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Democratic resilience and young democrats during COVID-19

Concern about economic conditions thus cannot be separated from a commitment to democracy.

Edbert Gani Suryahudaya (The Jakarta Post)
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Jakarta
Tue, September 1, 2020

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Democratic resilience and young democrats during COVID-19 Voices of youth: Activists of the Civil Society for Democracy Alliance rally outside the South Jakarta District Court on Dec. 2, 2019, to demand the release of 23 Papuans they consider political prisoners and the withdrawal of the military and police from the province. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)

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reedom, as demagogues claim, cannot feed empty stomachs. Those who seek to attack democracy will exploit conditions of injustice to discredit the system. This cautionary message was conveyed in an article entitled The Democratic Invention (2000) by Mário Soares, a former Portuguese prime minister also known as the nation’s “father of democracy”.

Twenty years since Soares’ warning, his foresight has proven prescient. Global democracy is indeed currently experiencing an uneasy challenge. A number of countries worldwide have seen the rise of populist leaders who degrade the value of civil liberties from within. Freedom House, in a report entitled Freedom in the World 2020: A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy, notes that democratic decline is a trend that has been ongoing for the last 14 years, including in Indonesia.

According to the report, 64 countries experienced a decrease in the quality of civil liberties and political rights in 2019, compared to a mere 37 countries that enjoyed an increase.

In the midst of this widespread democratic decline, the pandemic hit. Populist leaders seized the opportunity to further expand their power at the expense of civil liberties, sometimes by declaring states of emergency, which are prone to mismanagement.

Clearly, several authoritarian regimes are capitalizing on the crisis to extend their rule. In Turkey alone, at least 510 people had been detained as of July on charges of propagating fake news for simply for criticizing the government on social media.

In addition to the danger to civil liberties, the pandemic has caused a global economic recession, which may pose a significant threat to today’s democracy. The empirical study of Adam Przeworski et al. (2000) shows that economic growth mainly serves to maintain a democracy after it is born. Economic stability is necessary to ensure democratic resilience, and more importantly, to build public trust. In this context, the current recession should start ringing alarm bells for its implications for democracy.

Understanding this global trend, we must not be caught off guard. United Nations commissioner Michelle Bachelet warned that Indonesia was one of 12 Asian countries suspected of making efforts to curb freedom of expression during the pandemic. Several arrests have been made on charges of allegedly spreading false information, when in reality the arrests were part of an effort to suppress criticism of the government.

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