Austerity is not killing the patient, lack of reform is.

Prologue

A junkie is forced into rehab in order to save his life. As the withdrawal symptoms kick in, he starts to scream with pain and curse the moment when he agreed to seek help. As an uninformed witness, you might feel sorry for him and brand the treatment as torture. Surely it is inhumane to let him go through such a pain, isn't it? Well, no. It is not. The pain is a result of his addiction and blaming the cure would be a mistake. Yet this is exactly what is happening in Europe. After decades of debt addiction, the European economies are struggling with the withdrawal symptoms and are blaming austerity for the pain.

However, there is a blame that can be laid at the doctors treating the European patient. The treatment could be more effective if other problems are also tackled yet this means even more pain in the short term. The austerity treatment prescribed to the European economies should be accompanied by an equally painful dose of reform. Structural reconstruction is as necessary as austerity and it is this exact reform that would bring back the solid growth policy makers desire so much. 

How Austerity (kind of) worked 

Since the beginning of the crisis, 5 of the 17 Eurozone countries - so far -  have run into significant financial problems and were forced into asking for EU and IMF help . In exchange for support, these countries have signed up to a painful program of austerity and reform. Cuts and tax hikes have hit hard yet reforms have barely been started. Because of external factors, in most of the EU countries the economic activity is now reaching pre-recession levels. While most financial indicators have stabilised -Ireland has even managed to exit the bailout program - the social pain is only now starting to hit. Unemployment is the clearest sign of this pain: record 12.1% Eurozone unemployment, 10.9% for the EU. 26.7% for Spain, 28% for Greece, 17.5% for Portugal. 24% of EU youth unemployed, 56% youth unemployment in Spain and 60% in Greece.  64%in Greece, 42% in Portugal (new figures released a few hours ago)

It is in this context that a significant majority of voices are warning that austerity has not helped Europe and that it has actually made things worse. Indeed, many of the fundamentals that the austerity policies have been based on have proven to be false. The now famous Reinhard and Rogoff  excel mistake and acknowledgments from the IMF that they have underestimated the fiscal multipliers of budget cuts  have embarrassed the European Commission who is left without the two big arguments it had in pushing austerity.

However, it is important to remember that austerity was not only adopted because of economic reasons. The high-politics game played at EU Councils resulted in countless agreements, all saying the same thing: Northern countries and the Commission would help Southern countries escape bankruptcy if these countries put their budgets in order and reform so they close the competitivity gap. It is interesting to note that before and immediately after the fiscal compact of March 2012, media kept referring to these adjustments as ‘budget balancing’ and ‘fiscal discipline’. Today, the same measures are being labelled as ‘austerity’.

The intention of these programmes was dual: on one hand, countries which lagged behind were supposed to become more competitive and, as such, make Europe as a whole stronger. Secondly, a chance for political compromise and a show of unity to reassure the markets was only possible if the Northern countries could present a deal acceptable to their electorate. It would have been impossible for Angela Merkel to pass a bailout deal without having anything to show for it.

It is this precise political factor that many of those who condemn austerity are now ignoring. At the height of the crisis, the political fractures of the Union were as a big of a risk to the EU economy as the recession itself. Widely divergent government debt yields were a sign of a fractured EU. And this fracture was obvious not just in economic indexes but in the philosophy behind policy as well. As Italian PM Monti very correctly underlined: "For Germany, economics is a branch of moral philosophy”. Transferring bailout money to countries that have broken this moral code without any strings attached would have created a ‘moral hazard’ that would have been unacceptable to the Germans. The only possible agreement included both money transfers (solidarity asked by South) and reform (budget balancing asked by North). Without a political agreement, the markets would have continued to take advantage of the cracks of the Eurozone pushing Italy and Spain to encounter problems in selling their debt. Furthermore, current criticism directed at austerity assumes that Mario Draghi would have made his ‘whatever it takes’ promise to save the euro – widely credited with saving Italy and Spain from the brink - even in the absence of deficit cutting measures, which I believe to be very unlikely.  

