Southern democracy

Southern democracy is term used in political science to describe systems of government which are functionally more than nominally democratic, but which are characteristically illiberal, with significant power in government being wielded by those outside the democratic system. The "southern" descriptor in the term refers to how the model is most prevalent in the global south, but also more specifically, the south of Coius.

The term was first coined and applied by Albert Kavagamu, a Dezevauni political theorist, author and later leader of the Liberal Party, in his book The End of Politics. He capitalised it as "Southern democracy", but since then, it has been more common (including in his own works) to leave the term uncapitalised, as in "southern democracy". The term has found some currency in media outside of academia.

Classification

Kavagamu, in The End of Politics, published in 1999, attempted to classify extant political and governmental systems into types. Of democracies, he said there were primarily three stable varieties: liberal, council-socialist and "Southern". The terms "liberal democracy" and "council-socialist" were not novel in his publication; he gave Estmere, Gaullica and Halland as examples of the former, and Kirenia and Dezevau as examples of the latter. "Southern democracy" was, however, a new term, and he applied it to countries such as Senria and Shangea. He justified his choice of the term as an attempt to avoid coining something unintuitive, prescriptive, or vague.

According to him, Southern democracies had a democratic-republican system of politics at their core; they were ruled by politicians whose power was essentially legitimised by popular approval generally expressed through elections, and their power was not absolute, but beholden at least in minor or specific ways, either legally or culturally, to institutions such as courts, civil services, the media or subnational governmental entities. However, these democracies were neither liberal either culturally or economically, nor did they tend to have decentralising and radically egalitarian tendencies as socialist democracies did. He proposed that characteristics of a Southern democracy included:

• Authoritarianism
• Social conservatism (in particular, a lack of pluralism)
• Nationalism (or other sources of localised or exclusionary identification, such as religion)
• Political power being held in non-democratic, domestic, hierarchical institutions such as militaries and bureaucracies
• Policies which emphasised stability.

These characteristics, he said, could be tied together in the way that they reflected a conception of the country as a united, largely homogeneous community. Democracy was necessary in these systems to reflect the will of the people, but unlike in liberal or socialist democracies, the will of the people was seen to be ideally unanimous, and unchanging over long periods of time; hence, Southern democracies tolerated, even encouraged, conservative and anti-pluralist measures. Politics in a Southern democracy, according to his theory, is only the tool by which politicians or relatively minor aspects of policy may be changed; the underlying assumption is that the singular national will can be and always is being elucidated by enduring cultural and political institutions and policies, even where they are not democratic per se.

Asase Lewa

While most political observers classiified the Asalewan political system as merely an example of a Council republic with an especially powerful Section of the Workers' International, in their 2000 book A Dream Unfulfilled: the Promise of Bahian Democracy, the [Insert Euclean liberal here] political scientist [Insert Name Here] instead identified the Asalewan political system as a "relatively novel system, difficult to classify in a single category," and a hybrid of a Council republic and Southern democracy. While [Insert Name Here] identified Asase Lewa as most closely resembling a Council republic, thanks to its Council-based form of government, socialist and participatory economy, and extensive tradition of mass politics and participatory democracy, [Insert Name Here] also identified several features of Asalewan politics as most closely resembling the countries Albert Kavagamu classified as Southern democracies rather than other Council republics.

Most notably, [Insert Name Here] classified the entrenched power of the Asalewan Section of the Workers' International, and the closely affiliated military and bureaucracy, as equivalent to the entrenched power of dominant parties and militaries in countries such as Senria and Shangea. [Insert Name Here] classified the Asalewan Section's ability to restrict political candidates for public office, especially, as equivalent to the strict limits on political pluralism found in more traditional Southern democracies. [Insert Name Here] also classified the largely clientelistic, depoliticized, and consensus-oriented political culture of Asase Lewa at the time as similar to the political cultures of Southern democracies, particularly because this political culture further limited political pluralism in Asase Lewa.

Subsequent to [Insert Name Here]'s publication, the Anti-Revisionist Revolution from 2014 to 2016, a legally-formalized state of exception which involved the temporary direct intervention and rule of the Asalewan Section of the Workers' International in domestic affairs and the Section Center expelling opposing Section members, has caused scholars to further debate to what extent Asase Lewa can be meaningfully considered a Southern democracy. Most scholars have argued that the Anti-Revisionist Revolution represented a case of democratic backsliding and thus further strengthened [Insert Name Here]'s thesis; the Anti-Revisionist Revolution was undemocratically imposed from above, weakened inter-party democracy within the Section itself, and after the event, the Section's role in Asalewan domestic politics remained stronger than before.

