Bengio
Abstract: Since OpenAI's release of the very large language models Chat-GPT and GPT-4, the potential dangers of AI have garnered widespread public attention. In this essay, the author reviews the threats to democracy posed by the possibility of "rogue AIs," dangerous and powerful AIs that would execute harmful goals, irrespective of whether the outcomes are intended by humans. To mitigate against the risk that rogue AIs present to democracy and geopolitical stability, the author argues that research into safe and defensive AIs should be conducted by a multilateral, international network of research laboratories.
{"title":"AI and Catastrophic Risk","authors":"Yoshua Bengio","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907692","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Since OpenAI's release of the very large language models Chat-GPT and GPT-4, the potential dangers of AI have garnered widespread public attention. In this essay, the author reviews the threats to democracy posed by the possibility of \"rogue AIs,\" dangerous and powerful AIs that would execute harmful goals, irrespective of whether the outcomes are intended by humans. To mitigate against the risk that rogue AIs present to democracy and geopolitical stability, the author argues that research into safe and defensive AIs should be conducted by a multilateral, international network of research laboratories.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/jod.2023.a907697
Aviv Ovadya
Abstract: AI advances are shattering assumptions that both our democracies and our international order rely on. Reinventing our "democratic infrastructure" is thus critically necessary—and the author argues that it is also possible. Four interconnected and accelerating democratic paradigm shifts illustrate the potential: representative deliberations, AI augmentation, democracy-as-a-service, and platform democracy. Such innovations provide a viable path toward not just reimagining traditional democracies but enabling the transnational and even global democratic processes critical for addressing the broader challenges posed by destabilizing AI advances—including those relating to AI alignment and global agreements. We can and must rapidly invest in such democratic innovation if we are to ensure that our democratic capacity increases with our power.
{"title":"Reimagining Democracy for AI","authors":"Aviv Ovadya","doi":"10.1353/jod.2023.a907697","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.a907697","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: AI advances are shattering assumptions that both our democracies and our international order rely on. Reinventing our \"democratic infrastructure\" is thus critically necessary—and the author argues that it is also possible. Four interconnected and accelerating democratic paradigm shifts illustrate the potential: representative deliberations, AI augmentation, democracy-as-a-service, and platform democracy. Such innovations provide a viable path toward not just reimagining traditional democracies but enabling the transnational and even global democratic processes critical for addressing the broader challenges posed by destabilizing AI advances—including those relating to AI alignment and global agreements. We can and must rapidly invest in such democratic innovation if we are to ensure that our democratic capacity increases with our power.","PeriodicalId":48227,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Democracy","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135324031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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