Was it fair for the EU to impose such measures on the Southern countries? If you consider the alternatives, either bankruptcy or an exit from the eurozone ( as bad as a bankruptcy, if not worse), the current social problems and unemployment levels are quite modest. Equally telling is the fact that real unemployment figure (not just benefits claim, implied for an average workforce participation of 65%) is close to 12%  in the US - a country that has applied the exact opposite cure to its economic problems. In effect, there is very little to show for the stimulus in the American economy other than significant increases in inequality (with the top earners benefiting the most from it) and debt levels.


But nothing has changed

While the high politics succeeded in reaching an agreement and the EU delivered on its promise to bail out countries in need, local politics failed to implement their promises. Reforms have been painfully slow exacerbating the pain caused by austerity. After six years of recession, it was only in the last week of April 2013 that Greece has voted into law part (not all) of the labour reform agreed in the first bailout. Greece and Cyprus are still having problems identifying property rights for much of the countries’ land because there is no clear record. In the last report on the EU economy, the IMF has yet again assessed that there has been no progress in tackling ‘notorious’ tax evasion in the South of Europe. The tax administrators in Cyprus, Italy and Greece are still politically named. The Spanish banking system has not yet been cleared of bad loans and new loans are very much impossible to get, asphyxiating the creation of new businesses and jobs. Even reforms that have been adopted are now at threat. The new Italian government is being forced to roll back  some of Monti’s reforms, like the property tax, at the request of Berlusconi, the new voice of anti-austerity in the country. Italians seem to have forgotten the country’s performance under Berlusconi when Italy's economy grew least in the world for a decade, bar Haiti and Zimbabwe, and reached the third highest debt-to-GDP level.

It is hard to say how much lower unemployment would be today if aggressive reforms would have actually been implemented. It is very possible that unemployment would have actually been higher as reforms would have also caused some extra pain to the economy but I can't see how the number of long term unemployed would have been as high as it is now. Undoubtedly, the EU would have been in a better position to deal with future problems.

Essentially, very little has changed.  Austerity has forced an internal devaluation and made southern countries slightly more competitive but there has been very little structural change. And the incentive for reforms is receding. While central banks are flooding the market with money and public dissatisfaction is causing social convulsions, governments around Europe are mistakenly looking to change course. There is little talk of stimulus as most commentators realise that is not acceptable for the Germans, but easing austerity is well under way. Unfortunately, the reform programs have also been eased.

Epilogue

After a few days in rehabilitation, the junkie exits treatment and goes back into the world. As there was no appropriate psychological support provided during treatment, the patient doesn’t change his life habits and is soon back on drugs. The treatment fails. At the hospital, one of the  doctors that treated the patient, Ms Dorothea, is facing an inquiry into her treatment which was described as ‘brutal’ and ‘inhumane’ by her colleague, Mr Silvio. Mr Silvio is the one who recommended a priest to help the patient change his lifestyle. The story doesn’t end.

 

For more comments and updates, follow @MariusStancu_

The rise of individuality and the decline of social constrain

Society is structured in such a way that it favours small, incremental and continual change. We have come to recognise that change is good and needed for our social development but we are also scared of its unintended consequences. As a result, both governments and individuals have favoured gradual to radical. Whenever an objective is recognised and agreed upon, we have slowly moved towards reaching it, with ups and downs and detours along the way. Take the eco-movement, 50 years after the publication of ‘Silent Spring’, the book that sparked the environmental movement, we have moved decisively towards a greener economy and lifestyle (with many detours indeed) but we are not even close to reaching the goal of living in a green society.

Sometimes, though, the desire to fix a mistake in our social pattern is so great that gradual change is not enough. The end of racial segregation in the US was the result of pressure being put on the government and the legal system. The legal end of segregation can be traced to the 1954 Supreme Court decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case. But social segregation was slower to disappear and many parts of the US are still plagued by racial discrimination. In this case, the system reacted before society, identifying a fundamental wrong and moving to fix it.

Today, however, we are going through a very rapid change all over the world. Archaic views of society and traditional values are contested from a grassroot level, with people's attitudes greatly changing and with institutions struggling to keep up. Remarkable about this change is not just its speed but also the fact that it is visible, in various forms, all over the world. A rejection of some of the most traditional social values is brewing in most societies.

