Purpose Beyond Authority

The redo of the Greek parliamentary election on June 17 is only the latest symptom of the most serious crisis to plague Western democracies and open societies since the 1960s. In the West, today’s liberal democracies are struggling to avoid — and in doing so are exacerbating — an identity crisis that puts the existing social contract at risk and threatens their collapse.

The end of the Cold War left our leaders with a new set of governance challenges that quickly grew in magnitude, due in large part to faster globalization, the consequences of the 1980s economic liberalization and the 1990s revolution in information technology. In fact, these challenges had been insufficiently addressed and soon led many to question the sustainability of liberal democracy’s appeal at home and its universality abroad, and to probe the alleged merits of the “Chinese model,” which is characterized as a form of state capitalism.

Then came the financial collapse of 2008, which quickly turned into the deepest Western economic recession since the 1930s. It added fuel to the fire while policymakers hunkered down in a non-transparent crisis-management mode. They condoned massive state intervention in the economy and socialization of private-sector losses on a previously unprecedented scale. The resulting fiscal austerity sent many below the poverty line and accelerated economic inequality, while many private institutions recovered on the public dole.

To make matters worse, financial markets in Greece and Italy, two of the hardest-hit countries, deposed elected and flawed governments. The hapless former Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, had to resign last year after daring to suggest a referendum to decide the economic future of his fellow citizens. (Ironically, the next election will effectively serve as the referendum that Papandreou proposed in October/November 2011.)

At the root of the European crisis (and its equivalent crisis in the United States) is a shift in the configuration of economic, social and political power. Liberal democracies and open societies have traditionally relied on a delicate balance of these three forms of power. Over the last two decades, the elites have been unable to maintain it; economic power has long since gone global and separated itself from political power, which often marred democratic politics.

At the same time, social power, which is like oxygen for democratic legitimacy, had been marginalized, disillusioned and increasingly turned away from the traditional carrier channels in the world of politics. The result is an erosion of the stature of major political parties and trade unions and all-time low levels of trust in governments. With the support of new media, identities began to form around new networks of social interaction. They often defy state boundaries and have little connection to liberal democracy’s traditional institutions of governance.

The refusal of today’s elites to promote an effective balance of the three powers that recognizes a broader purpose beyond maximizing each individual’s power has clearly caused a declining regard for the public good. This has dramatic consequences for liberal democracy and open societies.

With political power diminished (and sometimes usurped) by the transformation of its economic counterpart and its detachment from its social base rendering it increasingly illegitimate, this is the hour of populists and extremists. We now see them feast on enfeebled democracies in many European countries, as fringe movements become serious contenders for power and threaten to wipe out the achievements of more than 60 years of European integration. In the United States, the political system has descended into seemingly intractable partisan paralysis, which to some extent undermines the system of checks and balances and generates a deepening sense of malaise and frustration.

We now stand at a critical juncture. Recreating democracy and open societies in an age of globalization requires investment in new ideas to restore the balance to political, economic and social power at both the national and the global level. Nationally, we need to experiment with new mechanisms for policymaking and implementation, reconnecting democratic institutions to citizens and emerging networks of civil society. Globally, we must allow political and social power to establish their rightful place next to economic power.

A patching up will not work; we need a transformation of the global institutional architecture. Unless we can establish a global socio-political space, we cannot legitimately deliberate over the provision of global public goods, let alone deliver them successfully. The push toward such a space needs to be led by risk-taking social and political entrepreneurs who are not afraid to work across lines traditionally dividing sectors and states and who help to recreate a global community of purpose beyond power.

The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once described the Berlin Wall as a mirror. In light of the Soviet system, it was very easy to overlook our own weakness and limitations. With the collapse of the Wall, the elites struggled to maintain the illusion of an inherently imminent victory march for liberal democracy worldwide, now stripped off by the economic crisis on both sides of the Atlantic.

We have wasted two decades in the search for an appropriate response for globalization and the crisis of liberal democracy and open societies. Now it is time to begin a sincere reflection about power and its purpose in today’s rapidly changing world.