However, a minority of scholars—especially prevalent in the socialist world, including Asase Lewa itself—have argued that the Anti-Revisionist Revolution actually had a democratizing effect on Asalewan politics in the long-term, weakening the argument that Asase Lewa ought to be considered a Southern democracy. These scholars argue that the event had a repoliticizing effect on Asalewan society that reintroduced moderate levels of political pluralism and polarization to Asalewan society. Subsequent to the Anti-Revisionist Revolution, these scholars argue, the main political camps in Asalewan politics became increasingly ideologically-identified by debating the event's legacy, and the event reopened debates on issues previously considered out of bounds in Asalewan politics, most notably uneven development between urban and rural areas and the Lowlands and Highlands.

Chanda

Kavagamu called Chanda as "one of the most extreme examples of a Southern democracy" in The End of Politics. Like other Southern democracies, Chandan politics featured an emphasis on nationalism and limited political pluralism. However what made Chanda unique in his view, was the Internal State, which refers to the powerful political factions and institutions of the country. He wrote that Chandan politics revolved around these political factions that "has their own agenda, each defending its own powers, and many with competing interests". Kavagamu pointed to the power struggles for control of the country's institutions that occurred entirely outside of the normal democratic process. Furthermore he noted political violence between the factions that occasionally occurs by various secret paramilitaries affiliated with these factions. Kavagamu argued that the system culminates in a country where the elected government is not in total control of the government, but instead is only a part of a vast informal political system than can descend into political violence. As a result the elected government has navigate the politics of the Internal State in order to implement policy.

Senria

Kavagamu pointed to Senria as "an archetypal Southern democracy" in The End of Politics. He noted that the country "transparently exhibited" all the characteristics of a Southern democracy, including a history of authoritarian strongman rule (particularly exemplified by Katurou Imahara and Takesi Takahata); a strong emphasis on nationalism in politics; the outsized political influence held by the bureaucracy of the Senrian state, the Aikokutou's party structure, and the Senrian Republican Armed Forces; and an opposition to political and ethnic pluralism. He additionally noted that many of the traits of Southern democracy—particularly nationalism and a non-pluralist republicanism—were "codified" in Imaharism, the guiding ideology of the ruling Aikokutou, in a way they were not in many other Southern democracies. He also noted, though, that Senria seemed to be moving away from this in some areas under Kiyosi Haruna, citing the country's increasing political liberalisation, concessions to ethnic minorities, and the reduction of the military's political power.

Zorasan

At the time of writing The End of Politics, Zorasan had been governed by successive liberal and reformist governments that sought to remove from its political system, many if not all the qualifiers of a southern democracy. In his book, Kavagamu applauded Zorasan as an example of a successful transition from southern democracy, subject mostly to the will and influence of the military in Zorasan's case, to a nascent liberal pluralistic democracy. By 1999, Zorasan had repealed many of its founding laws that enforced censorship, authoritarianism and deeply exclusionary policies toward its religious and ethnic minorities.

However, six years after writing, Zorasan underwent a period of political upheaval, known as the Tufan, which overthrew the liberal-reformist period and in the 2005 Zorasani general election, saw the return of both authoritarian-nationalist blocs to government and unrestrained military involvement in politics. In 2008, a new constitution was adopted which granted the military unparalleled executive and legislative powers, while new measures aimed at combating pluralism were also adopted, though democratic elections would continue to provide popular mandates.

Alternative terms

Proposed alternative terms include Coian democracy, proposed by University of Cuanstad professor Levell Boone in 2006.

Response

Marshal Karaman claimed in 2001 that Kumuso could never be a southern democracy because of its central location in Coius.

In political scientific academia, the term has been sometimes criticised for giving a geographical appellation to something that is not necessarily delimited by region of the world. More often, it has been criticised for typecasting and exoticising democracy in the developing world, with critics pointing to <x> as an Eastern country which could be classified as a southern democracy.

In global politics, the term has also sometimes been employed or disavowed.

See also

• International Council for Democracy
• International Forum for Developing States