Who run the world? Girls!

To a certain extent, this rejection can be traced back to the beginning of the Arab Spring when people took to the streets to protest against their governments in places of the world that have little to no experience of democracy. To ask for a transparent and democratic government in such restrictive places like the Arab Peninsula and North Africa is a significant change in social mentality. The fact that women were protesting as vigorously as men was a further of sign of change. 

The Arab Spring underlines one of the major changes we are going through: the increasing involvement of women. For a deeply paternalistic and misogynistic social construct (like the one in these countries) to change to such an extent that women get to protest against the government and generally be very well integrated in the protest movements, was a big surprise. And this was just the beginning. Instances of women refusing to adopt a second rank role in society are increasingly common. Pakistani 14 year old girl, Malala Yousufzai, became a role model for many women in the world after she was shot in the head by the Taliban because ‘she promoted secularism’. 

But the best examples for this new wave of female awakening can be found in SE Asia were women and the younger generations in general are standing up against sexism and sexual violence. The rape and death of a 23 year old woman in India has sparked massive protests in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. New Delhi even witnessed a SlutWalk (for anybody who is familiar with Indian social customs, this event must have been a massive shock). The protests in India have been huge, being labelled as 'unprecedented' by the University of Edinburgh, 'the awakening of the Indian Middle Class' by the Lowy Institute for International Policy and even as ‘India's Arab Spring' by Fareed Zakaria. The government is now scrambling to put in place better legislation to protect women and, judging by the number of taboos that have been broken during these protests, some form of change will have to prevail. The extent of this will, however, be influenced by many factors and it is too early to be predicted.

It is also important to note that, in older democracies, women are increasingly voted in power. Germany, Australia and South Korea, countries that have done very well during the economic crisis, are now led by women.

Pretty and witty and gay

But it is not only via protesting that change can be achieved. In mature democracies where institutions follow the social desires of the population, change comes naturally. And the faster popular attitude changes, the faster the institutional framework will follow. In Europe, where women are already socially equal to men (and increasingly favoured as leaders), sexual minorities are staging a mini revolution of their own. Both Britain and France are debating (and will most likely adopt) laws to allow gay people to marry. The debated has shifted so much in recent years that now the arguments are on whether gay parents should be allowed to adopt or if Churches should be forced to marry same sex couples. In effect, gay marriage has already been accepted and the question now is about the extent of the change to be made in legislation. 

The shock decision by the Anglican Church to allow gay bishops underlines the changes in a society that is eager to offer equal rights to sexual minorities. In the UK, the electorate supports gay marriage by a ratio of 2:1 (62% for vs 31% against). As The Guardian explains, ‘sharper differences emerge when the results are analysed across the age ranges. The over-65s resist the proposal, by 58% to 37%, but support is progressively stronger in younger age groups. The pro-reform majority is 64% among 35-64s, 75% among 25-34s, and an overwhelming 77% among 18-24s.’

The situation is similar in France, although society is much more polarised on the issue. Opinion polls show the general public supports gay marriage but small groups are very vocal in opposing the reform. The debate is complicated even further by a desire of the government to move ahead of the curve and legalise the right of gay parents to adopt children. It is very interesting to see how right-wing, traditionalist forces, have reacted in the French debate. The UMP, crumbling after the era of Sarkozy, is not capable of speaking on a single voice and Marine Le Pen’s Front National discourse is very similar to that of the Muslim religious leaders (the two groups have even promoted the same events).

The beginning of a feminist movement in India and in the Arab countries and the acceptance of sexual minorities in Europe are only a few signs of a greater trend. We are going through a very subtle but powerful change in the social fabric where individuals are taking power from society and rending social norms irrelevant. The family as a basic unit of social construction has been replaced with the individual and the social construction itself is rapidly abandoned. Divorce is now normal and polyamory is increasingly present in the media and in the life of younger individuals. 

Individuals are taking back rights not just from society but from the state as well. The successful referendums on the recreational use of marijuana in Colorado and Washington and the refusal of many other EU and US states to effectively impose the illegality of its use are further signs of individual self-determination.

