Responsibility without Power

President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is painfully living out the consequences of the loss of state power in the very globalized world we live in. The most immediate result of globalization is the transfer of power from democratically constituted states to supranational powers that are not even institutionalized, but operate in a compelling manner, imposing inexorable conditions of compliance.

This is not only happening to the Spanish government, it is happening to everyone. Yesterday, I re-read President Obama’s 2009 State of the Union address. The central message of the speech was that he hated the measures that had to be taken to rescue the big banks and insurance companies just as much as U.S. citizens, but that he had no other choice because the alternative would have been even worse.

Yesterday, Oct. 15, an editorial in The New York Times talked about the current problem of U.S. banks forcing speedy evictions of those who default on their mortgage payments. The banks’ actions, which in effect helped trigger the subprime mortgage crisis, could end up driving the Obama administration to resume unfavorable intervention measures like those it had to take in the moment it assumed power. Such measures are already being proposed by The Wall Street Journal, among others.

The state continues to be a formidable power center. Obviously, some states more than others. Those that are more successful are so, among other reasons, because they are the only legitimate democratic entities that exist on the planet. But every day, distance grows between what the state can do with the power it actually has and what it would have to do to actually answer the problems of the citizens who elected those in charge. Felipe Gonzalez’s book, “My Idea of Europe,” expresses this conflict in European Union countries in general, and for Spain in particular, with dazzling clarity.

In the gap between what governments do with the power they actually have and what citizens expect them to do with that power lies the origin of political disaffection. It is the result of an imbalance between power and responsibility — between the power that governments have and the responsibility citizens demand. This imbalance characterizes practically all contemporary democratic systems. More importantly, it is one for which we have no solution to in the short run.

As long as the circumstances keep complicating themselves — let’s not even mention how it exploded into the present economic crisis — governments will continue to burn themselves out at an extraordinary speed. The case of Japan is the most alarming. But let’s not forget the cases of Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel, Blair, Brown and Rodriguez Zapatero.

Current political opposition cannot be blamed for the imbalance of government power and responsibility. Citizens do not trust the government; but neither do they trust in the individuals who are predicted to replace those now in power. This distrust is spreading in a very generalized manner.

The simultaneous loss of government prestige and opposition is driving political polarization. This translates into the division of society into blocs that are incapable of dialogue with each other. In such a scenario, political debate practically disappears, being substituted instead by an aggression that lacks respect for any type of formality or etiquette.

We have been observing such aggression in Spain for quite a while now, and the verbal disrespect shown to President Zapatero during the Oct. 12 Armed Forces Day parade was a shocking demonstration of it. Spain is not the only example, however. During last year’s State of the Union address, a Supreme Court justice accused President Obama of lying, something that had not happened in more than 200 years.

The combination of responsibility and a lack of power is dangerous. When things go well, the problem is not too noticeable. But as soon as things twist out of control, the combination’s effects are terrible. It tends to generate a vicious cycle of cynicism and distrust. We are in one of these cycles now, and the worst part is that we do not know how to get out of it.