In many ways, these changes can be explained by a decrease in society’s religiosity. Individuality is best kept under control by referring to religious-born values like self-sacrifice. But as religion is losing its influence, these arguments no longer work.

Narcis takes over the world

There are risks and disadvantages to this change as well and we shouldn’t ignore them. A study shows that young adults are increasingly seeing themselves as being better than anybody else (typical for young adults but with a higher frequency and stronger than usual) with 25% of American students showing signs of narcissism. 

This increase in self-esteem and confidence is also translated at a governmental level with parties becoming increasingly nationalistic and cultivating the myth of the superior nation of individuals. Conservative parties that are focusing on nationalistic sentiments are actually gaining from this change as they can more easily spread the view that their electorate is better than ‘the outsiders’. Japan’s new government is the perfect example.

Changes like the ones that we are seeing now don’t happen very often. In many parts of the world, societies are moving towards John Stuart Mill's  desired world although much change is still needed to reach that objective. It is important to remember, though, that change can have various consequences. The rise of nationalism is one of the consequences that needs to be avoided. If we accept that we, as individuals, are better left free, than we must understand that the responsibility of avoiding damaging changes in mentality also falls on our shoulders.

On Morality, the Petraeus affair and the bailouts

Who we are, as a society, is defined by a certain set of values that guide the general direction in which we want to develop. This set of values is supposed to influence all members of society, regardless of their position or rank. It is this social morality that pushes us to make certain decisions and to follow a certain path. But, like anything else, morality should be questioned and should be looked at in contextual terms, not general. The current ideas that morality is not subject to change and that it is dangerous to question our social view of morality are, in my view, the biggest obstacle to innovation and liberty.

During the last few weeks debates with an underlying morality issue have been taking the spotlight and, although the general topic of discussion in these debates is of a different nature, I believe it is important to examine the morality elements involved. 

As you must know by now, the CIA Director has resigned after the FBI has stumbled upon evidence of his affair with the woman who has written his biography.  The whole issue is also threatening to take down General John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, who seemed to be having an affair of his own, interconnected somehow to that of Petraeus. In his statement, Petraeus clearly says that the reason for his resignation is his 'unacceptable behavior' of having engaged in an extramarital affair. The general public seems to accept this is a good excuse. I don't. The role of the CIA Director is morally repulsive. The duties include the coordination of massive lying campaigns and hiding the truth;  assassinations and kidnappings; stealing and many, many other things that are completely opposed to the common set of moral values. Yet the general public seemed to accept that this particular breach of morality made this person unfit to breach the other moral creeds. His PR strategy actually made him look like an 'honorable man' for accepting his mistake and stepping aside. That is because people who look at morality in general terms tend to be easy to manipulate and are happy to see blood (or in this case resignations) no matter what context we are looking at.  It is more plausible that Petraeus resigned because he accidentally gave his mistress secret information that she later leaked. That is a serious breach of security and a proper reason for his resignation but that would shatter the illusion of many Americans that the CIA is an efficient protector of their security and not just another bureaucracy.

This case, and many others like this one, shows how people are manipulated by big organisations into believing a lie with the help of so called 'moral virtues'. The explanation that he resigned because his affair was immoral is just dust being thrown in the eyes of the general public. Morality never had anything to do with his job in the first place.

Morality rarely has anything to do with any job. Bankers, in certain respects, are required to be immoral to do their jobs. Their system is governed by greed and the search for profit, nothing to do with morality. In this respect, their system is supposed to be separated from the classical social values and it doesn't take into consideration morality in any way. The reason banks follow laws and regulations (when they do) is that this is a legal condition for them being part of the system. In a way, this total lack of morality in the banking system was a cause of the banking collapse that led to the economic crisis. And yet, the same leaders that think the immorality of an affair is a good enough reason to terminate the career of a successful general decided that it is a good idea to bail out the immoral banks with the money of the people who they told that morality is an important factor in their decisions.  So was it moral to save the banks? I don't see how. Necessary, maybe, but not moral.

What is the difference between Petraeus and the bankers? I believe that people only care about morality when it comes to trivial, personal issues. They will use morality to judge other people and to feel better about their own lives. The general public cannot identify with the banking system or with the ethics and duties of the CIA Director. But they can identify with the human who has an affair. And because they can judge him on that immorality, they will not want him as a leader, as good of a leader or professional as he might  be. They are better than him in that respect so he needs to suffer for his mistake.

I will conclude on a personal note. I am, by many general standards, an immoral man. I do not believe in the general view of morality and I do not have any desire to take it into consideration. Yet I do not reject the idea of morality. I just believe it is contextual. It always depends, in my view, on the options available. And I believe that if there were more people like me, we would have a much easier time growing as a society and developing into a much better community of individuals with different values and various views on what morality should be.

I completely adhere to the ideas in this interview, particularly the view on morality:


 

Brace yourself, a social storm is coming!

V's quote 'the people shouldn't be afraid of the government, the government should be afraid of the people' (well, the quote is actually a modernization of Thomas Jefferson's 'When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty') should be the motto of the day. After years in which the people feared their governments and accepted rules that inhibited their basic freedoms, a slowly growing storm is taking over their hearts and minds. A popular fury has been gaining ground all over the world with violence becoming common in any type of protests. And it's about to get worse.

While people around the world protest for reasons varying from religion to who governs small rocks in the ocean, the Europeans are focusing on one thing: the economy. Lacking jobs and prospects and knowing that there are even worse times to come, the Europeans are furious. The degree of antipathy towards their leaders is growing and there seems to be no way to calm their nerves. The root of all the problems in Europe right now seems to be the highest level of unemployment ever recorded. The figures are especially grim for young people, the most likely group to mobilize in protests. Over half of the young people in Spain (54%) and Greece (56%) are unemployed. More than a quarter of the entire Spanish work force does not have a job. Former solutions as migrating to other EU countries are no longer an option as unemployment has started to grow even in super-Germany. So what other option do they have? Realistically, none. After years of study or work, job seekers are either overqualified or underqualified. Graduates can't find jobs because they don't have experience and those that do have experience can only find entry level jobs (I recently saw an advertisement for an entry level job which asked for 5 years of experience... ).

And it is not just the lack of jobs infuriating people. Growing inequality is pouring fuel on a fire that is already growing. News titles like the one of the leading article in Bloomberg today, Top 1% Got 93% of Income Growth as Rich-Poor Gap Widened , are stoking the fire in the minds of those already mad at how political leaders have been dealing with the economic crisis. Although not all countries have allowed inequality to grow at the same rate, Germany being -again- a positive example, there is a general view that the rich have not been paying their due share for the economic recovery.Which is true. Most of the economic solutions implemented so far have been at the advantage of the upper class, stock market players. For those who don't have enough money to become investors, there have been mainly cuts and higher taxes.

But all of the things that I mentioned so far are already in the past. The real problems will be in the future. As there are very few chances for the job market to recover any time soon, the unemployed, especially the young unemployed, will feel as if they are sacrificed in order to pay for the benefits of the older and the recovery of the richer. To assume that they will take it quietly would be a mistake. The recent protests in Spain and Greece are only the beginning of a very turbulent period in European history. Spain, and soon France, will face protests to a scale that they have not seen in generations. Their response to these protests will shape the political framework for decades to come.

The implications for the lack of jobs and growth are too great to ignore. A lost generation is not something to be taken lightly. But the politicians are doing just that, ignoring the problems and trying to solve the solutions of their own electorate. Europe currently lacks a leader of all the people. All European leaders are more preoccupied with maintaining their voters base than they are with the idea of solving the problems of all their people. Maintaining power is also an important aspect of the political play but pushing the centre towards the extreme is not a smart move. The social protests could always transform into a political explosion. We went through a summer that saw remarkable gains for extremist parties all over Europe. If the mainstream parties don't realise the dangers of ignoring big chunks of the electorate, the social problems will transform into even bigger political problems.

This is a time when 'the people' will force the hands of government. Where the government will not allow this, 'the people' will break the government and impose its own desires. A compromise must be found. 

Bush and Blair - war criminals?

The Scottish Parliament has moved to amend their legal framework  in such a way that it would make it possible for Tony Blair to face trial for his involvement in the Iraq war under the accusation of war crimes. This comes only a few days after Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace laureate, has repeated his call for Tony Blair and George W. Bush to be brought in front of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to answer for their war with Saddam Hussein.

The recent call to have the two trialled  is just the latest in a series of calls from influential political thinkers (Benjamin Ferencz- one of the chief prosecutors for the US at the Nuremberg trials) , Nobel laureates ( Mohammed ElBaradei) and other influential public figures. All these voices point to the fact that the invasion of Iraq has been an aggressive act, unprovoked, which severely breached international law. Indeed, the United Nations Charter -Article 2 (4) to be more exact- clearly says that states should refrain from the use of force without the mandate of the Security Council or if it is not in a defensive manner. Furthermore, in 2004, the UN Secretary General at the time, Kofi Annan, declared that, from the point of view of the UN Charter, the war represents an illegal act of aggression.

Moreover, the Rome Statute of the ICC defines the act of aggression as "the use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another state". But there's a twist here. The United States does not recognize the ICC so it would be hard for George W. Bush to face the Court. And there's more. Iraq itself did not ratify the Rome Statute of the ICC so the court does not have jurisdiction over acts committed on Iraqi territory. It is unclear whether Tony Blair, as a leader of a country that does recognize the ICC, can be brought to face the court for his actions over Iraq.

However, legal wrangling does not take away from the severity of their actions. International rules have been broken in attacking Iraq and the leaders of the US and the UK were fully aware of this. In March 2003, Lord Goldsmith, UK Attorney General warned Tony Blair that "aggression is a crime under customary international law which automatically forms part of domestic law. It might therefore be argued that international aggression is a crime recognised by the common law which can be prosecuted in the UK courts" . The war's legality was also decried by Louise Doswald-Beck, Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists and even one of George W. Bush's advisers on the issue, Richard Perle,  admitted in 2003 that the war was illegal but still justified. 

The 'illegal but justified' excuse is also used by Tony Blair when he answers to Desmond Tutu's accusations. He finds it 'bizarre' that people condemn him for overthrowing a dictator that massacred hundreds of thousands of his citizens and uses morality as an argument to justify the invasion. He forgets to mention that Saddam was supported by the US with weapons and funds during the Iraq-Iran war and that he used these weapons against his own citizens once the war was over. And if he truly believes that removing dictators is a good reason to invade a country why stop (or even start, for that matter) with Iraq? The world had its fair share of dictators that were terrorizing their own people. What made Iraq special? (And why is he not coming out in support of an invasion of Syria to remove Assad?)

The answer is that Bush was planning a 'regime change' in Iraq long before the attack took place, even before he won the presidency. 'Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources For A New Century', written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was claimed by W. Bush as a blueprint for his foreign policy plans. The strategy included clear references to overthrowing Saddam Hussein and analysed the ways to achieve this. Commentators point out that George W. Bush never understood why his father had not removed Saddam in the first Iraq war. The Bush administration's defense against the war crimes accusations was that the war was sanctioned by the UNSC's  resolution 1441.  But resolution 1441 (which can be downloaded here ) only reaffirms older resolutions asking Saddam to comply with the requests from the International Atomic Energy Agency and warns him of 'serious consequences' if he fails to do so. Resolution 1441 does not support any intervention in the country without a further resolution adopted by the UNSC.

As all the arguments to attack Iraq have been proven to be false, no arms of mass destruction being discovered in Iraq, the humanitarian argument is the only one that Tony Blair and George W. Bush can still use. International law, however, is in place in order to avoid just this kind of situations where the blurry lines between what is moral and what is not can end up causing conflict. Was is moral to save the people from a dictator?  Was it moral to invade an independent state? Would we look at the situation differently if those involved were the leaders of other countries? This last question is really what it all comes down to. Would the international community acted differently if the leaders of, say, Iran or Russia would have launched a full invasion of a country on humanitarian grounds? 

Whether George W. Bush and Tony Blair can be considered war criminals is an issue that should be decided by a judicial court. Maybe they will be able to prove their innocence and to show that international law has not been broken. But until their arguments are heard in an open debate in front of a neutral judge, the questions about their real motives (and the legality of their means) remain up for discussion.

 

 

The Third Wave Rolled Back ?

In 1991 Samuel Huntington published The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, a book meant to analyze the third wave of democratization that swept across the world in the last decades of the 20th century. The fall of communism, the implosion of the USSR, the rise of the EU and the democratic advances of Latin America and Asia, all seemed to point to an expansion of the democratic world with liberal democracy being adopted by most countries around the world. Huntington points out in his thesis that during this period the number of democracies around the world has more than doubled and that, for the first time in history, most states were democracies and the majority of people lived under a democratic regime. Although he acknowledges that there is a possibility for the democratic progress of some of these countries to be reversed (which, indeed,  had already happen by 1990 in Sudan and Nigeria), he argues that  the general progress towards democracy is irreversible. Fast forward to 2012 and Huntington's belief in the irreversibility of the democratic change is strongly challenged by events around the world. 

One of the most striking example is Russia. Since Putin's return, Russia has given up any claim of being a democracy and has increased the crackdown on any voices challenging the regime. Russia is now a classic authoritarian state and none of the democratic principles are respected in the country. The same is true for most of the other former-USSR states with the exception of the Baltic countries and (arguably) Moldova. In fact, the 2011 Democracy Index shows that all the former USSR members, with the exception of the countries already mentioned, are under mild to severe authoritarian regimes.

The Balkans are also suffering a regression of their democratic statute. Hungary and Romania have already clashed with the EU on their actions to curb the power of democratic institutions and the Bulgarian Prime Minister is starting to impose his own control over remaining free media outlets in the country, following the precedent of Hungary. Serbia is returning to its nationalistic discourse, ignoring (at best) the right of minorities and reigniting its special relationship with Russia. Furthermore, the Economist Intelligence Unit reckons that 12 countries across the Balkans and the Eastern European region have suffered a decline in the quality of democracy.

Latin America has slipped into a leftist danger zone with Chavez-like leaders taking over the continent. Their actions have not been as directly against democratic principles as in Russia but many of the liberal values have been trashed in the search of a more egalitarian model. And this might be just the tip of the iceberg as many institutions have been proven to lie about the pressure they are under from governmental forces (the economic indices faked by Argentina's Christina Fernandez are just one of the examples that have surfaced). Moreover, rampant corruption and violence have prevented democratic institutions in Latin America from working how they are supposed to.

Across the Middle-East, the hope that the Arab Spring would bring an end to the authoritarian regimes has proven to be illusory (Tunisia might turn out to be an exception) with little change being observed in the quality of democracy. If anything, democracy has seen a regression across the Arab world, even in Turkey, usually paraded as an example of liberal democracy in the region. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's grab on the political life of the country is proving to be counter-productive. Although he is supported by a majority of the population, he is constantly strengthening his hold on Turkey's institutions. Turkey currently jails 80 journalists and 2824 students (!!!).

A regress of democracy is all but understandable in the situation of a prolonged economic crisis but it is alarming if you consider that it is infecting even the countries that were seen as the main promoters of democratic principles. What better example to illustrate this than Italy? Governed by an unelected Prime Minister imposed by Germany, Italy has taken many radical reforms without asking its population about their opinion. The same is true for most EU governments, which have pushed for greater integration regardless of the democratic opinions of their people. I am a staunch pro-European, I dream of a European superstate but I want it to be achieved in a correct way. It would not have been hard for EU governments to convince their people of the need for a more united Europe, the EU should have presented itself as a solution to the crisis (a full propaganda campaign- Ellul style- would have been the perfect instrument to achieve this). Instead, governments have mismanaged the opportunity to where the EU is now at risk of breaking up.  

The current decline in democracy should send alarm bells ringing all over the world. With no end in sight for the economic crisis, the situation is bound to get worse. The most obvious changes are seen in the countries of the third wave of democratization but other countries are also suffering. Will history prove Huntington wrong? I guess it is up to us to answer this question.

Bad things come in threes

Misfortune never comes alone. And that is especially true for Europe. With all eyes on the economic problems of the South, other diseases are festering on the continent, infecting the very founding principles that have made Europe prosperous. The EU institutions are overwhelmed with managing the economic crisis, they cannot cope with other issues. Considering the energy that is being consumed to keep the economic union from falling apart, you would assume that an even greater threat to the stability of the region would be forcefully dealt with. But that is not the case. In fact, the EU is treating the democratic crisis of Hungary, Romania and Serbia with very little interest. The authoritarian  trend that has started in Hungary has now spread to three countries in the region, three countries that have very complicated ties and a complex history that needs to be managed in a pro-European mindset in order to avoid conflict, the very reason the EU was founded in the first place.

After a few steps back from the Orban government, Hungary has managed to get away with some very important legislative changes that violate democratic principles and install a Putin-like style of politics. Viktor Orban's recent declarations that he hopes the government would not need to change the political system of the country from democracy to 'something else' have been largely ignored by the media and, as far as I could find, have provoked no official reaction from any of the EU officials. Furthermore, he has started a media campaign to portray himself as the defender of Hungarian interests against the greed of foreign lenders as he prepares to enter though negotiations with the IMF. Helped by the system that he has already put in place, he is very effective at creating a Soviet-style leader image  for himself. His measures go far beyond those proposed by populist forces in Western Europe, firmly directing the country to the far-right. And this is just the beginning. As the radical nationalistic party, Jobbik (whose neo-fascist paramilitary group has only recently been outlawed), seems to be falling apart, the danger that factions would form an even more radical movement is rapidly increasing. 

As Viktor Orban tightened his grips on Hungarian governance, another Victor came to power in Romania. Victor Ponta, the leader of the leftist PSD, became the Prime Minister of Romania in May and shortly after that he proceeded to dismantle many of the checks and balances of the public institutions and to tighten control over them.  In a one week blitzkrieg operation, he changed the heads of both houses of Parliament (through illegal procedures), he replaced the ombudsman with one of his party members and he took away the Constitutional Court's power to judge on Parliamentary decisions. He then impeached the President and replaced him, on an interim basis (for how long exactly it is now unclear), with his political ally, the leader of the centrist PNL. The rapid pace of the moves (which one respected Romanian journalists described as a 'brutal group rape of democracy') has attracted dire warnings from the EU and the US. Although the PM has tried to convince his EU and US partners that he will repair any steps that have broken democratic principles, he has backed his words with little action. Furthermore, the interim President, Crin Antonescu, has used some very strong language to condemn any interference from the outside, calling into doubt the US's and EU's power and declaring the sovereignty of Romania against foreign 'ex-powers'. Some important steps from Romania in August and September will show exactly to what extent are Mr. Ponta and Mr. Antonescu prepared to breach the democratic principles that they swore to protect.

(Permit me a personal opinion on the Romanian situation: the country is run by muppets, amateur politicians who do not understand the weight of their words and think that doing politics is nothing more than a small scale power game that they can play for fun. They simply do not understand the consequences of their actions or of their words, or the impact that they have on society, managing to create a very dangerous rift based on political affiliation.)

And then there is Serbia. A non-EU country but an EU candidate, Serbia has recently elected a nationalistic president that denies that the Srebenica massacre. He appointed Ivica Dacic as Prime Minister, the former spokesman of Slobodan Milosevic. It is in Serbia, ironically, where the weakness of the EU is most obvious. The EU used to have the most influence in candidate countries, steering them towards reform and state-building, working with them to chain nationalism and promote freedom. It now looks weak and strange, giving lessons to Serbia on issues that itself badly mismanaged. It is to no surprise then than Serbia chose to ignore the EU's recommendations on banking reform and went on to put the National Bank under the control of the Parliament, move that mirrors Hungary's recent actions.

The political discourse of the three countries is now dominated by populism and nationalism. The media fuels a state of panic continuously revealing imaginary threats, from outside and from within, to create an almost Dali-like view of society. Threats towards ethnical minorities and even towards each other  (see the referendum spat between Romania and Hungary) point to an escalating crisis that the EU chooses to ignore. Badly affected by the economic crisis, the people of Hungary, Romania and Serbia are looking to fresh policies to help them out of poverty. With a second wave of the crisis soon to hit the region, things can spiral out of control very fast. The EU's biggest threat might not be the economic bankruptcy of a southern state, but the democratic failure of an eastern one.